Early in the morning we crossed the ghat,
where fires were still smoldering,
and gazed, with our Western minds, into the Ganges.
A woman was standing in the river up to her waist;
she was lifting handfuls of water and spilling it
over her body, slowly and many times,
as if until there came some moment
of inner satisfaction between her own life and the river’s.
Then she dipped a vessel she had brought with her
and carried it filled with water back across the ghat,
no doubt to refresh some shrine near where she lives,
for this is the holy city of Shiva, maker
of the world, and this is his river.
I can’t say much more, except that it all happened
in silence and peaceful simplicity, and something that felt
like that bliss of a certainty and a life lived
in accordance with that certainty.
I must remember this, I thought, as we fly back
to America.
Pray God I remember this.
Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings
What's a ghat, I wondered. “Ghats in Varanasi are riverfront steps leading to the banks of the River Ganges. The city has 88 ghats. Most of the ghats are bathing and puja ceremony ghats, while two ghats are used exclusively as cremation sites.” (Wikipedia) And who is Shiva, pray tell? According to a New York Times article, “The River Ganges fell from the foot of Vishnu the Preserver and formed a seething Milky Way that lodged in the foot of Shiva, Destroyer and Restorer of the universe. Varanasi, the great and holy city that lies within a silver loop of the mighty river, was brought into being by the intensity of Shiva's perpetual meditation. Varanasi is the city Shiva promised never to desert.” (Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, May 16, 1993)
Early morning is a sacred time for me. There is a peaceful simplicity to the day not yet unfolded. The silence of the dawn is broken only by the birds calling to one another, or cars racing along Memorial Drive. The fire from last night’s vigil still smolders in my heart as I gaze with my Western mind out the window. It’s not the river Ganges I see but the river Charles.
There are no women standing in the Charles River purifying themselves with handfuls of water. Rather there are people climbing up the steps to a bridge that will lead them over troubled waters into the city. The river is polluted, perhaps no more or less than the Ganges; and yet no one brings water back from there to a shrine nearby. In fact, their vessels are empty.
She was looking for “inner satisfaction between her own life and the river’s.” These days I get it. My perpetual meditation is broken routinely, and so “I can't get no satisfaction” until I go to the river, or the mountain, or the desert.
From my window, I see the golden capital building of our city. Like Jerusalem it is a city built on a hill. Like Varanasi, there are many shrines, churches where palm branches are twisted into little crosses. There are no donkeys, only memories of cattle. The Stockyard is now a restaurant that offers Passover meals for take out today.
Satisfaction comes from “something that felt like the bliss of a certainty and a life lived in accordance with that certainty.” How do we live blissfully in times of uncertainty? How can we be certain of anything, least being the ineffable ways of our God, the Maker of the world? Mary Oliver meditated on that woman in the river. I must remember this, I think to myself on Palm Sunday, as I begin to take my own steps down into Holy Week. In the flowing rivers of baptism, feet are washed, new fires burn, and all creation is restored. Pray God I remember this.
