An unofficial, eclectic, mostly tangential, view of aspiring devotee life. Best viewed with Sense of Humor 8.0 or higher. The cows may come, the cows may go, but the bull is always here.
I have known great gold Sorrows:
Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully
Through the slow-pacing morrows:
I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing
Dim endless voices cried of suffering
Vibrant and far in broken litany:
Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly
Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air-—
All things most tragical, most fair,
Have still encompassed me . . .
I dance where in the screaming market-place
The dusty world that watches buys and sells,
With painted merriment upon my face,
Whirling my bells,
Thrusting my sad soul to its mockery.
I have known great gold Sorrows . . .
Shall they not mock me, these pain-haunted ones,
If it shall make them merry, and forget
That grief shall rise and set
With the unchanging, unforgetting suns
Of their relentless morrows?
“After all, a sincere devotee always prays to the Lord, “Please help me to love You purely.” Therefore the Lord’s so-called neglect is actually the fulfillment of the devotee’s prayer. Lord Krsna intensifies our love for Him by apparently separating Himself from us, and the result is that we achieve what we really wanted and prayed for: intense love for the Absolute Truth, Krsna. Thus Lord Krsna’s apparent negligence is actually His thoughtful reciprocation and the fulfillment of our deepest and purest desire.”
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.32.20
” ‘Please help me. what am I going to do? I can’t go on like this. You can see that! Look at the state I am in. what ought I to do? Show me the way.’ As if I needed more information or some kind of sign!
“…suddenly, as soon as I had made that prayer, I became aware of the wood, the trees, the dark hills, the wet night in my imagination, I started to hear the great bell of Gethsemani ringing in the night…”
A Merton Reader, ed. by Thomas P. McDonnell, (New York: Image Books, 1989) 128
Prabhupada: I have seen. I have studied this cricket (cricket sounds in room), that come for… Two of, the male and female.
Room Conversation — February 25, 1977, Mayapura
This time of year we get to enjoy the symphony of crickets, cicadas and katydids. There must be different species because there is a great variety of sounds.
There is a wall of ambient sounds and then multiple individuals who can be discerned close by. Some are almost painfully beautiful to hear. There is another that sounds like my telephone ringing that I can hear sometimes during the day.
The speed of their songs are reflective of the ambient temperature in some crickets.
For those trapped in urban environments and bereft of crickets, here is a video where they overlay regular cricket songs with cricket songs that have been slowed down. This is true undoctored sound other than the speed reduction.
Brain: Not really, we are at a festival in the temple, great place to be.
Feet: No we are not, this is not the temple.
Brain: What do you mean? Of course this is the temple — I can see Radha Vrindaban Candra standing on the altar.
Feet: You are hallucinating or something, I know for a fact this is not the temple. The Maya witch must have confused you and taken you to a different place.
Brain: I doubt that. I drove my car up the same ridge road I have driven thousands if not more than ten thousand times over the last 4 decades. I saw the same scenery and it took the normal amount of time. This looks like the temple, smells like the temple, sounds like the temple.
Feet: It doesn’t feel like the temple. The temple has a wooden parquet floor and this is not a parquet floor. It is way too smooth.
Since this temple opened in 1983, we have danced here so many times, sometimes three times a day, sometimes for hours at a time during big festivals. At one step a second, that is more than a thousand impressions per arotik. That could have been a thousand arotiks some years which means in a good year we touched this floor over a million times so over 28 years possibly in excess of 10 million impressions.
So I know what the temple floor feels like and this isn’t the temple room floor. We need to get out of here.
Brain: LOL. So that is the cause for concern? The limited evidence of your sensory experience? Don’t worry, it is ok, you really are in the temple. It is the first Pushpanjali Festival ever held here — you have never been to one of those before.
If you could see you would know there are two devotees on the altar showering Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Candra with flower petals, most of them picked in New Vrindaban itself.
There are also some pujaris picking up the flowers and tossing them continuously in the air so it looks like a fountain of petals in front of the Them.
Later the pujaris will gather up the petals from the altar and take them to the third floor of the temple where sections of the stained glass vaulted ceiling have been removed. They will shower them on the assembled devotees from there.
As the petals fall many will not be caught by the devotees and will land on the floor. As devotees walk and dance around, the petals will be crushed so they put down rolls of paper on the floor to make cleanup easier.
Feet: There is paper on the floor?
Brain: Yes, that is why you aren’t feeling the wood floor you are so familiar with, but don’t worry, it is still there under the paper.
Feet: Whew, thanks for that, you have relieved my anxiety. My direct experience wasn’t jelling with what you were sending out as the current situation. Now I know why.
Brain: Get ready to roll though, because once those petals hit the floor, devotees are going to gather them up and start throwing them at each other so we do need to be mobile and efficient in insertion and extraction for flower petal throwing opportunities.
Feet: Roger that. I have re-calibrated the parameters of what moves need to be limited due to the lessened traction of the smoother surface but still have an ample amount of options so dancing and/or flower petal tossing will be no problem. Proceed as desired.
Brain: Thanks for your cooperation. Interestingly, though for you this was a bit of a disconcerting experience, for this kid this is the way it has always been and she isn’t missing a beat.
It is good to retain that childlike sense of wonder, and try to see Krishna in every moment, freed from the bonds of expectation and attachment.
(Editor’s note: Check out more Pushpanjali photos here. This was a fun festival and I predict it will grow into the biggest festival in NV within 10 years.)
Contented and healthy cows are productive cows, and you can, uh, milk productive cows for more moola and higher quality milk
COOPERSTOWN, Pa. — Rolling Spring Farm owners Charlie and Denise Bean are trying to milk their cows for all they’re worth.
In order to do so, they’ve taken a more pampered approach to dairy farming than the many generations before them.
The Beans last year built a new, state-of-the-art barn on their more than 130-acre farm in Canal Township, in northwestern Pennsylvania, that capitalizes on the concept of cow comfort because they believe that, much like people, a happy cow is a productive cow.
“[The new barn] has mostly improved cow comfort and cow health,” Denise said. “And that was really our main purpose behind building it in the first place.”
But the real benefit — aside from a more humane approach to raising cows, according to Mr. Bean — can be seen in sheer production numbers and milk quality.
Since the new barn was constructed, the cows have produced 10 or more extra gallons of milk a day, he said.
While that may not seem like much moola, a quick calculation over 365 days (after all, cows never quit making milk) reveals a potential for tens of thousands of extra dollars in revenue.
“Based on the improvements we’ve seen these cows produce up to an extra 10 gallons of good milk per day, and that alone will probably pay for the barn in the long run,” Mr. Bean said.
Using local ingenuity, a lot of field research (including a study of other farms in the state), donations from state farming supply companies and resources from the Pennsylvania Center for Dairy Excellence, the couple went about constructing a 100-cow barn on the hill just above their old milking barn.
“Dairy farmers have long been innovators when it comes to giving optimal animal care,” said John Frey, executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Dairy Excellence. “And what you’re seeing here is an example of that.”
The new barn includes a more-than-ample walking track for the numerous bovine guests, with open stalls that permit cows to move freely (or rest peacefully) throughout the space.
Cruise Car, Inc., (http://www.cruisecarinc.com) the leading supplier of solar electric low speed vehicles in the USA, today announced that their All American Series solar Electric vehicles address the requirements of President Barack Obama’s ‘Clean Fleet’ Program initiative directing all federal departments and agencies to ensure that all of the vehicles purchased are fuel efficient or use clean energy by the year 2015. Cruise Car solar electric vehicles allow fleet users to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and reduce their transportation energy costs while demonstrating a commitment to the environment and participate in creating new energy related jobs.
Cruise Car President Ken Chester said, “Fleet operators can meet the Presidents’ call to action by replacing their gas-driven low speed vehicles with solar electric vehicles – and no vehicle is more energy-efficient than our All American Series. With onboard solar panels and over 60 percent recycled parts they are also the most eco-friendly vehicles in the world. And because our All American’s are made totally in the USA, they also create jobs here. When you combine the solar tax grants available for the remainder of 2011 and tax credits available through 2016 with our Cruise Car leasing programs, the time and ROI is now for fleet operators to explore the conversion of their low speed passenger and light utility vehicles to solar electric.”
President Obama announced the Clean Fleet program at a UPS facility in Andover, Md., Friday. In his remarks, Obama said 100 percent of the government’s vehicle purchases will be for fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015. He has also challenged and provided an opportunity for American businesses to participate in the program through ‘National Clean Fleets Partnership.’
Five businesses – FedEx, UPS, AT&T, PepsiCo and Verizon – that collectively operate more than 275,000 vehicles and are five largest U.S. fleet operators, joined as charter members of the President’s National Clean Fleets Partnership. The goal of the Clean Fleet’s Partnership is to reduce by 1/3 U.S. consumption of imported oil by 2025. In 2008, the U.S. imported 11 million barrels of oil a day. The public-private initiative aims to help large companies reduce diesel and gasoline usage in their fleets through the use of electric vehicles, alternative fuel and the implementation of fuel-saving measures into daily operations…
Many users of Cruise Car’s All American Series solar electric Low Speed Vehicles (LSV) are reporting that after their initial full capacity charge they are able to drive up to ten miles daily without having to recharge their vehicles using external power sources. The onboard solar panels are producing enough charge to keep the All American’s at a state of full charge and off the grid, eliminating the need for remote charging stations and the attendant infrastructure.
“Prabhupada: Strawberries they have brought? Tamala Krsna: Yes, Srila Prabhupada, very nice strawberries. Prabhupada: I’ll take some strawberries. Tamala Krsna: You want strawberry juice or plain strawberries? Prabhupada: Plain.”
Room Conversation — October 9, 1977, Vrndavana
Once the June bearing strawberries had stopped producing it was time to renovate them. I didn’t get to them as soon as possible but soon enough, around July 12th.
The first step was to get out my re-purposed office chair seat and a Armstrong powered trimmer. Which is to say the scissory looking thing that used to be used to trim grass around obstacles using muscle power instead of a fossil fueled weed eater.
The term Armstrong comes courtesy of my late father, who when we would ask him questions like how were we going to get those straw bales from the ground in the field up onto the back of the truck would say, “Using an Armstrong loader” which we would assume meant some brand name Like Farmall or Farmhand like some of our equipment was named.
We would think this right up until we would be standing next to the truck by a straw bale and looking around for the piece of equipment asking where the Armstrong loader was and he would say something like “Attached to your shoulders.”
Using the trimmer I scuttled down the side of the row trimming back plants that had encroached too far into the walkways. You have to be able to reach the center of the bed when picking. Note the chair seat and trimmer part way through the task.
Once the edges were trimmed I got out the rototiller and tilled out the center of the bed where the June Berries are, but not w the day neutral ones are, which would be the patch at the end of the bed, you might be able to make it out in the photo. They specifically say to not renovate them and we have learned why. After doing their June thing, they took a break for a few weeks, but are now faithfully giving us about a pint or so of berries every other day. That fromless than 10′ (3 m) of row so we are quite happy with them.
I applied a covering of compost and tilled it in well.
The idea is that strawberries produce best on 2nd and 3rd year plants. The first year you pick off the blooms to put energy into the roots. This was the second year. By tilling out the middle of the row I took out all the mother plants that started the bed which had been planted single file one every 18″(.5 m) down the center of the bed. The plants at the side of the row will now be the mother plants that will repopulate the center of the row so next year I will have all 2 and 3 year old plants.
Next year I will till out the sides of the bed and leave a thin row of mother plants in the center. This perpetual renovating way of doing strawberries is called the matted row system.
Here see the runners repopulating the center 19 days after tilling.
I have been through the bed twice with a scuffle hoe keeping the weeds down and will continue to do so until the dauhgter plants grow up enough to form a canopy which makes a shade mulch. A few weeds will grow through that but observing the bed once a week or so and pulling those weeds means an other bountiful crop of strawberries next year.
A devotee should not see anything as being separate from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna. Ether, fire, air, water, earth, the sun and other luminaries, all living beings, the directions, trees and other plants, the rivers and oceans -- whatever a devotee experiences he should consider to be an expansion of Krsna.
Thus seeing everything that exists within creation as the body of the Supreme Lord, Hari, the devotee should offer his sincere respects to the entire expansion of the Lord's body.
Chaitanya Caritamrta Adi 1.106:
"Essential truth spoken concisely is true eloquence."
Rabindranath Tagore:
A mind all logic
is like a knife all blade.
The hand that uses it will bleed.
Albert Einstein:
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Marcel Proust:
The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Claude Debussy:
Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.
Thomas Merton:
There comes a time when it is no longer important to prove one’s point, but simply to live, to surrender to God and to love.
Albert Einstein:
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Jack Rebney (the Winnebago man):
I don't want any more bullshit from anyone and that includes me.
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