Appearance Day of Radha Kunda

Kartika

The full moon of Kartika- very auspicious time of the Rasa dance-the moon witnesses it and therefore is very nectarian this night.
Tonight is the first night of Kartika. This time of year I especially miss being in Vrndavan- my first and last time (as of now) there was in 1994 during Kartika. Little did I know that it would be so long before I'd get to go again- perhaps if I knew I could have stayed longer and made more spiritual advancement. Alas we have the holy names which are the most powerful means of awakening our love for Krsna so there is hope and this is the best month of the year. I followed this devotee doing this years ago- Every year for Kartika the "austerity" of circumambulating Tulasi devi 108 times. I used the japa mala to keep count. On one Tulasi leaf all the holy places reside. It is also Tulasi devi's appearance day and we chant her names: Jaya Vrndavani Jaya Vrnde Vishvapujita Pushpusara Nandini Krsna Jivani Visvapavani Tulasi Every service we do during Kartika is magnified manyfold.
While we make our first Grhasta Ashrama in Utah we always had a Kartika festival each year inviting the devotees to our home, worhship Tulasi, offer ghee lamps singing Damodara astaka prayers with a big feast together. It was such a special time to come together. How different life in now- my husband is at work, kids are in bed as it is a school night and here I am. I really want to increase my hearing and chanting this month and become purified make some advancement. I wish the same for all of you and I beg for the mercy of the Vaisnavas.

Radhastami

Yesterday we celebrated the holy appearance day of Srimati Radharani- the topmost Goddess and Lord Krsna's most beloved. Usually this day is a fasting until noon day with a morning class about Radharani, abhiseka- bathing of her divine deity form, arati-puja and kirtan and big feast. Since the festival days go by lunar calendar it fell on a Sunday yesterday so rather than have 2 festivals it was combined with the weekly Sunday Love Feast so there were many many people who came and got the blessings of Radharani. This is the one day out of the year her lotus feet are shown for everyone to see and take shelter of her sweet loving compassion. In the morning we tuned into Alachua's morning program live which was really nice- HG Deena Bandhu was giving class. There are so many loving pastimes with Radha, her dearmost friends and Krsna. He tells the stories in such and exciting fun way. They had some nice long bhajans during the abhiseka. Since there are so many devotees there it was going on for quite some time. Simutaniously we bathed and dressed our deities we have at our home. Lakshmi is my enthusiastic assistant.

Each major festival day the devotees sew a new outfit for the deities. Here is the pink new one with new jewelery too. The flowers match nicely- pink is the color of love- and Radharani is sweet loving compassion personified. Her right hand is up giving loving benedictions. I feel so fortunate to come in touch with some of her unlimited glories.


Above photo is from http://www.vrindavandarshan.com
Please see http://www.mayapur.com/main/?q=node/897 to go to Radhastami in Mayapur and to hear classes.

RADHARANI KI JAYA MAHARANI KI JAYA VRNDAVENESWARI KI JAYA JAYA JAYA!

Vrndavan and Lakshmi had the first day of school. Here Lakshmi crosses over the rainbow bridge to receive a rose greeted by her 1st grade teacher. A better photo was in the newspaper. Very sweet ceremony. They love being in the school. Although I had such a wonderful time homeschooling and am so grateful I a had the opportunity to teach them reading and writing amongst many other things, I am relieved that they are onto many more magical adventures.

We made it to the ocean again for 2 beautiful days. The ocean water cleared up the cold/allergies Vrndavan & husband were developing. Very purifying the ocean water felt. Most of the time we were all in the water. This week we started our new season at the ballet school. I love dancing with the children :)

Srila Prabhupada Vyasa puja

HH Bir Krsna Swami offering Guru puja to HDG Srila Prabhupada

Krishna Janmastami

The kids enacted the scenes from the song "Jaya Radhe Jaya Krsna Jaya Vrndavan" Lakshmi acted as Radha and Vrndavan was Balarama, my husband Vrsabanu & I Kirtida :)

"All glories to the Vamsi-vata tree, where Krsna attracted all the gopis to come by playing on his flute

"All glories to Radha's divine father and mother, Vrsabanu and Kirtida"

Here was the crew and the parts the acted
Kapila- Lord Siva
Narada Muni-Madhumangala
Shyam- Sridama
Jayananda-Krsna das who wrote the song
Rasaraja- Krishna
Lakshmi, Dharvi & Radha-gopis, wives of the brahmanas, naga patnis along with Subhadra and Amrta
Bhakta Vatsala & Mandakini- Krsna's divine father & mother, Nanda & Yashoda
Videos of the dances we did can be found at http://www.myspace.com/karunadd

Festivals

It has been a fun filled week here starting the Julan Ratra- swing festival for the pleasure of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna during 5 days.

My husband and Lakshmi also made and decorated a swing for our home deities- Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda. I can never find the paraphanelia from the previous year so each year a new one is created.

Our Deities were brought to the temple on Balarama Purnima day- and they are now at Parijata's house waiting to be painted by her father. We miss Them.

HH BKG gave an entertaining class picking devotees to act out the pastimes he read from Krsna book.

Subala played Lord Balarama enjoying rasa dance. Drumila prabhu acted as Dravida gorilla. They were very funny.

Next story Drumila acted as Balarma, my husband was Rukmi and Dasarath was King....his name slipped my tired mind this moment.

Yummy prasadam time- was a really really terrific feast and a beautiful day

Later that day was Raksha Bandhan ceremony where the younger sister ties a decorative thread around her older brother's wrist and prays for his happiness and long life and the brother pledges to protect his sister when needed. It is supposed to bond and firm the loving relationship. Kundalata from Fiji here gave one to my husband too as she sees him as an elder brother here.

Here is the beginnings of our family band. We'll eventually get it together :)
Later that evening HH BKG came over for dinner. We have only video footage of that and I have yet to get the technology that allows me to transfer my video camera to computer. The past couple of days HG Deena Bhandu from the holy land of Vrndavan Dhama has been visiting New Goloka giving wonderful classes telling us the beautiful pastimes of Radha and Krsna. If only everyday could be like these. Now I am really hankering to reside in Mayapur and Vrndavan-

Ocean

I was really feeling a strong pull to go to the ocean. One week later we made it for 2 days. Hope we can make it more often- it is only 2.5 hours away and it was so nice to be in the fresh air and clear salt water- felt very purifying. I was recalling when I was about 18 we moved to CA from PA and lived in houses right on the ocean for a few years- so beautiful- I wonder if I appreciated it as much as I think i should have- At least we can visit Mom, she is still 2 blocks away in Huntington Beach, CA.

Rest of July in a Nutshell

Vrndavan did another 2 week musical theater camp with the show on the last day. This one was a pirate comedy. Lakshmi did the dance art camp. Next year she'll be old enough to do the musical theater camp if she is interested.


With the keyboard player. We brought prasad flower garlands for the staff



Gaurangi Priya taught a week long 1/2 day dance camp for the young girls. Lakshmi just loved it. The final day the parents were invited to see a presentation of what they learned. They made incense holders, gopi dolls, necklaces, and ankle bells. M Sadhvi also came and did a balloon show which the children all love, especially when they each get a specially made balloon to keep.
This week was dance camp for her advanced students. I taught yoga for the first 45 minutes than stayed and learned dance each day, well kind of learned- it was really fast and I don't have much Bharat Natyam experience but it was a fun challenge and I think eventually I'll get it as I was able to pick up more than I ever imagined I would be able to. A few weeks earlier she did a dance camp for the beginner/Intermediate group which I also did yoga in the beginning and stayed for the dance. That class was slower and more my level. We actually learned a whole dance :)
So we've been having a fun summer with lots of yoga and dance. The kids also wanted to give tap a try this summer and uh-oh they like it and want to continue for the upcoming season.
So that has been our fun summer so far. It really is going by so fast, only 1 more month! Oh I forgot, while Lakshmi was in the dance camp, M Maha Mantra was brave and headed up a boy's camp at her house for the week. Vrndavan had lots of fun, they made things, played on the trampoline, offered arati and spent lots of time at the creek swimming. We have some kind of foot karma happening- last week he stepped on something and cut his foot pretty bad and today Lakshmi got her first bee sting on her toe.

Asheville

We finally made it 3 hours west up to Asheville. Here we were on the beautiful blue ridge parkway




We brought our water shoes and had fun playing in the river and going on nice hikes
We visited some really nice devotees who live way up in the mountains with beautiful scenery. Kalindi made the yummiest pizza I ever had with all organic ingredients.

Summer Stock Production

Vrindavan was in a musical for the past 2 weeks. They had daily practice from 9-1 and painted their scenery. Presented was The Adventures of Hap E. Golucky The Courageous cowboy of Crater Canyon. Vrindavan was Hap E. Golucky. Funny a few weeks before when I was filling out a form for another place for him they asked on the application to describe him in one word/phrase and I wrote down happy go lucky :) He did good, I could actually hear his voice this year and he danced too and he really had fun and looks forward to the next 2 week camp next week.

वहत वे हवे बीन दोंग

We took a plane and train to visit my Grandmother in the nursing home in PA.

We brought our costumes and danced there


I brought lots of photos, windows to the spiritual sky, she really appreiciated the beauty of Krishna and hearing about his stealing butter


Everyday we took Momay outside and Lakshmi would decorate her wheelchair with leaves and give her twigs which she really relished! We got a garland for her from the Philly temple.


Lakshmi with her Kathak dance teacher after a performance



We had ballet performances the end of May
Lakshmi was a pink rose (and white lily for another show)


Vrndavan was an English Bobbie man (and a moonbeam in another show) He is the little guy on the far left




Hiking in the woods with mom who (finally) came to visit


Lakshmi turned 6!
I'm not sure why the title turned into devanagari script. ?
Current update-
Vrndavan is doing musical theater camp and Lakshmi has dance art camp and Odissi classes this week.

Started our weekend fun Friday. It was the last day of the home schooling Friday Enrichment 10 week program. The kids had fun and made new friends. I taught pre-ballet, Vrndavan took the Mad Science class again. He really likes all the fun experiments they do and things they make. He also took this time outdoor games. Organized fun type games. Lakshmi took the horticulture class and art class. She especially loves art. Next year kids will join in classes at the Ackland Art Museum. I really am happy they are into the arts. Soon Vrndavan will have tabla lessons, Lakshmi and I keyboards/harmonium. Ok back to the near now- Friday night HH BKG came to our home for dinner. We were happy to have his association.
Saturday morning started out with me teaching 2 ballet classes and taking 1/2 a class while Pati (husband) took kids to Vrndavan's soccer match. After all that we headed off to Raleigh for Earth Day. I meant to go to the one at the art museum but ended up at the one at the natural science museum. The kids esp liked the magician- just a young chap but I was amazed at the tricks he pulled off. The also enjoyed the scrap craft station where they got to make things our of craft scraps= V made a rocket with a launch pad and L a purse and hat.
Saturday night was New Goloka community meeting at M Rangadevi's.










Sunday morning we took kids to local Zen Center. I drive by there often and always wanted to stop in. I looked online and this Sunday was a good time to come= they were celebrating the appearance of Buddha and it was really child centered. The people were so very nice and welcoming. Kids dived right into service there, Lakshmi and Radha with flowers decorating the palaquin that would carry Baby Buddha. Vrndavan got into cake decorating. They took the kids and parents on a walk through the forest, then played a game, then went inside to hear the story of the birth of Sydharth. They then took us into the Zendu (?) "temple "room" It was a nice wooded room with lots of windows and skylights and nice smelling. They offered really nice cushions for everyone to sit on. Then with colorful flags and banners we went on a procession through the woods again to a circle. They had all the kids/parents in the inside of the circle which I thought was so nice and organized. Then in an peaceful manner each child came up to the altar and offered some type of coal in the little fire and gave the Buddha a bath with a ladle of sweet tea. On the morning he appeared, it rained lightly and the rain was sweet like tea. Then they had a potluck. I was happy to see that it all looked like healthy vegetarian food. We invited some of our new friends there to come to the Krishna Temple and they said they have wanted to visit there.
Later we drove 33 miles for Lakshmi's Kathak dance class and back for Sunday Feast. It was the appearance day of Hanumanji too! HH BKG gave a nice class, the children love to hear his class and the way he narrates the past times. Weekend extended into Monday. There was a percussion workshop offered to the home school group.


For the first time we went to Pittsboro. It was held at a place called Clapping Hands Farm.
The kids loved the 3 mile long driveway that had big mud puddles the car kept splashing in. Nice to be way out in the country. Many people brought their own drums. I was lamenting we didn't bring the mrdanga to introduce people to. There were plenty of drums for everyone to play. The teacher than taught some basic beats, some call and responses and group rythems. Picnic and then kids got to make some instruments. Ok I am tired of writing now
over and out

Holi