when you come to india, the first thing you notice is the country bursting with life.  there are people and animals everywhere.  the cities are overflowing with breath and movement.  energy contained in some sort of chaotic dance.  and alongside the vibrancy is the stark contrast of the crippled, the aged, the sick.  still, a reminder of the cycle of life.  the juxtaposition of the full and the empty, the light and the dark, always confronts my american ease with taking life for granted.  it also reignites my curiousity of all that is spiritual and intangible.  of late, it has been the idea of reincarnation or of people having a history of more than what they seem.  let me explain…

today, i met a very young bharatnatyam dancer named jyotsna.  she is only 8 years old.  my american self would say she is a child prodigy.  my indian self would say she is a 40 year old dancer’s soul reincarnated.  most dancers spend a lifetime to get the amount of spirit and heart-centered emotion to come through in their dancing.  for her, it is simmering always ready to spill over into her audience’s heart.  at practice today, she captured mine.  what is of course most incredible is that while she is talking to you about ancient hindu mythology, it comes through the tenderness of an 8-year old girl, but with the depth and subtlety of a 40-year old woman.  there is no way that this is the first time she’s come to us on this plane.  her soul has made plenty of trips and i feel very blessed to have met her.

"jyotsna" is sanskrit for moonlight.  it is only appropriate that such a being has such a name.  she has gently illuminated a path for me to remember that life is cyclical and ongoing and that time is only man’s way of building a frame for understanding this earthly journey. 

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