[claire]Wednesday, July 7th, 9am India

[Mark Holmes]

Hi everyone,

We had a couple of big days, with lots of activity and visiting.  
Tara's favorite Swami Govinda is in town for 2 days, and he's really 
amazing.  He spent a lot of time with her yesterday, and led a special 
satsang with 7 of us here in her room last night.  Meditation and 
chanting, with 2 swamis, a pujari (special ceremony or puja leader), 
and several of the staff members here at the ashram.  And the day 
before yesterday there was a special visitor who comes each week named 
Swami Tatvaroopa and gives lectures on interesting topics such as the 
Bagavad Gita.  He and a couple other swamis sat in Tara's room and 
chanted some special Shanti mantras, all of which I recorded on 
videotape.  Great stuff.

Tara also was able to get out yesterday, walk the 100 yards (stairs and 
all!) to the reception area to make a phone call.  It was great seeing 
her up and out!  The journey was quite taxing, and rest was the order 
for the remainder of the day.

Tara's appetite for the local food is respectable, with some western 
treats thrown in.  We usually do a bowl of cornflakes at around 5 or 
5:30am so that she can take some pain medication; and we also do some 
pasta and grilled-cheese sandwiches now and again.  Having dinner next 
to Swami Sivaswaroopananda last night (he's the ashram director), he 
commented that he could smell the grilled cheese cooking all the way 
from reception, which is kind of hard to believe given how far away 
that is.  But if you could see this man put away food, you'd also 
believe that he could smell this a mile away.  Polar bears are said to 
be able to smell seals 20 miles away, and I bet this man could give 
them an olfactory run for their proverbial money.

The "Tara in India" video project has had it's humble beginnings in the 
last couple of days, so at some point you all will be able to get a 
nice close-up view of our life here.   I don't know if I'll ever be 
able to post any clips to the internet, but it will be available 
sometime in the future.  Highlights from the video so far are: Swamis 
getting haircuts, close-ups of Tara eating and telling me to turn the 
camera off, lots of raindrops falling, flowers, flowers, and more 
flowers, and plenty of Indian smiling faces wondering what to say with 
a camera pointed obnoxiously in their direction.

That's the view from the coconut grove.  Peace and love to you all,

T & M

PS.  We definitely get everyone's e-mails, and love reading them.  If 
we don't get a chance to respond directly, know that they are getting 
through and we appreciate it!