2009 07 22. Wednesday.

2009 07 22. Wednesday.

Today is my 2 month anniversary back here. Feels good. Enjoying the work and sadhana and being surrounded by so many wonderful and a few wacky Amma devotees. I'm learning more and more that the eccentric devotees are the ones that test my mindfulness, patience and forbearance. I have a feeling that Amma watches me (and all of us) carefully thru the eyes of the eccentric and difficult devotees.

The internet was down this morning after breakfast so I couldn't do some compost work (I have some research to do and some emails from Peter Ash to respond to). So I had some rare free time before lunch. Yay! I went to one of the stores and bought 2 different kinds of malas and made a "Sri Yantra" mala. This is a mala where the beads correspond to the pattern on the Sri Yantra mandala. After an hour I got it all made and tested it and discovered I messed up. Poo! and Grrr! I had to redo it and now its fine. I can now use it to chant 108 reps of my Amma mantra while visually moving thru the Sri Yantra mandala. The bigger beads on the mala are cues to make sure I'm at the right place in the mandala. For me its a good way to increase my focus while chanting my Amma mantra.

Today was Mukhunda's birthday so, in addition to the usual chai and treats after compost, the Indians brought some payasim. Yum! The other Indians there had fun teasing him and they had a great time laughing. Mukhunda is usually at the compost work, telling us to hurry. He likes to work fast. He's always saying "What's next?! What's next?!" He gets impatient when I tell him to hold on so the pile can be layered properly. If they're not layered properly they don't decompose right and can start to smell. If I wasn't there I'd hate to see how the piles would turn out.

I was really pooped all afternoon and evening after the compost work. I think the antibiotics I'm taking for the little infection in my foot are sapping my energy levels somehow. Also seems to give me a little headache. I set my watch for an extra hour sleep and fell blissfully into bed. Ignoring my slightly pounding head I slept like the newly dead.