Tuesday, August 14th, 2012

Explosives – Impressions

Thamesford, Ontario

I began my day noticing the first neon sign on a store’s façade in Woodstock. The store, a laundry mat, actually is called “Lost Sock Coin Laundry”. It gave me a laugh. How often has one of your socks entered into the Bermuda Triangle?

Another impression: Across the street at Snow Countess (refer to yesterday’s blog), I waited for Daruka to pull up for a message. A transformer blew up in front of us. Then, another explosive impression: after a few hours of trudging through the rain I came upon a massive barn along Highway 2. What remained of it was a skeleton with roof intact. It was mainly the framework standing with sideboards missing. “Just one gust of wind would blow that down,” I thought. The barn was a huge structure and set back a bit from the road. But then seconds after my thought I heard a rumbling. I looked at that barn and saw it slant to slide, and then crash to a thunderous collapse. Daruka was there across the road from me, he saw it as well. “What, is this explosion day? Are we jinxed that wherever we tread there’s a blow up?” We looked at each other in disbelief. In any case, this is better than the movies.

The razing of the barn (English is a funny language), it was deliberate. Within minutes Mennonite farmers climbed onto the collapsed roof and began disassembling the old dinosaur of a building.

Liz, from Hard FM Radio interviewed me in the studio and asked about my pilgrimage. CTV from London, Ontario, was also poised to come out to see me in the rain. But another news eclipsed ours, or postponed it, a local house was raided where authorities found 15 boa constrictors slithering around inside of it.

Here’s something else. It pays off for a monk to be out in the open. A journalist from Brampton came out for an interview. Just two weeks ago he met Krishna monks in Halifax and at our sponsored lodging for the evening at Super 8 Motel, the co-owner was Sagar, who 16 years ago met Krishna monks at New Years Eve. He and his buddies had freshly arrived from India and were so drawn to the monks. I was there. They followed us all the way back to our ashram temple. Sagar stood there in foyer totally surprised. He remembered me.

Lesson here is be a monk, don’t be a hermit. Be out for the people.

30 Km