Monday, September 26th, 2011

Best Bonding

Tatamagouche to Wallace, NS

Out came the first aid kit and contents – the gauze, scissors, band-aids and tape. Some polysporin and tiger balm also made their entrance to heal the wounded from the previous day’s walk, and to address blisters, aching knees and muscles. Making the application was at least half of our party members which consisted today again of a multicultural monk crew. We have Mirza who is Bosnian, and also claims to be Swedish; Karuna, who’s a mix of German and Indian; Tirtha from Siberia, and the balance of the boys are from various parts of Canada. We, the 8 of us, decided on trekking a portion of the Trans Canada Trail. We do have choices on which way to go and this trail proved the road less travelled. In fact, we met no human souls for the whole 32 kilometres. Spotting a black bear on this trail was the only soul we saw of any bodily size. The short of the encounter was that we were singing Krishna’s names. Then the young bear came out of the forest and stood on the trail ahead of us to listen. We mistook him for a black dog. Once we got close, he decided to vanish, and we saw that clearly here was a bear.

In the town of Wallace, I was asked a question, “Why are you walking?” Angela, from the Tatamagouche Light Paper came to see me during our break. And then to answer her I said, “To establish pilgrimage. I’m convinced that the best life is when we take life as a spiritual journey.” We got on to discussing transmigration of the soul, karma, and how it was most important to have divine thoughts on your mind as you leave this world to ensure a more evolved next life. Unless one reaches liberation. Angela and I dove into deep topics as we sat on a picnic table by a pleasant Maritime setting, with a majestic crane perched nearby. She conveyed that her paper’s circulation reaches 5,000 families. Each of which is read from cover to cover by two or three readers per copy. This is impressive as I very much want the message of pilgrimage to get out there in the public.

Overall, this was a memorable bonding day for 8 saffron clad monks going down a magnificent trail in the best weather possible.

32 KM