Welcome to Vrindaban!

I was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. Just after high school I found myself developing a keen interest in pursuing the religious path of the Gaudiya Vaisnavas (known in the west as "Hare Krishna"). After finishing a bachelor of Fine Arts degree (how are you going to make a living with that?) around 1994, I moved to Columbus, Ohio with the band I sang for at the time, Pretty Mighty Mighty. After 6 months I moved into the all-girls ISKCON temple (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Columbus, where I served as Temple Commander, Temple treasurer (not for me!), and Kirtan/Harinam leader (leading singing in the temple and outside). I later was invited to join the traveling festival of Indradyumna Swami on the Baltic sea coast of Poland as a lighting technician, and Theater director. I joined the band on the tour, a very cheesy reggae band called "Village of Peace", as the back-up singer. With several different back-up singing partners (one time a Spanish girl, another time a Scottish lad, and a third one...a cheery and rotund Russian) I enjoyed singing in front of thousands of people every night, as well as in front of 200,000 people several times on the main stage of the annual Polish Woodstock festival. While in the band I met my husband, Radhacharan (Rafael) who was the conga player (isn't that a cliche? Back-up singer marries the Conga player?). We began traveling to India together in 1998, and would stay for 6-7 months each year before we eventually settled in Vrindaban, U.P. around three years back. Two and a half years ago I made a decision to leave ISKCON, due to some personal disagreements with my former teacher, and my husband and I took initiation from a more traditional Gaudiya Vaisnava Guru, Srila Ananta Das Babaji. We do some service daily at the "Care for Cows Gosalla" which is a shelter that takes care of abandoned and injured street cows in Vrindaban. Enough said...welcome to the blog!