Across the river at Himalayan Acres, our recent hardwood plantings are growing steadily. As you may remember the whole monastery teamed up several months ago to get these little trees in the ground. They are mostly Koa trees, with Sandalwood interspersed among them. Because it can get rather windy here, each seedling has received a blue sleeve which will keep them protected. They also each have a square weed mat around them. This will ensure that they to not get overcome by the area's tenacious guinea grass.

On January 5th, 1983 on his 56th birthday, our beloved Gurudeva Sivaya Subramuniyaswami brought a sivalingam from Kauai Adheeanam and installed it in Kopay with his own hands. Gurudeva declared the lingam a "Shanthilingam." This temple was built by the youth of Sri Subramuniya Kottam in 1983. Satguru was with Gurudeva at that installation ceremony in 1983. After 32 years Satguru returned to the Shanthilingam Temple during his January 2015 pilgrimage to Sri Lanka. Satguru performed an arathi to the Shanthilingam and blessed the Kottam children and devotees. Most of the children's parents were the same Kottam youth who helped build the Shanthilingam Temple so many years ago.

Selvakumar and Meenakshi with their sons Seyon and Yohan enjoyed their visit to Kauai from Portland, Oregon.

We recently received this photo from our pilgrims in India. It is a picture of Toshadevi with a monkey at the Hanuman Temple in Pushkar. While there, Isani felt that one of the priests unknowingly channeled a message, meant just for them.