handfulls of enchantment

@ the kailash temple in chidambaram
Wed, 28 Sep 2005

Pranams,

Parting the curtains on the mystery has only lead to ...more mystery. We spent 3.5 hours in the astrologer/fortune teller’s office yesterday, which was certainly like a long slow dive down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass and way past the matrix. We arrived as he was doing his afternoon puja, which he invited us to partake in, generosity beyond any reckoning. After the offerings were made, coconuts broken, agarbati (incense) burned and bells rung everyone in the household rapidly dissipated into the ether for an inordinately long time (over an hour)...with no explanation at all. We were left in the waiting room to amuse ourselves.... until otherwise informed. This is a very colorful way of saying...it was naptime. Yes, the siesta still reins supreme here. I recognize that it is probably a very civilized way to approach an 8-hour workday but I still can't quite pull it off. 3 o'clock rolls around and I'm bouncing off the walls, ready for whatever the day has to dish out but instead, the landscape slows into a thick calm and finally halts in its dusty tracks. If we happen to be out with our taxi wala past 1pm, I feel as though I'm torturing him with each request, the hours between 2 and 5 are entirely reserved for sleep...everyone knows that!

After the boisterous sadhu astrologer was roused from dreamland and had his chai (of course) he proceeded to expound (via translator) to Lila and I on every possible nuance of our past, present and future lives...it was fascinating stuff colored with stories of mongooses wrestling snakes, blessing from Durga, frolicking spotted deer, kings from Tanjore empires and countless other magical elements. He gave many prescriptions including a pilgrimage to 2 temples that Lila and I are to visit as a means to be released from some past karmas...maybe next visit to India.

And so-- as promised, here is the final line of the dance that Shyamala has been working into me for the last month:

That woman with the pure heart

She has placed her trust in you

So don't ignore her any longer

She thinks of you now

This is the time to come and kiss her

For she is at you feet!

Dancing has been totally magical, as always. I'm filled way past full and have no way of taking it all in but I trust that it will all come when it is meant to.

Shyamala lives about 3 blocks from the shores of the Bay of Bengal...the same waters that swept away so many lives only a few months ago. Yesterday, as we were sitting on the almost deserted beach (swimming is not a popular activity here), we watched as a man stood on the dry sand and cast his net about 15 feet into the waves...I'm sure he fully understood the whole 'be one with the water' thing and there is probably some hidden skill in what he was doing that my feeble desert-dwelling upbringing cannot grock but by Jove! Whatever it was that he was doing was shockingly effective (no need for any boat at all!). He would cast the net, wait less than and minute and then drag no less than 30 fish kicking and screaming onto shore...a bit alarming for my "Quick! Throw them back in the water" tendencies but I'm coming to grips with this whole life-as-another-word-for-death thing. It was quite an amazing day:

India sings and I become her song

Dancing for the clouds

Feet kissing the Earth

Wave good-bye with

Handfulls of enchantment

Scattering in all directions ...Swaha! (it is so!)

Packing up our dreams and delights, we'll spend tomorrow night in Bangkok and then head off to Hong Kong and that 14-hour flight to L.A. on Saturday night. I'll be watching the waves for the Ganapatis (Ganeshas) floating in the torrents of their surrender.

From all of us here @ Shakti Transmissions
Tata,
Laurissa