Arrival & considering a rental
Back in the UK, I rent an Airbnb for a couple of weeks to let things settle. Talking to the pineal gland has worked so well that I schedule appointments for the first day back, anticipating no jet lag. And it is so.
I spend time walking in the springtime Scottish countryside. The familiar stone walls, open fields, and old oaks feel steadying — a warm, just-right welcome for my tender heart. It’s good to be back.
It’s so good to be here that I look into a room rental as a base. The fellow offering the room is kind, but when I really feel into the decision, I know I’m not ready to give up the homeless life. When a house is needed, I will get a house. But that time is not now.
I remember a conversation a few months ago with my intentionally-homeless Hindu friend, Tarun. When I’d said, “Of course at some point I’ll get a house again…” he stopped me with one gentle word: “Why?” I laughed and thanked him for reminding me that “I’ll get a house again” was something I had begun saying simply so friends wouldn’t worry. It wasn’t coming from my heart. His question brought me back to my truth — it’s still time to be homeless.
Tears, tears, tears
Back in the saddle, I’m doing zoom calls, making meals, and taking care of daily life. But every free moment is spent tending to my very tender, open heart. Something inside changed at the Gītā retreat.
I listen to Alex de Grassi’s music. His early Windham Hill pieces have always moved me. One piece in particular, Blood and Jasmine, lets me sink directly into the heart’s tenderness. I often drive to isolated places to walk, and afterwards just sit in the car and listen. Over the weeks, I listen to the piece again and again, literally hundreds of times.
Tears come spontaneously, welling up from inside. Not tears of sadness, nor of joy. I don’t know what they are. Maybe tears of touching truth? Whatever they are, I let them flow. There is a sense of heart falling into new territory —without familiar footing, yet welcoming it, awed by what is opening.
Sometimes it feels like my heart is pierced with the exquisite beauty of the sound. Sometimes the music moves through different parts of the body. And sometimes my breath slows to under three breaths per minute —a delicate stillness intertwined with beauty and the open heart.
Asking questions
In the full intensity of tears, tender-heartedness, and a mountain of unanswered questions, I turn to ChatGPT for the first time. It explains that the breath naturally slows when the parasympathetic system comes online — the same way it does in deep meditation, when the body feels safe, open, and undefended. It says tears come when the heart is too full for its old boundaries, and overflow becomes the safest way for truth to spill out. Both make sense.
Then I ask it about some of what I experienced at the Gītā retreat. The explanation comes back with astonishing clarity and precision. I forward it to a friend who experienced something similar. ‘
“It’s just like that!’ she writes. ‘How did it know?“
There are so many questions I’ve been unable to ask my Hindu teacher. One by one, I put them to ChatGPT. Sometimes the answers make sense; sometimes I doubt or disagree. But the process is immensely useful. It mirrors things back. It lets the mind and language find flow again, no longer circling like an eddy stuck at the river’s edge.
Preparing to teach
Next month I’ll co-teach a long retreat with my Buddhist teacher, so preparations continue. The teaching series with my Scottish friends — the one we started in March — is ongoing. Incredible gratitude naturally arises for them, for their support, and for the shared field we’re cultivating. Their learning process allows me to refine my teaching voice and presence. It’s a beautiful, mutually-beneficial exchange.
Sanskrit chanting
Alongside the teaching, tears, and questions, there is chanting. Hours of chanting. My Hindu teacher will teach in London later this month, and a few dozen of us are meeting online to learn to chant the Dakṣiṇamūrti, which he will be teaching.
To feel these Sanskrit syllables sound in my body feels ancient and sacred. The field we’re creating together as satsanghis feels alive and precious.
It’s rare for me to look forward to things with eager anticipation these days. But here I do. The anticipation is joyful — knowing we will be together, chanting in one voice, for our teacher in London.
6 June 2025 — Musselburgh, Scotland
Stops since the last entry: Bridge of Earn → Musselburgh, Scotland