Ottawa, Ontario
The day was glowing with sunshine and my driver companion is graced with the name, Surya (the Sun God). Warmth was abound, to the exclusion of temperatures. Minus 20 Celsius was the fresh gauge for the day en-route to Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. It was my first ‘real’ trip since Guyana a month ago. I could, for the first time, fit a shoe around the right foot without pain. At some point of the five hour journey on scenic Highway # 7, Surya needed to pull over and take a break.
I took a good hard look at that right foot in the front seat of the van with the vibrant natural light of the sun cast upon it. As expressed before in the culture of India the general public attempts to touch the feet of a sadhu or monk.
Now I may be a monk and hole-y might better describe the roles of the foot. It does have the resemblance of a cross between a war zone and the moon’s surface. To put it in plain English, “lotus feet they ain’t”! I have been battling with wards, tiny craters and some old skin is finally making its way as if dangling and ready to drop. That part two description is actually a sign of glory and I certainly gave all assistance to further shedding. This is not meant to be a gross-out but the confession of a marathon walker’s dilemma.
You don’t know how liberating it was to open the van door window and fling flakes of dead skin to land on crystal snow. It should have happened in slow motion with some appropriate music to accompany it. I felt like a butterfly bursting out of the caterpillar stage.
The rest of the day shone until night when our gathering of bhakti practitioners
at ISKCON 212 Somerset E. danced away like “jubilant peacocks” to the sound of the maha-mantra.
I did feel like a new man (monk).
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