Saturday, November 3. The opening of the Viva event. I always have a little bit of trouble adjusting to Viva after such a powerful training retreat, going from that incredible feeling to suddenly being faced with many new faces. But I saw a number of my old friends, so that was great. The first thing I had to do was go get my books from Sheela’s car and set them up to sell, which I did by the honor system, with a note saying I trusted them. Then Sheela and Sue said a beautiful tone, and Judy Sedgeman opened the conference and it was the best I ever heard her speak. I had to do a breakout session with Sheela called “power of listening for beginners” and that seemed to go well. That afternoon for lunch I met Rudi and his new fiancé, Julianna. I had seen Rudy’s video of Julianna, which was powerful, but from the video I had a hard time seeing the two of them together. As soon as I met her I got it. She so nice and bubbly and has some wonderful spirit. We spent the lunch catching up and having a good time. That evening Gabriela and Rudi did a nice talk on “resilience is us” and then I went to a breakout session on “our innate health” with two of my students, Fredrik and Lise. I was so impressed with them; it just warms my heart to know that the Three Principles are in really good hands. I walked back to the hotel, took a bath, and went to bed.

Sunday, November 4. Unfortunately I have to miss the morning yoga sessions because it was at the other hotel and I wouldn’t have been able to get breakfast. I walked over to the event with Eimear. Mary Schiller did a nice talk on “creativity is our birthright.” Just as her talk was starting, though, I looked down and I saw some brown stuff on my sneaker. I wasn’t sure whether was mud or dog poop, but I had to leave the session to go into the bathroom and try to clean it off, which took quite a while. For the afternoon breakout session on “mental health” I worked with Fredrik, which was really nice working with him. He played some great fiddle music the night before. Man of many talents. After the afternoon break I was so tired, I didn’t even want to go back over to Viva but I noticed that Lise was doing another of her singing sessions and I just can’t miss that. And as usual, it was great. I have now gotten acclimated to Viva. Somebody pointed out to me that greeting cards were being sold on the table next to my books and one of them had my kind of well-known saying on it. I was a combination of very flattered, especially because it was very tastefully done, and wondered why I wasn’t asked permission. But I decided I probably would’ve given permission anyway.