Bir - Deer Park Institute

We have settled down into a nice little community in Bir, about 3 hours from Dharamsala, and another settled "colony" for the exiled Tibetans...

Our first night we stayed in a monastery guesthouse. Much to our chagrin is was quite uncomfortable. The only two places we haven't enjoyed staying in are in a Temple and a Monastery's guesthouses! Our second night we were offered a very cozy beautiful little room by the mother-in-law of a woman we met while eating breakfast (the establishment's owner)...It was almost perfect... we had her roof to ourselves, a large room, and separate bathroom, all basic but to us, very nice. One problem, no mattress! After one nearly sleepless night we decided to move to the plush posh Deer Park Institute which has become a rather pleasant enclave for us! We eat, study, do yoga, and sleep there. www.deerpark.in - From the website you can get a feel for the kind of place it is and the courses offered. I hope this place can grow in what it offers and the resources available to it. It has the potential to be a really powerful learning centre. So we have now moved into our nicest room in India to date! The food is fresh clean and delicious, especially lunch, and the rooms available for yoga, study, and prayer/worship/sitting are all very nice.
There are bells that chime according to the wind's direction on the corners of the roof of the main temple.
That is one of the views from our window.

We took a lovely, peaceful walk through the fields, past the farmhouses of families in the area, and up the forested hill which para gliders use as a base launching point (there are many many para gliders here right now as there is some kind of competition going on). Don't worry I am very content with staying close to the ground!

We feel as if we are seeing a part of India that was fabled, that was only a stroy to get us to come here. The children laugh and try talking with us or smile shyly. The women work hard in the fields yet always offer a smile as we walk past. The work looks very very demanding. It is their sole livelihood. But generally people are kind and relaxed (the older men seem to just hang out mostly). This is the "endangered" perhaps near-extinct quality or jewel of India, of the world, (I've often said to others how striking it was how brightly this jewel shone in Syria). It is too quickly being swallowed up by tricksters, desperation, lack, the powerfull. No time for simple enjoyment. It is sad what we have encountered in other places. But this contact comes in a place and time when we are in a place remarkably different from the so-called "typical India." In this small Tibetan colony many aspects of the sights, sounds, and culture are distinctly Tibetan. Older folks gathering at the new temple to hang out and pray together. All of them with spinning prayerwheels, and cushions, and mala (rosary) in hand. Lines of prayer flags hanging from the buildings, from the trees...and the most dramatic: the deep beating drums and intense swelling long trumpet calls of ritual and prayer coming from the areas magnificent monasteries. The sound contains the feeling of some arrival, some new apprehension...It enters one deeply, especially at 4:30 in the morning!

Will you believe us if I say that pictures are soon to follow?

Love to you all,
maybe some moment today you could offer up a smile to someone, anyone.