Lord Ganesha the elephant god
This week in our Monday morning gathering, we sang our winter songs and then we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jeff. Ruth T. told us that Jeff has a special connection to Saint Paul. She said that Jeff was born in Saint Paul’s hospital and just like Saint Paul, Jeff loves to greet the light in the morning. After that we talked about the weather, stars and our weekend.
In our Thursday morning college, John and I taught everybody about elephants in the wilds. Elephants live in the grasslands of Africa, in the jungles of India and in captivity in zoos. The African elephant is different from the Indian elephant in that the ears of the African are huge and the Indian elephants’ ears are short. We also talked about the Indian elephant god, Ganesha. Ganesha’s father Shiva was angry at his wife, Parvati. In a fit of rage Shiva cut off Ganesha’s head. When Shiva’s wife saw this she was very upset so Shiva replaced Ganesha’s head with an elephant’s head. We learned that the Indian elephant god , Ganesha was a god of beginnings and can help people overcome obstacles. At the end of college, we practiced our words from India such as ‘namaste’ and ‘om’.
After a short break, Lorna’s bell choir practiced their bell playing.