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c h aP t e r 15

M

y brother Christo was taking the fall term off from UC
Santa Cruz, to do a bicycling trip around California. He
was planning to go to Yosemite National Park first and
stay at the same hiker/biker campground where I’d stayed a year
earlier. Since I was headed out to Ananda Village near Nevada City (a
few hours north of Yosemite) he decided to start his trip from there.
My mom gave us both a ride from Ukiah over to Ananda, for us to
start our respective adventures. She dropped us off and hugged us
tearfully goodbye, wishing us both well on our very different jour-
neys. Christo took off on his loaded bike; and I hauled my few be-
longings into Ananda’s retreat center, my new home for a while.
There were only three others doing work exchange there for the
time being, and I was welcome to stay as long as I liked. Since I had no
future plans at that point, I assumed that I would stay there through
the winter. It was the best atmosphere I could have hoped for, given
my unsettling psychological condition. I worked about thirty hours
a week—helping out in the kitchen, watering the outdoor plants,
sweeping and scrubbing floors, washing the bathrooms, and other
odd jobs—in exchange for room and board. I lived in my tent across
the meadow from the retreat center for the first few weeks and even-
tually moved into a small room in a nearby trailer that housed the
other workers, as winter progressed and the nights chilled.
There were daily yoga classes at the retreat center, and I also start-
ed jogging regularly. Both of these activities proved to be effective in
bringing the Kundalini energy more into my body, thus helping me
to align with it. I generally shied away from their daily meditations,
but found that the simple tasks and chores I did around the retreat