Toronto, Ontario
Shuffling Through Yorkville
For two good hours, we were out to greet the greeters of the movie stars. To my knowledge, there are several key locations in the city where celebrities and their fans go during the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Yorkville region is one of them. It’s a mere four blocks from our ashram, which is convenient.
What’s great about the time frame for this event is that it coincides with ISKCON’s established “Holy Name Week”. We thought the title “Holy Name” sounded too Catholic. Nothing intended against the Catholic faith, but the term, we felt, doesn’t reflect our culture, so we settled for calling it “Maha Mantra Week”.
Here we were chanting in some kind of moving order through the streets in the Yorkville area. It was not a march, not even a walk, maybe a kind of shuffle. The fellow in front of me in our two abreast shuffle, was playing the mrdanga drum, and while playing and moving forward, he was pivoting or bending at the waist in a manner I’ve seen pandas (priests) do in Puri, India, at the big Ratha Yatra festivals. It was kind of a cool move.
In any event, about 20 of us or so were perking up the people with our music and our mantra. People in their fine evening attire were lighting up at our presence. It was the look of, “Hey, I haven’t seen you guys for a while; we’re happy to see you again.” Some folks would break into a jig and girate to a beat of a drum. I believe that some good, clean body moves can make you feel a lot better than having a swig or two of whisky.
Our message is, “Come on and join in on the fun. This mantra, ‘Hare Krishna’, and swaying to it, is very powerful.”
May the Source be with you!
6 KM
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