MORE PICTURES OF OUR HOME IN INDIA

This is part of a miniature temple made by our wood worker, carpenter and gardener

The above is a table we made with a boulder whose top part is a stone mill wheel. It sits in a little grotto by the side of our home.

the trunk of the oak growing in the grotto

SOME PICTURES OF OUR INDIA HOME THAT I AM MISSING

This is a little nook in the library, overlooking the stream. 

Another view of the library, and below, our front entry stairs with a stone wall, our front door, and one of Payson's paintings.

DETACHMENT FROM MY WRITING

I must let THE SINGING GURU leave the nest. Yesterday I was very agitated because Mandala didn’t include the endorsements in the book, which is already printed. The joy that it is printed and ready to go was entirely obscured by this. I had spent the whole year collecting them and was quite proud of them. I was grumpy and whiny the entire day. But right now the thought comes: let it leave the nest, like a winged seed, like a bird, and pray that it travels far and wide. Abandon it to its destiny. It is out of my hands, and like a good mother, I must let my child go when the world summons it. I am, henceforth, to watch. This gives me pause and much relief. 

DETACHMENT IN LOVE IS RECOGNIZING THAT NOTHING BELONGS TO YOU

Kikky, of course, is the obvious example. She belonged to my neighbors', not me. But even if she belonged to me, she would not have have belonged to me. Nothing in the world, no people in it, not even our own bodies are ours. We go so wrong in love when we become possessive and begin to delude ourselves that our husbands or wives or lovers or children are ours. Each has his or her destiny that we may not change or even interfere with.

LEARNING DETACHMENT IN LOVE

Immediately after I had posted the last blog, Kikky's mommy called! She left yesterday and I have been missing her presence in the house, getting accustomed to the fact that she will never just come strolling in the way she used to. The first thing I did every morning while she was in my neighborhood was to open my cat door wide to the possibility of her visit. Well, it isn't going to happen anymore. It is like a death, in fact. I combed and fed her well, all the time thinking how in India a corpse is always bathed before it is taken for cremation. It is a way of nurturing the body and honoring the vehicle of the soul.

Animals are very dear to me; people sometimes don't understand it fully; one of my friends said to me, I want to reincarnate in my next life as your pet! I treat them like my children, not having any myself. I find loving them very rewarding. Kikky's mom wanted to give me a gift for taking care of her, and I said to her, Kikky was my gift. She did drop off a couple of bottles of wine, however, as a gesture.

I feel sad today but I am enjoying that sadness because it comes from love and loss. True detachment is letting those we love move on. It doesn't however mean that they leave our hearts. Quite the contrary. Yoko Ono once replied to someone who said -- 'don't you miss John? You guys were together most of the time' --' now we are together all the time.' I know that all the people and animals I have loved and lost  inhabit the room of my heart. They are beyond time and space, and therefore non-local, which means available anytime at all.

KIKKY MY KITTY LOVE

These days I am mommy to a cat. She belonged to our neighbors who divorced and moved away and wanted me to keep her while they settled down. I have known Kikky for six years -- I fell in love with her when she came to visit us one day. When I found out she belonged to our neighbors, I would, like a love-stricken girl, walk secretly up

their driveway in the hopes of seeing her. They didn't want me to feed her, though I have to admit I secretly did, a kibble or two here and there, in order to lure her, but she wasn't interested in the food. She loved the occasional spoon full of cream, though. She would let me comb her and sometimes when I was in the garden she would come by and say hello. Sometimes she wouldn't come for weeks, and I would be heartbroken. I would always leave my cat door open -- I have one from the days I had my own cats, Chua and Purry, before we started spending half the year the India -- always open to her mysterious presence.

She has been with me for ten days now (I thought it was going to be two) but they haven't called me and I haven't either, being in no hurry to see her go.

OUR HOME IN INDIA IN THE SNOW!

Himmat, and Meera, our caretakers, with Foxy and Bhalli