Where's Your Umbrella?

 Oh I love this and deeply relate. It is all about sending out your prayer or intention, doing what you are able to connect the dots and then stepping back and trusting that God/Universe or however you name it has heard you and will answer. Perhaps not in the exact way you reequested on in the time frame requested, however if you trust, it does happen eventually. This has been true for me so many times I'm honestly not sure which experience to share with you. One of the more recent ones is that I now serve at the World Bank as a Storytelling Consultant helping staff to see the human story in their data, connect more fully to each other as human beings and honor the people they serve throughout the world. I had sent this intention/prayer out about 6 years ago and in Feburary 2015 I happened to attend a Wellness Retreat Networking event. The husband of the organizer happened to work at the World Bank and the department he worked in was hiring consultants in Storytelling. We struck up conversation, I sent my CV, was interviewed a week later and 24 hours later got the job. It took 3 years from the setting of my intention, but it happened! And this is just one of dozens of experiences I've had. I feel blessed and grateful. What helps me maintain is the evidence I see all around me that when I trust, life works out! <3 

 Sadly this is the story of many poor countries affected by climate change and man-made devastations. It is an alrm for many countries to tackle this  big human problem.The self -centric mindset needs to be changed to help those who desperately need help. We pray with faith, open our multicolor Human Umbrella and embrace all who are suffering with an open mind and open heart.

As I was growing up, I was provided with many umbrellas of kindness, compassion, and affection to protect me, to feed me, grieve my losses, and wipe my tears. My mother was the first such umbrella who nurutured lovingly by making food for me and by waiting for me when I would come home late at night for earning my daily bread. My wife was a big umbrella who left her rich family to marry me and become a part of my poor family. She always stood beside me and worked hard for our family as I was working on my doctoral degree in a foreign country. And when she passed away seven years ago, my children, grand children and my good old friends have been taking care of me. I am blessed to have such multicolor umbellas of compassion, support, emotional generosity, and uncondiotional love.

May we hold our umbrellas of kindness, compassion and generosity for people who are thirsty, hungry and starving for support and care!
Namaste!
Jagdish P Dave

Oh, well... we are in the middle of facing a smaller degree of the same situation in our region. It is not a full famine yet but we have had very little rains in the last three years. Most farmers have already spent their yearly profit on digging new bore wells and/or deepening existing ones. Even this bold effort has failed some farmers as their new bore wells have dried up as well. We decided to wait it out. All our crops dried by June and we did not plant anything new after that. We lost many trees.

We did some rain water harvesting arrangements as our version of the umbrella. A few storm rains happened in September and the remaining trees have perked up. We have good undergrowth now. But the rains were not enough to recharge the ground water, so we cannot plant anything new yet. The next monsoon is not until next July (our second monsoon in November is already a failure). We have not prayed though. Our scientific mind "knows" that the weather is not personal and an appeal to a God behind the non-existing clouds seems absurd. This is clearly the (dried) fruits of our collective bad karma. Farmers seem to be the most affected. But we see that the non-farmers too are affected in so many different ways. All around, great opportunity to cultivate equanimity, if not fruits and grains :). Perhaps the umbrella is not so much a sign of hope as it is a sign of equanimity: In the face of a full blown famine, we try to remain normal as if the miraculously life-giving rains are just around the corner. Because, what is life other than a series of seasonal miracles (like rains from the heavens) that make "normal" life possible?