Guru Purnima

The full moon arriving in India this month is the moon of Guru Poonam, the night of the guru.
Guru. Literally translated as Gu meaning darkness and ru meaning light, the guru is the one who leads the seeker from the darkness of ignorance into the clear light of discernment. The tradition of the guru and the relationship between guru and disciple is entrenched in society here.
It’s a lovely thing to have a guru, a bringer of light in your life. It’s a lovely thing to honour the people in our lives who have bought us closer to the clear light of understanding.
In the west we rarely honour the teachers who have shadowed the journey of our lives, although their impact has echoed through our lives. Most influential in my formative years were the women of my family, simply for the fact that in every differing face of womanhood they presented to the world, I gradually came to an idea of my own. I could have eyes like my mother and sit like my great grandmother and be independent and free, passionate, infamous and funny like my aunts on both side of the Tasman Sea.
Then my children came to teach me the many faces of motherhood, which bought me to the exquisitely painful love of a grandparent. Then a woman whose death occurred one year ago, a fiery passionate Maori woman who dragged me kicking and screaming back to my roots. I honour her especially today.
In between there was and always will be the wild and free Naga Baba Chandon Giri Digemba who taught me that the space between God and exists in an intake of breath. Jai Ho Guru Maharaj.

Guru Brahmãh Gurur Vishnuhuhu Guru Devoo Maheswaraha Guru Sãkshãth Para Brahma Tasmai Sree Gurave Namaha

(The guru is Brahma, god of Creation, the guru is Vishnu, god of sustenance, Guru is Shiva, god of annihilation. My salutation ot the guru who is the supreme God.)