Here is a picture of Bodhinatha in Malaysia… meanwhile our “away team” Yoginathaswami and Senthilnathaswami are having a great time in Malaysia too. Senthilnathaswami is “texting” us today:

Morning three temples just worshiping in Klang with Guhan
Fun Q and A session with Barathy’s kids class
Two wonderful temples in Puchong last night
One Siva temple was so small but such a strong vibration, like another world. Welcoming pada puja for both of us.
Beautiful little community, excellent talk, Swami is very good at this and so well received. Then Mariamman temple, talk there also, prasadam, got back after 11pm
On our way now to Batang Berjuntai, then Manjong-Sitiawan and Telok Batik for the night

Senthilnathaswami

Suresh and Anusha Nair and daughter, Janini were among our Hindu guests. Joining them is Anusha’s brother, Arjunan. They are visiting us from Lancaster, California. They are readers of Hinduism Today and thoroughly enjoyed their visit here yesterday and today. Young Janini’s highlight was feeding the fish. She said this is her favorite temple.

Sadhaka Adinatha shares with us the state of our garden. With hot summer sun, irrigation and careful management, it is bursting with produce.

This young cabbage is a 36 inches wide, a record, for our garden!

These asparagus or yardlong beans from China are a vibrant red color and grow abundantly in our summer weather.

The hedge in the middle of the photo is a very tasty green from Malaysia. It grows with very little care or attention and can be cut and the leaves stripped for cooking. Within weeks it grows back to its original size.

Swiss Chard is one of our most beautiful and abundant greens with leaves often as along as 30 inches.

We grow our own ginger, shown here, as well as turmeric, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano and other herbs.

Did you every wonder why they are called eggplants?

Red Russian Kale is a wonderful hardy plant that grows with minimal care and provides us with an abundance of nutritious, tasty greens. Thank you, Kale!

Each summer brings us an abundance of these large okra.

Local tree trimmers deliver large piles of wood and coconut tree chips which we use for mulch and compost. Once the piles decompose they make a valuable amendment for the tropical clay soil.

Fresh sun ripened cucumbers are a regular and welcome addition to our salads.

In the US, Amaranth is generally known as a plant from the Andes. It grows quite tall and produces large heads of seeds which can be used for flour. However in the orient, it is a popular and delicious green vegetable. This is one of the best varieties, with large red leaves. We generally have about seven different kinds of greens in the garden and a fresh green curry every day for lunch.

“Summertime” lettuce is a vigorous head lettuce that continues to produce throughout the hot summer weather, providing fresh salads throughout the year.

Soon a large “Panchamukha Ganapati” murthi will stand atop this square surrounded with flower and herb beds.

Mauritius pumpkin is another easy to grow plant here in Hawaii. In Mauritius they often use the tips of the vine as a nutritious green. Here we use it only for the pumpkin which has a hard thick shell and is rarely damaged by the fruit flies that destroy our attempts at growing squash.

Seedlings are started in the nursery and then transplanted out to the garden. The tomato plants are being kept under the tent where they receive less attention from fruit flies and less damage from heavy rains. It is all overseen by the small Ganesha in the back. Some small papaya trees are on the far right.

Lychees are a welcome addition to our diet. Three different varieties fruit consecutively so that we have a constant source of fruit throughout the summer.

Each year at this time, Palaniswami makes Aums and borders for Hinduism Today magazine. We thought today you would like to see how he does it.

This motif was found on a card in Mauritius in May and copied. Then this morning he reengineered it on the right.

In India he saw an Aum on top of a deity’s head, and photographed it in low res. Then retooled in a modern idiom.

In a New Delhi shop he and Yogi Jivanandanatha saw this T-shirt for sale, and asked the owner if it could be photographed. She allowed it, and the T-shirt is now an aum for the magazine.

Then on the wall of Exotic India in Mumbai they saw this wooden Aum and photographed it, to make the circular one on the right.

Finally, in another craft shop a lovely orange and red cloth was spotted, and captured. From the design, the multi-colored contemporary Pranava Aum (on top) was constructed in Illustrator CS3.