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This journal is about the life of Katalin Koda, founder of the rubybleu foundation. It includes new information regarding the foundation and the work she is doing in South India.

   

Saturday, May 01, 2004

Hey all… Firstly, let me wish you a joyous May Day, Beltane that is, and for those of you old friends, just think back to Come As Your Madness and you’ll be refreshed. For everyone else, let your hair down and your hips swing on this newest day of Pagan summertime. It is a time of retrieving your sexuality and letting her out to air. I’ll be painting with eggshells and doing a wild dance on the roof under moonlight tonight to honor the Goddess and her welcome compatriot, the God of Fire and Light.

I am finally back in sweet, soft Varkala and feel like I never left. The timeless ocean just lulls one back into the effortless life of Being. Of course, Leon’s magical garden helps with its glorious multitude of greens, brilliant red and orange flowers and an outgrowth of radishes. They’re huge! And so is Goba, our dog. She’s gone into heat so we’re a bit wary of her lifestyle these days—no puppies for her! We have several guests now: recent ashramites…somehow we seem to attract the Sivananda yoga people after each Teacher Training Course and Yoga Vacation ever since I did my course at Neyyar Dam. There seems to be a sort of special karmic connection which keeps yoga alive and steady on our rooftop twice a day. I’m eating fresh fruits and doing my own special yoga as well. Since I am now almost fourteen weeks pregnant, (yay!) I’ve started modifying my practice.

The States was a really intense whirlwind of Doing for me. I taught a Reiki workshop in San Francisco. Two of my students I knew, one an old friend, miss Emily Becker and another a new friend from my teacher training at Sivananda, Camron. The workshop went really well. It was an all day intensive that included the four attunements for Reiki One as well as working with the Reiki healing technique with a look at the Chakra System. My students said I looked like a cherub in all white, young and wise. The class was held at the SpiralMuse house in San Francisco and I encourage any of you who live in the Bay area to swing by and check it out. It is a house full of incredible, powerful women who are bursting at the seams with creativity and out to truly change the world. For the rest of you, who are far from SF, check them out at www.spiralmuse.com Women connecting more women...

I traveled back to the east coast where I spent time with family and friends and working furiously on the third draft of my novel: Slade: The Seven Nuances. Starting the work at Grandpa C’s on his ancient computer, continuing at my dearest friend Desiree’s apartment in Brooklyn where the clouds were gray and the city pulsed earth gone urban under my feet, I finally finished the work back at my parent’s. I sent the manuscript off, the entire 468 pages, to an editor’s desk in New York and hope to hear from him in the next six months. New York was cold and ancient, seeping her sparkly, chaotic rhythm back into my blood, but fainter this time. I have spent so many days walking the streets that city in the past but this time I heard her only softly. I guess I’ve become too addicted to the nature. Although, the city did reawaken my passionate urge to paint which I am now doing in my studio in Varkala: female figures, layers and inks. I also found out I was pregnant in New York, and smile remembering the look on Desiree’s face as I told her. Through all her tiredness of surviving in the city, creating in the off hours, a wondrous glow spread across her face that surely mirrored mine.

My parents were wonderful to see and I also had the rare treat of visiting with my aunt and cousins from Riverside. We spent some time in D.C. at the art museums and had some lovely meals together. I managed to see my oldest friend Bridgette and present her with her wedding sari that I bought here, in India. She picked out the one she wanted from my digital pictures and I chose it with care in the sari shop. We dressed her up in it and she looked AMAZING. Her wedding will be a special day. Other dear friends graced my days, and I had some good times over tapas with Regina and Lauren and looking at ancient Buddhas with Craig. The time was short, fleeting and I felt I had to rush back to California before I’d barely had a chance to tap into that deep level of familial love and friendship with the people that I care so much about.

Back in Cali, I held the second Rubybleu Foundation fundraiser with the help of Matthew, Emily and Melissa. It was held at Matthew’s cottage where we sold his gorgeous pottery and some lovely fabrics that I brought from India. The affair was rather small, as many people were busy on Easter weekend, but we managed to raise over seven-hundred dollars, mostly due to the generous contribution of the Boddum family. The Rubybleu Foundation IS growing and we now have plenty of money to contribute to our next project. Also, we’ve launched our new website! Check it out at www.rubybleu.org. The website was designed and created by Jennifer from www.chaotech.com. She has been extraordinary in getting this up for us, feeling the vision from across the globe and manifesting it to the best of her ability. I admire her and strongly recommend her if you are in need of a website. Stay tuned because the website will be updated in the next couple of weeks. I also signed up on www.blogger.com where you can find this letter and my upcoming blog entries at www.rubybleu.blogspot.com

After running like crazy for five days in Cali, including a wild, freaky dance party that my body much needed, I left San Francisco in mid-April and traveled back to Asia to spend a week with my sister in Malaysia. She has been living in Kuala Lumpur for the past year and we had a fabulous time trekking about the city. The food is excellent, truly divine and I got my fill of seafood, tofu and sauces to die for. The people are incredibly mixed: Malay, Chinese and Indian with over ten-thousand ex-pats and the intermingling over the years has resulted in an interesting masala of humans. They seem really open and my sister has several friends that are locals as well as ex-pats. She is doing marketing work and enjoying the high life of great food, a nice apartment and cool clubs for very little money. We also spent a day in Malaka, a major port city that was inhabited by the Dutch for some time. The hundred-year old quaint Chinese houses were wondrous, as I have never spent any time in Chinese culture besides Chinatowns in the U.S. Red lanterns, lucky cats, a couple of gorgeous Chinese boys and some pop music had me feeling like we had found our way into our own version of Lost in Translation. Again, we had more excellent food. We enjoyed a savory, peanut, sweet and spicy sauce that sat simmering in the middle of our aluminum table where we dipped in kabobs of fresh vegetables, tofu and shrimps. It was one of the best meals of my life! I had a fabulous time in Malaysia before heading back to my simpler life in India.

Overall, the trip was very exciting. I was overjoyed to find out I am pregnant and glad to be back in my home where I can cook my own foods, swim in the ocean, do my yoga and watch my belly swell. Funnily enough, I have very little fears concerning this child. I do feel he is a boy and am excited for his arrival. We will most likely birth the child in an excellent hospital that is less than an hour away. It is one of the best hospitals in Kerala and, unlike Western hospitals, has a much calmer feel to it. My gynecologist is the same woman who will also deliver the baby, no matter what time of night he is born. Unlike the west, there are less machines, less that feeling of a state of emergency that seems to pervade labor and delivery floors in the west, and an overall, sunny attitude. And they have all necessary equipment there if needed. I feel less attached to the birth this time. I would love to have a home birth and would like to put out there, that if anyone does know a midwife that would be willing to come to India for a few months to deliver my baby, I am open to this option. But the most important thing is this baby’s life journey which I hope is a lot longer than Rubybleu’s. I feel he is a quiet, dreamer, brilliance hovers as his life grows inside.

I encourage all of you to come for a visit when you can. I am continuously teaching Reiki and welcome new and old students. I am also working on my next book about my experiences with Reiki and the Chakra System. Yoga, art and new ideas are encouraged here along with great food and of course, Yemaya, the sea Goddess who rises endless, searing her vast, infinite beauty across my soul. As I said, we are seeking our next project for the Rubybleu Foundation and are open to any suggestions that you may have. We are also in need of someone to care for our Foundation on the western side of the world. This work would involve receiving and keeping track of donations and mailing in our minutes bi-annually. It should not be too much work, but we cannot, as yet, pay anyone for their time. If you are interested, please contact me at sister_fireheart@yahoo.com

I want to send some shout outs to all of you who welcomed me to sleep and live in your homes: Moses, Emily, Mom and Dad (of course), Desiree and Beth. A big thank you to SpiralMuse for hosting my Reiki workshop and for truly making the world a better place. Thanks to Jennifer for designing our website…how many times can I thank you for such art? I thank the Boddum’s for giving so much to our cause and Matthew for hosting our lovely little get together. Thanks to Mary Richerson for supporting the Foundation so much, for running around to the bank and doing all those nasty little paperwork jobs that make Rubybleu an incorporated organization. Thank you to all of you who have given your time and money to the Rubybleu Foundation, given us the wonderful little gifts that make us smile and have supported us with all your help. Keep smiling and keep making art cuz our little planet needs all the beauty she can get!

Much love to you all,
Peace,
Katalin

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