Marigolds makes me warm inside

 since the weathers has been so ....not good !

pouring rain and freezing cold winds,

I thought we all could use some colour and warmth

marigold fields in bloom

they are used to make all the millions of malla's, flower garlands for the puja - prayer ceremony, every day around India

the garlands are handmade of course

amazing India

How about some Indian lotus on a saturday...

I find the Indian lotus flower so beautiful

so when I had a street vendor just outside my car window

I just couldn't resist

actually I have been looking forward to see the vendor.....

I bought a bouquet of lotus buds

and almost instantly it started to open up....

some of the buds broke so I put the leaves in my marble lotus bowl

turned out beautifully

the seed house is a beauty in itself...

don't you agree ?

the lotus, which is a type of water lily holds a special place in India and thus,

has been chosen as the national flower of India

hope you are enjoying your weekend, dear reader

I have had a great day so far...

good long workout in the morning

some swedish coffee on top of that 

 then some interesting meetings at school

going to finish the day of with tasty home made burgers

sounds good ha?

In search of marigold fields

part two of our tour thursday morning was the search of a marigold field.....the search took us out of Wazirabad village and into the rural areas  alongside the Yamuna river .....

the water level was so low....

the farmers use the waterbed to plant their crops...

some kind of flower growing in sandy areas....

you can see on the banks how high the water usually is....

he was having a moment in the morning sun...

I finally found my sunflower field !! first and only one I have seen....

the search took us to a village really close to the Yamuna...

curious cute kids...

and there we found our field ....of white marigolds...the orange- yellow ones had just been picked....you can see that field in the back...

but the white ones are just as beautiful .....don't you think ?

of course they had buffaloes in the village and this one with the hairdo I liked..she seemed to like me to...must be the same age since we both kind of have white hair ....

the must have vehicle around here....

a family in another field....some kind of cucumber....

beautiful cucumber flowers...

then off we went on the third part of our tour....

I guess I will tell you about that also...

maybe tomorrow or ....

hope the weekend brings you sunshine and laughter 

Flowers in the morning

Good morning dear reader... hope you got a good nights sleep ?

 I didn't for thousands of reasons...one was that I couldn't get the AC to work properly....

we have many remote controls and I thought that I could use any....guess not....I could only get air out of the machine...so this morning I tried another remote and guess what....yes,now I got the cold also....good to know how it works....maybe I can sleep tonight....

yesterday morning when in the car we drove by a place where they make mallas....flower garlands...

and guess what ?  the car came to a stop right there....I didn't have to get out....

it makes me happy to look at these so I thought I'd send some your way...

smile !

Flame of the forest flowers coming your way

we have a tree named Flame of the Forest here in India and it has the most beautiful flowers....
guess why it's called flame of the forest ?

the colour is everything from coral red to more orange to reddish pinkish...

the trees really stand out because it has no leaves just all these colourful flowers....

the flower has really thick leaves and you can hear when it falls to the ground....

beautiful don't you think ?

Lodi garden is starting to bloom

we had a delhiliciuos lunch at Lodi restaurant after our visit to the Tibetan colony...

sat outdoors in the greenery...you hear all kinds of birds...and sometimes you can spot theme in all that greenery..like this parrot

I think he was camera shy...

we had a short walk in the garden also...the flowers sure made me smile....hope it will brighten up your day to...

cineraria

ice plant

love this minion garbage bin...too bad people aren't using them...the bins that is....if you don't know what a minion is you have got to watch the "Despicable me" movies....

salvia

demorphoteca

sweet william

if you look closely you can see how much pollen this bee has collected from the flowers..

single dahlia

playful as always...

ice plant again...

aren't they beautiful ? love the colours of these ones....since I don't know any flowers(almost) maybe there's anyone of you out there who would like to teach me some of the names ?

have a great monday

thank you Sunitha for giving me all the names of the flowers !

What's the symbolism in the puja offerings ?

I know I might be pushing the subject a bit, but since the last posts have been about hindu temples

I just had to find out more about the symbolism in the puja offerings...

puja is essentially a prayer ritual of symbolic offering of our lives and activities to God....puja is done on a variety of occasions,frequency and settings...it may include daily puja done in the home,to occasional temple ceremonies and annual festivals to few lifetime events such as birth of a baby or a wedding.

outside one of the many temples I finally found female vendors....with a table of everything needed 

the flowers stands for the good that has blossomed in the person, the fruits offered symbolise the persons detachment, self-sacrifice and surrender, the incense that's burnt collectively stands for the desires the person have for various things in life....the lamp represents the light in the person and the vermilion or red powder stands for the emotions.

An earthen pot or pitcher-full of water and with fresh mango leaves and a coconut atop ,is generally placed by the chief deity before starting the puja. The pot symbolises mother earth,the water-life giver,the leaves life and the coconut divine consciousness.

gangajal water=holy water from the banks of Ganges

The coconut (sanskrit=gods fruit) is also used to symbolise "God", a coconut is almost always offered along with flowers and incense sticks. Other natural objects that symbolise divinity is betel leaf,the areca-nur or betel-nut,banyan leaf and the leaf of bilva tree.

a little lesson in hinduism...I just hope I got it right...

that's it for today.....it's time to celebrate the two new medals at the olympics ! 2 more bronze medals so now we have 11 !!!