i’ve been a fan of the writer christopher isherwood ever since i first saw cabaret performed … actually even before that, i helped my friend bob prepare for a dinner theater performance of the show (he was great, herr shultz was great and the rest of the cast was just ok.) when i finally saw alan cumming perform the role of the mc on nyc’s studio 54 stage, i was really blown away.

when i read his autobiographical work, my guru and his disciple, i found yet another reason to be impressed with his work. in this book, isherwood talked about his spirtual development alongside his guru swami prabhavananda in los angeles, starting in the 1940s. what impressed me most about this book was the way that isherwood was about to talk about his struggles between a desire to lead a dedicated spiritual life and also to explore the the new freedom that gay men were experiencing in la at the time. there were points in the book where he would spends days meditating and chanting at the ashram, and then head out and have anonymous sex on the beach. he didn’t seem to look down on himself for any of this in the book, he merely explored it all as part of his spiritual development. he also wrote a lot about pressure from his agent and the literary world to write more along the lines of cabaret, but how he felt drawn to translate sanskrit texts into english and to write about the life of ramakrishna.

besides his beautiful writing, it’s the honestly of the book that impressed me the most. that even back in the 50s, he was able to talk about his sexuality and how he struggled with finding a spiritual path that he could follow at the same time.

the following five collages combine isherwood’s translations of the yoga sutras with photographs that i shot in india. i think i’ll do at least five more before the series is done, but in the meantime i would love comments on these. you can click each image to view a larger version on flickr or see them here on my main site.