Follow the Senior Hummingbird

I was very happy to be back home, but I was weak. And I also had lower back pain, which I attributed to my kidneys still recovering from dehydration. But I was glad my heart had passed the test of a night’s monitoring in the hospital even though I was asked several times by nurses about my low heart rate. I have monitored my blood pressure and heart rate for years, so I knew it was normally in the 50′s – an athlete’s rate even though I definitely didn’t qualify as an athlete.
As instructed, I dutifully set up an appointment with my primary care physician for a few days after I was released from the hospital. I felt tired and weak, but went to the appointment. Just as the doctor came into the room, I said those three dreadful words, “I feel dizzy,” and woke up once again in the strong arms of a paramedic team. Repeat performance in the Emergency Room with monitors and saline solution.
After I was stabilized, a young lady came over and introduced herself as a “hospitalist.” She didn’t explain what a “hospitalist” was, but I later asked a passing technician what the term meant. In my experience, “hospitalist” came to mean a doctor who makes big decisions about your life in record time without consulting you.
This young doctor spoke quickly and authoritatively, but didn’t ask me any questions. She said I’d need a CT Scan and an MRI to determine whether impeded blood flow in my head was why I was fainting. She then said my white blood count was very low with immature white blood cells and I might need a bone marrow test. After her pronouncements, she rode out into the sunset, and I never saw or heard from her again. But she had scheduled me for a Cat Scan and MRI.
The Cat Scan was fast and easy, but the MRI is an ordeal, especially when you feel lousy. I can’t even imagine what it might be like for a claustrophobic person. It required another trip in an ambulance with paramedics to a long cavernous hall that housed the MRI machine, and then about 45 minutes immobile in a thin tube with ear phones on to accompany a very strange assortment of clicks and groans from the monster machine. My thought once inside the machine was remembering an article I’d read that said far too much radiation is used in MRI testing.
When the very polite and kind paramedics brought me back to my hospital room, my friend’s very serious face greeted me. I must have looked absolutely awful. “I’m dying,” I simply said and laid back on the bed. And I truly did feel I was dying. I had fainted twice within days, had been brought to the ER twice, my white blood cells were apparently too low, and no doctors talked to me. Control over my own life was spinning out of my control.
I thought over all the details of putting my affairs in order and decided they were okay. I had had a happy trip in the spring to old friends in China, Taiwan, and Bali, and had just completed a Wild Lands Restoration service project near the magnificent Grand Tetons. A smile even crossed my face when I realized that I wouldn’t outlive my meager money after all.
My cell phone wouldn’t last long, and I didn’t have phone numbers of everyone I wanted to talk to anyway. So, I quietly sent mental “goodbye and thank you for being in my life” messages to some of my closest friends. I’d had a good life. I was ready to die if that was my fate.
But my roommate’s large family and the close quarters wouldn’t let me die in peace and quiet.

To Be Continued…

Once admitted to the hospital for a night of heart monitoring even though my heart had shown no indications of a problem, I became a virtual prisoner on my bed. Because of the possibility of cardiac patients falling, the bed is set to give off an alarm whenever anyone gets off the bed. For previously highly independent people like me, that was a big adjustment. And, since fluid was flowing into me, I was required to summon aid several times to de-program the alarm on my bed and allow me to walk to the bathroom pushing the intravenous contraption with me.
There were many questions during the intake procedure, including two women who somewhat apologetically said they were supposed to check new patients for signs of elder abuse. I showed them the rough and still very red mark around my left arm where the tourniquet had been forgotten and left for hours. They even took pictures of the mark and the nurse came by several times that night to check how my arm was recovering. Since I’d missed dinner time, and in fact hadn’t eaten all day, the nurse scrounged up one last cottage cheese and fruit salad plate. Then started the long, long night.
I wasn’t yet at all sure what had happened to me and why I was there. I was extraordinarily grateful to find some chapstick in my purse because the oxygen the paramedics had given me had really dried out my lips. I played around with the bed possibilities since I’d never been in a bed that could move around.
I shared the room with an elderly lady, but it was late and I wasn’t sure how much she’d welcome conversation. I was envious of her periodic snoring since my usual night owl ways made sleep impossible for me. If I had to pick the single most disturbing aspect of being in a hospital, it would be the sounds — crying, pain, misery, calling out for help. I wished for my earplugs and slowly waited for the dawn in between frequent trips to the bathroom. At least my kidneys were functioning okay.
Conversely, the vampires arrived with the dawn to draw the morning’s round of blood. Eventually, a huge breakfast arrived — at least three times what I’d normally eat. But I’d had an early snack of graham crackers and milk and wasn’t hungry.
And then the technician arrived to do an echocardiogram of my heart. This was exciting!! I knew I had a heart, but I had never seen it before. And I’d never heard it beating away with such a sound. I was fascinated watching my heart on the screen as it bumped and wiggled its life dance. It looked wonderful to me. I hoped it would to the people who can “read” such things.
Dr. D., whom I’d never seen before but who was apparently in charge of the decision whether or not to let me go home, popped in for quite literally a second, and said he’d release me after my echocardiogram report. I waited and waited.
Since privacy is impossible in those cubby hole rooms, I heard my roommate’s conversation with a nurse. The “M” words threw me into a panic. I am medication-phobic and am always horrified to learn how many daily medications people my age are taking. The staff at the hospital had registered surprise when they asked what drugs I regularly take and I told them “fish oil” and “calcium.” So, it was clear that drug interactions were not a factor in my case. My roommate, who had had a heart attack, was prescribed a very loooong list of daily medication that I lost count of. In addition, she was also taking several very strong medications for other conditions. The worry started creeping in that the doctors would try to force medication upon me.
The kind nurse, who looked like a friend of mine which I found comforting, finally told me that Dr. D. had arranged for my release after lunch. Apparently, I had passed my night of heart monitoring without turning up anything of concern although no doctor bothered to tell me anything directly.
I was ecstatically happy to return to my home which had been patiently waiting for me. But my joy at being home was to be very short-lived.
To Be Continued

“I feel dizzy,” was the last thing I said before fainting in my yoga class. According to my teacher and classmates, I sank to the mat and turned alternately gray, white, and blue. My body became ice cold and then I started to sweat profusely. I awoke to the voice of my yoga teacher saying, “Breathe” and then the paramedics arrived.
Even from my prone view and very foggy brain, I could tell that the paramedics worked quickly as a team, communicating constantly with one another and also with me. They quickly reassured me that my heart was okay, and mentioned “vago-vasal” which I vaguely understood meant my heart rate had been increasing until my blood pressure suddenly sank. But why?
How could this be happening to me? I’m a healthy person who could only remember fainting once at the age of 18 after catching bronchial pneumonia three times one winter. The faces changed from the paramedics to the Emergency Room Team who connected all sorts of things all over my body. I was thankful that one of my yoga buddies had come to the Emergency Room with me.
Eventually they told me I was dehydrated, and I told them that I had recently been bitten by a tick in Yellowstone National Park. The doctor dismissed the tick bite, saying it couldn’t be responsible for my condition in such a few days. And so, fluids poured in while one arm was pinned down by an overactive blood pressure cuff that kept throttling my arm. The other arm was pinned down by the intravenous needle.
Explaining that I had just had a very rigorous week working on Wild Lands Restoration near Grand Teton National Park, followed by camping in Yellowstone National Park, and due to my night owl nature, was sleep deprived, the doctor decided to chalk it up to exhaustion and dehydration and send me home after rehydration. He returned five minutes after telling me I would be released to say that he had reconsidered after realizing I was older than I looked and he wanted to hospitalize me for one night on a heart monitor.
There was a nagging pain in my left arm which had the intravenous flowing through and I mentioned it a few times to the nurse. She said it was just the needle in the wrist area that would cause pain when I bent the wrist. Eventually, I convinced her that the pain was higher up around my muscle. She finally looked under the gown and a strange look crossed her face. Someone who had intended to draw blood from my arm had left a tourniquet on my upper arm for at least the last 3 hours!! There was an ugly raw red mark when she finally released it. Apparently, this is a very big mistake and the person responsible would be severely disciplined, or even fired.
And so, I was sent upstairs for the night of being monitored. I was still more stunned at the day’s strange twist of events than anything else. But it was only the beginning of stranger things to come.
To Be Continued

A month shy of my 67th birthday, I intentionally wanted to add some firsts to my life. The service trip with Road Scholars to Teton Science Schools in Wyoming provided that opportunity.
The first day we learned of the dangers of noxious weeds and how they force out native species. Our task was to weed out an area around a pond where trumpeter swans were kept. Sometimes the noxious weeds were quite beautiful, as well as tenacious. Shovels, short tools, and gloves helped our group of 12 fill trash bags that piled up from our labor. Although I’m used to exercising, I’m not used to manual labor that actually accomplishes something.
Our second day’s task was to check bird houses that had been set up around a certain area, but had not been checked. First, we had to locate the boxes, peek in and see if there were eggs in them, and record many details about the boxes to put into a data base. If the box was unoccupied, we cleaned the old nests out of them. This was one of many programs in an effort to collect data about the bird population with the long term goal of conserving the wildlife.
It was the first time I saw tiny eggs in nests, and in one case, two-day-old mice, but I felt sorry that we had to scare the mother birds (and mother mouse) to get the information.
I observed trained people capturing wild songbirds in mist nets and then collecting data about them before releasing them. Our part, other than observation, was to hold each fragile bird on its back in our open hands before it realized it was free to fly away. It was a brief connection to a wild songbird and I felt good to participate in its release back into the wild.
Another first for me was digging a hole for a post. One of our team of 12, a gentleman of indeterminate age who had spent years in the Forest Service and now spent his time going to service projects, showed me how to maneuver the tool used to make a post hole. He explained how to best angle the tool to dig down efficiently and then pull up the dirt. Our posts for bird perches along a bike trail stood firm and tall when we finished.
Of all our tasks, I suppose the one I least expected I’d ever do is take down barbed wire fences that result in many deaths of animals who get mangled on them. The walk uphill to the fences was steep, but led to a beautiful panorama. Leather gloves protected our hands as we cut the barbed wire from the posts and rolled it up to be discarded.
I never got fast at rolling it up, but learned nevertheless how to roll the barbed wire from side to side so the barbs would catch onto one another. These circles of death piled up quickly. I had read a very vivid description of a swan that was caught on a barbed wire fence, so this contribution to making wild lands safer for wildlife gave me a distinct sense of accomplishment.
While our group was staying at the Teton Science School, there was also a group of 100 Indian children from area tribes. This was the first time I saw Indian children being taught by white people about nature and their connection to it. How sadly ironic!
Although not an Indian, one of our leaders came closest to my idea of what being with an Indian would be like. His knowledge was extensive. And he was inextricably intertwined with nature and wildlife emotionally and spiritually.
I have volunteered as a docent for the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, California, for 9 years to help make a little difference to wild sick and injured seals and sea lions. While volunteering, I have also gained in my personal knowledge and connection to wild creatures. My participation in the Road Scholar service project has extended my progress even further from mostly an appreciator of the wild to a participant.
Beautifully worded on one wall of the Laurance Rockefeller Preserve Visitor’s Center is the essence.
“Mindful of different ways of being,
Our awareness as a species shifts –
We recognize the soul of the land as our own.”

On my week doing Wild Lands Restoration through Road Scholars at the Teton Science Schools in Jackson, Wyoming, wolves and wildness have been heavily on my mind. In Wyoming, the subject of wolves, as well as bears and other wildlife, is complicated and passionate.
I found a book in the library at the school that elucidates the whole issue of the troubled connection of humans to the animals that share human territory. “Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, A Woman, and the Wild” by Renee Askins puts the issue into a wider, deeper perspective. The author still lives in a small town called Wilson near Jackson and she eloquently describes why she fights on the side of the wolves. Wolves were once totally eradicated in very vicious ways.
“What hunger did torture satisfy that a bullet would not? What fear was soothed or vengeance realized by the suffering of these animals that a painless death could not have accomplished? What is it in ourselves that we had to kill in the wolf? The answer is, of course, wildness. And even though we killed the wolf, every last one of them in the West, we never extinguished the wild — we only became more deeply alienated from it. In the panic of our alienation, we attempted to control what we feared; when we couldn’t control it we tried to extinguish it. But the wild is not controllable, or even extinguishable, so inextricably is it bound to the force of life itself. It flickers on – without us, within us, and between us – its nature buried in the mystery of our origins.”
After great effort by conservationists, the decision was made to re-introduce wolves in certain areas like Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. But it’s a troubled, carefully watched, and perhaps temporary situation.
When humans and animals come into conflict, it is the animal that loses. Very recently in Yellowstone, two bears were intentionally killed by authorities; a grizzly who killed a hiker, and a female black bear who kept coming too close to humans in its search for food. The grizzly bear had awakened after being tranquilized and a collar put on it so it could be tracked. Would he have killed the hiker if a collar had not been put on him in the name of conservation research?  Would the black bear have been killed if her territory hadn’t been invaded by campers and easy food?
Those of us who live far from the wild and wild animals form opinions about both in alienation from these animals and the wild. This week I have come closer to both and I feel a profound impact from the contact.

BUMP!! What is happening to me? Why can’t I spread my wings? Why can’t I fly away? What predator is this that is untangling me from the threads that bind me? Is he preparing to eat me?
He took those threads off that imprisoned me, but even though I try to flap my wings, I can’t fly.
Oh no! Now I’m in a different kind of prison. There are no threads holding me, but it’s dark like night in here. I can flap my wings, but I can’t fly away.
Those same bony fingers that took me out of the net and put me in a bag are now reaching in for me again. I can see this ugly predator now. He is so huge and is looking at me more curiously than hungrily. What does he want of me?
I try to flap my wings, but one strong finger encircling my neck and other fingers holding my legs keep me still against my will. Now he is spreading one wing, but not to let me fly. He uses a tool to measure it. Why doesn’t he just eat me and get it over with?
Now he’s holding one of my skinny legs and putting something around it. I don’t want anything on my leg. I kick as hard as I can, but it won’t come off. When is he going to kill me?
He’s turning me on my back. What a strange feeling. I’ve never been on my back before. I certainly can’t fly away this way. I want to bite him, but my beak has no power against him. Oh, he’s blowing on my underside with a gentle wind. Can’t he tell I’m a mother with babies waiting for me without uncovering my underside? This is terrible.
But it’s getting worse. He’s putting me upside down in a dark tube with my head against metal and my feet sticking up in the air. Why does he care how much I weigh?
He hasn’t really hurt me yet, but I’m frightened to death by all the strange positions and prisons he’s put me into.
Ah! I can feel the warm sun as he carries me into the sun. He puts me on my back on other open hands. But he’s still holding my legs.
I don’t feel any pressure on my legs now. Perhaps I can escape. Hooray! I’m flying again. I’m free. But why can’t I get this stupid band off my leg? What was this all about?
Birds may not be human, but they are sentient bird beings in the same world that humans inhabit. Attributing thinking and feeling to birds in human terms is risky.
But I couldn’t help imagining the bird’s perspective on being captured, recorded, and banded as we watched. Conservationists and even the U.S. government are extensively studying the birds for their own protection. Does this short term torture for the pretty songbirds lead to their long term protection?
Are we humans saving the birds? Will saving the birds save us?

I go away from home because it shakes up everything — my daily schedule, what I eat, what I do, who I talk to, and what I think about.
At home, I indulge my biological rhythm’s preference for sleeping. On my week at a Road Scholar wild lands restoration trip, I struggle to find sleep on a schedule set by others.
At home, I exercise daily doing mundane aerobics, yoga, weight lifting, and cardio on a machine that goes nowhere. Here, for my week at the Tetons Science School in Wyoming, I pull invasive weeds from around a captive swan pond, and hike around the pond recording bird houses and their occupants. Soon I will help researchers capture wild birds in mist nets and band them. I will also build bird perches along bike trails, and even untangle and remove old barbed wire fences so the wild animals can move freely.
Included in the activities are searching for wild great-horned owls, American pronghorn, bison, beaver, wolves, bears, and elk. Hikes in magnificent Grand Teton National Park and canoeing also fit into this week.
While every day and every activity is a learning experience, the evenings have lectures on the geology of Yellowstone, and bears and wolves. My learning curve is steep.
While my body heaves and sighs with the exertion of physical activities, my mind also works hard to grasp and keep up with the scope of what I’m experiencing.
The dedicated staff of the Teton Science Schools, a non-profit conservation and education facility in Jackson, Wyoming, bring a variety of interests and expertise in conservation. Their knowledge, lifestyles, personalities, and ages are part of what draws me here.
For example, B. can name just about any bird and mimic their dialects. He knows wild flowers, plants, and trees like the long time friends they are. He can calculate distances, compass directions, elevation, which sprays will kill certain weeds without killing nearby trees, and can hear the cries of two-day old wild baby mice whose nest has been disturbed. He searched on the ground until he found the four baby mice and tenderly replaced them where mom could find them. Yet, he is also an avid hunter who eats what he kills.
While my eyes see, his eyes observe so much more. While I have a vague sense of loving nature, B. truly loves, knows, and understands nature very personally. My love of nature is deep, but passive. I admire B.’s active relationship with the natural world.

I knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. I had to get to the airport at the crack of dawn. Since the airport I was traveling from is closed during the night, I was surrounded by all the other passengers starting off their day’s journeys.
This was the first time I ever had to pay a fee to check a bag — and I didn’t appreciate it. I had carefully measured and weighed that bag to make sure it was neither “oversized” nor “overweight.” One family of 3 hadn’t done that and they were trying without success to re-distribute their belongings. At least my uncomfortably hefty one bag went through.
I tried a new airline that definitely felt like Sardine Airlines. I swear that I saw a crowded can of sardines as I surveyed the passengers squashed 6 to a row with less than a seat’s width as the aisle. Since this was a plane to their hub in Denver, it was fully stuffed.
But at least I had a seat. The flight attendants looked far more awake than I. But I was disappointed at their appearances. Airlines used to pride themselves on their slim, pretty stewardesses. Their uniforms were fashionable, and their hair stylish. And that’s still true of the airlines out of Asia. While not exactly slovenly, the ones on this airline looked unkempt, unfashionable, old,and yes, even chunky.
When the plane started moving, there was an unusual sound and the air being pumped through my nostrils had a strange smell. I warily scanned the other passengers and my seatmates for sniffles and coughs. As always, there were whiny children and one crying baby most of the way. I rather envy  crying children on a plane because they are able to express their discomfort at being so uncomfortably imprisoned on a plane.
Sardine Airlines seems to be surviving financially because it overbooks, dresses their staff in cheap uniforms, and charges for just about everything. Want to check a bag? Want a snack? Want anything to drink other than the run of the mill? Want more legroom? Yep, you can have it, but at a price.
Usually I’m just grateful if a plane gets me where I want to go safely and reasonably on time. My standards have dropped very low. But not as low as their own staff’s lack of confidence. When I asked the lady at the desk when my already delayed connecting flight was scheduled for boarding, she replied with a sigh, “We never can be sure when the plane will come in.”
My connecting flight also had 6 seats across, but was thankfully less crowded. What a feeling of spaciousness when no one occupies the middle seat! Having started the day after only a few hours sleep, I solidly fell asleep.
It was a swift hour to my destination of Jackson, Wyoming, when the captain’s voice awakened me. I gasped at the sight glimpsed around the head of the person seated at the window. We were passing very close to those truly grand snow-topped Grand Tetons. When I was younger, I always took a window seat in a plane. But now I’ve switched to the aisle seat. That has certain benefits, but it was a mistake on the flight into Jackson that actually lands right in the National Park.
So, on this uncomfortable flying day, I have two strong memories. One is “almost” seeing those Grand Tetons while the plane was flying at the altitude of the mountains. The other was watching total joy as can only exist in a crawling baby who was delighted that the moving sidewalk in the airport kept moving even when he stopped crawling.
This week doing wild land restoration promises to be interesting and unusual — and a challenge. Since I should be sleeping instead of writing at this hour, I know tomorrow will be a sleepy one again for this dogged night owl.

It isn’t easy leaving Pleasantville. Where I live in southern California isn’t actually called Pleasantville, but may as well be. It’s such an easy place to live in the summer. The climate is not too hot or too cold. The evenings always cool down so one never has to stick to the sheets as I remember from my childhood in humid Massachusetts. There are no mosquitoes and black flies, and no rain.
But I am now packing to go on my way to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. With other seniors on a Road Scholar (formerly known as Elderhostel) trip, we will do a service project of wild lands restoration. Most of the above — cold, rain, many mosquitoes and black flies — are not only possible, but probable. I’m taking insect repellent and sunscreen, but I don’t know whether the insect repellent goes over the sunscreen, or vice versa.
How do you pack? For days prior to a trip, I use my second bedroom as a place to throw things on the bed that I think I need to take. Lists start appearing around the house as thoughts of what I should take or do pop into my head. It all starts out rather messy and then begins to take shape.
Although I’ve amazed myself by my packing prowess since I usually use just about everything I take, I have long admired those intrepid travelers who slip a simple carry-on over their shoulder and travel indefinitely. I’ve never been able to do that. As a Chinese friend commented looking upon the luggage I’d brought to China, “Chinese people adjust to the environment. Americans adjust the environment to suit them.”
Even though I’m more comfortable taking two smaller bags because I can handle the size more easily, this is the first time I’m taking an airlines that requires a baggage fee for every piece of luggage other than a carry-on. So, I bought a larger suitcase to combine in one what I usually put in two.
There are other requirements the airlines have decreed — the largest size for a suitcase before it is considered “oversized,” and a 50 pound limit on one bag before it’s considered “overweight” — both very pricey penalties. I’m not comfortable with one huge suitcase. It rolls, but is too heavy for me to pick up easily. And, since it can hold so much, there’s a danger of exceeding the 50 pound limit. For these among many other reasons, flying has become an ordeal to be endured.

No matter how many times I’ve traveled, each trip is a new packing challenge. But there’s another challenge whenever I leave Pleasantville. Depending upon how you look at it, I’m either an extreme night owl or half a vampire. After many years of insomnia and trial and error, I found that the sleeping time most compatible with my body rhythm is 4 a.m. ’til noon. At home in Pleasantville, my neighbors are all aware of this and respect it. I’ve scheduled my days to begin at noon. That doesn’t work anyplace else in the world, especially when I’m part of a group activity.  Away from home, I just have to be out of synch with my body.
Although there’s no place like home, sometimes itchy feet win out. And leaving makes the coming home more sweet.

Most of my world travels have been as a deaf mute. For many years I was mostly in situations where I could neither understand nor speak the language. While many travelers find this uncomfortable, I became used to it. Otherwise, I would have drastically limited the dimensions of my experiences. And it happened the other day without leaving my neighborhood.
As a member of our local community’s India Club, I received a notice about Spiritual Awareness Seminars. I was curious, so I went to one. Although I was physically entering one of our Clubhouse rooms, I was actually entering a little piece of India in America. What the notice had neglected to tell me was that the seminars would be in Hindi. So, I pretended that I was in India. I became an observer.
Many shoes were piled up along the walls. The ordinary room had been transformed by large blankets on the floor in front of two armchairs with some material thrown over them. There were small tables with a couple of pictures on it that each had a flower necklace around it. Candles and flowers were near the impromptu shrine.
Many East Indians sat effortlessly on the blankets in that cross-legged position I work so hard to do in yoga class. Behind them, others sat in chairs. Men and women sat separately. The display of saris was dazzling — so many styles and beautiful fabrics.
A seated man, who I assumed to be a priest of some kind, was leading in chants and songs. Then, when another man entered the room, all stood up, faced him, chanted while lightly clapping in unison and bowed as the man made his way to the front. His eyes flickered in surprise when he passed by me, the only non-Indian in the room. He said in English, “How do you do?”
All ages had gathered to hear him, so it was obviously not just our retirement community’s India Club. In fact, I saw no one I knew. I never did find out what group was sponsoring the series of seminars, but I believe they had invited wise men, perhaps gurus, from India to come speak to them.
The elderly man had a kind face wreathed in smiles. He sat comfortably in the other covered armchair, with one pillow at his back and one under his feet. From what I could determine, the seminar was a discussion rather than a lecture. People, usually the men, asked questions and the wise man answered. Sometimes after he said something, the whole audience responded in unison. More often, the people in the audience nodded their heads in agreement with what he was saying. It was obvious that what he was saying was important, but he said it with many smiles and laughter. The audience laughed often.
Like all bi-lingual cultures, a word or two would come out in English, sandwiched between Hindi. The English words I heard were “responsibility,” “liberation,” and “Variety is the spice of life.” Since I’m an English as a Second Language teacher, I listened to the Hindi and tried to put it together with the characteristic rolling of the words that makes their English so hard for us to understand.
I thought back to my almost 3 years living in Macau where there was a Bahai International School with some teaching staff from Goa, India, at that time. They were nice ladies, but almost impossible for the rest of us to understand. We felt very sorry for the Chinese students who had to learn English from the Indian English teachers.
In all my circles around the world, I never did go to India. I heard about its wonders and always listened enthusiastically to those who had traveled to India. I got a sense of the spirituality I had heard India offered from the time I spent in Bali, Indonesia.
Unlike most of Indonesia, the Balinese are Hindu rather than Moslem. There are connections between the Hindu religions of India and Bali. I have been to several religious ceremonies in Bali which are unique to that culture. The Balinese don’t understand the language used by the Balinese priests, so they just listen as the priest performs the rituals.
At the seminar, when the wise man wanted to emphasize a point, he would say something and have the audience repeat after him, then continue the sentence and have the audience repeat that. After more than 2 hours of the audience sitting very still, including those who had sat cross-legged the whole time, some people came forward to perform their parting ritual for the wise man. Some kneeled before him, and he patted their heads, their backs, and sometimes playfully slapped their faces.
Necklaces were also a part of the ending ritual as they put necklaces on him, and he then took off the same necklace and put it back on the one who had put it on him. The great respect of the audience for this man was obvious. People then clapped in rhythm as he walked among them saying something to everyone he passed on his way toward tables bearing absolutely the largest pots of food I have ever seen.
Of course, the seminar would have been far more interesting had I understood the language, but I felt a familiar feeling of having traveled somewhere new and fresh in those two hours. Becoming a part of another culture, even briefly, and even as a deaf mute, can be satisfying.