la di da

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

2013-05-20

I’ve been in Rishikesh about 2.5 weeks so the updates are fewer and far between as my daily life seems like the norm now so less to share. I’ve been taking an intensive yoga course that lasts 6-8 hours per day and going to waterfalls and taking dips in the Ganges in between.
Photos: the donkey that always hovers near the green building //the chai shop that opens before all others which I visit on mornings that I go to the Ganges at 6 AM (only refreshing time to be outdoors) // the field where all the jeeps park that drive people into the mountains and where the local boys play cricket // the bicycle of the man that rides around selling yoga blankets

2013-05-17

Last Sunday I rode with some friends up to a small village in the mountains where some of their family has property. Terraces of mango trees and vegetable gardens and simple homes made of stone. It was the coolest day yet in Rishikesh so we had a long refreshing ride on motorcycles into the mountains.

2013-05-11

The “Beatles ashram”. Abandoned and left to elephants to roam and sadhus to meditate. Many mysteries and scandals surround this place and its felt when climbing through the jungle that has overtaken this intricate ashram where the Beatles studied transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh. It looks like a 1960s space camp in the jungle.

→

Some local musicians and sadhus near a chai cart I frequent near the Ganges. The musicians used charm a snake with their tunes but the Indian government has banned this art.

→

The Ganges is fresh and clear in Rishikesh because its near the source and the melting Himalayas. Cold swims, hikes to waterfalls and morning dips.

2013-05-10

I’ve gone from the desert to the mountains. From Pushkar to Rishikesh.

→

Monkeys everywhere

2013-05-06

Some local friends in Pushkar taught me to cook at their empty restaurant (off-season). They cooked an Indian feast for whatever friends were free nearly every night I was with them. If we didn’t cook in the restaurant we cooked over an open fire in the desert.