I still have babies on the brain as we continue to try to get pregnant. I’m researching and learning about Hindu traditions surrounding pregnancy and children so I’ll be prepared and ready when the time comes! Different cultures have very different traditions around baby showers. When my best friend was pregnant last year I wanted to throw her a shower because I felt that it was my duty as her closest female friend. But just as we started to think... Read more
I have a terrible tendency to get entirely derailed into negative thinking. I panic easily about the state of the world and the future and then I have trouble functioning. I’m usually pretty cheerful and optimistic, but these days there are doom and gloom stories pressing in on me from EVERYWHERE. I know I’m not alone in this problem! Enter The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein It is a breath of fresh air in a world... Read more
You know those amazing flower arrangements that you see around Diwali? Like these ones… 25 most colorful rangoli designs with flowers I don’t think I could freehand creations like that, but through a group of pins on Pinterest I figured out a way to make molds for them. I can’t wait to try this! The first thing that I saw was this article on making big, beautiful letters out of flowers: The instructions at Urbanic Paper gave me some great... Read more
I just stumbled across this book on Amazon and the title made me laugh out loud. Pretty brilliant idea for a book, I’d say! Apparently this is a guide to help you navigate an Indian grocery store and find what you need if you’ve decided to try cooking Indian food and you’re a little overwhelmed. According to the reviewers, the indexing isn’t great and the attempts at using Devanagari script are a fail, but most agree the information itself is... Read more
A couple of months ago I asked for your help in supporting friends of mine who are going through a very difficult time with their three-year-old daughter who is fighting for her life against a heart condition. We raised some money to help her struggling family deal with the costs of nine different medications, frequent trips to a hospital in another state, surgeries, co-pays, not to mention the every day regular expenses a family has. Of the $5,000 that they... Read more
There are a number of set prayers, like the Vedic prayers, that are said in Sanskrit. Then there are sanskrit verses called mantras used for meditation or for a change in one’s life. Certain mantras are given as formulas for a better marriage or better fertility. What makes something a prayer rather than a mantra? What makes something a mantra? Here’s the big difference: In a mantra, the pronunciation is critical. The Sanskrit mantras were created with sacred vibrations in... Read more
Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a whole room of your house to devote to a puja space. Or perhaps what you have is a closet, an alcove, a corner. You can make that work! There are many gorgeous home Mandirs and puja spaces available for sale, but you can also create your own out of an old bureau or cabinet. Look at thrift shops or the side of the road for a suitable cabinet. You can fix it up... Read more
Have you heard some of these words before? Maybe, like me, you know they’re all types of holy people, but you’re not sure what the distinctions are. I realized a few weeks ago that I have a vague sense of what a pandit does or what a rishi is, but I don’t know exactly what makes someone one and not the other. I knew I needed to do some research and learn the differences between all these kinds of holy... Read more
This is one of those Google questions that reminds me that most people in the west know so very little about Hinduism and other Indian religions. Why do Hindus wear turbans? Well, the simple answer is: they don’t. When you see an Indian man wearing a turban, chances are good that he’s probably a Sikh, which is a different religion. There would be occasional times when a Hindu man might wear a turban, though. For example, Hindu grooms usually wear... Read more
My father was visiting during Diwali last weekend. He showed me an interesting documentary on Netflix called Nature: My Life As A Turkey. It’s about a man who spent a year and a half living in the Florida woods with no human contact, being a mother to a brood of wild Turkeys. He got them from eggs, and imprinted on them when they hatched. He taught them and learned from them, observing what they already knew from the moment they... Read more
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