LATE MAY STORM

We have had some great Spring and early Summer rain storms here lately. The other day I was heading home and had my mini iPad with me so I was able to get  some pretty good photographs. The iPad has a good camera in it, but it is easy to mess up the focus as it’s easily shaken.

I took the first shots in the Lowes parking lot. The clouds were rolling off the mountain to the west and while not a very high elevation the clouds in front of the mass were white and looking like a waterfall. I headed east towards home with the goal of getting more photos and watching the storm in my rearview mirror. Once near my turnoff I headed to the south again instead of north and was able to pull off the the two lane.

The sky had blackened and the clouds were rapidly moving changing shapes and generally creating a beautiful show.

YOWZA

I came of out of Lowes last week to this amazing sky and followed the highway east hoping to get more photographs of the storm. The photos were taken with my mini iPad which takes excellent photos but is a bit hard to hold really still. It was evening and I pulled off the road to get the second set of photos.

I went by Rickshaw on a memorable shopping trip to Chandni Chowk Market which is in Old Delhi. It has streets and streets of shops, all somewhat organized so that the same types of wares are in the same street. For instance the book market where you can find books and paper goods, the Spice market, the Gold market and the Sari market and the Silk market There are of course crowds of people and other rickshaws, many of which are carrying very heavy loads of products and also many people carrying very heavy loads. It is wonderful and I was able to take quite a few pictures from the rickshaw. I set my camera to sport and that seemed to shoot fast enough to maintain focus.

I was also able to get some photographs of the local Mosque which is one of the oldest according to my guide. I was lucky and had an English speaking rickshaw driver who proved to be an excellent guide. I shopped at a lovely spice market who packaged my purchases very well and a silk shop that had some really good quality silks. I bought some silk scarves a pashmina shawl, and a Lengha which is a long shirt and tight leggings.

Probably one of the most impressive feats of the Chandni Chowk market is the way the electricity is managed without an immediate explosion.

Pretzels & Bullfights ~ Langston Hughes.

There is a lot that happened over the two weeks that I was at the Kumbh and my few days in New Delhi. Such an opportunity to immerse oneself into the Divine Presence of our Divine Creator, in meditation, Darshan and the many Ceremonies at the shabir do not come often during one’s life unless of course you are a student of Sai Maa or Mataji as she is known in India. I would like to speak a bit here about Mataji. Mataji holds the title Jagadguru in India which is rarely bestowed on anyone let alone a woman Guru. She is of the line of Sathya Sai Baba a highly revered and world renowned spiritual leader. Sai Baba left his body in 2011.
Sai Maa is a spiritual luminary with a mission of global enlightenment through practical spirituality and personal transformation eliminating the pain and suffering of humanity.

The first ceremony which I encountered at the Shabir was the Yagna. A fire ceremony with chanting by the priests and offering to the fire one’s prayers for whatever specific cause that particular yagna  being performed. A Yagna lasts 24 hours and is a beautiful and serious ceremony with in my personal experience, lasting and immediate results. Here are some photographs of a yagna.

Yagna Ceremony

Yagna at the Kumbh

I went to India for the Kumbh Mela. The Mahamela as it happens to be this year 2013, when all the planets are aligned. I went to be with my Spiritual Teacher and Guru Sai Maa Lakshmi Devi, and many other students at her camp or ashram which is what it really was for the two weeks I was there. The program started the second week of January and many many students came each week to be with Maa, receive Darshan every day, perform Yagna or fire ceremony, meditate together and just generally be in the sweetness of the Divine.

The whole Kumbh was about one’s relationship to the Divine Presence in some way shape or form.There was a lot of speaking,chanting and singing going on from all quarters around us much of it over the microphone. We ate dahl and subji on leaf plates with our fingers.  Lots of hand washing going on and the use of hand sterilizer gel.There is I noticed quite an art to eating with one’s fingers. 

We walked around the camp at times and visited the ashrams of other teachers and Gurus, at their invitation. Many had a performance of one kind or another we were invited to attend, others wanted my Guru, Sai Maa to speak. Sai Maa was given the title Jagadguru which is an incredible   honor especially for a woman as most Gurus seem to be men. There are some women Gurus in India. Just some though. Sai Maa is of the lineage of Sai Baba.

The Ashram was a lovely space. A true haven to be in Maa’s Presence so much.

At the Ganges

It is already well into 2013 and I am so behind in posting something new for you, my dear readers. So here are a couple of new poems and a photograph I just took. I have begun a photographic study of this road not too far from my home.
I am doing some black and white photographs as well getting ready for our big Jefferson County Photographers Show in May when I will have to have 8 silver black and white photographs ready.
I love working with film it is so exciting. You don’t have that immediate gratification that you have with digital,this is true, however, it makes one work harder really understanding how photography works.

Trough Rd, Jefferson County,WV

Here are a couple of the Black and white photographs our JCP show last fall.

THE DRIVE
I drive to the bank
the long way where the road
winds past the battlefield

at Antietam, the low stone walls,
walking off the lengths of lives lost.
The road straightens out,

the flat, gray macadam
shows shadows of the trees
slender in their winter bone

unmoved by turning tires
and here the angled lines of the heavy high tension
wires draw triangles

and oblongs slanted at the sides
all in the sunny afternoon

rolling up the road
no twitch or change in the shadows line
to say I had been there.

This second offering is a poem I wrote in a class with the wonderful poet and play write Grace Cavalieri.
Grace has a wonderful program based out of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC Called ” The Poet and the Poem.”
You can get to that site by going to the Library of Congress online and then to the audio podcasts for “The Poet and the Poem.”

WHAT DID YOU SEE, HEAR, ADMIRE… WANT TO SEE AGAIN
SEE
The clouds shaping and reshaping
against the robin’s egg blue sky
pushed before the storm
which later blew back out to sea
while we waited patiently on the shore
before we could get back into the water again.

WHAT DID YOU HEAR
The breaking waves some
shouts of folks calling their dogs
and their rhythmic clapping building and building, changing patterns
by a large family group on the sand next to me.

ADMIRE
The man fishing, standing in the water
casting and recasting with the heavy surf gear –
The subtle colors of the evening sky
over the ocean – pink, turquoise against a greying sky.
The young man running with his surfboard
and the dogs in the water
riding in on a wave in tandem
holding the thrown stick between the two of them
waiting for the wave, riding it in.
SEE AGAIN
What would you like to see again?
My dog swimming in the pond
after the stick I had thrown,
his face happy smiling, with that
wide dog smile.

MOST TENDER
The wind, the sweetness of it
salty too
Blowing steadily and gently
without shyness.

MOST WONDERFUL
Just being there at the beach
Two days just wonderful
Sand, waves, wind.

WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS HAPPENING?
The laughter of people
Seagulls calling and swooping,
waves singing through
bringing news from the deeper waters.
The falling of the light
as night draws up
And there behind all that
the stillness striding in
on great, wet feet.

I have had a simple and wonderful Christmas.As these last days have been busy babysitting twin grandchildren I spent Christmas Day at home after a hairy drive home in sleet and darkness with heavy traffic 

I was in prayer to Divine  Mother, to help me relax so I could handle the difficult drive and heavy traffic with grace,my prayers was answered immediately as I relaxed into a better driving lane and felt myself just letting go to the experience , my hands lightly on the wheel , my body relaxed,  prayer is an amazing thing ! 

I have stayed close to meditation and that spiritual inner connection throughout my life. There is that place right within your own heart.A place where sitting with back straight and breathing perhaps rapidly at first (the fire breath helps) to get you into that space within

then relaxing into it. Breath in breath out. Relax, let go, be still.

Recently I went to a Samhain celebration with my friends ” the witches” well I have to tell you this was my first time and it was fabulous . We started in the living room with a round table upon which were several items.Some herbs in a bowl ,A photo of a woman who had recently passed away and some water,flowers  and joy. Joy was present. Later down the hill at the fire we sat in each of the 4 directions , Each person spoke the energy of the direction in which they sat. 

Why am I telling you this ?

Because there are so many ways to celebrate Christ . 

How beautiful we are we humans! 

Jesus said it The Kingdom of heaven is within. 

I started meditating back in 1968.I became a devotee of Paramahansa Yogananda and received the practice of Kriya Yoga when I was in my 20′s . I reassigned fortunate to be around  YogacharyaJ J Oliver Black in the Detroit area. We met at a church in Detroit where we had meditation  on Sundays.

Up at Pidgeon River, our retreat in northern Michigan,  I became a Yoga teacher and  carried this into my life in Ann Arbor where I lived.

Nowadays I am still in love with the Divine. I spend mythe  with my current teacher Sai Maa Lakshmi Devi. I sm happy to report I know myself. I invite you … Meditate check Maa out     sai-maa.com 

Merry Christmas 

what is  Christ? Christ means light