Thursday 8 September 2016

Tuesday, August 30th, 2016

Tuesday, August 30th, 2016
Hastings, Ontario

Get the Weeds Out

Our guesthouse is located on Front Street across from the noble Trent River.  The name of the place is “The Doors” and its owner’s surname is Morrison (no connection to the iconic Jim).  Skye is her first name, and she has accommodated Brhat, Nick and myself in a charmer of a space, in a building erected in 1860 (that’s old for Canada).

Skye spends seven months of the year in her native Canada, and the balance in India, which makes it a perfect fit for we three who have our hearts in spiritual India much of the time.  We love chatting with her about our shared time in the land of Bharat—a name for Mother India in a more ancient context.

We three monks spent some hours at Govardhan Farms, located on Friendly Acres Road.  We were committed to walking there—a good eight kilometres.  Once we arrived at the farm, we took to some mantra meditation with owners Fil and Sukayanti, then breakfast, and finally on to physical work.  Nick executed inside labour, chopping the day’s harvested tomatoes and then putting his hands to baking and cooking, while Brhat and I went weeding.  Brhat tackled the pepper patch while I got into the late-planted kale.

I found the pulling out of weeds to be a new form of yoga stretching—to the right, the left and forward.  Much of the activity was employed with a hoe.  The manual pulling of weeds was more effective than hoeing, which tends to rarely remove the weeds by the root.  The hoe also facilitated leaning.

It was fulfilling, an achievement; a good feeling after having tackled four lengthy rows of undesirable plants that challenge and choke the desirable ones.  I felt like it was pulling lust, anger and greed out of my heart.

May the Source be with you!

8 km

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