🪔 A sweet memory from two years ago 🪔
This morning, I went to the Ganesha Temple in Queens. The grounds around the temple were all set up for Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations, volunteers moving around busily and purposefully. The air was alive, vibrating at a higher level...
This morning, I went to the Ganesha Temple in Queens. The grounds around the temple were all set up for Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations, volunteers moving around busily and purposefully. The air was alive, vibrating at a higher level...
as it always does during festival season.
I went in through the old entrance, the one we used for decades before the fancy remodel. There was something different about walking up those steps, something transporting.
I went in through the old entrance, the one we used for decades before the fancy remodel. There was something different about walking up those steps, something transporting.
I sat down in front of the Ganapathi sannidhi, joining the seven or eight families already seated. As my eyes closed and I reposed in that lovely dhyānam that happens in a kovil, the nādaswaram started playing and I found myself weeping.
Memories of every wedding and auspicious occasion where the nādaswaram lifts us up off the ground came flooding through my system. I felt, in my body, how old the nādaswaram is, how those same sounds would have stirred the souls of our ancestors. I felt their memories...
all the weddings and upanayanams and celebrations over hundreds of generations. I felt it all. I opened my eyes and saw so many of us wearing sarees, women of all ages, skin tones, castes, shapes, regional languages, facial expressions, abilities, hair lengths.
I felt how old the saree is, that it has been worn by Hindu women for thousands of years and yet it still holds up (literally and figuratively!); it is undeniably vibrant and personal today.
I heard Tamil and Kannada and Telugu and Hindi, in addition to the vādyārs’ Sanskrit chanting. I saw the faces of aunties and uncles I've known since I was a little girl, so dignified, so serene, having gone through so much...living.
As my parents and I made our pradakshinam around each of the deities, I was struck by the image of Amma in front of me; she was wearing a dark maroon saree with a mustard border, her Thalai Deepavali sari, nearly fifty years old. There is something so youthful about my mother...
something always renewed and alive in her eyes. And then, of course, the depth of Appa's beauty and sincerity always reaches my core. I smiled at the thought of Ganesha's pradakshinam around his parents. I agree, I thought. They are my world.
And I wept, from sadness and despair and hope and humility and gratitude. I have been carrying so much in body, in my system, in layers, of what it means to be a dharma steward, a Hindu steward , in 2019. There is so much work to do; every day feels like a test.
There is piercing pain and piercing beauty. (Social media has generously supplied both with abundance.)
And when I thought about how miraculous it is that it is all still here - that our knowledge and the beautiful manifestations of our ancient traditions still exist -
And when I thought about how miraculous it is that it is all still here - that our knowledge and the beautiful manifestations of our ancient traditions still exist -
despite so much violence and colonization that has happened over thousands of years and that is still happening, sometimes from the most disheartening people and places, I could not help but feel my ancestors, our ancestors. They made sure that we would have this.
They fought against more than I can ever really imagine. They fought against more than all of us have been taught to know.
The blessings of our ancestors guided my soul to choose these parents who immersed me humbly and lovingly in our traditions...
The blessings of our ancestors guided my soul to choose these parents who immersed me humbly and lovingly in our traditions...
...not in dogma or ritual or orthodoxy, but in knowledge, curiosity, and deep reverence. Their blessings compelled me to long for and find a Guru and a sangha. Their blessings steered me towards my dharma; the ancestors carved the path before me.
To be at the temple, my childhood temple, today, to experience and realize all of this, was more than I imagined I would receive on Ganesha Chaturthi.
Vakratunda Mahākāya Suryakoti Samaprabhā Nirvighnam Kuru Me Deva Sarva-Kāryeshu Sarvada
Vakratunda Mahākāya Suryakoti Samaprabhā Nirvighnam Kuru Me Deva Sarva-Kāryeshu Sarvada
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