Integrating into India has been sweet, smooth and blessed. Because of the holiday and the yoga festival, the town has been completely booked and many travelers are having a hard time finding a place to stay. Thanks to our good friend Karl Baba, who has been in Rishikesh for a few months and was an acquantaince of Alesha, we were saved a room in a beautiful guesthouse! There were two rooms next to each other on the third floor with stunning views of the town, the Laxman Jhula bridge and Ganga Ma. The sun sets just over the mountains right off our balcony. As if we weren't already lucky enough, in a town with no available rooms, the day after Ben arrives a room opens up in our hotel... right next door to our other two rooms! We are infinitely blessed!
Yesterday was a national holiday called "Holy". Its a festival in which locals and tourists alike douse each other from head to foot in an array of paint colors. I had heard stories of tourists getting mauled, molested and trampled, so I decided to watch the festival from the safety of the balcony. The guesthouse locked their doors at 8am and you were either in or out. Every shop shuts down; all restaurants, food vendors and fruit stands. All doors close and the paints fly in a brilliant chaos of colorful celebration of the return from darkness to light. Holy is considered the worst day of the year to travel. Not only are you being pelted with paint and fighting crowds of frenzied locals, but everyone has the day off and its tricky to find a ride anywhere. So it was both terrifying and humorous that this was the very day that Ben was flying to India and traveling to meet me in Rishikesh... I was between worried and delighted at the adventure I knew he was about to experience.
Alesha, Karl Baba (from California) and I, watched the spectacle from the balcony... taking pictures and laughing as the children on the street plastered passersby with buckets of water filled with paint, and then finished them off with pouches of dry paint powder. I began to feel comforted about Ben coming as I realized that Rishikesh is much more gentle in this celebration than some of the other places I have heard of in India. Alcohol and Marijuana are illegal here as it is a holy city, so crowds are much more docile than other towns. It was all in good fun, and in some ways I wished I had gone down to the streets to play... but from above I had a great birds eye view and an opportunity to watch for a beautiful brown haired man with a backpack, taking his first glimpse of the "holy land".
Ben showed up earlier than I expected, with pink and blue paint all over his clothes and face. He got off quite easy I would say and missed the hectic display by mere minutes. He was smiling, however, and I knew his experience had been a good one. What a welcome to India!!
We went straight to the Ganga to wash up and enjoy our first meditation together. As we sat by the waters edge, we were greeted by a man and two bags of paint. We agreed to let him anoint us with green and yellow color and sat for the first time together, breathing in the sacredness of this land, this culture, this one eternal moment... Delighting in each others company, a communion of the souls...we are dancing in the ecstasy of re-union and the joy of sharing this adventure with one another.
My being is pulsating with Joy... each day I feel expanded to hold a bit more of this, and a bit more gratitude... and more Love. I feel so incredibly blessed by those near me; the land I walk on, the spirit of Love... and Grace. Beloved Grace. I am so thankful.
Yesterday was a national holiday called "Holy". Its a festival in which locals and tourists alike douse each other from head to foot in an array of paint colors. I had heard stories of tourists getting mauled, molested and trampled, so I decided to watch the festival from the safety of the balcony. The guesthouse locked their doors at 8am and you were either in or out. Every shop shuts down; all restaurants, food vendors and fruit stands. All doors close and the paints fly in a brilliant chaos of colorful celebration of the return from darkness to light. Holy is considered the worst day of the year to travel. Not only are you being pelted with paint and fighting crowds of frenzied locals, but everyone has the day off and its tricky to find a ride anywhere. So it was both terrifying and humorous that this was the very day that Ben was flying to India and traveling to meet me in Rishikesh... I was between worried and delighted at the adventure I knew he was about to experience.
Alesha, Karl Baba (from California) and I, watched the spectacle from the balcony... taking pictures and laughing as the children on the street plastered passersby with buckets of water filled with paint, and then finished them off with pouches of dry paint powder. I began to feel comforted about Ben coming as I realized that Rishikesh is much more gentle in this celebration than some of the other places I have heard of in India. Alcohol and Marijuana are illegal here as it is a holy city, so crowds are much more docile than other towns. It was all in good fun, and in some ways I wished I had gone down to the streets to play... but from above I had a great birds eye view and an opportunity to watch for a beautiful brown haired man with a backpack, taking his first glimpse of the "holy land".
Ben showed up earlier than I expected, with pink and blue paint all over his clothes and face. He got off quite easy I would say and missed the hectic display by mere minutes. He was smiling, however, and I knew his experience had been a good one. What a welcome to India!!
We went straight to the Ganga to wash up and enjoy our first meditation together. As we sat by the waters edge, we were greeted by a man and two bags of paint. We agreed to let him anoint us with green and yellow color and sat for the first time together, breathing in the sacredness of this land, this culture, this one eternal moment... Delighting in each others company, a communion of the souls...we are dancing in the ecstasy of re-union and the joy of sharing this adventure with one another.
My being is pulsating with Joy... each day I feel expanded to hold a bit more of this, and a bit more gratitude... and more Love. I feel so incredibly blessed by those near me; the land I walk on, the spirit of Love... and Grace. Beloved Grace. I am so thankful.
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