Pancake Brunches

My time in Jamnagar is coming to a close. We have finished all of our classes as a group and for the next week we will be allowed to visit the departments we are really interested in, or to spend time with the professor of our choice, to explore, more deeply, a topic.
I have chosen Dravyguna and will be spending three days with Dr. Patel who really loves plants. He is taking me and some of his other students out to the land that the University owns. He has a small clinic there where he sees the local villagers and treats them with Ayurvedic herbs. He has lived on this land with his family some years ago and has planted many of the healing plants and trees that are listed in the classic literature. It was there that I stood under the Haritaki tree and was bathed with grace. I later found out that Haritaki cleans all the srotas (channels) in the body. Yes, it does.

Two days will be spent with Dr. Ravi Shankar, so that I can do some more research on how to:
1. bring more organic herbs into the Ayurveda field
2. set up a department on Ayurveda for animals (which Swami Vishwananda is helping me with)
3. explore Vrikshayurveda (farming from the ancient texts), and last but not least
4. put together a plan for finding out how the villagers are using herbs to heal their animals
Huge projects. All this because I wanted to write a book on Ayurveda for Horses. (and now see where it's gotten me?)

My last day will be spent with Dr. S.H. Acharya, who is the head of the Pancha Karma Department here and is one of the most skilled Ayurvedic practitioners I have ever met. He is also the head of the Foreign Students program here at the University and I have visited his home several times. He will assist me in putting together a proposal for Ayush (the branch of standardization that has been formed to elevate Ayurveda in the world). Dr. Acharya will be visiting Sebastopol, CA in April and I have embarked on a plan to bring him to Vancouver, BC on April 2nd and 3rd. He will be giving a free lecture there. He is one of us...Contact yodih@shaw.ca or me if you want more information.

All of the other students will be leaving and going on small adventures before leaving India but I have started to do Pancha Karma with Dr. Acharya. I am on my third day of beginning the day by drinking melted ghee; today it was 75ml...mmmm....
I will be finished on February 10. I am doing all of this to bring some more movement to my knees.

When I leave Jamnagar, I don't have a clear direction as to where I'll go next. I am thinking I may return to Canada to live in Vancouver. I'm ready for home; although there is a tea planation in Assam that is using Vrikshayurveda that I will be visiting first. I can hear the heavy breathing of my magic carpet coming from the cupboard so I know that something is afoot.

And, oh yes, what does all this have to do with pancake brunches? you may be asking yourself and will she ever get to the point? Now.

Our class celebrated this ending yesterday with a pancake brunch in my room (our second such indulgence). I made pancakes and my famous scrambled eggs with cream cheese and chives (but the Indian version with green onion tops; equally as good). Gyaneshwar came to play his sitar and Yoshie, one of my classmates came to play her Indian instrument for us; beautiful haunting music. I took these photos while there were playing. Many of us spent the rest of day together; silently knowing that we were all resonating with a different melody that was being played on our heartstrings; a tune of sweet sadness; the music of separation. We went out into the city and In the late afternoon and early evening drank in the rickshaw rides and walks down the narrow streets in the Muslim section where we stopped at our favorite stand to buy spicy baked potatoes. We slowly moved as 'one' and, unlike the other times, where we would wander off by ourselves, the group made sure we could all spot each other as if there was a tender invisible rope that was keeping us all together. We are all good friends now.