The journaling picked up with a new notebook with the inner cover inscribed, “His Holiness Sri Swami Jnana-Devananda in the middle of Erewhon 22 January 1973.”

So my ashram residency ended a month earlier than I’ve vaguely recalled.

The notebook begins in Yellow Springs, with a reference to ashram: “We’ve been watching you strangle yourself.”

Yellow Springs, “a certain atmosphere … eclectic earth of 1850s’ utopian dreams reflected in brick and glass.” Still the home of Antioch College, the village and its access to woodland reserves were one corner of freedom for me and had been since I first learned to drive.

Other notes:

At Dayton Art Institute, “a little out-of-the-way Rothko and the immortal worm-devoured Korean Buddha.”

In Midwest
everybody pushed to be other
than what they are

leveling everybody to this flatness

two beers and a pizza at Marion’s

Midwestern accents flat, nasal, drawn out …

Round of discarding old love letters and friends of predictable concern or affection

The plastic masks of mannequin people with cheerleader smiles

Homes with Chevy super-sport bucket seats / fuck it seats / watching the world go by their windshield TV screens.

Should I turn Hitchhikers into the loveliest love-offering short story ever? Letting her know my pain? (Meaning Nikki? It was her hometown, too, never mind her whereabouts at the moment.)

Every time the window is clear: Behold!

Whatever rings true
touches God

the river, clapping

Clifton Gorge

relatively quiet

overhead a few airplanes rumble

the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh stage coach road ran this far north

In rockface rope, fingerholds and stretches up a crack in two months, 30 feet gain of cigarette and concentration to live at the limits of existence better than a lifetime of dead. Maybe this was his temple.

And then, his friend standing watch adds, “Mitch is more daring than I am very cautious after a friend died, bad accident, not his fault, bad rock. Mitch is in fine shape despite those cigarettes. He ignores a lot of safety precautions but he moves quickly and with sureness, and that inspires me.”

“Remember how Larry freaked out rappelling!”

~*~

The worst part of loving you
nobody is your equal
and being alone
in a different country
I am lonelier than ever

Something more than a supple body requires me.

To love
searches the depths of sorrow
hers, mine, humanity’s
or is that yours, mine?

Damnit Celeste – You’re the only one who sees they’re not the artist’s eyes or lover’s eyes but the lonely terror-struck mocking eyes of craziness …

A city noisy
so it’s hard to meditate
yet a sun’s rising

Eyes, always the eyes … in history along with skeletons …

PASSIVE EMISSION afraid to love, afraid of sex, of being vulnerable, let down, betrayed, losing (again) as in a game.

Growing soft in what it wants so much defeats itself.

Oriental suggestiveness = lightness!

~*~

From Spiralbound Flatland, with commentary from now.

Reentering “the world” after more than a year in relative seclusion felt like being thrown into space and then falling, falling, falling into an endless  pit within the earth.

After the first burst of euphoria, when I stayed with Celeste and her mother in Brooklyn, followed by the long Greyhound ride back to Ohio, there was nothing to hold on to.

I was no longer in a nest of kindred spirits, and meditating alone is more strenuous than when sitting among others.

There had been moments in the ashram when I had wondered if there was a potential career path as a professional swami. Ponder that. Perhaps combined with poet.

Back home, I saw how far I had come from my upbringing in a straightlaced mainstream Protestant milieu.

There was no going back.

In the meantime, I had to see if I could reconnect to working in the news biz again or whether I could venture into fresh fields. Whatever developed needed to happen soon.

~*~

The time with Celeste was intense, passionate, somehow heightened by knowing we were heading in differing directions. I recall our time in the Brooklyn Museum, especially in its fabulous Asian art galleries. There were also the bagels from a grimy store under elevated MTA rails and I had to agree that those were the best, anywhere, despite appearances. And the next morning, when we rode the subway into Manhattan for parting, I saw something ahead on the tracks that became the prompt for my first novel, Subway Hitchhikers, now revised into Subway Visions. She then caught a bus to Virginia and the new principal guy in her life. (How she was able to be so open with me continues to amaze.) I spent the rest of the day wandering around Gotham, the Cloisters art museum, especially, and then took an overnight bus of my own west. It was a wild ride.

Looking back, I was molting or perhaps hypersensitive to everything. Even listening to my beloved classical music had to come in steps of reacclimatizing.

~*~

Trying to write anything in my hometown was difficult, though I did start with drafting the subway fantasy.

In my journals review, I’ve been surprised how few entries actually existed. We didn’t have much privacy or personal time, for one thing, which may be the reason that so much of what I did record was during trips out from the center.

I did find that some notebook pages had been ripped away, not by me, indicating snooping. Now I’m wondering if entire journals had been deep-sixed by interlopers.

Still, somewhere, I had enough to draft my novel Yoga Bootcamp and its predecessor, Ashram.

Frankly, I never found the Poconos as magical, beautiful, or spiritually high-vibed as Swami did.

Much of the perspective that has turned up since, in personal encounters, Facebook exchanges, or long phone calls, has made me feel right in limiting the scope of the novel to a single day. As one fellow disciple told me, I was there at the golden moment before many complications arose.

I do feel vindicated in my observation that Swami’s declaring herself a swami and then ordaining us was a mistake. I didn’t know how sharp her break from her beloved guru was.

In posting these, I also sense a rightness in my decision to change most of the names away from our Sanskrit yogi names.

I have had some rich conversations with people who have resided in other monastic communities, including an Episcopal convent.

Quite simply, the experience changed my life’s course.  

As a household, we decided to enroll in a Red Cross first aid course taught by a Seventh-day Adventist couple. I think it took place in the local volunteer firehouse, though a bond developed when they learned that we were, like them, vegetarians.

They even had all of us over to their house for dinner, which introduced us to the Loma Linda line of meat-free alternatives, something that came in handy when we had others join us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Here’s something we heard from them.

“Why, I have a little riddle about a sheik,” said a smiling Mister Banks in his happy old man shrill whine. “You all like riddles, doncha? Well, see if you can answer this one.”

As he then related, a wealthy sheik had two sons who had become very possessed by racing. They spent all their hours with their horses and with gambling and made life very miserable for their father, what with their racing and carrying on at all hours of the night and day.

When the old man died, he left a will decreeing that his sons should race from Mecca to Medina and that the one whose horse came in last should win the entire sheikdom.

The sons set off and raced the first day, coming to the stop of their first night with their horses all lathered up and both the horses and their riders exhausted. Perplexed as to how to conduct the race and win, they consulted an ancient holy man in the grove of the oasis. “What should we do? If we both try to come in last, we shall never finish the race and the sheikdom will belong to nobody.” The ancient seer told them to come to him the next morning, that after a night to meditate on their dilemma he would have an answer for each, to whisper in their ear.

When they came the next morning, he whispered something to each one, and they quickly mounted and resumed the race with more fervor and enjoyment than ever.

What did he tell them?

Well, see if you can guess the answer. I’ll even give you a clue: it was only two words. While you’re trying to figure that one out, I’ll tell you another.

He made some pun on kismet, which means fate, and “kiss the corn on my kismet,” or feet. All faces turned down in sour disgust at the attempted humor.

Mister Banks was unfazed.

Well, I have another sheik story. It seems this man was traveling with a sheik and his nomadic tribe across the desert. Because the man knew he could be robbed and murdered for the money, he gave it to the sheik for safekeeping. Shortly before the end of the journey, he asked for his money but the sheik ignored him.

A little later, he repeated his request.

Finally, the sheik told him he was sorry but he didn’t have the money. It had been stolen.

The man was flabbergasted and downcast: it was his money to return to Europe.

Ah! But the sheik told him not to worry, that he would find it in time.

The sheik assembled his tribe and explained that five hundred dollars had been stolen from him, but if it were by his pillow in the morning, he would not ask who the thief was nor would he be punished.

But morning came and the money was not there.

The sheik again assembled his tribe and announced, Alas! The money is not back. The thief must be found and punished as an example to all. My camel is very wise, he said, and my camel can tell a liar. Every person in this tribe, he solemnly declared, must come to my camel and, holding its tail, must swear that he did not steal the money. We will meet at nightfall and I will know who the thief is.

When evening came, the sheik lined up his tribe. Walking along the line, he suddenly stopped, drew up his sword, and screamed: Ah, you infidel! Repent or I’ll sever your head! On your knees and repent, or you’ll never speak another word!

“Yes, yes, Master, I stole the money. Forgive me, please,” cried the unfortunate man.

Now, quickly! Run and bring back the money, every penny of it,” ordered the sheik, and the man returned with the five hundred dollars.

The European, grateful for the return of his money, was astonished. “Tell me, O sheik, how did you know it was this man? Surely your camel did not tell you.”

O, no, it was quite simple. My camel is dumb, but my people do not know that. So I placed peppermint oil upon its tail, and everyone whose hands touched the tail smelled of peppermint. But the thief was afraid to touch the tail, so when I came up to him in the line, I knew. It was simple, my friend.”

Now, what was the answer to the riddle? I almost gave it away a while ago. Well, I guess I’ll tell you, just before you leave.

Whereupon, I said, “Mister Banks, we very much enjoyed our dinner,” and beginning to move as if it were time to depart, he grabbed my arm and started laughing.

Gee, I didn’t realize I said that until I had said it. Since we don’t want you to leave, I guess we’ll just have to tell you the answer.

“Change horses.”

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.