Monday 15 July 2013

Friday, July 12th, 2013

Good Sweet

Toronto, Ontario

The Saskatoon berries in the neighbourhood have begun to dry up but the mulberries are just in full swing as far as ripeness is concerned. Apurva has discovered this most amazing organic dish that grows on trees of which there are many in a 1 km radius of our temple ashram. I was also surprised by the find of the plentiful number of them.

In this same early day trek I also lead Apurva to a patch of lamb’s quarters, a really delicious wild leafy green vegetable. It took little effort to harvest these guys to be used in a preparation, most likely, something called kitchory, as an offering to Krishna.

The whole day was laden with sweetness even after the discovery walk at 10 AM, a 12 hour kirtan chanting session commenced with mantra expert Dravida inaugurating it. It was total mercy that I was scheduled to begin the event. Throughout the coming hours many honey combed voices sounded out the name Krishna. Leading singers came from all over the place, including the US, Africa and Europe. The kirtan is an actual warm up for the next day, the annual Ratha Yatra. This time it’s the 41st in Toronto. It seems to grow in numbers each year, let’s see what happens tomorrow.

When I was a kid, I remember watching Jackie Gleason on TV and using his signature line, “How sweet it is” as the kirtan came to a close at 10 PM with a full house of arms in a surrendered pose. For those who were there, it was indeed, sweet – sweet like thick maple syrup.

9 KM

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