Sunrise

The three of us got up for the sunrise this morning...it's our last day at the beach. What a beauiful morning...this holy cow strolled by during her morning walk on the beach.

What do you see in the clouds??

The clouds made for interesting effects as the sun rose. When I commented that it looked like the heavens opened a door for a moment, with the Jesus clouds...Chandru said that churches using sunrise pictures was a form of propaganda. We laughed. Markus said, "You're so cynnical, Dude!"

Indian Free Flow

I've been searching for words, eloquent enough, big enough, thin enough...words to start to describe India. Better writers have done it. There's plenty written...about the movement, colors, people, the air and smells. My attempt is a free flow written while watching India from backseat of at car, a pretty cushy place to be. For some, two woven walls and a thatch roof makes a home. Tarp tents with laundry on the line outside...vertical sticks to support the structure. So much dirt, pavement with holes and cracks. Women bent over sweeping, every day taking care of their small piece of earth with handmade brooms. Bathing in the river, water green and still. Hands scrubbing laundry, beating the cloth against rocks. The road a constant tide of people moving from one place to another...on foot with sandals or bare, bikes, motorcycles, auto rickshaws, buses...small spaces packed with people. A dozen school boys all together in a small rickshaw, backpacks tied up outside the doors. Dust covering everything as if it's all old. Garbage piled up, cows grazing grass and goats eating garbage. Dogs trotting around with puppies, darting across the street. More cows crossing four lanes of traffic. Fields of rice, flooded. Banana trees, men pushing bikes heavy with green bananas, women carry loads balanced upon their heads. Colorful roadside temples enclosed in barbed wire...deities decorated with fresh flowers. Ganesh, Shiva, sandalwood, cement. Little girls dressed up in yellow frills with jasmine tied up in braids. School boys in matching plaid, walking hand in hand through traffic. A few dozen motorcycles weaving through traffic with women wearing brilliant colors perched gracefully sideways on the back, both legs on one side, holding a duffel bag, or a baby, or a scarf over her face. Turquoise, yellow, florals, peacocks, sequins, silk...so much color. Piles of dirt, piles of rock...men chopping wood, women forming cow dung into perfect patties to stack for fuel. Men stand off the roadside, urinating in the ditch. An old woman, dressed in long green fabric holds a rope tied to a few cows. Life is constant here--horns honking, constant motion. People making a living, surviving, worshipping, talking, giving birth, getting lost, everything all at once. Impossible to digest. To witness it is an experience that takes on its own life. My eyes can only digest a small fraction of what happens every second out the car window. I blink and there's something new I've never seen before. Never even imagined. Making bricks, selling tires, butchering chickens, stacking eggs, serving tea...it all carries on and on and on. Always this way....

Madurai to Mamlllapuram drive

We drove for 8 hours on Wed. to reach the beach just south of Chennai. We're near an old site of man made caves/carvings called Mamallapuram. The roads here were full of the bustle of a normal day in India. These are a couple pictures of people waving to Markus with his camera. We'll visit the caves tomorrow (Friday) and also a crocodile sanctuary.

Holy cow at work. Decorated and pulling a cart...stunning eyes.

Golden Sun

We landed on a white sandy beach. Thanks to Chandru...he can be my tour guide any day!! This place is called Golden Sun, it's run by a non-profit that Chandru has invested in. The organization has a hospital/group home for kids with autism in the area. They manage a few different properties, and this happens to be one of them. We're on the Bay of Bengal, about 2 hours south of Chennai. Yesterday, two cows strolled by, taking a walk on the beach. We played in the waves and watched the sunset last night. The sunset/sunrise is interesting. They are 12 hours apart and don't change much. The sunrise is always due east, sunset west...so the sunset that we saw in Allepey on the other coast was special to that place.

Vivekananada Quotes

I've been reading a book I picked up at the Vivekananada memorial...wanted to share a few quotes.
* Duty is sweet only through love.
*To be good and do good-that is the whole of religion.
*Save yourself by yourself! There is none to help you--never was, to think that there is, is a sweet delusion.
*Each soul is potientially divine.
*Experience is the only teacher.
*Bear every misery without even knowing that you are miserable.
*Real education is that which enables one to stand on his own legs.
*The happiest moments we ever know are when we forget ourselves entirely.

Sunrise

This is the sunrise over the Bay of Bengal. I got up early (even set my alarm!) and walked out to watch it. A pack of 7 dogs ran by, chasing each other and playing. A couple people walked by. The half moon was still high in the sky. It was very quiet except for the waves and Indian flute music I was listening to on my MP3 player. I am so grateful for this opportunity, to be here in this place, to have this experience, grateful for the gift of life. I should wake up for more sunrises. Everyday, the world is made new by the rising sun.

Love to you all back home.

More Madurai

This is a musical statue...by tapping on one hand, you can hear a tone through the other hand. Supposedly, they aren't hollow, but it's the way they are constructed. It was really neat. The statue was blackened by people's hands over the years. I was thinking about how tactile this religion is...these deities are so old--in the U.S. you cannot even touch anything in a museum. Here, you can not only touch it, but smear rice flour and sandlewood paste and vermillion powder on it. They even coat some statues in Ghee (butter). This is the way it's been done for thousands of years.

The bustle of life outside the temple was colorful.

Madurai

The sun was setting as we walked through the temple...the light was golden. The garland I am wearing was given by the priest, fragrant jasmine flowers.

When you look carefully at this painting, you'll see it's an elephant and a bull, two holy animals sharing one head. I've seen a few variations of it in different temples.

Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

We were blessed by a priest (jasmine flowers around my neck) and by an elephant. The elephant's blessing was very strange...his nose was a little wet.

The beautiful Gopurams (towers) are being painted for the Kumbhabishekam, a festival that happens every 12 years. The deities were covered with scaffolding and cocanut leaves. We'll have to catch that next time...I can only imagine how spectacular that site is...7 towers full of vividly colorful figures (over 2,000 of them)...

Very old, very beautiful...I love this image of the elephant.

Vivekanda's Meditation Rock

This is the island where Swami Vivekanda swam to to meditate after the death of his guru. He was famous for bring Hinduism to the Parliment of Religions in Chicago in 1893. His teachings are profound. "The power of the whole ocean is behind a single wave."

This place is a very holy place. The convergence of three waters, the significance of the philosophies, a place of pilgramage for thousands of people. The wind was blowing hard, the sun shining...the statue on the right is Thiruvallur. He is a Tamil poet and philosopher. It's a divine place full of love. I soaked it all in.

The carvings were striking and different than anything we've seen so far. Lots of waves and elephants, and lotus flowers, all in black and white. Inside the building was a dark meditation room...also a statue of Vivekanda. There was a beautiful butterfly that had taken refuge from the intense wind inside the memorial room.

Seaside

Kanyakumari Church

St. Anthony statue...one of my favorites (I always lose things).

The snow white church is stunning against the blue sky and seashore in the background.

Suchindram Temple

This temple is an old place full of Divine energy. The deities inside were awesome. We got to go inside. All the men had to take their shirts off. The sculpture work was incredible. The air was damp and dark and smelled of Sandlewood and wax.

Kanyakumari Pictures

The sunset over the convergence of three bodies of water.

This is a Sadhu sitting outside the temple. Covered in ash, he had made a cozy spot for himself. Sadhus are holy men who have taken up ascetic life. He was quite striking sitting there, white in the sunset. This is one of my favorite aspects of India. I love witnessing all the different ways to worship while trying to imagine that experience. I feel my connection to the spirit world grow. All the extremes exist here. The southern most tip of India has a temple that is dedicated to a Virgin Goddess. It's quite an attraction for Hindu people. This is a place to watch both the sunset and sunrise.

I got a fortune reading from a parrot who picked a card out of a deck. A crowd gathered behind me as the parrot sorted through the stack to find my fortune. (Chandru said they were more curious about me, rather than the parrot)...

The parrot picked a card that basically said, ahead of me lies a year full of chance. I should take chances in the next year because I have a golden opportunity. Travel will bring me Joy. (It said that!) Funny bird.

This is a statue of Thiruvallur. He was a Tamil poet and philospher. Behind it is a memorial dedicated to Vivekananda who was a philospher who rejected Western ideas to pursue Hindu philosophy. We will take a ferry there tomorrow. He found the rocks to be very holy and swam out there to meditate on the teachings of his recently dead guru, Sri Ramakrishana Paramahamasa.

Trivandrum

Today we drove from Allepey to Kanyakumari. On the way, we stopped for lunch in Trivandrum. The men there use giant nets and long wooden boats to fish. It's a very old Chinese fishing technique that continues to work for them. It was a beautiful beach with loud breaking waves.

As non-Hindus we weren't able to go inside the santuary of this temple, Suchindram, dedicated to Shiva. Inside it was a 6 meter long statue of sleeping Vishnu on the serpent (anantha). The temple was very, very old. Some parts date back to 55 BC. We got a brief tour from a priest there.

Allepey Sunset Beach

I played in the waves for an hour watching the sunset. The water is warm in the Arabian Sea.

The beach at Allepey was full of people there to enjoy the waves and sunset. These local school kids were very curious and sweet with me...the girls asking my name and practicing their English so politely. When we started to take pictures, the boys all budged in the front and dominated the photos. Typical. *grin* Their teacher/principal was very interested to hear my opinion of the economic situation in the states, how I felt about Obama and the Iraq war. There were many people flying kites and enjoying the ocean.

Allepey Backwaters

We took a very scenic 2 hour boatride in the Allepey backwaters. Besides the luxurious houseboats, there were lots of birds, cocanut trees and people along the channels. People were bathing, doing laundry and swimming in the waters. It was very laid back and lush green. The coast is able to support an abundance of life.