I was looking for some images to use in a project and came across a folder of photos I’d taken in America in 2015. I had been accompanying a spiritual teacher on a series of events in Northern California and some of my photos were randomly taken in places whose location I no longer recall. 
This quote from Maya Angelou was on the wall of a modern church – one of those independent churches that was roomy and filled with light. Pictures with quotes on them like this one were scattered all over the walls, which is all I can remember of my time spent there.
For all the thinking we do,
Love is always the solution,
however or whenever
or wherever it shows up.
On another day after a weekend mountain retreat in a modest yoga centre, where we slept in tiny individual log cabins surrounded by pine trees and a rushing river, we visited the Ananda Centre, an international Yoga centre on a much grander scale . Set in Nevada City, it is part of a vast estate flanked by the tallest of trees. Nothing modest here, including the vision of it’s founder, the somewhat controversial Indian monk, Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga to America in the 1920s and is known for his deeply inspiring book, Autobiography of a Yogi.
The architecture of the sacred buildings and the almost sculpted gardens give you a sense of peace and majesty. I would like to have stayed there, not to have taken part in one of the intense yoga courses, but to walk amongst the trees and sit on a terrace in the tiered gardens, or round the little pond overlooked by a modest stone Buddha. I am reliving this visit as I type and a sense of the trees, soft light and space settles in my heart, heightened by the atmosphere engendered by a place dedicated to spiritual practice.
On a blustery January afternoon, six years and thousands of miles away from my physical visit, the gift of this memory rises up at the perfect moment, becoming an antidote to the world “out there”. 