A Spiritual Morning With Flowers

In response to the DEP weekly prompt 27/52

A friend of mine invited me to a spiritual gathering. The ladies meet and conduct a prayer every Tuesday. It is mainly gratitude to God and seeking his blessings.

This was in the form of Indian hymns called bhajans and a prayer called Amritvani.

Since I had been working for years, my friends would complain when I would refuse their invitation with the excuse that I am working.

Now that I am free from full-time work and I do have flexibility in my appointments they like to have a claim on my time.

I had never been to her house as we had always met outside for coffee or parties and I was a little excited about going to her home as I had heard that she had a lovely garden and a lot of beautiful flowers.

This morning when I went I was greeted by a big dog and then the wonderful marble elephant.

I saw the beautiful red poinsettias and kept admiring the elephant and the flowers.

I was ushered into the beautiful home and this is what greeted me.👇🏽

I saw a big garden creatively organized in front of the house. As you can see in the picture there is a big carving in the wood of Lakshmi ji the goddess of wealth.

In front of the carving were many flower pots full of Kale, marigolds, and poinsettias.

Flowers have a big influence in spiritual settings and make you feel joyful,Happy, serene, and peaceful.

I immediately wished the almighty a bright good morning and bowed my head to receive the blessings with a wonderful feeling and was grateful to see the beautiful environment.

I almost fell into a trance thinking of the creator and the lovely things we are bestowed with. If we could honestly be mindful and thank him for the our lives every day we would be so peaceful and would be less stressed.

The hostess greeted me. Coming out of my trance. I went through a beautifully carved door. Not to embarrass anyone I did not take a photo of the door.

I walked in and the flowers spoke to me again. See how👇🏽

I thought it was safe to take a picture here. The hostess was pleased and felt honored that her effort to make the place look peaceful was appreciated.

The flowers decorated in this form have a profound effect on me. I feel the peace from within. Everything around me feels calm and serene. I am so inspired to join in the prayers.

I begin to look at Krishna carved in brass and the birds making the flower decoration very ornamental.

The white jasmines with rose petals and marigolds spread in a mix of colors were an element of prayer and wellness. This is decorated in most homes in India where there is any festivity and it is a sort of invitation to people to enter and give their blessings.

In other words, it is a sign of welcome.

In the room where the hymns were to be sung, there were even more flowers decorated.👇🏽

The photo above was in the room with a lamp. Almost in every country light is lit to bring positivity and banish negativity and remove any energy which takes away positive and joyful feelings of people.

I met all the people and found that all were non-professional singers and people who wanted to sing and feel the positive vibrations.

None of them had trained voices but they had the zeal to sing. To have a moment of joy. They wanted to forget everything and feel their moment through mindfulness and focus on being one with God.

There was pin-drop silence. The singing was first a prayer to be sung as a chorus. Everyone was handed out a small booklet of the prayer and hymn.

One lady played the Indian drum and the others had an instrument that jingles. One lady had a harmonium.

Everybody sang with their heart and soul. There was joy all around with positivity at work and a lot of happiness.

After the prayer had been sung then some ladies sang individually with joy and all the hymns were towards being thankful to God for all that they possess and for good health.

The closing was with a chorus prayer called Arti to invoke the blessings of the lord and to thank him again before closing the prayer. After that, they sprinkled rose water over the heads of each person.

The hostess had arranged for excellent and delicious food that we all enjoyed together.

The takeaways

💝Group singing brings a lot of cheer and happiness to everyone. It is a source of inspiration to join and sing together.

💝The wonderful joint positive energies of the people cast away the negativities of life.

💝Sitting together and serving people and enjoying a meal together makes people interactive and loving and in times of need you can depend on each other for help.

💝The community group offers security and creates outlets for passions, talents, creativity, emotions, and struggles. It also helps people to achieve their passions.

To wrap up

The community meeting with prayers and hymns brought a sense of belonging to everyone. I felt it is a wonderful opportunity to experience a diversity of thought into one beautiful focus of mindfulness towards the almighty, accepting his greatness and giving thanks, and being grateful for all the wonderful things that we receive in the world.

I wish to thank Vidya Sury, for this wonderful prompt on photography.

I would like to highlight some posts that I read:

James Boylan writes about spirituality every day and by some chance, I have been publishing his wonderful posts on Illumination. This one was on serenity.

2 Dr. Gabriella Korosi The beautiful words written by her in her poem that she wrote at 4 AM in the morning.

©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2023.

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