Namaste and Happy New Year from Mumbai, India!
We fly home tomorrow. It's been an amazing journey the past three weeks. a delightful masala of rural and urban, mountains, rivers, and beaches, and the contrast of ashrams and cities, spirit and secular, ancient and modern.
This is probably my 12th or 15th trip to India - can't figure it properly. I feel relaxed and at home here, in that way we feel when someplace once foreign becomes a known and welcome landscape. To the terrain of my psyche, India is a home, a place of refuge.
Here in Bombay, I always sense the magic of contrasts the most. Millionaires sleep in high rises over the street dwellers in a symbiotic, mutually interdependent relationship. Each feels both trapped and free in his or her own way. Servant and Master. Each needs the other. Who is defining whom?
This is the first time I've traveled with a male partner by my side, and I am now automatically treated with more respect. Folks aren't subconsciously wondering as much if I am a lonely, lost lady - a weird witchy wanderer to be feared or pitied. Now that I am appearing as someone's wife/partner, I belong more in the storyline. I make sense in their schema of things. Locals relax, thus I relax more, and we can get on with our day.
This is purely cultural, a generalization as well. It is something I notice: how everyone breathes easier when the picture fits the conditioning, for better or for worse.
Emotionally, I am deeply affected. I am left feeling a tremendous sense of respect for the courage, fearlessness, strength required of my former self, the me who traveled for all those years as a solo, single female explorer bushwhacking through India.
It was a lot of stress. And worth every bit of it. To have the guts to burn through conditioning, year after year, facing risk and questioning faces. I burned through my own identification as well. To be truly free.
And that freedom is the ultimate gift. Jackpot!
And that freedom, dear friend, is what I wish for you this New Year. Accept What Is. Beyond Condition. And be free.
With all my love,
Erin
Please check out my pics and fun video clips on Twitter here:
@erin_reese
Check out Erin Reese (@erin_reese):
https://twitter.com/erin_reese
And some visual love here!
We fly home tomorrow. It's been an amazing journey the past three weeks. a delightful masala of rural and urban, mountains, rivers, and beaches, and the contrast of ashrams and cities, spirit and secular, ancient and modern.
This is probably my 12th or 15th trip to India - can't figure it properly. I feel relaxed and at home here, in that way we feel when someplace once foreign becomes a known and welcome landscape. To the terrain of my psyche, India is a home, a place of refuge.
Here in Bombay, I always sense the magic of contrasts the most. Millionaires sleep in high rises over the street dwellers in a symbiotic, mutually interdependent relationship. Each feels both trapped and free in his or her own way. Servant and Master. Each needs the other. Who is defining whom?
This is the first time I've traveled with a male partner by my side, and I am now automatically treated with more respect. Folks aren't subconsciously wondering as much if I am a lonely, lost lady - a weird witchy wanderer to be feared or pitied. Now that I am appearing as someone's wife/partner, I belong more in the storyline. I make sense in their schema of things. Locals relax, thus I relax more, and we can get on with our day.
This is purely cultural, a generalization as well. It is something I notice: how everyone breathes easier when the picture fits the conditioning, for better or for worse.
Emotionally, I am deeply affected. I am left feeling a tremendous sense of respect for the courage, fearlessness, strength required of my former self, the me who traveled for all those years as a solo, single female explorer bushwhacking through India.
It was a lot of stress. And worth every bit of it. To have the guts to burn through conditioning, year after year, facing risk and questioning faces. I burned through my own identification as well. To be truly free.
And that freedom is the ultimate gift. Jackpot!
And that freedom, dear friend, is what I wish for you this New Year. Accept What Is. Beyond Condition. And be free.
With all my love,
Erin
Please check out my pics and fun video clips on Twitter here:
@erin_reese
Check out Erin Reese (@erin_reese):
https://twitter.com/erin_reese
And some visual love here!
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| Shirdi Sai Baba, Colaba market |
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| Haji Ali mosque |
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| Mick, the monkey 'n me, Taj Hotel |
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| Family size dosa |
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| Chowpatty Beach sunset |
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| Chowpatty Beach sunset |
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| Happy new friends |
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