True Tales

The first akhand path (nonstop reading aloud of the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, from start to finish) at Guru Ram Das Ashram in Los Angeles was held some time in 1972, and akhand paths have continued, every single week since then. For the first few months, at Yogiji’s instruction, each person signed up for 2-1/2 […]

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This piece was first posted a couple weeks ago, but taken down for a little editing and to add PHOTOS! I found my box of old solstice photos and I have many from the 70s that are fabulous! Most of the photos here are from 1975. The campsite just below is from 1973. Do you […]

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March 1, 1971, 4:00 AM
I wake up to the sound of jingling bells and an unfamiliar voice gently saying, “Sat Nam, it’s time to wake up!” It takes me a few moments to remember where I am. I am lying on a hard wood floor, in […]

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August 1987
A loud buzzing noise intrudes into my world, literally yanking me out of the sky, where I am flying above the clouds and into the stars, and snaps me forcefully back to earth, to my little apartment on Preuss Road across from Siri Gurbani Sadan (an ashram where several families live together), and to […]

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I wrote this poem in June 2005, after a visit with Sat Dharam Kaur, who was spending her final days at home with her family. A few days later she passed away. We will probably have more writings on Sat Dharam Kaur and other beloved souls who have touched our lives and gone.
Oxygen wheezes and […]

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This piece was written almost four months after Siri Singh Sahib Ji passed away. I was very much feeling the loss that day and still struggled with the flood of emotion I knew would come if I allowed the tears flow.
 
 
 January 31, 2005
“How long do you think it’s going to take? How long until we […]

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I tried to write this story from the perspective I had at the time and because of that I’ve used the names of people as they were then known. Danny is now Siri Ved Singh. We were married for almost 14 years. A few years later in 1987, I met and married Gurujodha Singh, and […]

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The history that I know…
“February is Black History Month.” I heard it on the news this morning. I have considered this and it has thus occurred to me I ought to write the history that I know.
I don’t recall ever having seen a black person, at least up close, until I was five or six […]

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Eyes sparkling,
wells of wisdom, rich and deep,
black as Kali
loving as Krishna
compassion with no boundary
Each movement subtly rustles
folds of undulant silken rainbow
draping her slight brown body
Like a perfectly ripe apricot
skin sweet and luscious,
soft and divine.
Goddess in the kitchen
making ginger paranthas for the yogi.
Their fiery aroma inebriates the air
No apron shields the flowing sari
from spatters and spice
and […]

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These three short pieces are the product of some timed writings the True Tales group did a few years ago (see the game "Trigger" in Waking Up Those Memories). When I first wrote them they were quite a bit "rougher." Days later I returned to them and worked each one a little more. I don’t […]

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