Israel, Part 3: Jordan River, Qumran, Masada, Mount of Temptation

Wrapping up the Israel posts here with the “miscellaneous” category. Most of these sites we visited on the drive from Tiberias back to Jerusalem, though Jericho we did as a day trip out from Jerusalem.

Jordan River

We didn’t go to the actual place Jesus was baptized, but we did have a site that was conveniently set up for dipping and baptizing. We figured it’s all the same river, and the water moves anyway, so no big deal. Though actually, the water didn’t move very much—it was very still and calm. None of this “on Jordan’s stormy banks I stand” nonsense from all the shape note songs I’m used to hearing. The weather was cold and a little drizzly, so only a few people actually did a full immersion, though many more of us dipped and waded a bit. We also held a purification ceremony here, which felt very appropriate. Similar to the Galilee, which is its source, the water here feels very good, and just right somehow, even if cold.

Qumran
Qumran is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and where a community of Essenes lived, probably being the 2,000-years-ago equivalent of Ananda. There was a cliffside cave we could hike to without much difficulty. (Much less difficulty than the Mount of Transfiguration, to pick just a random example.) It was very small, and more likely used by bats rather than people, but it had a beautiful view of the desert and the Dead Sea, which made it a very expansive place to meditate.

Masada
This was less of a spiritual site, except inasmuch as Nivedita and I agreed it would be a fantastic place to take a seclusion if you could get the tourists away. Masada is an immense plateau towering over the desert, where King Herod built a nearly unassailable fortress. It has even more of a top-of-the-world feel to it than the other mountains and cliffs we visited, being so stark and bare. We had to take a cable car up to it because there wasn’t time to hike “The Snake Path,” though I would have liked to do that.

Mount of Temptation
We took another dramatic cable car ride in Jericho, up to the Mount of Temptation, though we still had a considerable hike even after that, to get to the monastery that is apparently just nailed to the side of the sheer cliff face. In a room above the chapel is the rock Jesus stood on when he was tempted by Satan. This is one of the very few rocks that you can’t actually touch, as it’s enclosed in glass. But I ended up having a very nice meditation just down the stairs from it, where the exposed rock of the mountain forms a wall of the chapel, and I figured I really was touching part of the same rock.

There were also tons of visitors from Africa there that day—Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, maybe other places. It added a very colorful and exuberant energy to have them all chanting as they hiked up the mountain in their various designs of ceremonial robes, and with all their kids. Because there were a ton of kids with them, of all ages though it seemed weighted towards toddlers. I don’t know if it was some sort of spiritual “family camp” or what, but good karma for the kids, getting to visit such holy places at such a young age.

* * *

Alright, I think that’ll be it for my pilgrimage posts. For those of you in the area, we’re having a satsang on Friday night at Chela Bhavan, in the Ananda Community, if you want to come hear stories in person from many of the other pilgrims. And if you ever get the chance to go on pilgrimage in the Holy Land, do!

Israel, Part 2: Galilee Region

With Israel being such a small country, it was very nice and convenient that we didn’t have to do much traveling. We stayed at the same hotel in Jerusalem at the beginning and end of the trip, and for a stretch in the middle we stayed in Tiberias, right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, from which most everything else we wanted to visit was easily accessible.

Church of the Beatitudes

One of the things Asha told us at the beginning of the pilgrimage was to be careful of expectations. If you expect to have a deep experience at a particular site, you may be disappointed, or you may simply try too hard and thwart yourself. And if you write off a particular place as being less interesting, you may miss something. Better to practice being relaxed and open and receptive at all times, and then see what happens. And I did find throughout the pilgrimage that there were times when I felt relatively unmoved compared to what people around me seemed to be experiencing, and there were times when I was very surprised.

The Church of the Beatitudes is a lovely church, located on the site of the Sermon on the Mount, and our group also got to reserve a nice outdoor terrace for an hour of singing and meditation. And that was all fine, but I wouldn’t have had anything particular to remark on about it. The “surprise” I had here was actually just in a 10-foot section of the path the goes along the side of the church and heads towards the terrace. Every time I would walk through it, it felt almost like passing a physical barrier, and I would have a sudden rush of shivers and tears, which would be gone as soon as I moved on. After the first couple times of not expecting it, I deliberately tested it, and it was consistent. I spent a while at the end of our visit just meditating there on the path, and while I still don’t know why that particular little spiritual vortex was right there, I hope I absorbed something from it.

Church of the Primacy of Saint Peter and the Sea of Galilee

The Church of the Primacy contains—as we are becoming used to—a rock, and specifically the rock on which Jesus was frying fish when he appeared to his disciples at Galilee after his resurrection. This visit was also the first time we got to actually visit the lake directly, since the church is literally right on the shore. The water was so completely calm and still that it was easy to imagine walking on it, though none of us did, that I know of.

Tzfat

We spent an afternoon in Tzfat, a city that is a center for Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and art of all types. The highlight here was visiting the studio of Avraham Loewenthal, a Kabbalah-inspired artist that we all felt and instant and mutual kinship with. I think true mystics everywhere will always recognize each other as spiritual siblings. Many of us bought pieces of his artwork to take home with us. I think it was very interesting also for Rami, our Jewish Israeli guide, to see this interaction, since it gave him a new perspective on what we’re all about to suddenly see such a relatively explicit link between us and a branch of his own religion.

Mount of Transfiguration

Mount Tabor is a much more serious mountain than any others we visited. The bus can’t go all the way to the top, so we had to wait for shuttles to take us the last mile or so. The shuttles were considerably delayed, so someone suggested that a group of us just walk. That sounded nice and reasonable, and then when someone else mentioned that there was a “shortcut” trail we could take instead of the road, we thought why not? Well, that trail turned out to be muddy, rocky, and nearly vertical in places. Luckily the weather and the landscape were both beautiful, but I should definitely not have been making the trek with a guitar strapped to my back. After about 40 minutes, we made a wrong turn and ended up having to climb a wall only to end up at the wrong church (I wasn’t expecting more than one up there!) but eventually we made it. This picture is from the very beginning of the hike, before we knew what we were in for. We don’t know how the light came out so magically, but the apparent source in the upper left corner is approximately where the top of the mountain would be. Transfigured in light!

View from the top of the Mount of Transfiguration

Nazareth

Our time in Nazareth was quite a bit shortened due to our escapades on Mount Tabor. When we got to the Church of the Annunciation, I saw a long line of people waiting to go and see the grotto that was Mary’s home, and I just didn’t want to spend my hour waiting in line. So I went to the neighboring Church of St. Joseph. And this was another case of having a “surprise” experience somewhere that you’re not looking for it. The church was perfectly nice, and the caves beneath it were unremarkable, but when I sat in one of the pews to meditate, I got such a clear sense of Joseph’s presence that it was almost like being introduced to him in person. Joseph mostly just has a supporting role in a story that focuses most dramatically on Mary and Jesus, but it couldn’t have happened without him, and the feeling that I started with was one simply of gratitude to him. And then the feeling I felt coming back from that was of an enormous heart just radiating selfless love and support and strength. I ended up spending most of that hour just basking in that. James came and sat next to me for just a few minutes at one point, but said later that he immediately felt a very strong presence there as well.

When I returned to the Church of the Annunciation, a few minutes before we had to leave, I found it empty and I was able to just walk right up to Mary’s grotto, though you aren’t able to go inside there. I was actually more moved by the statue of Mary outside. He has her arms outspread, as in many of the statues one sees of her. But she’s large enough that you can hold her hands and look up at her face as if she were your own mother and you still a child. Her hands have had the paint worn off of them by many pilgrims doing just that.

Final post coming up next....

Israel, Part 1: Jerusalem and Bethlehem

I recently returned from two weeks in the Holy Land. This was actually the first time I’ve ever been on a major, dedicated pilgrimage with an Ananda group, and it was glorious. I’m not going to even try to touch on everything here, but I’ll at least aim for all the highlights (which, honestly, is still most of it). For photos, I’m going to piggyback on sharing Karen’s album, which is larger and better curated than my still-unsorted pile of photos.

But first, a word about rocks.

Israel is full of rocks. Everything is built out of stone. It’s incredible. I can’t imagine building a single wall out of stone, much less a city or a country. And this is true of all the ancient, holy sites we visited. It became almost a joke: “And today we’re going to see... another rock!” And if it wasn’t a rock, it was a cave. But I soon realized that this is absolutely perfect. How many holy relics will last for 2,000 years intact the way a rock or a cave does? It’s an immense blessing to still be able to have such a direct physical connection, to be able to touch the very same stone that Jesus, Mary, and others did all those years ago. So if my writings seem to develop and overly petrological focus, that’s why. It’s hard to convey when you’re not actually there, but these are all much more than “just” rocks.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre
I’m starting this post here because this is where I started my first morning in Israel, pre-dawn, on no sleep. And it’s also the place that felt the most like my spiritual home base for the entire trip. Every morning that we were in Jerusalem I would get up, usually around 4am, make the 20-minute walk over, and spend an hour or two meditating there.

The Rock of Anointing, where Jesus’s body was prepared for burial, was perhaps the most powerful place for me in the conglomeration of sites that make up this giant combo-church. I never cease to be amazed that it is just right out there in the open, in the entryway no less, for all the thousands of pilgrims to touch, and I never went past it without touching it, or sitting with it for a while. There’s a feeling of awe and sanctity there that’s different from anywhere else we visited.

It was hard to actually get in to the tomb itself, due to masses in the early mornings and crowds in the afternoons, but I did manage a few times. My other favorite places were the hole that the cross stood in, and the Chapel of the Apparition. The latter has a portion of the column Jesus was tied to when he was scourged, and which you can also touch. It sounds macabre, but this was also a beautiful spot to meditate.

The lowest level contains the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross by Saint Helena. For the first week of our trip, a group called Harpa Dei was in there each morning singing, and it was an absolutely exquisite experience to listen to them.

On two separate mornings we walked the Stations of the Cross, which of course leads up to and has its final stations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The first time we did it, it was early and dark and rainy, which was really just perfect, because you can really be in a different reality then, compared to the hustle and bustle of the daytime. I’ve never “done” the stations elsewhere, as many people have, but it was still stunning to realize that these are actually THE stations. Station V includes a rock, supposedly with Jesus’ handprint in it from when he fell. It’s now worn beyond any recognition as an actual handprint, but the feeling of it is strong enough to be true.

Church of the Pater Noster

On the Mount of Olives is the Church of the Pater Noster, which is famous for having large, beautiful plaques throughout the grounds with the text of the Lord’s Prayer in 140 different languages. (I even found a few different varieties of Braille, though disappointingly no sign language.) This, I realized later, is kind of a theme around the Holy Land. Many churches have similar displays of many different countries and languages representing their own particular themes, though this one was perhaps the most extensive. It’s sweet to see such a coming together of the whole world in these holy places.

Ein Kerem

Ein Kerem is a suburb of Jerusalem and has several sites related to John the Baptist. The Church of the Visitation is where Mary and Elizabeth met while both were pregnant, and I always thought the “belly bump” statue was kind of cute.

The upper church here has a huge painting on the back wall of Mary as the Lady of the Apocalypse, which isn’t a term I’d ever heard before, and which I still need to learn more about. But it’s a beautiful piece of art, and strikingly modern, especially facing the more traditional depictions over the altar.

We also got to visit the Monastery of Saint John in the Wilderness (it’s called a monastery, not a convent, though I believe it’s all nuns living there). The main road was washed out, so the bus took us up a winding village road to a place from which we could hike down to the monastery, which made it feel even more remote. The grounds are beautiful, and I would have loved to have more of a tour of monastic life there. But we did get to spend some time in Saint John’s cave, where he spent years in seclusion and meditation. “Long years he spoke only with God,” as Swamiji puts it in the Oratorio.

Bethlehem
Bethlehem is also very close to Jerusalem, but feels farther away, since it’s in the Palestinian territory. Our fantastic Israeli guide Rami couldn’t actually come with us because of this, so we went on Shabbat when he wouldn’t be working anyway.

The Church of the Nativity had probably the longest line of anything we went to, and it wasn’t even a big day for them. Passing through the cave and bustling past the official marker of the spot was a little too busy for me to get much of a feel for it. Though I do like how this photo shows us all looking down into the cave, with a light coming up out of it. But we got to explore some adjacent caves at more leisure, and do a bit of singing there. And we were told that the caves were actually artificially separated a few centuries A.D., and the exact spot of Jesus’ birth could have been anywhere in them because no one is certain.

After that we went to Shepherds’ Field, which surprised me because I’d had no idea that there was a specific, known field we could actually visit. It’s a park now, and there’s a church on it, of course, and some caves where the shepherds would sleep at night. And most dramatically, you can turn around from the top of the hill and see the Church of the Nativity on its own hilltop across the way, and realize that that was exactly where the angel pointed them on that very night. Wow.

We also made friends there with a big group of Nigerian pilgrims who liked our singing, and we ended up singing a bunch of Christmas carols together and having a fun time.

The Western Wall

On our first Friday evening in Jerusalem we visited the Western Wall. It’s just heartbreaking to see so many hundreds of people coming together to pray there, but being unable to go all the way to their holiest site on the Temple Mount. But simultaneously there was also such a joyous feeling of celebration. At one point I was standing at the edge of a group listening to the song they were singing, when it suddenly just exploded into an exuberant, bouncing, spinning dance that spread out like a nuclear chain reaction, pulling more and more people into it and sweeping aside tables and chairs as it went. Very fun.

It seems a little ironic given that this was a Christian-focused pilgrimage, and a little silly in its obviousness, but I just loved how Jewish Israel is. I love that everything shuts down on Shabbat so that people can actually observe and celebrate it. I love seeing the ultra-orthodox in their garb that just proclaims their religious dedication, like seeing brahmacharis and nayaswamis around Ananda. As David G put it, for the Jews, this is their Ananda, their spiritual home and family, and for all the difficulties and conflicts and politics, it’s still beautiful.

Further posts to come, as I manage to get them written....

Assisi Gathering

Forty-five years ago, there was a very clear first generation of Ananda—the devotees who “grew up” spiritually with Swami Kriyananda, founded Ananda Village and the various colonies, and now lead the work around the world. Many more have joined the movement since then, of course, but I’m told that there has never been quite so obvious a “batch” of souls incarnating together. Until now.

That first generation was able to spend a lot of time together in the early days of Ananda, forming bonds of spiritual friendship that held strong even after they dispersed around the world. The current generation is starting out already dispersed, and while it’s great that we’re already global, it also means we need to make an extra effort to bring our magnetism together and carry Master’s mission forward with all the harmonious energy it requires.

And so Narayani and Shurjo had the inspiration last year to create this gathering, with dozens of devotees coming together from three different continents. We were mostly in the age range of 25-40 or so—folks who have had a chance to get some experience on the spiritual path but are still fresh and enthusiastic about bringing a new wave of energy to carry Ananda forward. The 10 days we spent in Assisi, Italy, were a chance for us to build friendships, share magnetism, and really start to cohere as a group so that we can do this together. (Side note: We still haven’t come up with a good name for the group that doesn’t feel limiting, since the group itself doesn’t have a hard delineation. It’s really just more Ananda, manifesting in more ways through more people.)

There’s a lot more writing coming up, so if you’re the sort who prefers to skip right to the photos, there are a bunch here, mostly snagged from an even larger album here (which you’ll need to be on Facebook to see). There’s also a great video of highlights you can watch.

Ananda Assisi

The Ananda community outside Assisi was really the perfect place for this to happen, I think. It already has a very international feel, being the main Ananda center for all of Europe, and the home of devotees from many different countries. I also liked the fact that the retreat center serves three meals a day, like the Expanding Light, but it’s not just for visitors: many or most community members eat there every day as well. So even though our group was usually together, we still felt very connected to the community as a whole, rather than separate or isolated.

Similarly, the morning meditations at the temple are very well attended, and have a great, concentrated energy. I made a point of going to the energization and yoga sessions beforehand as well, which means my Italian vocabulary includes rather more body parts than is probably typical for beginners.

Sharing

On the first evening there, we actually did all our introductions in the main temple, with the whole community invited, because so many people are interested in what was going on, and because it was just a fun way to introduce ourselves and meet everybody. We got a video of it, too, if you want to see who all was there.

On the following days, though, we had our own space in the common room of the Agriturismo (where many of us were staying), and we had a lot of time there just spent in sharing and discussion. (Okay, and foosball and ping pong, too.) Aside from sharing our own personal stories, we also had focused sessions on Education for Life, farming and sustainable living, music, Ananda businesses, and more. We got to hear about what our friends around the world are doing in all these different areas, and brainstorm new ideas.

It’s a testament to the magnetism of the group that we all could have been completely carried away into any of these areas of service. After Zach and Hailey spoke, I think we all wanted to be farmers. After the EFL sessions, we were all ready to go out and become teachers. When this group gets together, we can probably do anything.

Music

Music is always one of the most joyful and miraculous things about any Ananda gathering. We had been doing some chanting together, of course, but we hadn’t had any proper choir rehearsals yet when we found ourselves at 10:30pm on the steps of the Minerva Temple in Assisi, about to sing for various assembled passersby and late-night al fresco diners. Narayani wanted me to lead the choir, so there I am with no previous conducting experience, not knowing what songs we all know in what languages, facing a 40-person choir with an audience already gathering around us because we sure looked like we were going to come out with something good. And wow, we did. We ended up singing about 6 songs, to the great satisfaction both of ourselves and of our audience. And conducting it was really quite an experience, because you get so much more of the complete choir focused on you when you’re right in front, rather than buried away in the tenor section.

One of the evenings early in the trip, our group led a kirtan for the community. I don’t think we got it on video, but here’s a recording of the last half hour or so of it. They have multi-lingual chant books in the temple there, so we took some shots at singing in Italian as well as English, but a lot of folks also just opted to skip that whole issue and focus on Indian chants instead.

We also put on a choir concert, for which we had one single rehearsal, the afternoon of the concert (and the day after our first singing on the streets of Assisi). And this was truly one of the miracles of music, because we only had a rough plan, and didn’t even know who we’d have in most of the solos or ensembles. And yet somehow, the music, as it does, pulled us all together and the concert was really a surprising success. We got the whole thing on video here (though the video and audio get pretty out of sync, so you might want to just listen).

Just as much fun, though, is all the random informal singing that happens when gurubhais are hanging out together. On one long drive to La Verna, our van sang nearly the entire Oratorio—including some of the instrumentals—and then just kept going with whatever else we could think of. Then more singing on more car trips, singing around a campfire one evening, singing for spontaneous lunchtime entertainment, singing because you got sucked into the group performing for the newly arrived visitors… it was great.

Here’s a video of us singing in Santo Stefano.

Seva

We also had a chance to earn our keep with a few seva opportunities. I think most people probably got a shift in the kitchen at some point, and we also spent a morning working at the Terre di Luce farm (I got to weed and mulch around the rose bushes). And on the last Saturday, we joined in on the Rajasi Day—an all-community work day.

I had gotten pretty sunburned the day before, so I was looking for an indoors job. Plus, I was completely enamored of the Awakening Arts Academy that we’d gotten to visit earlier. Plus, Dana’s a hoot, so what with one thing and another, I managed to finagle my way on to her team.

I got spider duty. Those glorious high ceilings and skylights in the art gallery are apparently spider heaven, so I got to stand on a ladder, reach as high up as I could with a long broom, and sweep spiders and cobwebs right down on my face (because I couldn’t reach far enough to angle out much away from myself). Then scoot the ladder forward a foot and do it again. For several hours.

Luckily I had a helper, because apparently I have to start collecting my tribe of toddlers no matter where I am in the world. Little Xavier was there with his mom who was also working in the art academy that day, and he needed something to do, so I trained him to run around on the floor catching the spiders I knocked down and taking them outside. We both learned that if you grab a daddy longlegs by one leg, its whole body freezes still, which is pretty cool, and we both ended up having a lot of fun with the disarachnification of the building.

Swamiji

I hadn’t considered this trip as a pilgrimage, but as it turned out, it very much was, with the heart of it being in Swamiji’s house. It’s amazing that it is so open and available to be visited and meditated in, and we were blessed to share a meditation there nearly every day.

I don’t tend to go into such places expecting anything very dramatic. I know God and guru are everywhere, and so I figure I’m going to experience Their presence to a greater or lesser degree more on my own merits than anything else, like just being in a particular location. But some places really do have a special power.

It was sweet to walk around the small house, and see Swamiji’s favorite tea cup and whatnot. But then I went into the bedroom where he left his body, knelt down by the bed, and suddenly it was as if he were just there. It felt exactly the same, and every bit as vivid and immediate, as the first time I ever met him, and I spent most of that first meditation crying in the same way I did back then, nine years ago. Even just thinking about it days later, the same feelings come back.

I felt like our group as a whole was also very attuned to Swamiji, and I spent a lot of the trip trying to practice tuning into him more and more. But every visit to that bedroom was always special in its own particular and intense way.

St. Francis

We also, naturally, got to spend some quality time with St. Francis. San Damiano was our first visit, and was most notable for the spot where St. Clare left her body. I felt like I could have pinpointed that location even without the signs. Even just a few steps away in the same room, the energy felt different. After San Damiano, we went to the Porziuncola, but that was a bit too overwhelming for me. The original little church was very dear, but there was so much built up around it that I just couldn’t get centered and tune into it.

Unfortunately, we got to the Basilica of St. Francis just before it closed, and so we got in but not so far as to get to go to his tomb. We were also too late to get into St. Clare’s. But Santo Stefano was a cute little church, whose bells are said to have tolled on their own accord when St. Francis died. It was completely empty, so we meditated in there for a bit, and even sang a few songs in the lovely acoustics. Here’s a recording of us singing St. Francis’ prayer there, which became somewhat of a theme song for the whole trip. (This was the first time we sang it together as a group.)

Towards the end of the trip, we also spent a day at La Verna. For me, this started out as another case of too much stuff and too many people. Tourist energy is hard to meditate in, and even with us yogis, it can be distracting having 30 of us trying to get in and out of small chapels and whatnot. So I spent the morning hiking around the gorgeous mountain top and enjoying the stunning views of the valley. But then after lunch a lot of the rest of our group went up the hill, and many of the other visitors were in a service in one of the chapels, and I found myself alone with the rock that Christ sat on when he would appear in visions to St. Francis. I put my hands on it and suddenly all I could do was just stand there and be with it, unmoving, for 20 or 30 minutes. Eventually someone else came in and I slipped out to go visit the cave where St. Francis slept on a rock, and again I had some nice time there alone and moved on when other folks came by. Ditto for the tiny cave where the cliffside folded itself inward to keep St. Francis from falling. Those kinds of places, where you can be with the actual rocks St. Francis touched, were so much more moving than all the extra fancy stuff that got built up around it all later. Though I did go do my kriyas later in the chapel built where Francis received the stigmata.

Roaming Home through Rome

Okay, so our program ended on Wednesday morning, and seven of us had morning flights out of Rome on Thursday. Rome is about a 2.5 hour drive from Assisi, so someone (I don’t actually know who) had what seemed like a good idea at the time, which was for us all to go to Rome Wednesday night, drop all of our bags in Katelyn’s hotel room (since she was staying an extra day or two) and then just stay up all night wandering around Rome in the dark until it was time to get a taxi to the airport. Apparently jet lag can’t touch you if you completely mess yourself up first.

Well, as we finished dinner at about 10:30, some of us started realizing that it had been a pretty long 10 days, and we weren’t exactly caught up on sleep to begin with, and it was going to be how long until we could sleep on the plane? But we ended up having a very nice stroll all around Rome in the dark, seeing the outsides of various places that were, of course, closed for the night, like the Pantheon, the Coliseum, etc. After a couple hours we went down by the river to energize and meditate, which helped. And around 3:30 we finally went back to grab our bags and get a 100 mph (no traffic!) taxi to the airport by 4am.

My own saga continued with more details than I need to get into, but after various other delays and missed flights, I eventually got home, having gone about 48 hours without seeing a bed. Oh, and staying up all night totally did not scare the jet lag away. But I’m feeling better now.

What’s Next?

This gathering of people and energy was a beautiful experience, and really perfect for what we needed at this stage, I think. More gatherings of “this group”—however we define it and whoever wants to be in it—will definitely happen, but probably not in the same way. The energy needs to start heading out into more service and expansion sooner rather than later. Perhaps the next time we gather this “batch” of devotees together, it will be for a reincarnation of the Joy Tours, or a manifestation of something else fun and creative. Stay tuned!

New Zealand, Part 3: Lake Taupo (and Getting There)

For our final, finale weekend in New Zealand, we drove down to Lake Taupo to lead a weekend-long retreat at the Tauhara Centre, which is something like a mini-Expanding Light that hosts all sorts of different spiritually oriented retreats on a beautiful hill overlooking the lake.

But first we had to get there. We’d named our GPS on the first day of the trip: Georgia Sweet Potato. (She can’t spell, but she’s pretty good with directions.) So far, she’d been a great navigator, and we’d had no complaints. But she must have gotten some setting clicked for “obscure roads,” because we started taking some interesting turns.

We were a little suspicious when we turned off the highway that actually said “Taupo,” but we were still on a highway, could still go 100kph, and didn’t think it could be all that bad. Then we turned off onto a smaller road that we figured would just take us to another highway. Then with each new turn we took, the roads got smaller and more winding until we were just bumping down a little dirt track with nothing around us but cows and scenery. But oh, what scenery. Beautiful green hills fresh from the rain, that at one point we simply had to stop the van to get out and look. So maybe Georgia knew what she was doing after all.

Well, eventually the roads started getting bigger and more paved, until we saw that we were finally coming back to a main highway, at which point I commented that we had not passed or even seen a single other vehicle the entire time we were on the backroads. Literally the second after I said that, a car came around the corner ahead of us, just to prove me wrong. (I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it only actually existed for just the 10 seconds it took to get around the next corner behind us.)

Anyway, we made it to Taupo. We had about 35 people there for the retreat, which was a very nice size group for that facility. And somehow, the two days that we had there felt packed with a week’s worth of activities. (A lot will be getting posted on YouTube over the next few days as I get them processed.) One of the most fun parts of it for me was the Saturday night concert with Dambara (here’s the video). I’ve had a delightful time accompanying him throughout this entire trip, and that evening was a very nice culmination of it all. We started off with some fun, lively, laughing songs, and gradually moved more and more inward, which finally led us to an outdoor fire ceremony with a bonfire out under the stars.

On the way home we were a bit less trusting of Georgia, and blatantly ignored her attempts to get us off the highway. (The first time had a sign pointing to a “Stock Effluent Disposal Site,” and the second time, very shortly after it, to an “Animal Fun Park,” which sounded very suspicious in that context.)

But we did make a quick stop off at Huka Falls. They’re not super high, but the water rushing through the ravine becomes such a beautiful shade of frothy, white turquoise that is absolutely stunning. The light was already fading, so the picture doesn’t quite capture it here.

Today we’re lounging around back at Kavita’s in Hamilton, after dropping Travis off to head back to Australia. Then we’re heading home on Tuesday evening, to arrive 13 hours later on Tuesday afternoon (they refund you the day you lost getting here on the way back). Photos from the whole trip are here.

New Zealand, Part 2: Wairere Falls and More Hamilton

Monday this week was a day off for us, so we drove to Wairere Falls, the highest waterfall in New Zealand’s North Island. It’s a beautiful hike, reminiscent of some California forests, but with extra, slightly tropical, touches. It’s quite steep, even resorting to stairs in a few places, and takes almost an hour and a half of pretty solid “tramping” (as they say here) to reach the top. So it’s very satisfying, both as physical exercise, and for the scenery.

The first lookout point is halfway up, with a gorgeous view of the falls. When you reach the top, you can actually hardly see the falls themselves at all. A very placid river meanders right up to the cliff, and then heads so completely straight down that you can’t see where it lands, even from the little observation platform reaching out over it. The view of the surrounding countryside is stunning, though. The mountains end very suddenly, leaving completely flat plains over which you can see for miles.

After a couple more days of workshops, we had some more free time today, so Dambara, Zebunnisa, Travis and I headed out for a trip to the Taitua Arboretum in Hamilton. The trees were nice enough, but as a tourist destination, it was underwhelming. The chickens were the most memorable part of it, in fact. Tons of them, just all over the place. There were times that we’d hear the crowing of roosters from all sides, as if a vicious pack of wild jungle chickens were slowly circling in for the kill. But we made it out safely. Also in the not-a-tree department, I was rather fond of this baby Stonehenge they have. A few thousand years more of regular watering and I’m sure it’ll be quite impressive.

We had passed signs for the Hamilton Zoo on the way to the arboretum, so we decided to head there next. It’s really quite a nice little zoo, with hardly any people there on a gray Thursday afternoon. We managed to catch feeding time for the lemurs and spider monkeys, which was fun to watch. A lot of the larger animals (tigers, cheetahs, etc.) were being lazy and unentertaining, but the rhinos put on a pretty good show. One of them had a really good wallow in a mud puddle, then started going after her companion like she wanted to push her in as well. Then they both took a fun canter around their whole enclosure. Lots more activity than I’d have expected from them, and very impressive to watch such formidable beasts in motion.

We’ve finished up our workshops in Hamilton, and tomorrow we’re heading out to Lake Taupo for a weekend-long retreat program. Then that’ll wrap things up for the trip and we’ll be heading home on Tuesday. I’m continuing to add photos to the album here as I go.