Gopinath

 

Gopinath  
By: John McCane

                The trip was my first to India in several years. I had missed so much the smells, sights, and tastes of a place I had come to love. I had flown in for two weddings of separate college friends in north India. Being back in this wonderful place, I was still slightly disheartened as I would not be visiting the south's deep green jungles where I had spent most of my time on previous trips. Joining a friend on a trip to the holy city of Vrindavan, the birthplace of Krishna, I hoped to at least visit some of the places of Krishna's pastimes on earth before flying to Kolkata for the second wedding of the trip. 

                The taxi car sped along the dusty highway from Delhi with my friend Arjit and I in the back seat. He had pressed the driver to be as fast as he could as we had a late start in the morning and had gotten caught in the infamous Delhi traffic, extending our driving time by several hours. His long and curly brown hair jostled across his face as he opened the window to let fresh air flow over us. In preparation for visiting this holy city, he had been chanting, his hand hidden in his bead bag, since the early morning. He smiled at me from across the seat as we began to see signs saying that we were getting closer to Mathura and Vrindavan.   


                The car sped past fields of golden flowered mustard and gigantic brick kilns that dotted the landscape. Bullock carts plodded slowly on the edges of even this major highway, and on occasion, camels could be seen pulling overladen carts of crops. This whole area would have been one massive forest during the time of Krishna though today it was hard to imagine. Small stands of low trees dotted the landscape, but the new houses and villages outnumbered the trees in number. The fields of mustard and wheat had long ago pushed the forests to the periphery. 


                Sandstone gateways appeared to mark the entrance to the "Vraja Bhumi" or the land of Krishna, and the real start to our trip. The air's feeling seemed to change as we entered the village of Vrindavan slowly and coming to the edge of the area called Raman Reti. Arjit had arranged for us to stay in a hotel run by ISKCON (The International Society for Krishna Consciousness) that sat just behind their temple. We checked in and almost ran to the room to shower off the dust of the trip and change so that we could begin our pilgrimage. The room had only a tiny mirror, so we helped each other apply the sacred marks of Vaishnavas (Urdhva Pundra) before leaving the room and first visiting the ISKCON Krishna Balaram temple. 

                A new temple constructed in the 70's by the first westerners to visit Vrindavan was a beautiful white marble edifice whose towers shot up into the sky around an open courtyard with a beautiful Tamal tree. The deities of Radha and Krishna, Krishna Balaram, and Gaura Nitai looked out on this courtyard at the devotees who came to visit them in grand splendor. The sun was already low on the horizon, so Arjit decided to surprise me and brought me to the other side of the city to the "Sri Rangaji temple," a huge south Indian temple built in the 1800s. He realized how much I missed the south, and so we both hurried inside the colossal temple tower entryway only to discover the temple was closing and the main sanctum had been closed. Disheartened yet again at the loss of a  chance for a taste of south India, we began to leave the temple. A group of the Tamilian priest's sons stopped me while noticing my Sri Vaishnavite markings. Telling us that they were on their way to Radha Ramans temple, a tiny but beloved temple dedicated to a deity of Krishna that manifested for Gopal Bhatt Goswami in the 15^th century, and that we should join them. Feeling as if someone had taken some small mercy on me, we followed along in the ever-pressing darkness.

                Through medieval streets that twisted and turned, again and again, we followed the group of boys wearing long white clothes that shimmered in the shadows. Finally, they pushed open an ancient wooden door, and we found ourselves entering into the inner part of Radha Ramans temple. The room was lit in lamp and torchlight that flickered and wavered. Standing only a foot tall, the deity gazed out on the crowd with white, upturned eyes made of shell. His black stone form stood alone though the clothes of his closest consort Radha sat next to him. The devotees in the temple were putting on a south Indian Bharatanatyam performance and singing songs in Carnatic or South Indian style. I could not help but smile, I had been so disappointed that I would not see the south on this trip, but Krishna reproduced it for me here in the north.  

                We sat for a long time, clapping and dancing in front of that incredibly merciful form of the lord. Slowly the devotees left for the night, and a flute player came to put Radha Raman to rest for the evening. Arjit and I made our way back out onto the now fully dark streets lit only by moonlight. Arjit generally knew where we were, and so we moved out of the tiny street we were on into a more extensive road that ran along the Yamuna river. The city was oddly quiet, but we could see a group of young men walking behind us and could hear them whispering to each other. Arjit pulled me off the main road, and we began tracing our way through the twisting streets in the pitch black. We could hear the monkeys scrambling above us at the tops of walls and houses as Arjit turned to me wide-eyed, "They are talking about us. I can't hear exactly what they are saying, but we shouldn't stick around to find out what they want." While not running, we walked briskly through the maze of tiny alleyways and side streets, and still, we could hear the group's muffled voices getting closer.  

                We ducked into a darkened courtyard and pushed ourselves up against the edge of one wall, trying to become one with the dappled shadows. The group of men passed through the little alleyway within just a few feet of us and moved on, seemingly having lost our trail. I looked at Arjit, "Where do we go now? I have no idea where we are." It felt like moving onward in this maze of streets at night would make us even more lost and ever likely to bump again into that group of men who had been following us. The creak of an old door filled the courtyard as a woman carrying a bright oil lamp came out onto the courtyard. With long black hair and a crimson sari, she pointed us out and beckoned us to her.

                "Welcome to the mother's temple," she said without the hint of the accent typical for this area of the country. "Come inside and see," she said with a huge smile across her face. I looked at Arjit and shrugged; it was better than aimlessly walking the streets in the dark. As we passed through the threshold, I noticed that the courtyard, having now been illuminated, was painted a bright red with a white marble floor, a Tulasi plant placed in the center of the open space. The woman glided in front of us as we followed her into a well-lit marble room. "I am the mother who cares for this temple." A wooden altar with a beautiful Krishna in black stone stood in the center with two female consorts to each side was placed at the end of the room. The charismatic woman beckoned us to the altar while one ancient-looking priest sat inside, making the last offerings of the night. "You get to see him in his nightclothes before he sleeps. We had closed the temple, but I knew you needed help, and so we invited you in." The priest came and gave us several sweets that had been offered earlier in the day. He closed the curtains on the altar, having put the deities to sleep for the evening. The woman turned to us again and said matter-of-factly that we needed to go out the door on the opposite side of the room. "You'll come out onto the main road just a few blocks from your hotel. Don't worry; you will be safe."

                She guided us to the large medieval-looking door and pulled on the ancient door ring to let us out. Opening the temple door, the quiet of the place was suddenly invaded by the main road's busy sounds, even at this time of night. Almost pushing us out of the temple, she pointed up the road and shut the door behind us. I looked at Arjit; it all happened so fast I was unsure of what had just transpired. We walked up the road together, not speaking. Our hotel was only a block up from the ancient door that the woman had pushed us through, and we slept well from our evening's adventures. I made a promise to myself that I would go back to that ancient door and revisit the woman in the morning to thank her and the temple for caring for us. I drifted off quickly, and my dreams of Krishna's pastimes with his Gopi girlfriends filled my mind.  


                I awoke and showered quickly in the morning, eager to visit as much as I could before I had to leave and to see and thank those who had cared for us last night. We checked out of our little hotel room and quickly headed down the nearby hill toward the temple we had visited yesterday evening. Vrindavan echoed with the sounds and sights of the morning; devotees walked with hands in bead bags chanting their morning prayers, food stalls, and flower stalls filled the edges of the road. The closer we got to where we thought the old door had been, the least it looked like it should. Last night the area had been filled with tightly fit buildings on ancient streets, and now, while several old houses lined the road, the majority of the area we thought the door should have been having been replaced with a neglected construction site. "This cannot be right. We only walked a block at most to our hotel last night." I looked at Arjit in confusion. He shrugged his shoulders, and we walked further down the road as we must have mismeasured the amount we walked. 


                We walked through by streets and across the main road and never found that temple or woman again. We had to leave to catch my flight to Kolkata, so I left my friend and the mystery of the missing temple. I felt like I had been shown grace and had a memorable experience I could not explain. Years later, while watching a documentary on the seven main temples of Vrindavan, I saw an ancient courtyard painted in bright red; my attention having been caught, I stared in amazement as the documentary showed the deity of Krishna in black stone with a wooden altar and two consorts on each side. The narrator for the documentary explained that this was Gopinath, the third most important temple in Vrindavan. Radha sat to his right side and Ananga Manjari, her younger sister, on the left side, I discovered. Many hundreds of years ago, Mother Jhanava, the wife of the great Gaudiya saint Nityananda Prabhu had a dream where Radha had asked her to replace the deity of Radha. After a lot of discussion with the priests, they decided to keep the older deity of Radha along with the deity given by Mother Jhanava. Upon her disappearance, Mother Jhanava came to this temple and merged with the deities, disappearing from our existence on the altar.

                I sat stunned, unable to process everything I had learned at one time. The Gopinath temple's location was very far from our hotel room, yet somehow, I was sure this is the temple we had visited. Even today, it is hard for me to believe that this ever happened, and I still try to piece it together in my mind to make some sense. Either way, I believe I was so blessed and received direct mercy from Sri Sri Radha Gopinath in Vrindavan. I have not been able to visit Vrindavan since the incident, but the second I can return, I will see Gopinath and give thanks for his kindness.  

               

Patita Pavana

Patita Pavana 
By: John McCane

                The heat from the midmorning sun burned my bare feet as I walked quickly through the dusty streets of the city of Puri. Famous for being home to the ancient temple of Jagannath, translating to mean the lord of the universe, it seemed the city was busy at all times. Traffic consisting of car, bullock carts, rickshaws, and immense crowds were continuously on the move. The city would become even more crowded during the festival of Ratha Yatra when the deities of the temple, Jagannath, Baladeva, and their sister Subhadra were brought out and placed on giant and beautifully decorated raths or carts to greet all the devotees and to survey their realm. The crowds were due partly because of the mass of people who are not allowed to visit Jagannath in his temple getting the chance to meet him outside on his cart. Crossing several side streets, ducking between hawker stands filled with tiny versions of the deities that sat resplendent in the temple for tourists, I finally emerged onto a massive thoroughfare. Wide and open, the road stretched like a sword thrust through the city starting from the tall towers and thick walls of Puri temple.  

                The smell of the salty ocean penetrated my nostrils as I pushed into the open area. Buildings of all types and sizes lined the thoroughfare, ancient mutts or monasteries sat next to fashionable restaurants and hotels. The temple itself sat framed against the open sky of the seashore, a massive stone sanctum that rose high above a collection of smaller temples, all surrounded by a formidable stone wall that had seen countless centuries. The walls and temple door's details moved into focus; great lions sat carved at the front gate, a tall stone pillar, standard outside most temples call the Garuda Stambha rose forty feet into the air, thematically painted murals and images decorated every inch of the brightly colored façade. The doorway into the temple stood with its massive doors opened wide with a line of people stretched out waiting to see the lord while guards and temple workers patrolled the lines keeping order. High above the queue, a sign in bold red letters that read in English NO NON-HINDUS ALLOWED was hung against the wall.    

                The sign is, of course, what would keep me from seeing my lord. The warning meant that entrance was barred to anyone, not of Hindu or Indian descent. The rule came about due to the atrocities of the middle ages and of the Muslim invasions of Puri, where hundreds were killed, and the temple sacked. I knew where the rule came from, but it still did not make it feel right. With my pasty white skin, I might as well have been an albino whale trying to walk into the temple. It did not matter that I followed the rites and rituals associated with being a "Hindu". It was an irony, I almost chuckled audibly; throughout history, those of my skin color had taken advantage of people of color, often restricting entrance to "white only" institutions. Now, so many years later, I could not visit my god, whose skin is black, because of the whiteness of my skin. 

                I approached the great doorway, ever wary of the guards and temple servants who were eyeing me with suspicion; from here, I could see Patita Pavana or the uplifter of the most fallen. Patita Pavana was an old deity of Jagannath preserved several hundred years ago and sat at the threshold of the temple for all those who could not enter.  Great round eyes greeted me from the doorway as my lord's welcoming face appeared between the crowds. Jagannath was so merciful he would come to the doorway for us even if we could not enter. His abstract, wooden form always seemed to be smiling with great arms outstretched as if reaching to embrace me. Tears began to fill my eyes as I wished, ever so much, that I could step beyond the stone doorway and greet him properly.   


                A guard in a brown shirt began pushing me back as I had wandered too near the entrance. I fell back, and my lord's eyes drifted again behind the throngs of people visiting the temple. I felt defeated; this one look did not feel like enough to sate my thirst for the lord. I wished so dearly I could go inside the temple and see him seated grandly on his throne with his brother and sister. I decided to come back when the crowd was less and see if I could get just one more glance of those loving eyes.

  
                I walked down a side street connected to the temple and found myself on the beach, looking out to the endless sea. I breathed deep the refreshing smell of salt and sat down near the rolling waves, still feeling disconcerted. "Oh, Jagannath, I wish you would come to me. Since I am not allowed to come to you," I thought while tossing pebbles into the foam of the coming waves. I noticed something sticking up from the wet sand, it seemed oblong and wooden, so I curiously pulled on it. The tiny black face of Jagannath, along with the yellow face of his sister Subhadra sat staring at me. The white face of his brother Balarama was missing from the set, but I almost hugged the small carved wooden images. It felt as if, just as I had wished, Jagannath himself had come to greet me since I was unable to see him. I stared into those loving eyes and outstretched arms for long minutes, almost not realizing the dropping of the sun below the horizon.

                The sky now set ablaze with the setting sun slowly revealed stars twinkling as blackness filled the sky. I moved from my perch, aching from sitting for so long, and I moved back around the temple carrying the two small icons close to my chest. Harsh halogen streetlamps illuminated everything in a bright glow, the hawkers and crowds still filled the massive thoroughfare in a never-ending wave of chaos, but I somehow was apart from it. I felt whole somehow. I stopped again at the entrance to the great temple to see the smiling face of Patita Pavana. This time, his gaze seemed different, as if knowing that he was coming along with me. I stood for as long as I was allowed before mixing back into the crowd and the darkness back to my hotel. 

Note: To save time and space this is a slightly dramatized version of the actual events. I have not included my husbands involvement.

Home- A Cherished Memory

Home  
By: John McCane

                Home for many people can mean many things. For me, it has always represented the place and time of my youth. It is not uncommon for people to harken back to this era in their lives and mourn the movement of time. It must be more difficult if, like me, childhood was particularly idyllic. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t look back fondly and mournfully on those days spent in a huge, old red brick house that sat on a beautiful green plot at the edge of a tiny village that would never grow any bigger. We were neither particularly wealthy, nor were we particularly poor. My bedroom window view changed as I grew and flitted between different bedrooms in that ancient house. From my earliest memory, a bright green field that stretched into forever, the snow-covered road that sloped down toward a distant white farmhouse that glowed in golden light during the dark winters, and finally moving to a room with the view of a reflective pond the stretched out to the end of the property surrounded by thick reeds and willow trees.   

                Between the bedrooms and viewpoints, the sound of my mother pushing open a creaking door to yell up to my sister and I, "John, Julia, it's time to wake up," was always the constant throughout each day. The smell of a hot breakfast and the sounds of my mother cooking drifting up the stairwell helped to arouse my senses in the morning. Each of us has memories like this, and most of us dream of returning somehow to our youthful bodies and returning to that time hazy with memories even for a moment.   

                My sister and I would race down the stairs after the sweet scent of pancakes and jostled against each other to reach the bathroom first; my sister usually the winner. My father would just be finishing up and getting ready to leave for work as he had gotten up far earlier than we. I would sit in the warm sun of our breakfast nook, looking out across that reflective pond. Depending on the season, a different variety of birds would be singing, and the scenery would change with the passage of winter or summer, but generally, change was slow where I grew up. The same families lived in the same houses for generations, and farms passed from father to children, and time would go on in an endless march. At least, that is how my childlike understanding saw the cycle of life.  
                These warm, bright mornings are one of my happiest places to return in my mind's eye. Life was simple and without regret. People often say that we do not know we are genuinely happy until the day that the tides turn, and we realize we have lost something fundamental. That is why, as we age and understand that life is not always as friendly as we would like, we cloak ourselves in cherished memories that we can never return to as an armor that will help us to remember the good in the world; a light for us to follow in the darkness.  

                I look at my parents and even my grandparents and wonder what they must be missing. What memory they cling to and wish they could return, and what memory has helped them remember that good still exists in the world. I realize now, after much of what made my childhood so idyllic, has begun to change that the simple view I had of life then was never meant for me. All I want is to be among those forested hills of my youth, and life seems to pull me further and further afield. The family members present in those cherished times begin to age and eventually leave us to be the singular stewards of our own memories. When we meet that inevitable end, the light of that golden time will go out forever. Unless I think, heaven is merely waking up and hearing your mother shout up the stairwell, "John, Julia; it's time to get up,” as the smell of a hot breakfast drifts up to greet you.

The Old Rock Wall

 

The Old Rock Wall


                On the far edge of our farm, deep in the forest, sits an ancient boundary wall made of piled stones. Constructed when property lines were first drawn centuries ago, it has stood the test of time. Through spring, summer, autumn, and frosty winter, year after year, it stands as a silent sentinel to the ages. The boundary is far enough into the forest that only a few from the owners of each parcel of land has ever seen its quiet solitude. A stream flows next to it and beyond it. Even as a youth, I only attempted to pass this barrier beyond our property to explore where the stream came from deep into the forest on the opposite side. The stream was wide and beautiful as well as inviting beyond the wall. It was as if the stone wall marked not only the edge of our property line but the very edge of my comfort zone. I was anxious the entire time I had ventured beyond the wall as if someone were watching and knew I was not meant to be beyond the edifice.  

                In my grandfather’s day, someone must have tried to build a barbed-wire fence to further demarcate the area as a boundary. Today, while the stone wall seems ageless, the more modern fence has rusted and has broken in whole sections. I had always imagined the wall as holding times secrets. Notes having been stuffed into the crevices only to be ready decades or centuries later. 
                I find peace in the idea of the old rock wall. In its seeming permeance and strength, even if in reality it could be destroyed with a sledgehammer or a bulldozer. Its presence is more than physical but creates the very edge of my childhood memories where I have only passed beyond once. This ancient sentinel is a guardian to the childhood, a protector, a silent preceptor.

The Cabin

 

                It seemed like every week or two, my father would come up with some grand project to do together that we would seldom fully complete. He was an electrical engineer, so while I was still a toddler, he had built a hovercraft for me to ride around; to my dismay, I learned that I was so afraid of the sound that the craft had to be dismantled. For my ninth birthday, my father bought a telescope for me that was so large, people would stop by the house to gawk, and many would knock on our front door asking if we had a cannon sitting in our upstairs window. We could use the telescope to see Saturn's rings on a clear night, but to get the best view, it had to be lugged outside and weighing in at well over two-hundred pounds. The task became apparent, and we looked out at the stars on chilly nights less and less. On my twelfth birthday, I walked outside on a freezing November morning to see a full-sized, working French-styled trebuchet, a type of medieval catapult, taking up half of my parent's parking lot. While unique, an ancient machine of war may have been an ill-thought gift for a twelve-year-old. 

                I could recount endless projects and gifts that my father involved me in that gave me a sense of wonder and a unique childhood. Still, one of the most memorable is the day he decided to build a log cabin on our farm. We bought a woodsmen book published in 1910 for people planning to learn what was called "bushcraft" and develop and live in a cabin. It took weeks of planning to start. We walked down to a bend in a stream that flowed through the middle of our farm and picked a relatively level spot that seemed to be safe from flooding or erosion. We built a little road to the site we had chosen for easy access. We spent time picking the particular trees we would cut and what would be best. We put together a grid pattern to build a sturdy foundation of 4x4 poles if our little plot did indeed flood. It all seemed perfect. I can still remember the excitement caused by talking to my father late in the night about all the camping trips we could have at the cabin and how we could improve the structure every year. 

                Before the winter, we had managed to build the floor and foundations. We had cut and sawed the trees to size using our farm's old sawmill. The logs dried inside the barn as the snow came down in blankets over the next few months. I would go and sit on the half-finished floor in a heavy coat and boots, imagining all the fun I would have there, in my little cabin. Still, this was my senior year in high school, and I spent less and less time at home. I was busy looking at colleges and taking tours, and so even as spring finally came, I worked on the cabin with my father less and less. My father would come home from work tired, or I would come back from school, wanting to meet my friends. Eventually, we did drag those dried logs out of the barn and set up a short half wall. Finally, we could see some shape coming to the cabin. Yet time seemed to be slipping away as my life pulled me in directions away from my childhood, farm, and the cabin. 

                I moved away for college that fall, and work on the cabin all but ceased. Things would never be the same, and no more significant work would ever be done on our unfinished cabin. The next summer, we pulled a plastic tarp across the half-built walls and made a jerry-rigged lean-to where we did finally go camping. We built a big, beautiful stone fire pit next to our little campsite, but this still was not the grand cabin either of us had envisioned.  
                We used this space as our campsite for years after, even if it never lived up to the grandeur of my childhood dreams; Eventually, though, the unprotected log walls began to rot and what we had built fell into disrepair as I visited home less and less. Slowly, our dream of sitting in front of a warm fire in a cabin my father and I had built slowly faded and became fuzzy. Still, the memories of what had did do together persisted. Even though the project was never completed, I feel thankful for the time it gave me to spend with my father, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

The First Hike

 

  

                As a child, I had walked the length and breadth of our three hundred-acre farm with my father. We traced back streams to their source and explored great cracks in the ridge's cliff faces that surrounded the farm on three sides. I had the run of my own massive playground where my imagination could be free to find magic and mystery. Still, I will never forget the memories of the first hike where I was alone, where I chose the path I strode, and where to wander. 
                I left on a mid-spring morning telling my mother I was going for a walk before closing the door behind me and starting on my journey. As I had many times before, I began walking to the old forest path that led from our house in the small village of Jacktown; to our family farm that sat nestled in the bowl of a river valley. Two great trees seemingly guarded the entrance of the beginning of the long forest path. Their great boughs, heavy with age, twisting together to form an arch of greenery. The morning was chilly, and mist drifted along the trail. The warmth of the coming sun would soon chase these whisps away.  

                The path followed the edge of the ridge and sloped down slowly into the valley. Sandstone boulders lined the right side and, while brush shielded the view of the left side, I knew from experience that the edge dropped away into a steep decline that would have anyone grabbing for roots and branches if they fell off the slope. I strolled down the path listening to birds twittering back and forth across the limbs of the trees. Warblers and Red Cardinals, Nuthatches, and brilliantly colored Blue Jays darted around me. The path began to become dry and cracked as I entered an area I had always called "The Ravines." The trail wrapped around a large area that dropped away sharply at least several hundred feet in smooth white clay hills. Erosion had caused the earth to stand in pillars topped with living cedar trees, the lowest areas filled with a heavy green moss. The mists smothered everything in blinding white for the moment, and I could not see what I knew lay far below. The soil became spongy, and grasses only sparsely inhabited this section of the trail. It was almost as if a little piece of the Mojave Desert had been brought and shoved into the usually green and shady forests of Ohio.   
    
         

  

      Walking to my right, away from "The Ravines" and into a tall stand of old-growth Cedar trees, I grasped a limb and pulled myself up to nearly the top of the great tree. I sat for a while, listening and watching, almost merging with my environment. The tree and the trees swayed slowly in the wind making long groans as they moved. In my mind, it sounded as if the ancient trees were having a conversation; slow, soothing, and melodic. A soft rain began to drizzle. I stayed dry in my little perch between the branches of the cedar, watching the world around me gain a glistening sheen. Thinking back, I must have sat in that tree for hours, merely observing. I would return many times over the years, only to sit and watch.

              

Finally, the rain stopped, and I lowered myself, sloshing through the now muddied ground. I walked back up the path and headed home. I had barely begun my walk but deciding my few hours in the tree, having sated my craving for wonder. Finally returning to the old red brick house and walking through the door and leaving my muddied shoes on the front porch, I let the front door close heavily behind me. "Did you commune with nature" my mother joked as I sat down to a hot bowl of soup she dished out for me. She would never know how right she was.

                Looking back, I realized that this was the first time I had the chance to enjoy our farm's natural beauty on my own. After many years and many acres of the farm being parceled and sold, I still cherish its beauty and the time I was allowed to spend there in my life.