Day 27: Whispering to the Universe - An Experiment

I decided I don't really like my title thing anymore-- I keep thinking of better titles that don't use alliteration, so I'm going to change it up :) 

Today we were invited by our friend Sowjinya to come to her ritual serve at her house. We are always interested in seeing aspects of religious life here (since it is such an important aspect of Indian life) so of course we accepted. Sowjinya has a very interesting set of Hindu beliefs. She is what some would call a guru for a group of women who worship the power of femininity. Their worship centres around the belief that bodies have six chakras. Chakras are energy centres in the body and you have to access each chakra in succession (till you get to the chakra on the top of your head) to become one with divinity. These women do this through meditation, yoga, prayer (puja), chanting and they use these beautiful flower/fruit arrangements. The most interesting thing to me about this Hindu sect is that women are very dominant and anyone can join. Its kind of like Hindu feminism. I don't want to say anything ignorant so I'll stop there because I really don't understand all of their beliefs and practices to do them justice. Sowjiya invited us to come early so we could help her set up the arrangement. We peeled all the oranges and arranged the grapes. It was actually a lot of fun :) It felt good to do something artsy.

Gorgeous huh? I wanted to eat the oranges and green grapes all night (I LIVE for fruit here).

This is Sowjiya. She met McKenna at a dance class one day and was immediately interested in getting to know the students in the program and showing us some sights in the area. She invited us to her house a few days ago and when we got there we were surprised to find out that she has a son our age!! She looks barely 30.

This is her son, Krishan. We kept trying to get a picture of him looking up because he has the most beautiful eyes ever. They are very light brown (which is not very common in this area). Most guys we run into are either really annoying (so we avoid them) or really shy and can't speak very good English (so we find it hard to talk with them). Krishan is one of the shy ones. Anyways, he is a very nice guy! He's very sweet with his mother and that says a lot about someone.

This is what everything looked like when it was finished and the night was almost over. The candles made that tiny room get very hot-- especially in sarees.

The worst/funniest part of the evening was when Sowjinya turned to me and said, "Now we are going to medidate". At first I thought, "Ok! I can do that!" But let me just say this-- if you do not meditate often, sitting still for over twenty minutes and trying to "clear your mind" is something close to torture. My body hated it with a passion. But since Sowjinya was sitting next to me I had to try as hard as possible not to move at all so I wouldn't disturb HER meditation or seem rude. I really would love to be good at mediation but I see now that it doesn't happen just like that. They told us to practice 20 minutes a day. Challenge accepted. Except next time ill be sitting on a cushion.

This is a picture of Sowjinya's music teacher playing the Vina :) It was beautiful and it made me want to go to a big musical performance soon. They just played for a few minutes after the ritual (because the goddess likes to hear people playing for her they said). 

Lastly, today I am sharing an inside joke that my friends and I all have about this house that we live in. Basically, every time we are craving something and mention it out loud it seems to show up a day or two later (or sometimes within the hour)! No joke. Its very impressive. I think the cooks are either very intuitive or the listen to our conversations more than we think. I don't know how it happens but we call it  "whispering to the universe"... 

So I am conducting an experiment. Today we each whispered something to the universe. I want to see how many of those things happen in the next week. 

Here is what we each whispered to the universe: 

Me-- Paneer/Pea Curry

Sarah-- Curry Popcorn and Banana Smoothie

McKenna-- Parotta

Carly-- Cashew Cookies and Donuts
Israel-- to be decided

I'll let you know how it goes :) 

Wow, I got this post done by 11pm. That is a first in a few days! 

Goodnight! 

Stéf