Apsara

At dawn and twilight we pour milk and oil into the fire.

Juice of the aloeswood tree, dark and aromatic, is her incense, her perfume and her medicine; yes, she.

Vishnu reclines on the coils of Ananta,canopied by the cobra’s seven hoods,afloat on the infinite ocean; he awakes from yogic sleep, as a lotus stalk sprouts from his navel, revealing in its flower Brahma the Creator.

In the temple’s gloom, the priest circumambulates the god; igniting the camphor, he breathes its fire and scent, watches it burn to nothing, and leave no trace;


The damaru booms, vibrates with the rhythm of Creation, the same sound into which the world will one day be reabsorbed; the two triangles of purusha and prakriti; the upward and the downward.

I would learn the science of the crow, his three secrets; to understand immortality, the creation of the world and the nature of Hell.

Brother, sister, lover, raise your hand in abhayamudra.

At dawn and twilight we pour milk and oil into the fire.