Yay! My rings are back. I found them in the room that used to be the 'communal' sitting room, and has now turned into Peter's room.
I screamed so loud that everyone came running, arriving just in time to do the jumpie-up-and-down dance of joy with me. I'm very happy to have my jewellery back. Note to the skeptics: I *had* actually let go, so this doesn't disprove my theory of things disappearing because you become over-attached to them.
I'm leaving Auroville tomorrow or the next day. We're going to Chennai (Madras), then Varanasi (Benares), then I'm going to do the Vipassana meditation course at Bodh Gaya (www.dhamma.org).
I'm totally traumatised to be leaving Buddha Garden.
Things I will miss:
*The peacefulness, externally and internally.
*Watching the sun set over the fields
*The way the sky is sooo huge at night
*Vrroooming along the one good bit of road on the leetle motorbike, cool wind in my hair.
*Drawing and painting by candlelight, with Ian playing the guitar. I'm completely unartistic, but doing it in the semi-dark means I can let go of my self-consciousness long enough to have fun.
*The tasty pastries from the boulangerie. I'm eating as many as I can now, as a protection against the famine to come.
*Big healthy communal dinners, with vegetables fresh from the garden. Some of them even planted by me.
*The feeling of instant community. Just add water.
*Going to the beach.
*Sunshine every every day.
*Enjoying getting my hands (and the rest of me!) dirty. That's a new thing for me.
It's been a lovely chilled-out time, but I do need to see some of the the North before I leave India. Arriving in Varanasi is probably going to be a heinous shock. We're going from a lot of peace and quiet to one of the craziest, loudest places. Hmm.
As you can tell, I'm very bad at leaving places. I have no idea how I ever manage to travel anywhere. Varanasi will be excellent, godammit.
"They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom."
Confucious