RAVINE DOWNTIME

Monday, September 1st, 2025

Rosedale, Toronto

It has been a busy season for festivals and fun.  We were just as happy as the squirrels are currently with nuts as they begin to harvest in their trees.  I am keeping in my memory bank the good times of a golden period when a group of young Krishnaites made their presence known.  We built up from scratch a bhakti tree of many branches.  I spent time at three of them just yesterday.

Now, this evening with some trail-trekking people, I walk in thought of those days, of this weekend, for instance, in the open bus with BB Govinda Swami, only to be interrupted by wild carrot plants, goldenrods, burdock, and plum to crab apple trees.  We are reminded of the plant diversity in the ravine.  With me are Vatsal, Moses from Maine, Visesh, and Shiva.  It is new territory for everyone, an exploration for them, like exploring the maha mantra for the first time.  I believe the child in us comes out when you walk like this and get away from the concrete.

It was a favourite pastime of our guru, Srila Prabhupada. He liked to be in the green amidst the taller people than ourselves – the trees, or by the waterfront at Venice or Juhu beach.  We took him to Lake Ontario just five kilometres away.

And as I said to some of the Bhakti Academy members after returning from the walk, “For years, engaged in my busyness, I would take that break from cooking, cleaning, class giving, by going down to the ravine.  It was always my downtime, alone or with others.”

JEWELWEED – A CURE FOR POISON IVY.

MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU!

13,062 FOOTSTEPS