The Last Haul
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Some anxiety is building up inside because according to schedule I was supposed to be on Highway 3 headed west, but as my support person Daruka is still moving his paraphernalia to a new location, I’m stuck in the city.
In one sense, I’m not in the city. I chose once again to take a river trail. This time it’s Red River. I’m trekking along official and unofficial trails in the section of Saint Boniface where The Grey Nuns established their mission long ago. I stumbled upon two characters knocked out flat on a park bench. They had placed a piece of log in an open city disposal unit and lit the log to flames. As I walked by in this early crack of dawn moment, I lit up myself. The fire was crackling providing the two some warmth and a sleep that couldn’t be broken in their shared cozy positions.
As I mentioned yesterday, there are two types of people you meet in urban parks. These guys were just like out of a scene from the story of Jagai and Madhai. In an ongoing adventure along the Red River, I pursued the unofficial path chanting the maha mantra all the while. The trail got interesting along the river bank. It was steep to one side, and a metal fence to the other. The path became so narrow that it ended up not being anymore. I manipulated a fence as in climbing over it, and landed in an industrial yard of massive rusty rejected machinery which had a formidable gate at its end. I was trapped inside. In the meantime a fox in all its glory passed by the gate of barbed wire, “Auspicious,” I thought of the fox, “ I must think and be like one, like a fox – silent, calculating and stealthily moving.” At the gate’s base was a foot of space to the ground, so I cobra-yoga-ed my way out of there. Thank you, Krishna, for bringing back my boyhood and bringing protection. No guard dog came my way.
I did have lovely exchanges with people once reaching a normal path. I like to give a mantra card and tell each soul about our kirtan sessions at 108 Chestnut. Later that night, at that location, Vrinda, who has been our most gracious host in Winnipeg, Daniel, an up and coming devotee and I prepared a prasadam meal of quinoa and rice pasta and wraps as we await Daruka’s return from the last haul of his hoarding paraphernalia.
Sorry, Daruka, but you’ve been accumulating too much stuff.
30 KM
2 comments:
I saw you walking in morden tonight as I passed through. My instant thought was how happy and peaceful you seemed. Pleasant and safe journey :). I wish I'd stopped to walk with you for a while. Thetruthie@hotmail.com
Today I believe I saw you in Manitou and I thought to myself "that man looks like a Tibetan monk" and briefly as I drove by in my haste, consumed by my over-filled western lifestyle I thought "I wonder what he is doing here?" I am humbled by what I have now learned about your pilgrimage across Canada and feel somehow privileged to have in some way have been touched by it. How often do we wish we had simply stopped and said "hello and may I ask where are you going?" - very few times have I ever wished I had as much as today.
Good luck in your pilgrimage and you got to see our town at its best under those lovely, spreading elms.
Regards
Angela Lovell.
Manitou, MB.
Post a Comment