• TABLE OF CONTENTS
  • Swami Veda, Mahamandaleshwar
  • Sufi – Yogi Dialogue sponsored by Global Peace Initiative of Women
  • Meet three of Swami Veda's new friends from the Sufi-Yogi Dialogue
  • Gathering of the Sangha Report
  • Vows of a Swami: The Sanyasa Ceremony
  • Marriage of Atul and Klara at SRSG 16 February 2010
  • Poetry by John David Wilson
  • Holi Washes, Holi Wishes
  • Yoga-Yatra: The Inner Pilgrimage
  • New Online Bookstore from The Meditation Center
  • Upcoming Events
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of SRSG on the Globe
• AHYMSIN NEWSLETTERS ARCHIVE

Holi Washes, Holi Wishes

My Remembrances of Holi

Today is the big HOLI. If yesterday was little Holi, then what!? SVB even played! My hair is still green. Forget oil--It doesn't work. You need vaseline as our wise predecessors warned us years back---and red stuff came out of my ears when I washed today. The birds are calling but the playful voices, pot-banging and makeshift drums won't resume until after morning practice.

My memories of Holi are sweet. It is not just pranks and irreverence. It is a mending of all rifts. When you come to India for Holi be sure to bring some old clothes you do not mind spoiling or buy something really cheap and ugly in the bazaar beforehand. I bought a water pistol in town at Anshal Store that makes a very fine stream,  but if memory serves, some of our young scamps use buckets and really huge water torches to vault the streams of colored water at you.

Holi Washes (Among my fondest Holi memories):
Eric Ness in clashing plaids showering his blessings from on high with yellow wash. Strategic location?  The front balcony of the 2nd floor main building. Looking up, one saw a colleague creep up behind him with a bucket of blue? gtreen? red?

Receiving word from my fortress that my son, 6 ' 5" Isaac, had come running from nowhere like a bat out of hell onto the main battlefield with an eentsy teentsy water pistol squirting behind people's ears. He ended up rolling in the mud with 2 big Punjabis.

Kai Blilie & Company all a fountain of color and cheer!

Surendra, Harshanand, Tajvir and the guys all playing hard but with love—never mean

Tejaswini in full regalia wearing Holi splashes with love and good cheer---every color up to the inevitable gray-green

Marilou Hermens dabbing and painting your face with Holi smiles

SVB

Some big guys tried to take away my fat toy water pistol, but in the end, it went to Sunakshi, Tajvir’s and Sunita’s little girl. She handed me her little water tube as if to say “trade with you?” and I was persuaded.

Ma Radha is in her 90-day silence with Swami Nitya at Sadhana Mandir and will undoubtedly stay clean and dry --but for all that samagree and ghee.

Jean Chu is holed up in silence and will not come out though she was at the bonfire last night. No one dropped a spot of color on her. Silence badged people are out of bounds. Do you think I might don a silence badge to avert disaster? Nawwww.

Holi Wishes:
I wish the Humes, the Blilies, Sonia and Koos from Holland, Shauna, Priya and Tarik, Idriss-&-Co-so-close-and-yet-so-far and oh so many other friends were here to play Holi. In particular, if I had my fairy godmother wishes, I would have all of the above friends present at Holi as well as the full contingents from Minneapolis, Taiwan and Italy. Hungary would be required to attend.

The most fun of the whole day was the generosity at the very end, riding on the back of JP’s motorcycle to Ma Ganga, washing off, and then flying back, almost no hands, with Vivek on his motorcycle. Walking from the Ganges through the Sadhana Mandir gardens was another world. No signs of Holi. Just peace.

For more on Holi, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi
It gives an intriguing history and includes an ancient miniature painting of Krishna playing Holi!

Holi He!
Submitted by Joanne Sullivan