Jatipura, India

A mellow day here at the Hill. Another round of goodbyes as Shari, Alexandra, Sharon and Jules bid their farewells and continued down their respective roads. The moon is almost full today so the pilgrims were flooding the circumambulatory paths of the Govardhan parikrama. I missed it but the big news on that front was of a large group (estimated at 500 to 1000 pilgrims) were with their Guruji doing a collective dandavat parikrama, or a circling of the sacred hill one body length at a time, laying themselves down, marking their progress with a stone (or stick), then getting up to put their feet at that spot and lay down again—circling the entire 21 kilometer circumference of Shri Govardhan one body length at a time. An amazing sight under any circumstance, more so with hundreds doing it as a group. Half our group went to enjoy the experience and came back radiant. The Guru, whose name I did not catch but is part of the Vallabhkul Pushti Marg lineage, invited Premdas to come and sit and talk for a while, which was an honor and a joy in its own right. Just another day of miracle and wonder on the Govardhan Hill…

Me, I was slacking. I never did really have jet lag on this journey, but last night I kept awaking in the middle of the night, so I wanted to catch up on some rest. Several of us got into a good substantive exploration with Vallabhdas—director of the fledgling Shyamdas Foundation—around the needs, challenges and specifics of trying to collect, archive and find ways to share the voluminous Shyamdas audio (and to a lesser extent video) archives. Sounds easier than it is, but we have to start somewhere. As one of the larger holders of Shyam audio archives from my eight years playing (and recording) with him, this is of real relevance to me, so I am happy to be getting into the weeds a bit on this project.

Tomorrow, my plan is to go down to Sadhu Maharaj’s Munger Raj Mandir in Vrindavan and sing some kirtan with him, then hopefully find a decent harmonium to buy before heading back to the Hill…