New Vrindaban Bloggers

12 years ago I planted some nut trees, 2 each of Chinese chestnuts, filberts, Carpathian walnuts, and butternuts.  The filberts were planted too close to a black walnut and never flourished, eventually succumbing to deer damage. The Chinese chestnuts also were lost to deer.

One each of the Carpathian walnuts and butternuts escaped unharmed, the other of each pair still alive but way behind in growth due to deer damage.  When I planted the trees, I remember thinking it would take 20 years for the walnuts and butternuts to come into bearing. As the Chinese proverb goes, “One generation plants a tree, the next sits in its shade.”

I was pleasantly surprised last spring when I saw nuts forming on the walnut tree a mere 12 years later.

After going back and researching, I found that the 20 year period was for the butternuts.

In June, if an apple tree has an abundant set, there occurs what is known as the “June drop”.  The tree drops little green apples and you can see them lying on the ground underneath. Apparently walnut trees do the same thing, as in June I saw a few newly formed nuts on the ground.

As the walnut tree has been flourishing it now has enough of a spread that we can park a vehicle underneath it to keep it from heating up in the sun.  One day in June my wife was going to get into the car parked in the shade and a nut fell unto her head.  This walnut tree does have a sense of humor in addition to being productive. How could you not develop a great deal of affection for such a tree?

Now the walnuts have started loosening from their husks and are dropping to the ground so yesterday I was out picking them up. There are a bit hard to see in the fresh  wood chip mulch I applied this summer although  the round shapes do stand out against the angularity of the chips. I did have to look from several angles in order to get them all.  By next year the chips will have grayed and the nuts will be easier to see.

They also try to hide in the grass (note to self: to keep the grass mowed closely around the tree next September) but the color contrast gives them away. Eventually the tree will spread out over the road and real vigilance will be necessary then as, unlike black walnuts, these walnuts will be crushed by a passing car.

I have an idea to try drum up some support for the concept of people planting fruit and nut trees. If 10 devotees would each plant 5 trees a year, in ten years there would have been be 500 trees planted.  That would be more than necesary to provide fruit and nuts for all the residents of New Vrindaban.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
,,.Where knowledge is free;
,,.Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
,,.Where words come out from the depth of truth;
,,.Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
,,.Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand
,,.,,.of dead habit;
,,.Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
,,.Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

A woman was at her hairdresser’s getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband. She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:”Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It’s crowded and dirty. You’re crazy to go to Rome .. So, how are you getting there?”

“We’re taking Continental,” was the reply. “We got a great rate!”

“Continental?” exclaimed the hairdresser. ” That’s a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they’re always late. So, where are you staying in Rome ?”

“We’ll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome’s Tiber River called Teste.”

“Don’t go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it’s really a dump, the worst hotel in the city! The rooms are small, the service is surly, and they’re overpriced. So, whatcha’ doing when you get there?”

“We’re going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope.”

“That’s rich,” laughed the hairdresser. “You and a million other people trying to see him. He’ll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You’re going to need it.”

A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.

“It was wonderful,” explained the woman, “not only were we on time in one of Continental’s brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.

And the hotel was great! They’d just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it’s a jewel, the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner’s suite at no extra charge!”

“Well,” muttered the hairdresser, “that’s all well and good, but I know you didn’t get to see the Pope.”

“Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I’d be so kind as to step into his private roomand wait, the Pope would personally greet me.

Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me.”

“Oh, really! What’d he say ?”

He said: “Where’d you get the lousy hairdo?”

The following is my response to an email thread about cow protection, or, more correctly, the lack thereof, in ISKCON, and the mentality that has led to that lack:

As a society, we have been using the rationale of yukta vairagya, the poor cow to be slaughtered will benefit from offering to Krishna her milk, as a crutch for too long. Srila Prabhupada gave us clear instructions that we were to set up farms. He allowed an exception for time and circumstance of using a thorn to remove a thorn, that drinking industrial milk was better than eating meat, and less cows are killed, but it was only meant as a stop gap measure, not to become entrenched as dogma.

Most vegans are situational vegans, they don’t drink milk because they look reality in the face and acknowledge the cruelty of current milk production. They look at ISKCON and see actions speaking louder than words, that although the books distributed are full of cow protection katha, it isn’t practiced.

Vegans as a class are probably the most realized and aware people on the planet now, and could be the base demographic of a resurgence of Krishna Consciousness in the West, but they are going to have to see ISKCON walk the talk if ISKCON wants to remain relevant as a vessel for expanding Krishna Consciousness in modern society.

Without cow protection in practice, it is like having a flat tire on a vehicle. It is okay to use the “donut” spare to get to a place the tire can be fixed, but if you continue to drive on it, it will destroy the differential and the car will become dysfunctional.

Yes, okay to use slaughtered cow milk as a field expedient measure, and use guru as a karma filter to make it offerable, but if complacency sets in for decades and no attempt to rectify the situation is made, we could expect things like gurus, overloaded with karma, falling, empty brahmacary ashrams, and preaching relegated to a rear guard action with mostly first generation Hindu immigrants as the main adherents.

Time to stop living in the past and start trying to apply Srila Prabhupada’s vision to the real world today.

eis·ege·sis

Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural eis·ege·ses
Etymology: Greek eis into (akin to Greek en in) + English exegesis

: the interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one’s own ideas — compare exegesis

(ex·e·ge·sis

Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ex·e·ge·ses
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek ex?g?sis, from ex?geisthai to explain, interpret, from ex- + h?geisthai to lead

: exposition, explanation; especially : an explanation or critical interpretation of a text)