Saturday, October 31st, 2015

Saturday, October 31^st, 2015

Port Royal, Pennsylvania

Got To The Farm

Pandu, a father of six from the local area, decided to try to trek for a few hours.  We were all bundled up to address the 28 degree Farenheit temperature.  Moving upwards on an ascending road caused us to sweat to pieces and before long took off as many clothes as we had put on. 

Pandu covered a good 15 miles with us, which included a walk through one of those iconic east coast covered bridges.  Then, we all came to another milestone for this walk, the place called Gita Nagari Yoga Farm, a rural haven.  Here we were greeted by earnest kirtan performers, the young, old, and the strong.  Among them was Nandi, a young man from New Zealand and a tender to the bulls.  He brought along a massive one, a brown Swiss breed, to be part of the greeting. 

Our greeters followed our walking troupe all the way to the country-style temple of Radha Damodar.  It became a lively spiritual procession.  The bull also came along and even performed a dance step to the best of his ability. 

Also, since yesterday, we gained some unique company in the form of a cat who tagged along by our side for two miles.  Who the owner might be, we had no clue, so we allowed him to join the crew.  He became our fifth team player.  This predominantly black cat was sweet and lovable.  He would hardly make a sound.  That evening we were determined to leave him at the farm but in the morning as we were packing and setting ourselves up for the day’s trek, he requested us in his own way to be ‘one of the boys’.  We even gave him a name, Raj, which means ‘king’.  Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your relative outlook, during a segment of our stepping along on this quiet back road, his majesty got distracted, left us, and was not to be seen again.  He’s entitled to his own adventures, after all, he is the king. 

Two women from the Gita Nagari community joined us for the last leg of our walk.  One of the ladies narrated her story, that when she was young she had contemplated suicide. At one point she was preparing herself to jump from a high elevation.  Now, she had been following Buddhism and she had heard that Buddha was an incarnation of Krishna.  At that critical moment, she made a plea to Krishna within herself calling for help.  She decided against giving up, sought some followers of Krishna, stayed with them, and never left. 

Good girl!  Stick with it and don’t follow the path of Raj, the cat. 

May the Source be with you!

21 miles / 33 km