By Robin Pierson, Special to the Independent
Five big-hearted and open-minded seekers will be traveling to India next month, visiting spiritual sites and delivering humanitarian aid.
Local Laguna residents Pam Wicks of the Neighborhood Congregational Church, Julien Kheymour, Susan Brown Madorsky and Everett Hoffman of Cleveland, Ohio, will join leader Tenpa Dorjee of Laguna Beach’s Tibetan Handicrafts shop. The group is gathering donations of winter clothes and shoes in good shape and for all ages, which they plan to distribute to Tibetan refugees living in exile in India.
On Saturday, Jan. 28, the store is hosting a Tibetan New Year’s celebration starting at 6 p.m. All are welcome to bring donations, sample Tibetan treats and visit with the travelers before their departure.
The group will first visit Auroville, a world meditation center in Southern India, where 2,000 people from 44 countries live in a sustainable community that strives to allow diversity to flourish.
They will travel next to the Bhandara Tibetan Refugee settlement, where they plan to take gifts of clothing and necessities to exiles which have fled oppression in China.
The group will stop at Rishikesh, a Ganges River spiritual center near the Himalayas. Known as the world capital of yoga, the city is vegetarian by law and plastic bags and alcohol are banned, while ganja, or marijuana, is legal and consumed in Hindu rituals.
The tour will culminate in Dharamsala, the residence of H.H. the Dalai Lama. The group plans to pay its respects to H.H., celebrate Tibetan New Year’s and distribute clothing to the Tibetan Children’s Village.
Donations can be dropped off at Tibet Handicrafts, 384 Forest Ave., Suite #5, near from the downtown Post Office.
For more information about the trip and how to donate, contact Tenpa Dorjee at (949) 715-1043 or Pam Wicks at (949) 573-7104.
