Wednesday 26 January 2022

Saturday, January 22, 2022

The Annex, Toronto

Sounds

Perhaps it’s the season, winter, that permits sounds to be more crisp and distinct. Whether inside or outside, noises subtle or loud had somehow got my attention today. Thank God for noise, sweet or sour.

Practically every hour the train just north of our temple/ashram shakes the window panes ever so lightly and with its companion is the gritty noise of its wheels gripping against the tracks.

You’d be lucky to hear the choo-choo whistle. While I sat, momentarily at a bench near those tracks, I overheard one pedestrian to another say, “This train’s a mile long.” I think he was right. It made that commonly unnoticed reverberation which seemed to last forever.

On this night walk I picked up the sound of a person’s shovel scraping hard snow. One motorist couldn’t help himself with wheels spinning against the frictionless ice. The sound was somewhat like the cay of a baby elephant or baby dinosaur in distress. Then I heard and saw a walker attempt to climb over a snow bank that, with every step, sounded like a crunch-crunch, like the cousin to Vijay’s teeth clamping down on an Indian poppadom over suppertime in the ashrams eating room.

There was also the temple-room’s radiator’s release of steam. It resembles a rattle snake’s hiss. Finally, our kirtan with drum, harmonium, and tambourine framed off the day. Not spontaneous like other sounds of the day, this noise, or music, is routinely projected each evening through the ether. Someday we’ll hear Krishna’s flute.

May the Source be with you!

3 km


 

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