Jayanatha gives his report on the ground: "Our trip has been busy so far. We landed in LA at 9:30pm and waited until 10:20pm for the bus service to our nearby hotel. There we checked in and slept for a few hours, waking up at 3:00am to catch our next flight to Denver. Flying east, we soon reached the sunrise. The cloud layer was thick below us and above the only visible sights through the upper atmosphere were the moon and Venus (?). Then a breathtaking sunrise. After landing at the Denver airport we made our way to our next gate. The closer we got, the smaller the airport became. The ceiling lowered, the walls closed in and the cowboy hat density increased. We were in the right place! We boarded a tiny plane which flew us a sleep-deprived, semi-conscious hour southeast to Midland, Texas. We then checked into our hotel and fell fast asleep for three hours before waking up to go to the Interfaith event. It went well and people really liked Acharya's well-prepared material."

Larry Payne, Ph.D. is an internationally respected yoga teacher and back specialist. The L.A. Times named Larry "One of America's most respected Yoga teachers". He co-authored Yoga Therapy Rx, Yoga for Dummies and The Business of Teaching Yoga. Larry is founding president of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, founder of the Corporate Yoga program at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the first Yoga teacher to offer Yoga classes at the World Economic Forum, co-founder of the yoga curriculum at UCLA's School of Medicine, and the founding director of the new Yoga therapy certification program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Larry and his group of yoga workshop attendees have been coming to the monastery for many years.

The monastery has been working on upgrading its hurricane protection system for some time. The Siddhidata Kulam is suiting up and battening down the hatches on the project. Soon all 200+ vulnerable windows and openings we have around the main building will be hurricane-proof. This is a huge job and requires months of planning.