chöpa nadun
After my sister and I went downtown, I went to a business meeting, and then we had a wicked Italian lunch at the Pink Door.
Then, when we got home, our retreat started. We are not leaving the hood until Thursday.
She said it would be nice to clean the shrine and do a nice offering, so we did a traditional offering called a chöpa nadun. It's a symbolic offering you do in the bowls normally used for water offering. They represent the eight offerings you'd make to an honored guest in ancient India: drinking water, water for washing the feet, flowers, incense, light, perfume, elegant food, and music.
So, I meticulously cleaned the shrine table, infused the water with saffron and made a little flower arrangement in one of the tiny bowls. While I was doing this, she made this traditional food offering sculpture made out of outmeal, food coloring, toothpicks, and mostly butter. It was pretty cool to watch her sculpt the butter and mix all these colors in ice water. It was a great effort and it came out looking so pretty.
Now my shrine looks so authentic and we can have a little retreat.