Inner and outer meaning

Happy St. Patrick's Day.  I will hunt through my summer clothes boxes to find a green t-shirt to put on today to match my shamrock earrings.  I won't drink green beer or get drunk.  I will smile when I meet Mom and Selim in Concord later on this evening when I see my boy wearing his green jeans, green shirt and carrying his green pot o'gold filled with green beads and gold coins.

Last night Mom was talking more about her Nana.  She came over from Ireland in 1901 all by herself.  She went through Ellis Island alone.  In Pittsburgh, she worked as a lady's attendant and a seamstress. She was proud and fierce.  She was alive when I was a baby in Laguna and I don't remember her at all.  I was going through old pictures that last when I found this one.  I'm the baby with Heather, Mom, and Grammy Bev...and Nana?  I'm not sure.  The reason I think it may be is because the second photo has Grampy Sam, so we may have been taking pictures of that family tree.

Nana, Heather, Grammy Bev, Mom, me

Heather, Grammy Bev, Grampy Sam, Mom, me

So I will don my green today and think about the ancestral land of part of my family -- the motherland that I have never seen.  But for me, the day is really about an inner journey.  Early in the morning of March 17, 1979 I walked across the Ashram grounds, pass the Hall and down to Master's house to be initiated.  I wore my shawl that I had bought in India the year before and carried a blanket that I had picked up there as well.  I was nervous and happy.

The year before I had gone to India during projects period.  I have some clear memories of the trip, but not many.  I can look at photos and have vague recollections.  I remember landing at the airport and not taxing up to a building.  We deplaned and got on a bus that took us to the terminal.  On the bus were guys with huge guns.  Going through customs, the man opened my backpack and up popped my stuffed animal Piglet's head. The guy laughed and laughed.  He thought it was so funny that he stuffed Piglet back in and repeated the motion of pulling the cord at the top of the pack so that Piglet's head snapped up again.  Then he called over some other customs agents and did it again.  Everybody was chuckling and our agent didn't inspect any more of our bags, he waived Robert and I right on.

The Ashram was in the village of 77 R.B.  The mornings were cool and the days warm.  Sugar cane grew on the Ashram grounds and we used to go for walks and cut down the cane stalks and suck out the sweet juice.  I discovered that the smell of basmati rice cooked in large quantities makes me nauseous.  I would take an orange, a handful of cashews, tea biscuits and a cup of fennel tea and eat outside because I couldn't stand the food smell inside the eating area.  The water tasted a bit smokey, a leftover residue from the boiling process.

While I was there I realized that I wanted the full initiation.  But it took me the whole trip to work up the courage to ask Sant Ji.  On the last day of private interviews, I wrote down the question and brought it in to the room with me.  I couldn't find the words to vocalize.  But he said yes, that I should wait a year. After a year had past, I must have written and asked for a more specific date.  Last night I found His response to that question tucked inside an envelope of pictures from that trip.

I took really bad pictures  that trip.  I'd like to think that my photography skills have improved in the years since.  They were blurry.

Or taken from far away.

Or had other people's body parts in them.

But still...even though I can't recall that trip in minute detail, it was an important event.  I have benefited from the Grace I received for my whole life.  I can't change the lack of discipline in my spiritual practice these past years.  But I do know that the Path is at my core and that I am supremely lucky to have spent time in the company of Love and Grace personified.  Today I can say Happy Initiation Anniversary, happy spiritual birthday...to me.