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August 04, 2009

Salt Spring Centre Paradise

Parked the car on the grass, diagonally, and got out to walk towards the main house along the gravel road. It was at least 30 degrees. Chanting and drumming rang out across the fields,which would have been otherwise silent with heat.
It has been a long time since I'd been to the Salt Spring Center and it must have been around this time of year, 10 years ago.
I was in heaven wandering around the huge garden taking in the explosion of colour of the dahlias and sunflowers and snapdragons. Just wandering into the greenhouses and with my camera it was a paradise.

I then saw a water feature, a long waterfall that was directed down from a temple and I amused myself trying to capture the water in a way that was unusual.


About that time I noticed a man. He was working doing some cement work on a little temple.
So, I wandered over towards him and started asking him some questions. He was so incredibly friendly. He took a break, patted the spot beside him and asked me to sit and talk to him. It turns out that he was a professional photographer who worked inadvertising and shot for Vogue magazine and when I told him I'd started a Meet-up photography group he said, Oh, you're that person! He told me the name he uses when at the centre and it was something like Raganathu or something but his given name is Rodney.

It was a really lovely interaction. When I came home I googled him. Turns out that he's written a vegetarian cookbook related to the Centre. Once again, when you meet people on this island, you can never know what it is that they really do or have done or are capable of in one of their many transformations.

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