Dear Friends,
This time of year, when the days are shorter, we are naturally drawn inside—indoors to keep warm, as well as turning our awareness inward. It’s a time of reflecting on the past year of our lives, and taking our inner inventory. It’s also a time to count our blessings and offer gratitude for what we have. And to send prayers and do what we can to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
To this end, we have learned from our friend Satya Rao that she has been working with an international non-profit hospice organization. End Of Life Care International is an organization whose sole purpose is to benefit the terminally ill in dire need of support at a most painful and difficult time. They do this by raising funds, researching hospices and distributing grants to those hospices doing singularly effective work. You can view the website at http://endoflifecareinternational.org and learn more about their work with those offering end of life care for the destitute, particularly in India.
We hope you will join Uma and Friends as we offer our prayers through kirtan this week on Thursday, December 1st at Open Secret in San Rafael, and on Saturday, December 3rd at 4th Street Yoga in Berkeley. Details are below.
Gangadhar will also be offering kirtan, along with the group Circle of Friends at the Nand Collection Gallery in Healdsburg on Sunday, December 4th. For information about that and the Himalayan Arts & Antiquities exhibit on display there, visit www.nandcollection.com.
Our first kirtan of 2012 will be on January 5th at Open Secret in San Rafael. Our first kirtan of the new year is always dedicated to Ganesh, invoking blessings and guidance from the beloved elephant-headed deity, for our lives and our loved ones in the new year. Ganesh is known as the Lord of New Beginnings, Remover of Obstacles, and Bestower of Success, among other names representing the gifts and teachings he has to share with us. We will have lots of Ganesh kirtan, discussion of who Ganesh is and how to cultivate a relationship with him, chanting of vedic prayers and mantras, and a beautiful and powerful prayer ritual to offer our gratitude and make requests for the new year, followed by arati (offering of light to the deity). We will hold the Ganesh Kirtan in the main room, rather than our usual spot in the temple room.
We hope you will come share your heart and raise your voice with us as we journey through the spiritual cosmos in praise of the Divine! Words are provided, everything is explained, and no experience or singing voice is necessary.
Pranams,
Uma, Shivaya, Gangadhar, and Matt
