麻豆约拍

Writer and Musician, Jahnavi Harrison:

So February is upon us...I always find it a bit of a funny month. It's distant enough from the beginning of the new year for writing 2020 to have lost it's novelty...but it's not really spring yet, so no daffodils; there are no chocolate based holidays in grabbing distance and all the winter colds and flus are still doing their rounds.

The other day I looked out at another grey blanket sky, which, as they tend to do, had lasted all day. Though I moan from time to time, I sort of like the grim weather days. I see them kind of as a necessary austerity - like getting up earlier to exercise or going to a birthday party when I'm feeling wiped out.

I remember in my first year of school, which was at the Bhaktivedanta Manor, the Hare Krishna temple north of London, we were practising handwriting and had to copy out verses from the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text that speaks of the ideal path of enlightenment. It was a dark afternoon - probably February! - and I was copying out the verse 'The appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons; they arise from the perception of the senses, and one must learnt to tolerate them without being disturbed.'

I can't say I deeply understood that at age 4, but our teacher had made a little tune to sing it so we could remember it more easily. It worked...

聽The Bhagavad Gita says that this life, is full of sukha- happiness, and dukha - distress. There are as many Februaries as there are Junes...聽聽 No one can argue that tolerating day after day of grey skies, or worse, an illness or a period of unemployment is very hard. But I've always found meditating on this verse helps me through things I thought I'd never be able to bear.聽

So I do feel grateful for February - bland it may be, but I think it's a blessing in disguise. Tolerance can be painful to learn, but little grey skies help.