Today is Holi, the festival of colors and the welcoming of spring in the Hindu Tradition. It is a day that we have fun with our families and friends by throwing colors and water balloons filled with colored water on each other. It is a day of fun and frolic - it is a day of pure joy and love. This holiday is about forgiveness, love, and friendship with one another. There is alot of dance and music. The splashing of the color - symbolizes that you are providing your friends and family a promise of being truthful towards them always, maintaining a life of long brotherhood and sisterhood with them and showers them with all the possible love. How beautiful is that? Something that is much needed in this world where we have seen in the last couple of weeks of horrible shootings and anti-asian hate attacks. We desperately need to bring back love to our society. And it starts with each one of us. The Pandemic did something to us as a society - it awakened in us a source of compassion for our neighbors, for strangers, for the whole world because we were all suffering together. Yet when things to slightly go back to normal, or things start to open up, we go back to our old ways and begin to create drama and instill feelings of hate, anger, jealousy, hurt, etc in us. This festival pushes us to go beyond that - it pushes us to reach out to all people regardless of race/religion/caste/creed. We are different but within us is the same light and love inside all of us that needs to come out. We need to work together as a society to recognize our differences and be more accepting of each other. More tolerance, less discrimination. Even though I am not out there throwing colors because of the pandemic, I can still practice the values that this festival teaches us. Love - Love - Love-There is a phrase - "Dye me with the color of Thy Love." When we sprinkle each other with love- it only grows - it doesn't shrink. And this is the beauty of this festival. So on this day, I wish each of you a Happy Holi!
Journal Prompt: How can I add more color to my life? Make a list!
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