Winter Tour 2009: Atlanta GA and New Year's Celebrations

In the night of December 30th, the Winter Tour arrived once again in Atlanta GA. This time around, our host was Aunty Ruby, who had hosted the Christmas Puja a week before. She had an abundance of food waiting for us, and we all tucked in with great gusto. Most of us felt too tired to sleep, but sleep we did, for we still had one last day of the Winter Tour the next day!

The last day of 2010 dawned brisk and chilly. It started out in an amazing way, though, with a realisation given at 6:00 am at the Marta train station! It just goes to show that opportunities present themselves everywhere, it really is up to us to recognise them, and act upon them!

After morning meditation and breakfast, the Winter Tour participants together with some local yogis went forth to tackle the greater Atlanta area (Decatur, Alpharetta and Dunwoody), again focusing on malls, strip malls and retail outlets. The reception in Decatur seemed particularly positive: people were so receptive in that area that pretty much whoever the yogis talked to got their realization.

This was New Year's Eve, though, so by the time 5pm rolled around, most places were closing or closed. We all returned to Aunty Ruby's buoyed by having given over 60 realizations and having distributed over 1000 flyers.

We then turned our attention to celebrating the New Year.

There were immense vibrations...


... followed by much singing and dancing to usher in the new year:

Two qawwalis in particular were sang with great gusto -- Meri Mata Ka Karam and Chalat Musafir -- to the enjoyment and participation of all present.

By 2:30am our energy finally petered out, and 3am saw most of the household fast asleep, with snores a-plenty! The next day held a long drive back to Indianapolis, so we couldn't sleep in too late, unfortunately!

(Many thanks to Gaurav for contributing to this write-up!)