The Source, The Untold Story of Father Yod,
                                                                                                                                     YaHoWa13 and the Source Family    
                                                                                                                                      by Isis Aquarian with 
                                                                                                                                      Electricity Aquarian
                                                                                                                                      Los Angeles: Process Books, 2007;
                                                                                                                                      It's Here Now (Are You?)
                                                                                                                                      by Bhagavan Das
                                                                                                                                      New York: Broadway Books, 1997

Check back with me later but at the moment life is very full and I'm busy and relatively productive and although I'm making lots of mistakes along the way I feel as though I'm making them in stride, if you know what I mean, and so I find reading about the journeys of other people on their various spiritual paths not only bracing but somehow encouraging.     

The Source Family was a spiritual family (or a cult, depending on your point of view) which ran a famous health food restaurant up on Sunset Blvd., and Bhagavan Das (born Michael in Laguna Beach) was the young man Ram Dass introduced to the world in his now classic book Be Here Now.  As you might imagine, these are exciting and extremely colorful stories.  I must say my own trudge on the happy road to enlightenment quite pales by comparison.  Of course one should never compare, you either end up vain or jealous, but there you are.  On Sundays as you know I used to go up to the Vedanta Temple, where Christopher Isherwood (1904 -1986) used to go, but in this town where there's so much searching going on, you could go almost anywhere really and cross paths with other people either much more or even much less famous than yourself, doing the same thing.

Now I have a confession.  It was Bianca who gently, kindly, pointed out that the bird in the photograph yesterday is not a falcon but a blackbird.  And she is close because I am afraid it was a crow.  My beloved totem bird, symbol of my spirit, the falcon who keeps an eye on me, got out of frame.  But I swear he's been around.  Lately, however, there have also been lots of crows around too, and as you are doubtless aware, crows are a powerful symbol, not to mention intrusive and easier to photograph somehow, although I'm not sure why except I rather think they like the attention.

"Wherever crows are," writes Ted Andrews (Animal Speak, St. Paul: Llewellyn, 2000, p. 132), "there is magic.  They are symbols of creation and spiritual strength." 

Crows are, unfortunately, also noisy.  Unlike my camera-shy falcon.

But as I said, awfully busy, loads to do, hence the quick and careless snapshot today, don't be mad at me, at least I wasn't trying to include a falcon in flight. 

And in case you're wondering, the quotation that's been jotted down from Bhagavan Das reads (p. 173):  Get out of your head.  What are you clinging to?  The separate identity you're holding is your pain...  Be blissful.  Accept the happinesss which is your real identity.  Do things out of Love.  Worship out of Love....Let everyone be God.  The way to see God is to see nothing but divine souls like stars in the night sky."