In my 52 years as a monk it was the first baby shower I ever attended that I can remember. That first was today. My disciple/student, Sukavak, whom I’ve known since birth, is having a baby in two months, rather his wife, Dola. Let’s put it this way, sperm and egg meet and before you know it there will be a delivery of a miraculous kind having nothing to do with Amazon, but something that excites both Mum and Dad.
The procedure for blessing this child’s coming was done according to Bengali tradition, which went something like this: Dola sat on a chair while Sukavak stood nearby. The priest (that’s me) offers three seeds (grains) to the head of the mother. Also three strands of grass are applied. There is also a game which is executed by the couple with intent to determine the gender of the child. At one point in all this light-heartedness every attendee is given out a card in which to write something wise, encouraging, and even gimmicky.
The prasad and kirtan were just delights before a group of us made our way to the west end of Toronto. Whitby was invited to speak to the ISKCON community. We made an agreement, “If I can bring my actors we could do our Gita play.” The agreement was on and was performed remarkably well. We had tweaked and tightened words, moves and sounds. That made it our last performance for this stretch. I was bursting with pride over the hard work behind this production. It was a good pride.
Source: https://www.thewalkingmonk.net/post/of-all-things-a-baby-shower
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