water – jalamahabhoota

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lightning flashed brighter than the moon it covered up last night. rain loomed like vamana in a kapha-aggravated patient, prepared with 6 glasses of milk and two fingers down her throat. thunder kept the huddle of late-night men at bay, at home, staring out their window and watching us walk by.

after saying our goodbyes to the graduates of our ayurveda program, the four of us living in kamala, the other residence for the ayurveda school, walked in silence. our group was dwindling in goodbyes, which would end for me the next day, a final goodbye to kindred spirits.

on the almost last walk along the shore of payamollah beach, we listened to the music of the ocean tell us stories about his big and strong dad. the four of us each fell in, for moments, inside the oral-tradition of the ocean. we stopped like men stirred by the dark eyes and perfumed gaze of a brown-eyed karnataka girl. we stood there and stared over miles, as far as the eye could see - purple waves.

jala (water) is one of the panachamahoboota's. unlike, prithvi (earth) you can easily thrust your hand through it. unlike agni (fire), your hand won't burn (necessarily), during/after. unlike vayu/akash (air/space), you will have physical proof of jala on your skin – drops of water. but these distinctions are subtle.

water is holy in many cultures. there are millions who gather around the ganges each year, pay homage to the river that begins as mist above the himalaya, flows down the mountain and runs it's hands through northern india.

floyd redcrow westerman (r.i.p), a hopi elder, said that before the europeans colonized america, you could drink out of any river, “because water is sacred to us.”

water has no borders that separate it. water covers 70-75 percent of the earth. water is a liquid. water runs faster than boys with candybars (mistook for guns) from the cops. water runs faster than slum dogs for that million dollar bone, faster than wallstreet stockbrokers can lip persuasion to capture million dollar deals, faster than palestinian boys with rocks hurled at israeli soldiers with the star of death and tomahawks. water runs faster than flash gordon, if it wants to.

my little homie, bear, is water. he moves on the basketball courts like liquid, runs his hand over the rim like a tidal wave, and dunks as the ocean does to surfers getting too close, off guard. bear sits still on a park bench, like a lake, has people surround him and grow quiet. he flows to redhook in the evening and streams back to willyburgh when its time, when the moon calls.

my amma is a river, she is our holy water, holds my brothers n poppa n i together, even as we circle the city again and again, like dolphins in a bp oil-slicked ocean. she caresses our wounds, keeps her arms open, no matter how far we go away, no matter how many jobs let us go, no matter how often we quit and lay on the couch and encase ourselves in the aquarium of television and text-messages and internet. she keeps my poppa, brothers and i together like rivers bind ecosystems.