True Tales

For three years, 2002, 2003 & 2004 I participated, taught and was resident Life Coach at the Khalsa Women’s Training Camps at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. The setting against the magnificent cliffs and rock formations, under a sky that never failed, day or night, to entrance the spirit–well, it was a place that always rocked my spiritual socks! My husband, Hari Bhajan Singh, has his birthday in September, so in 2004 I decided to write him a letter every day from camp as a way of appreciating him and connecting in that way that only the written word can do. I have printed three of those letters below.

I’d also like to express my appreciation for the dedication and pure love that Sumpuran Kaur and Ravi Kaur gave to these camps and to the women who came there looking for a way to increase the light in their lives. The fun, the beauty, the transformation that took place in those few precious days changed us all in ways that will last a lifetime.

September 13, 2004

This morning a million stars greeted me as I went out the door at 4 a.m. A shooting star lanced the sky and sadhana began with the sweet sounds of Jap-Ji. My body is sore from a day of hiking and yoga. I am sleepy as I write this even though I took a two hour nap after sadhana. It feels good to be a little shaky in the knees, to know the heat outside my cozy room beats down on the dusty road. Yesterday it thundered and rained briefly right after our return from Castle Rock. A “walk” Ravi had said, but mostly uphill. God was merciful and sent clouds to cover us and a few raindrops to cool our sweating bodies. The theme of the camp is “challenge” and already it is bearing fruit.

I finished reading the book, Awareness that I told you about. I want to start reading it again and maybe a third time. Every word in it rings true to me and I so want to be free, to be aware—but deMello says even wanting is attachment, and I know it to be true. He talks about how brief life is, how it is only a flash and we spend it worrying and trying to control things and wanting always to be accepted and approved of by people. He says the only way to truly love is to not care about anyone—a strange paradox, but it makes sense. If we are always trying to curry favor or have set up a system to tell us who is “with” us and who is “against” us then we do not love. It has become a bargain, as the Siri Singh Sahib always tells us. We have to know our happiness does not depend on anybody or anything and that it comes from awareness—being in love with life, unconditionally.

After a hike. Everyone but me. I’m taking the picture.

The incredible vista! That’s Sumpuran Kaur shouting out.

September 14, 2004

This place has its way with you. The cliffs, the wind, the way the sun and clouds play throughout the day. I saw a doe and two fawns this evening walking back from the Siri Singh Sahib’s lecture (a video from Women’s Camp, 1987). They so peacefully and daintily strolled through the mown alfalfa field. A beautiful song bird showed up outside the window this morning while I was leading the workshop with the women and word has it that last night raccoons made it into the room we’re using for all our classes. They ate some plums and used the toilets for their drinking hole (their little muddy footprints on the toilet seat). There are rosy apples hanging from the trees along the roadway and a donkey named Jackson who lives alone in a field who greets us and looks for treats when we pass by. Every day the aspen grove turns more golden.

I walked the labyrinth this evening after dinner and before the video. There was not another soul around (well, one that I could see) and I remembered when we walked the labyrinth at Sycamore Hot Springs and how lovely that was. I wrote a poem afterwards that is still rough, but it’s for you.

GHOST RANCH, NEW MEXICO

Turn and slowly hinge into the evening sun, west to face
the ochre cliffs etched by wind and spectral memory,

crunching pebbles underfoot, chards of pinion, the zigzag
tread of boot and sandal. I walk the coils of your mind,

want to arrive at the center, crave completion, bear
an offering of blue and yellow flowers, a jagged stone

bound in string to lay at the sage-strewn altar. Returning,
I pivot again and again into a land where you and I

form a labyrinth—a place to depart from, a place to circle back.

September 15, 2004

I walked the high swaying bridge today on the ropes course. I went second so I could get it over with. Remember when we did it a few years ago and I was so afraid? I was worried that my legs would give out like they did then, when I climbed the rope ladder, but I did it. I climbed up the pole then walked across the bridge. I also belayed for the other women. We had a great day and I thought how proud you would have been of me—funny how it’s important for you to be proud of me for being more athletic. I think the jungle swinging in Costa Rica was also a big factor in my ability to trust I would make it.

I feel so alive and aware. Being with these wonderful women has been uplifting in so many ways. This group is small, but very committed. There are two women from Germany that I like very much and hope to see when we travel there again. I can see that if I was in a more “outdoorsy” community I would probably get out and exercise more.

I’ll be back in L.A. in two days, away from the Milky Way and shooting stars, the donkey, deer and silence. I’ll be back to you, the pups and our home. Tonight we sat around a campfire roasting marshmallows and making s’mores. We told ghost stories, laughed, got smoke in our eyes. I will be sad to leave, but when the women are gone and the energy no longer here it will not be the same. It is a transient moment, one to cherish, just as they all are.

  This is the suspension bridge. It’s not me up there, but I did do it!

Climbing up the pole and jumping for the trapeze. This one I did not do.

Ravi Kaur–with the greatest of ease. 

Belaying. Putting your life in the hands of your sisters was a powerful lesson in trust. And doing it for others was a responsibility we all wanted to partake of.

The triumphant gather at the base of "the wall." Proof that I was there (I did climb this monster), second from the right in the back row. It was a great day!