Dear Friends:

March is here.  Down in Australia Autumn has begun.  It is getting cooler and cooler.  It really wasn't much of a summer this year. 
It rained a lot. 
The weather and climate has been strange all over the world.  Earthquakes, fires, floods etc. 
Kali Yuga, the age of destruction, is here. 
Maybe the earth needs to cleanse herself from all the impurities man has bestowed upon it.

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It has been a couple days now. Earthquake has struck Japan causing a tsunami of such intensity that it wiped out much of the coastal towns. The world watched in horror.  My eyes have been glued to the news.

And thank you for all those who wrote to me asking if my family, dancers and I were OK. I am in Adelaide and am just finishing the Adelaide Fringe. I did get in touch with those in Japan.  All were shaken but fine.  Japan may have been ready for the earthquake but the massive tsunami came within minutes giving no warning nor time for anything.  And worst of all the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster is hovering over us. Natural disaster may be devastating but I think it is easier to handle than man-made disaster of a possible nuclear meltdown.

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Next month we will be putting on a new show, "The Nighto of the Milky Way Galaxy"  (Gingatetsudou no Yoru) based on the famous story by Kenji Miyazawa.  He was from Iwate Prefecture and much of his stories are about life and death as is the Milky Way Galaxy.  2 lovers journey together through the universe on a train going through the Milky Way Galaxy stopping at different stations and encountering various characters.  At the final station, the Southern Cross, Giovanni turns to Campanella and says "We will journey together for evermore."  But then when he turns around she is gone.  Giovanni wakes up and finds that Campanella had drowned in the river. He looks up and see a bright red star shining in the sky and knows that it is her.

Kenji Miyazawa was fascinated with life and death and so am I. 
Life is a journey towards death, a lovely journey.
And death is just the final station on the Milky Way Galaxy. 
And  we don't know what  awaits us beyond.

But we must go on.