Tulasi Seva

Today was an incredibly beautiful day! When I left for Tulasi-seva this morning I didn't realise what kind of phenomenon was going to come my way. The birds were chirping away a beautiful song, the sun was beating down on my face and warming the soul, I wondered exactly what kind of mood I was in. Earlier, I didn't really feel like leaving the house because my son woke up early, my puja was delayed, I had to deal with a fussy three-year-old and thought, "I'm definitely sending prabhu to the temple this morning, its too early in the morning and I'm already having a bad day!" When my husband arrived, everything settled down quickly, Krishna Chandra took his bath and cried for a while (he doesn't like water in his eyes but daddy didn't realise it) then quickly got dressed and had breakfast. I finished up my duties at home and had time to sit and quickly paint alta on my feet. Strange, usually it takes forever to paint my alta, especially in the morning, but today everything flew by within minutes. I got my things together and left towards the temple. When I arrived in the pujari room, I noticed my plate was missing, as I looked around I spotted it sitting on the counter-top. Someone must have washed it and not put it away or simply left it there for the next pujari. I prepared my arati tray, flowers, garland, water and finally Tulasi Herself. We headed toward the Tulasi temple/greenhouse and I got on with my service, smiling away. I got the feeling that Tulasi Devi was urging me to keep today's maha-garland for someone. I don't usually give the garlands away (as sometimes I find them discarded carelessly, strewn about and flowers scattered everywhere later on in the day) so this was indeed strange behaviour. Later, after completing my tasks, I entered the prasadam hall and saw some devotees were still honoring the Lord's remnants, this was also strange, usually the hall is already empty upon my arrival, bereft of even a sound! I hurried to prepare a cup of halava for sona baba and lo, in the rush I had completely forgotten about the garland. As I walked down the hall, flower garland and sweet in hand, I kept thinking that I'd forgotten something. Realising that usually my hands were never full, I turned back and garlanded a mataji in the prasadam hall and told her, "I think this is for you." I merely assumed it must be for her because lets face it-- there is no way in hell that I'm going to garland a dude! :P