Tuesday 14 September 2010

Friday, September 10th, 2010

The Last Yawn

Edmonton, Alberta




In an unknown to us suburb in Edmonton, Goura and I poked around with several directions guessing where to find a trail of beauty. It seemed like we were surrounded by the burb dynamic, residential road curves, until we came upon some resemblance of a straight path with some vegetation.

We were "doing our rounds"; not a routine walking although our feet were in stride. "Rounds" refers to the chanting on our meditation beads, a strand of 108 beads.. It is our morning ritual and I appreciate Goura's diligence in this regard. Even though Goura's body demands more sleep than mine and even though he may be tired from some physical exertion from the day prior provoking that extra yawn here and there, Goura will rise early enough to be my companion. He religiously chants each day.

I pointed out to him the local ruler's of the low sky. Staying close to the ground, sailing on his wings is the notorious magpie. They are in abundance in this part of Alberta. They seem to party all day and show that some life does in fact grace the Prairies They have a different version of "doing rounds".

And after our walk, as was done in the past few days, our little drama troupe, "Swami Productions", held a morning sadhana which included today a talk about how selfless service can transcend politics and spare someone from insanity. Our host, Nitin, posed great questions about what to do in what seems an undoable circumstance.

Our visit to Edmonton marks the end of our Prairies tour, if you will, and also our season's tour of "Lonely People". To prepare for our last performance, as always, I have our troupe invoke good fortune and blessings by chanting mantras. As we were completing our recitation Goura let out the biggest yawn. It could have rivaled a python's mouth stretch. We giggled.

I am happy to report that no one yawned during the show. Quite the contrary. The audience loved it and became highly animated.

9 KM

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