Today the Mass took even longer than usual because the priest made all these announcements afterwards in both English and Spanish, basically saying that in December there will only be Masses at one church in our smooshed-together parish, and it won't be ours. Then brunch at Borough took a really long time too, for some reason, maybe because there were so many of us. Finally Travalon and I headed off to have some sort of adventure, but it was raining so we decided hiking in the woods might not be the best plan.
I had been shocked to read (on Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt) that the description of the bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead was extremely similar to what I remember, so I decided I must have this book. Going for a treasure hunt seemed like a good thing to do on a rainy day, anyway. We started at Leopold's because I wanted a pandan latte... and I needed one too, because I was half-asleep as we drove there through the drizzle, listening to the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Leopold's has its books sorted by geographical area, but they didn't have a "Tibet" section, and when I asked, they said they didn't have the book. Travalon thought Paul's on State Street might be a good bet, and I have gotten other books about religion there, so we parked at the church and walked down State Street, which got us a lot of steps, but Paul's had a small section of Eastern religion books. There was one called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and reading the description, I gathered it was a modern book by some guy about how to live your life. I asked a woman who worked there, and she confirmed that it wasn't the right book.
As we walked back up State Street, Travalon mentioned that the crystal shop has a small book section, so I said, "Yeah, they seem like the kind of place that would have it." They do have a very small book section, and they didn't have that book. I remembered that A Room of One's Own had a fairly large Spirituality section, so we headed there... and it took about forty seconds for me to find it there. We headed home, and Travalon went to the Mallards playoff game (they lost 8-4), but I couldn't join him because of band practice. Normally I'd blow it off for a Mallards playoff game, but we have a gig next Saturday, and I REALLY need to practice on the violin! I took a rosary walk and read The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, then I looked at the Tibetan Book of the Dead. To my disappointment - and relief - it seems to be a manual for how to guide dying people, so something like the rubrics for Last Rites. It's a very thick book, and I have only glanced at it, but it seems far more practical than mystical. Something like it would have been very handy to have when we were visiting our nephew while he was trapped between life and death, because it seems like it would be easy to make the wording Christ-centered rather than Buddha-centered. I am still amazed that (according to Wikipedia) this book describes the bardo so closely to my own experience (I haven't found that part yet), but honestly, I can't have been the only soul stubborn enough to demand to remember a previous life. It probably happens way more often than we think.
I didn't have a lot of time to peruse this very thick book because I had to get to band practice. We practiced HARD for two solid hours, and now I am exhausted. Once Hardingfele said she thought I was the best fiddler in the band, when I had to step in for another fiddler at a gig. Of course, that was back when I played in a little mariachi band that accompanied the Diocesan Hispanic Choir, so I was in fiddling shape. It's coming back to me...
Travalon got to pet the bat dog, Maverick. He grabs the bat and brings it back to the dugout after a Mallards player has batted.
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