Summer Vacay, 2021. Day 2
24 hours in Santiago de Compostela
July 27, 2021
“Ananda”: noun
(in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism) extreme happiness, one of the highest states of being."the ananda of divine love"
There I am, minding my own business, watching fireworks from our balcony. We have the stunning good luck to be able to watch the pyrotechnics celebrating St James Day from our hotel room and they have just started. My anticipation rolls into gleeful laughter, and almost immediately becomes tears streaming down my face. But I’m nowhere near sad. I’m also no where near confused because I know right where I am. This state is very familiar. I just don’t know how I got there.
The fireworks continued as did the laughing and crying. I’m making a mess and need a Kleenex bad but I don’t really care. The German man one balcony over, whom we met only moments before the fireworks started, took stock of the situation and basically said to Sandy, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Ananda is the word I use to describe this state that finds me. I do not know how to court it and I have no idea the mechanism that induces it. Not always, but often laughing and crying go hand in hand.
Joni Mitchell points to the connectedness of these seemingly disparate emotions when she sang “Laughing and crying, they’re the same release.” The term and experience of “tears of joy,” also acknowledges this relationship. It seems to me that in Ananda, the two sides of the coin cease, and laughing and crying merge into a single state, that of bliss. But you can’t stay there for too long. It’s not normal. One hour is probably my tops.
A disclaimer. I’m piecing together a puzzle. And as Judith Lasater says, “I’m not telling you the truth. I’m only telling you what I know.”
Sometimes the arrival of Ananda is sensical, like when it happened in crossing the St Bernard Pass. I was conscious of the cosmic-like process, watched it descended upon me, the slow but steady, unrelenting lure of beauty into bliss.
Sometimes it’s quite inconvenient, like the time I was driving down I-405, listening to some great tunes and contemplating my day. Suddenly, Ding Dong! Ananda calling! Omg can’t these mystic states take into account modern life?
Then there are the times that defy all reasoning. Like the time I was having my teeth drilled on. Suddenly there I was, one with god and the cosmos, with tears rolling down my cheeks. A tissue magically appeared in my hand so I know my state registered on someone. I still don’t like going to the dentist but this experience has challenged me on what I think is necessary to be happy.
A hallmark of every episode of Ananda: I am awestruck by the beauty before me. Even in the dentist chair.
The dentist had been humming. He trailed off, and the hygienist, unconsciously I believe, picked up the tune. Back and forth it went, in complete simpatico, and I found myself awestruck by the beauty of their harmonious work habit.
Eventually the fireworks stopped, I dried out, and they signaled an auspicious start to the next 24 hours in Santiago de Compostela on St James day.
Post Fireworks treat. Like I needed more.
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