Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Loving & Leaving

Where There is Lotus, There is Mud

Delhi Departure

I awoke this morning feeling like myself, just a bit weak and dehydrated. A normal morning of shower and breakfast happened which I am ever so grateful. After being so ill, I have renewed gratitude for the little things. Not wanting to waste a day in India, I hired a car to take me into the city for some last day shopping for friends and family at Kahn Market. Just driving around in this foreign city, I gape out the window with the woderment of a child at EVERYTHING. Indian customs and standards are so different from home. The standard of cleanliness is one that is hard to get over, but you do. The custom of wearing beautiful saris on a daily basis is intriguing and beautiful. There is a sense of constant chaos here...on the roads, in the train station, in the markets...yet everything moves forward. People get to work, children get to school, the sun sets and the moon rises just like everywhere else. There are domestic problems, poverty, crime, and devastating pollution. There has been an upsetting election, there is scandal in Bollywood. In some regards it is not so different here, yet it is utterly foreign. This is why I love to travel. The importance to meet and know people of other cultures and see how they live is vital not only to reinforce the fact that we are all brothers and sisters on this planet, but also to validate our our place and path. For if we have nothing to base or compare our life's existence on but the small worlds we create in the patterns of our everyday lives, we might miss out on a life full with meaning and happiness. We must know more of the world to know more of ourSelves. Today I love Mother India and her kind hearted people, her dust and all the craziness, her strange take on efficiency and her rich Spirit. And today I couldn't be more happy to be departing this city of 13 million, and country of 1.3 billion for my small hometown of 24,000ish, my mom's gumbo, green Vitamix smoothies, my sweet sweet yoga community, and my colorful many legged extended family on Echo Lane. All One. All Love.

 

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