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How can I tell you about clearing Karma in the Ganga?
Is it just a ceremony? No, its so much more than that. From the moment I stepped out of the bus and began to walk down the stone steps, my heart started to beat faster. The bridge sways gently as I walk over it and looking down into the glacier depths, I have the feeling that she, Ma Ganga can take Life away so swiftly if I let her.

We reach the other side and walk down to the Beach, it’s surrounded by boulders and rocks and the sand is grey. The water has a green icy sheen to it. Janakiji, Brandon Bays has asked us to get clear on our prayer, to write them down. I spend a few minutes doing just that and they pour forth on to the page. It feels like I am clearing a generation of Karma, down my ancestral line, my grandmother, my mother, neither of them here in this life and yet their presense felt so strongly in my DNA, in my cells.

I find myself on my knees before her, Mother Ganga. I pray and surrender it all up. I pray for new beginnings, to be used in service. To follow my hearts desire.

My first steps in are tentative, and then it seems I have to give myself to her, I move more into the water, up to my thighs, and yet the icy coldness of the water is shocking to my body. I can feel my heart beating out of my chest and I am shivering, with coldness and with fear. Jean Luc catches my eyes and comes to me, taking my hands he leads me deeper into her depths. Relax and breathe he says, surrender to the cold. I feel myself doing just that. The cold is still penetrating me, I keep opening and going deeper and then he says let go and we immerge fully into her depths. I feel the closeness of her enveloping me in her arms, she seems to whisper sweet nothings to me, I burst up through the surface, shaking droplets of water from my face and hair. Its exhilarating, the body is still shaking and then a warmth begins to spread through me and I stop shaking, I feel immeasurably still, peaceful, warm like in a bath. It is no longer cold. I look around at all the shiny faces and singing and joyful shouting as others immerse themselves too. We join hands in circles and dance and sing and shout out prayers dunking our heads again and again.

What is this madness that overtakes us? This feeling of pure joy and peace all at the same time. I feel free, released, alive, energized.
Does the Ganga have magic powers? I don’t know, and yet there is some power, some energy that courses through her. The energy of life, Grace is so powerful in her that there is no fighting it. And even afterwards, she still courses through the body. I feel feverish, energy pulsating through in waves. Chi is released from places that previously held on. An awareness of the cells inside the body, pristine, crystal clear, fresh.

My hair feels soft and my face and skin. We go back to the hotel, I don’t want to shower, I want to keep her with me and I know that she is a part of me now. Integrating into every cell, my body has drank her in. There is a deep peace in knowing her, in letting her in, in allowing her to take from me, give to me, nourish me. I feel connected to her, cherished, sacred, alive.
The Indians bathe in her every year as a ritual to cleanse themselves, for new beginnings. Up in the Himalayas where we went in, the water was clear and clean, fresh, further down the hills even in Rishikesh she is beginning to have life and death thrown in her. The Indians wash in her, wash their clothes, send the ashes of their dead into her, she is the giver of life and the taker of life. She is a sacred River a timeless, immergence where Indians from all over will come to worship and bathe in her, and be returned to spirit in her.
How can I tell you about Clearing Karma in the Ganga.
I laugh and laugh at the impossibility!!!!!