HAPPY DIWALI!

Oct. 27th this  year is Chhoti Diwali in North India [small Diwali] and Deepavali in South India.

Oct. 28th is Diwali-- a celebration when I miss being with my family in India! Usually everyone visits each other, giving sweets; offering prayers and enjoying each day of the celebration.

[The words Diwali and Deepavali are used interchangeably in India.]

I'll never forget traveling with my family by train from North to South India one Diwali season and seeing the beautiful earthen lights flickering in villages and towns and cities that we passed by.


Now, people often pollute the atmosphere by too many firecrackers, but the fun of phooljharies [sparklers] is infectious! Not those noise "bombs"-firecrackers, though!


But we've celebrated it in the U.S. with friends and new-found family of friends. Everyone likes to dress up in Indian clothes and jewelery, get henna designs on their hands, and dance the dandiya raas. It's bringing in the light of our own lives on earth, along with the light of the gods into the dark night of the new moon.

If we have people over at our home, the kids enact one of the stories of Diwali.

My favorite memory here; is of dancing the dandiya raas with a Muslim friend [Diwali is a Hindu festival] from Pakistan [which is supposed to be our enemy country]. An outward dance, an inner celebration. Our friends from Ecuador, Uruguay, Greece, Portugal, and other U.S. states, joined in.

And when we lived in Singapore, another friend, also Muslim, who sat down with the invited kids in our house– from China, Singapore, Malaysia, Europe, Australia and India– encouraged them to pick up the folk musical instruments, and involved them in the impromptu telling of the story of Diwali.

It is truly a festival that all enjoy. Light indeed.
__________

Information on Denise/flowerchild's  post on the Living Metaphysics pod and Eli's blog.