WOW
I live in a place now surrounded by nature and the widerness. Bears and deer wander through my yard. Wild mushrooms are sprouting everywhere. Birds eat on my deck. And we eat the fish my husband has caught a few times a week. Even in Cochrane we saw nature, observed it, but here we feel more part of it. Not separate from the world arround it but an active participant.
The point of yoga is to realize your true nature. For me this is arriving in an understanding of the true gift of life, on this planet and the abudance in my life, AND to realize I am made up of the same atoms and molecules as the trees, the lake, the animals, my food, and my neighbours. This interconnectedness and the wonder that we are here at all.
Thanksgiving is an opportunity to see the abundance around us, how lucky we are in particular where we live in the world. To have grocery stores to get our food at, most of us do not spend our time hunting and gathering food anymore. We pick it up clean and butchered. We live in a time with electricity so we have deep freezers, no struggle to keep food preserved.
I have a practice when I sit down to eat, when I remember to, to go through this in my head:
From Brahma; the creator. I thank the earth and think of the place my food was grown or raised and thank the earth for providing it for us.
By Brahma; I think of all the indiduals that were involved in getting it to me. The farmers, the packaging people, truck drives, grocery store workers, fisherman, who cooked it. They are all part of the divine.
For Brahma; I too am part of that chain and the circle. I am worthy of this food and its nourishment and I will not waste it.
So this month we chant to Durga. The female version of the creator. I kinda see her as mother earth, the creator and sustainer of us all. Across South Asia in late Septmeber and early October the Durga Puja is celebrated. I even heard about it on the national news this week because the number of statues being thrown into water ways was causing poluition and harm. We will not be not celebrating 10 days or bringing idols to the water. But we will chant to Durga. To hold a space for gratitude, wonder, and connection.
Om Dum Durgayei Namah
I bow to Durga. I remeber my interconnection to the world around me. You can here me chant it 108 times here.
My husband I talk all the time how we live in a Goldilocks place, it is just right, kinda tucked out of the way and off the beaten path. Not busy like the Shuswap, not tinder dry like Kelowna, and realtively unknown. It is green here almost year round. We grown fruit in our yard, veggies on our deck, forage for mushrooms, he fishes... It feels constantly alive and vibrant here. We feel like part of it. I didn't imagine being this happy here when we started the plan to move. We both feel hugely lucky to have this pace and time together. What a gift this life is turning out to be.
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