May 2008

I was in Vrinda Kunda all week and it was really beautiful and somehow the weather that had been up in the 40’s cooled down a bit. Every morning my alarm clock was the cooing of the Kokilas. Surprisingly we had lots of mosquitoes. Somehow the fish in the kunda are not doing their job properly, they used to eat all the mosquito larva before they could mature. My speculation is that a pair of iridescent blue kingfishers have taken up residence in Vrinda Kunda and thus the fish are afraid to come near the surface where the larva stay. Speaking of iridescence we have a couple of green English Flycatchers performing their acrobatics above the Kunda.

Then there is a drain hole in the back wall near the floor of my bhajan kutir that I usually cover with a large stone to keep mice and chipmunks from running amuck. Well I rolled back the stone to find two pairs big yellow eyes of baby owls staring quite curiously at me. I guess the screech owls have taken up residence there while I was gone. Actually all around the roof just under the stone that juts out for shade, following Baba Madhava dasa’s example I left holes for the birds to make nests.

Then a couple of days ago we had a wonderful Braja dust storm. Really exciting things to see. The whole horizon was a brownish color with sort of reddish streaks in it. We were watching the the trees disappearing behind that curtain as it approached. The thunder is a very low growl at first, but then increases as the storm approaches. Then all hell breakes loose, big trees are shaking like blades of grass. I thought I had seen worse, but at least in Mathura-Vrindavan they said it was the worst in 30 years with wind up to 200 kph. In Vrindavan temple they have a thatched roof prasad hall for the brahmacaris (so they don’t have to see the visiting devotees as we’re so contaminated). It lifted it up and it partially landed on Vrinda Devi’s car, but by Krishna Balarama’s grace only about $60-$70 damage. I only found out when the driver came to pick me up at Vrinda Kunda to come and talk about Jayananda Prabhu yesterday.

We just had wonderful talks about Jayananda. And distributed his favorite, peanut butter halevah. Jayananda Prabhu ki jaya!

In service of Srimati Vrinda Devi,
Deena Bandhu dasa