The next summer a couple from Toronto contacted me and wondered if I would be willing to cover for them for three months during the winter while they went to Mysore. I had practiced next to him every day in Mysore the previous season and he knew my practice. I told them I would. They paid for my ticket to Toronto. The only catch was that I had to convince customs that I was only staying for a week, and they were going to buy me a separate ticket for the return in the spring.

After I returned home, I was still going to go to Victoria for a month during the winter. On November 11th, 2011, a full moon, there was an earthquake in Montana. A friend of mine who had disappeared ten years earlier showed up on this day. He was walking by the house and a guy who lived downstairs recognized him and invited him in. It was strange. He would not tell anything about where he had been the past ten years. He seemed like he was in mourning, and I found out that hi

After arriving back in Missoula from Victoria that spring, I wanted to reassimilate myself into the community. I had not been running into any old friends, so I decided to join the Food Co-op. I thought since it had been six years since I had made the blunder of outing myself that everyone would have forgotten about it. But while I was shopping at the Co-op, I ran into the woman who managed the yoga studio, I smiled at her and said hello. She gave me a malicious look and turn

During the summer there are wildfires and the air in town becomes very polluted with forest fire smoke. I kept going about my business, but my lungs were filling up with fine particulate. When I drilled the hole, I became aware the gossip about me was not merely I was gay, but that I was sleeping with young boys. The source of this was due to when the police started treating me as a suspect and started sending a young boy to try and get me to allow him into my room. It was if

I was still addicted to the anxiety medication and the Kirtan Woman told me to get off it or never call her again as I was speaking completely irrationally to her over the phone. The woman whose mother lived here invited me to Maui for three weeks over Christmas. I went and was able to stop taking the medication. I continued doing my practice, but it was difficult. It continued to get more difficult until a year later my bowels became blocked again and I made an appointment t

I stayed in touch with the LA Woman via Skype as it had become my M O to have a cyber social interaction with a woman. I told the Kirtan Woman myside of the story and hoped she would clear my name in the yoga community. Trying to reverse gossip with the truth is like trying to herd cats. There is no way it is going to happen. Sharath was going to be in UCLA and the LA Woman invited me to attend. I thought it would allow me to clear up gossip. It was a Led Primary by Sharath i

Finally, he built a huge Shala which was as big as the ones he taught in when he toured. In 2020 I tried again to register, but still didn’t get through. The LA woman did, and I found that I could practice in the afternoon in his new Shala with one of his students named Heidi from Finland. The LA woman immediately contacted the Kirtan Woman and told her I was coming. She wanted to know what instrument I was bringing and told her a sitar. I wanted to take sitar lessons from th

That spring I spent about four hours a night hacking up garbage out of my lungs. I thought at first it was grass pollen but am confident now it was particulate from the air in India. I had taken a respirator with me and wore it when I was riding in the auto rickshaw. I was so concerned about my lungs I made a doctor’s appointment, and he x-rayed my lungs, and it came back that I had COPD or Chronic Obstructed Pulmonary Disease. I shared this with the LA Woman, and she essenti