The Festival of Colors

Without really saying my job is stressful (because I don't want to be one of those people who blabs indiscreetly about his/her job and coworkers), I think I have conveyed that point. Recently, it has become evident that I need to spend less time working, thinking about work, and/or talking about work. So, when Lisa invited me to take part in the Hare Krishna Temple's Holi Festival of Colors, I said yes. It has become an annual event for her, as well as for many, many other Utah County residents. It was a first for me.

For those of you who don't live in Utah County, I will try to explain this as best I can:

About 15-20 minutes south of Provo, there is a Hare Krishna temple. I have spent some time on Wikipedia, and feel that I can, with a marginal amount of clarity, explain what Hare Krishna is:

• It is a religious organization whose core beliefs are based on traditional Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavad-gita.
• It is a monotheistic religion that aims to bring people to the Supreme God, who is Krishna.
• Its members can often be seen spreading Krishna-consciousness in public areas.
• The festival of Holi symbolizes both the exorcism of the demoness Holika and the love of Krishna and Radha. It is celebrated by the throwing of colors and the burning of the witch.

From these three bullet points, it shares some commonalities with my religio (except for the Bhagavad-gita). I will freely admit that I did not know even this small amount about Hare Krishna prior to attending the Festival of Colors. I will also freely admit that I am confident I was not alone.

So, this is what the festival meant to me, and, in my estimation, 98% of the other people there:

• You get to stand in a field in front of the Hare Krishna Temple and throw handfuls of colored powder at one another while chanting "Hare Krishna," over and over again. Hare, by the by, refers to the "energy of God."

The festival took place all day yesterday. They were expecting something like 15,000 people at this event. I realize that the official capacity of Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin is over 100,000, but we are talking about a pretty small, fairly rural town in Utah. Consequently, we had to park a couple of miles away, and walk to the temple. We never found all of the people we were supposed to be going with.

Our first task once we got inside the temple grounds was to buy the colored powder. The powder, which seemed to be something along the lines of rose-scented cornstarch, was sold in individual bags, bags of three, or bags of six. Entrance into the grounds is free, so the temple makes money from selling the colors. There was no discount for buying bags of three or six. The powder stands were under a pavillion, which was so crowded I never actually saw a line, or the people selling the powder until we managed to press our way to the front.

Once we had our colors, we made our way out to the lawn in front of the temple where probably a couple thousand people were gathered, already throwing colors at one another, despite the fact that there is a designated throwing time and you are sort of discouraged from just throwing colors haphazardly at people.

Meanwhile, a band was playing. They had sort of a Christian rock feel to them, but, after examining their website, I'm not sure they would claim Christianity or any other denomination beyond a general spirituality. Following their set, it was announced that, prior to the 3 p.m. throwing, they would "burn the witch."

I am not making this up. The burning of the witch seems to be important to the festival of Holi, but I cannot get over the bizarreness of standing on a hill with thousands of white people in the throes of some sort of Indian Woodstock chanting "Burn the witch!" "Burn the witch!" Images of Monty Python and The Crucible filled my head.

On the heels of the witch-burning, they had the countdown, and, for a good ten seconds, the air was filled with colored powder.

And that was pretty much it.

I have included some of the dos and don'ts of this activity, which, I think, gives a pretty good snapshot of what this day was like:

Dos

• Going up to strangers and asking, "May I loving[ly] decorate your face & recolor your hair?"-This one became extremely important to me. I have personal space issues in my regular life, and they extended to this festival, so I did not appreciate random strangers on the street (well before I got to the temple, mind you) throwing colored powder on my face or slapping my back with their powdered hands.
• Letting down body surfers gently on their feet. There was an ambulance at the event, which fired up as we were leaving, presumably because someone had failed to heed this rule.

Don'ts

• Throwing colors close, hard, & directly into eyes and mouth.
• Climbing anything except stairs (means roofs, scaffolding, poles, fences, brass elephants, stage).
• Taking off shoes of body surfers & throwing on pavilion roof. (they'll not be taken down til end of the day).
• Vending illegally on the property (undermines temple's ability to improve property & events).
• Throwing colors on the musicians & their equipment.
• Throwing colors on or around the temple building & verandah (it's a color safe zone for those who'd rather observe).

It always worries me when I read a list of rules like this one because it is absolute proof that someone has done these things, and that it doesn't take much for a group of upstanding college/high school students to disintegrate into a group of crazy anarchists.

Here's a shot of Anne, who never broke a single rule during the event, and also kept her sunglasses on during the whole thing, so as to avoid having someone throw powder in her eyes.

At some point in the day, it occurred to me that I am a professional in the community, and it might not be in my best interest to run into one of my students or clients at this event.

I was banking on the fact that they wouldn't recognize me.

What do you think?

*I apologize that these pictures do not do a very good job of depicting things as they actually happened. I have a new phone which is fancy and expensive, and I did not pull it out of its protective bag until after we were safely away from where the colors were being thrown.

Injustice

I have been paying for cable since I moved to Utah. I have discovered that I don't use it as much as I thought I would, though it did enable me to watch five Harry Potter movies last weekend.

HOWEVER, I keep it for such occasions as college football season and March Madness, when BYU is playing in its most important game since I began cheering for their basketball team. Sadly, I am going to miss it because I have to teach class tomorrow night. While I don't feel good about canceling practicum to watch basketball (my students are either uninterested in basketball or not BYU fans), I would feel okay about pausing to watch some of it on the TV in my office. But the game is being broadcast on TBS, which the university doesn't get.

I think that's called irony, but so many people have misused that term that I'm not sure anymore.

The Kid is Legal Again

After faxing my clearance from the Court of South Salt Lake to the DMV (twice) and paying a $30 reinstatement fee, I am pleased to announce that I am, once again, a driver in good standing with the State of Utah.

Whew!

My Day in Court

A few months ago, I posted this. I would like to reiterate my sympathy for judges because I have now been to court. I had to go. There was a warrant out for my arrest.

I like to think of myself as a law-abiding citizen, though, as a recent experience with traffic school showed me, I break about 100 traffic rules a day, and I ought to be grateful for the comparatively few times in my life that I have been caught. But I do think, in general, I am a pretty responsible citizen.

Several months ago, I was in a car accident, which totaled my beloved Corolla. The accident was not my fault, but some semi-shady things seemed to be going on with the person who hit me and her insurance, and that has been a debacle.

The night of the accident, I was issued a citation for what the officer called "insufficient insurance." This meant that, although I had handed him an insurance card, it was expired. Despite my efforts to convince him that the current card was in my car, he issued me a citation, telling me that if I "went to court" I could "get it taken care of."

So, accordingly, I drove to the South Salt Lake between 5 and 14 days after the citation was issued, only to discover that the citation had not yet been posted. The clerk assured me that they would send me a notice to appear in court and, at that time, I could fax in my proof of insurance and all would be forgiven.

I never received that notice.

And, to be quite honest, I sort of forgot about it. My job is hectic, and I was battling with my insurance company and the company of the person who hit me to get myself another car. Plus, I thought the whole thing was bogus anyway, since I had been insured at the time of the accident, and I KNEW they could find that out.

Then, last week, I tried to switch insurance companies. In the process of accessing my driving record, my new insurance agent told me my license had been suspended.

"WHAT?!"

He assured me that it was probably an internal error, and headed off to the DMV for me to find out.

He came back and told me that it was not a mistake, and that I had failed to show up for the court date I didn't know I had.

I called the court, where a nice clerk explained that the last address linked to my drivers' license was my parents' house in West Jordan, which is currently being rented. At the time, I was not living in the house, but put it as my permanent address because I assumed I would always be able to get mail from there. Tee hee.

The clerk immediately set a new court date for me, and I asked her if I could still just fax my proof of insurance and be done with it. But because there was a WARRANT out for my arrest, that would not be possible.

Two days later, I drove illegally to Salt Lake and showed up in court and awaited my turn in front of the judge. Other people around me were handling traffic tickets, suspended driver's licenses, etc. There was one particularly colorful man who was both appearing in an effort to get his license reinstated and also handing out business cards for his "law business." I'm not really sure what it was, as I think I can say with pretty good confidence that this guy had not attended law school. He sauntered up to the front of the room and said, to the very nice female judge, "You're looking very lovely today, Your Honor." How she kept from rolling her eyes is beyond me. He then proceeded to tell her that he thought she should just "throw his case out," and everyone in the room heaved a sigh, including the people who only spoke Spanish.

Though I was instructed to turn my cell phone off before the judge came in, I had to sneakily turn it back on to send an e-mail to my boss to let her know I would not be able to make our 10 a.m. meeting. Fortunately, no one caught me. And I was lucky enough to be done in time to make my 11 a.m. meeting back in Provo.

AND I was lucky that I only had to pay $125 for the processing fee on the warrant that was issued for missing the court date I didn't know I had for the ticket that I should not have received in the first place. My lawyer/roommate/cousin later told me I shouldn't have had to pay anything because I was never served, but I wouldn't have wanted to argue with that judge. For me, an appearance in court was (knock on wood) a once-in-a-lifetime thing. For her, it happens every day.

Get in the game

Natalie: Two guys have ascended five miles into the sky! They walked up a wall of ice, and are preparing to knock on the door of heaven itself! There's really no end to what we can do! You know what the trick is?

Dan: What?

Natalie: Get in the game.

So, I have decided that the recent rash of posts quoting TV shows are my best attempt at telling the stories of my life through parables. To say too much could get me into trouble at work, but I will say this:

I am continually reminded that there is much about this world that I cannot change. However, there are many things in my life that I can do something about. The trick is to get in the game.