Wow! What an incredibly weekend! I’ll tell you about some of it.

I pulled into Rati and Dwija’s lovely little house around 8:30. From then till 2am, we sat and talked. There was a break for the Damodarastikam, of course (it being the month of Damodar and all). Their deities are beautiful! Jaya Nitai-Gauracandra!

It’s sometimes strange to stay at a devotees house because of the weird “standards” issue. Every devotee has slightly different standards. Sure, we know of all the standards, these tiny rules and regulations we should be keeping, but usually those are anywhere from impossible to impractical. So, at the last minute, some devotees will try to implicate standards they don’t normally keep and it becomes this awkward and rather schizophrenic situation. That and it’s just lying.

Thankfully staying with them was nothing of the sort. I was comfortable and having a blast.

Often when talking with devotees, it’s hard to be honest. It’s hard to be yourself. But with them, I could just be me. I think it’s hard to relate what I’m exactly talking about here. I felt at home and at ease. Hey, thanks!

Like I said, we were up till 2am. It’s been since Seattle that I’ve been up that late just talking.

Saturday was Govardhana-puja. We woke up and continued discussions – it was like a summit! Discussing world problems, devotee problems, community problems. No real solutions, but addressing (and ranting) about the problems is a great first step, no?

Today was also the day I was to hang out some with Gokula and Kunji. I’ve known Gokula for eleven or twelve years now, though we’ve only recently been back in touch. Kunji is her ridiculously awesome four year old. I drove over to their apartment and passed a lovely afternoon. Kunji is into transformers, darth vader and vampires, which sounds oddly like a four year old version of me – throw in 80’s synthpop and you’ve got a match!

The evening was spent at the temple for the festival. I saw a few folks I recognized. Was thrilled to see Lila-suka Seva and Lotus – I wish I could have hung out more with all of them. Madhava Ghosh found me and that made for even more great conversation. I kind of live for that.

Ghosh doesn’t know this, but he was the first devotee I met on my first visit to New Vrndavana. He looked like this wildish West Virginian, and talked about Nrsmhadeva and the sphinx. It was wild and totally sold me on the place, I’ve been in love with it since then.

Saturday night, again up till 2am. Same deal.

Sunday, my all too sad last day, was again spent talking. More about solutions this time. You know, digging around for what Srila Prabhupada really wanted. I compared the ideal of Prabhupada’s vision for a community to an anarchist community. There is little, if any, difference.

It was from Sunday’s conversations that a lot of ideas formed. It was a pretty big day for lots of reasons. More on that later. Some of it anyway.

There was a lot that I didn’t get to do and I really wish I could have stuck around for longer. Heck, I didn’t even buy gamshas! Hardly what I’d call a wasted weekend, of course. But much too short.

New Vrndavana dhama ki jaya!