I awoke to the news that Ram Das had passed from his physical body. While I wasn’t a devotee, I am a lover of him and his story and life. He tried the quick way of enlightenment through experimentation with hallucinogens yet found beneath the mind-expansion of such substances a vast space that opened through meditation and through love. Or at least that’s my understanding. That’s what titrated out of what I know of him.

When I read the news I searched other related stories and that led me to Krishna Das music, which I enjoy through my yoga practice. And then Girish, who is another favorite. And Sean Johnson…then I pulled out my yoga mat which has had very sporadic use since I moved a month ago.

As I stretched and opened I felt the prayers come forth from deep within. Prayers of love, gratitude, compassion…that’s what yoga is to me. Praying with my body and mind and spirit. Opening. Unfolding. Allowing.

During my asana practice I reflected on the ultimate experience to which I compare all other yoga experiences. I was on a boat anchored 90 miles off the coast of the Dominican Republic surrounded by humpback whales. Magic. Pure Magic.

I arose before sunrise each morning, before putting on the wetsuit and using an underwater camera kit to connect with whales. With yoga mat in hand I climbed to the open deck where stars were brilliant and the moon shimmering on the surface of the ocean. That particular morning as I prayed with my body, mind and spirit the whales came closer…so close that their fishy breath was drifting across me as it glowed in the moonlight.

Affirming the connection to all life, to the stars, the sea, the whales, I felt engulfed in a purple flame and still the humpbacks came closer. We were connected through that spiritual kinship of limitless light.

This morning in the loft I was there, in the ocean with the whales and stars. Gratitude filled me as I sat in stillness. The vision of a white humpback whale swimming in a sky of stars over mountains returned as it has over the past several months preceding the move back to the Appalachians.

The settling in, the anchoring and grounding into my new home progresses and as the final boxes were unpacked this weekend I found myself anxious to deepen my spiritual practice and allow the flow of Universal Laughter to echo through my being.

Go brightly Ram Das. Thank you for reminding me to be here now. Thank you for your dedication to Love. May you dance among the stars surrounded by the essence of Life.