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Namaste

Friday, March 29th, 2013

Some lessons in life are simple and immediate. India taught me that recognizing another person’s presence is integral to experiencing one’s own humanity. The Namaste—fingertips pressed together, hands at heart, a dip of the head, and looking into that other person’s eyes communicates volumes. You don’t even have to day the word, it is implied in the gesture.

It is an expected form of greeting, a ritual pause when entering a temple, a shop, hotel reception desk, or place of business, such as a weaver’s cottage or a place where indigo dyes are made by hand. I enter your space, I say hello. We begin to consider each other.

But where I felt I the Namaste most was in the street, among passers by, touts, and people just hanging out in doorways, chai shops, among market stalls. Without fail, every time I namaste’d someone the response was instinctual, immediate. Their hands were moving, their heads bowing before their brains knew what they were doing. And always the smile, a gentle “ah, you know what this means” nod of appreciation. Something relaxes between us, even if we are shy with each other.

The god in me greets the god in you. Quite a statement.

In Varanasi, we met a young man who agreed to be our guide for a walk up the street, no easy task in narrow passageways thousands of years old, dark, grimy places without signs, filled with thousands of pilgrims who had come to bathe in the Ganges and honor Lord Shiva on the last day of a month-long festival, the Maha Shivarastri. Pandemonium with cows. And goats. The occasional monkey. We offered him payment and he demurred, putting his hands together and bowing low before us.

“What does that mean?” I asked him. He laughed up at me, his dark eyes bright, still bowing.

“I am asking for your blessing, Auntie.”

Auntie is a term of affectionate respect for an older woman. I placed my hands on his head and thanked him silently for being such a lovely young man. Kind of a Namaste squared. My heart felt warm. And lighter.

These encounters remain vivid. Namaste awakens a humility and gratitude, an acceptance of the human condition. We see each other and greet each other from our souls. Not a bad way to move through the world.

The Humble Bowl

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

I didn’t know I was sensitive about bowls until I lost two in a row to accident. Breakable things break, dishes get dropped, nothing lasts forever. That philosophy works with glasses, plates, even the occasional beloved mug, but I feel the loss of these stupid bowls.

We’re not talking mass-produced items, rather pottery—bowls that were shaped by hands, baked, glazed, baked again. I fall in love with glazes, with bowls that are approximately the size of two cupped hands. These bowls are intimate, quirky. We have conversations over breakfast, for it is usually breakfast when I use them. This morning I looked in the cupboard and found no one I wanted to talk to, so I had toast instead of yogurt and/or cereal, with blueberries. Blueberries don’t stay on toast.

A museum in Portland, Oregon is hosting an exhibit: “Object Focus: The Bowl.” With objects ranging from Tibetan singing bowls to a chrome ice bucket. I read about it in the Styles section of the NYT. There’s a photo of a ceramic baking bowl that I find riveting. It’s plain, grayish white, with a blue strip just under the rim. A well-used domestic bowl. The article goes on about how bowls are “supporting players in the narrative of other objects.” What’s that supposed to mean? A bowl is NOT “something defined largely by the void at its center…” A bowl is NOT about “the poetry of banality.” Please. Don’t make me go to Portland and smack you.

A bowl contains. When it is empty, the bowl speaks to us of possibility, of nourishment and connection. When I eat from a hand-made bowl, I hold it in my hand; I regard the food and engage in what is for me an aesthetic experience. The bowl soothes and calms my mind. IT MAKES ME HAPPY.

Looks like I’m going on a search this weekend. A bowl in the hand being devoutly wished.

hmmm…

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

So. Yesterday my husband asked me about facials. “Um, what happens, what’s it like,” he asked unsuspectingly. Hm. We’re not really allowed to provide that information. I mean, who would believe that someone would submit themselves to that? Apart from the EXTREME moisturizing (the good part), there’s other stuff involving hot wax and steam and tweezers moving at high speed. My aestetician, Annemarie, is Rumanian. Very good. Much calmer since Obama won the election. It was pretty iffy there for a while, not calming the way these visit are supposed to be. I was pretty tense for the duration. Never mind. It’s all good. Her friends in Rumania no longer think we’re a nation of narcissistic, deluded psychopaths. In spite of the world recession, they’re feeling much calmer, too. They’ve put their guns back in the bedside table. S.(plural) When Annemarie smiles, I smile. And I have more eyebrow, as well. Um, if you know who I’m talking about, no more chocolate, please. Annemarie is over the top with chocolate this year, thanks. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Women of “a certain age” have to have facials. It’s not funny. I know you’re out there. so I shall say no more. Bottom line = with facials, life is elastic; one can smile and look cautiously optimistic, as after an especially rewarding yoga session. Without facials? Don’t go there. Don’t open the door. If they run out of moisturizer, I’m going for blood.

crikey

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

Spent the better part of the week up in Estes Park, trekking through the National Forest, admiring the turning of aspen leaves, listening to the bugling of elk, and gazing on a sky full of stars. The hard part was doing it all with 21 kids, my gifted students, who love a life lived loud. I mean, they’re fine kids, full of curiosity and in love with Nature, but I did feel outnumbered. There were three other adults with me, 2 young women whose combined ages are still 12 years short of mine. And Ryan, the experiential instructor who MIGHT be 30. Who spends all his free time climbing challenging rock faces. He would look at me with compassionate curiosity whenever I’d stop along the trail and gasp for air. Or wince and whimper about my knees. He was patient and kind.