From Brahma to Buddha, Fall 2006

Remember, always take time to stop and smell the flowers

I hope this finds everyone well reuniting in Maryland, exploring New Zealand and Thailand, surfing Costa Rica, working at home, doing thousands of prostrations a day, and otherwise keeping on keeping on.

I'm back home in Portland, where the thermometer recently hit numero zero. Cold.

Frankly, not quite as pleasant as the tropical breezes which kept me hangin' loose in Maui over the past couple of weeks. Intended to send you all an update from there, of course, but what with distractions like hiking across the lunar landscape of volcanoes and diving down with the sharks and the turtles, I neglected to let you know about it.

So, surfed some big days (or should say got pummeled by some big waves), counted rainbows by the dozens, swam under waterfalls, and watched whales get airborne barely a hundred feet away. Books on the beach and luaus in the evening, what an amazing place. Andrew will be glad to know that I went fishing for the big game a couple of times (but am sorry to say we didn't get anything more than mackarel). Anyone know that there are raspberry and redwood and eucaplyptus forests in Hawaii? (I sure didn't until I was walking through them).

And now, although I'm back home for a brief spell, I'm nontheless repacking the bags again. That is, I'm hitting the road tomorrow for a long-haul drive out to Jackson Hole, WY, acting the wingman to an old friend with whom I promised to make the drive way back when we were still in Banaras. Plan to ski for a week or so with hometown friends out there and then it'll be back to Portland for the month of February. Not that I'll be here for the whole month or anything, but, you know...

So, please keep me posted on what's going on in everyone's world and thanks for posting so many great photos to the Flickr site. Great to check-in on now and then.

Take good care everyone, and kale shu/pep ah

-Galen