Nayaswami Blue

Sunday service yesterday saw David and Asha in the beautiful blue of the new Nayaswami order. While the general swami robes are entirely blue, the ones for service were blue on white, similar to the yellow on white of the other lightbearers. Correction: Once they have their full blue habits, that's what they'll wear for service as well. The blue and white just looked so nice that I didn't realize it wasn't the final version! Anyway, have a look:

Gardening Seva

Do you like gardening? Do you want to help make the grounds around our temple even more beautiful? Sahadev leads volunteer workdays for a variety of gardening-related projects on the first Saturday of each month (and occasional other times, too). It's a great way to spend time with your gurubhais and channel a lot of good energy in Master's service.

I've only been to a few of these so far, myself, but already I've gotten to help transplant small trees and shrubs, harvest pumpkins, plant vegetable seeds, and defend various plants from strangling morning glories. This past Saturday, Karen, Betsy, and I helped spread mulch around all the garden beds along the El Camino side of the temple and yoga studio. Mulch may not sound super exciting, but it was immensely satisfying, and made the beds all look much more neat and tidy.

If you're interested in joining in on any of this, just email Sahadev and ask to get on his email list. No prior experience necessary -- just bring your thumb and he'll find a way to make it green for you.

Filming Swami in Italy

There's a spiritual TV station in Italy called Anima, and they were out at Ananda Assisi recently to film Swami Kriyananda. The film crew had planned on taking about 7 days for the project, but as you might expect, Swamiji sailed through it all in 3 days, nailing one perfect take after another. And this included filming at different locations, having Swami hike around the Assisi hills (which he couldn't have managed a year ago!) and more.

Swamji was very impressed with the interviewer and his insightful questions, and said that having such a person to relate to really helped him give beautifully expansive answers.

I'm assuming this was all done in Italian.... Actually, I just found out that this will be in English. Even though the TV station is Italian, they're deliberately aiming at a wider audience, so they'll just subtitle it in Italian locally. I, for one, would happily have read English subtitles if that's what we had, but it's good to hear that they're thinking big. It should be wonderful.

Trick or Treat!

The Ananda Community kids got together for Halloween festivities last night, and trick-or-treating around the community. Heather got a few photos of them to share (see more here).