ganesh, that saucy little minx
I gave my little sister a Ganesh sticker from Third Eye Threads that I found when cleaning out a bag from Yoga Journal (yes, that was months ago and I’m JUST now unpacking). She smiled, anxious to have her very own Ganesh to put up in her room.
“He’s the one who removes obstacles in your life, right?” she asked, assessing her room for optimal placement. I nodded.
She froze, mid-movement. Eyeing the sticker, she said, “He also PUTS the obstacles there sometimes, too, right?” I smiled and nodded again.
I left her to her room for a little while, listening to her mumble about how she wasn’t going to put him on her laptop for fear that she had enough obstacles granted to her in school this semester.
An hour later, I wandered back to her domain to see if she had made a decision. Just to the right of her bedroom door she has hanging a hand carved Samoan mask that a friend of hers gave her from Samoa – a scary looking creature with big teeth and gaping holes for eyes. The frightening mask has its mouth open, and whether it’s about to bite off your head or just yawning is indeterminable. Samoan mythology suggests that hanging one of these masks in the home will protect you from demons and other such bad spirits.
And my sister had put Ganesh on the wall behind the opening of the terrifying mask’s mouth.
I pointed and looked inquisitively over my shoulder to my sister, sitting at her desk doing homework. She stretched her arms up high over her head.
“I figured if I put him there, then Ganesh can’t be too much of an obnoxious little shit with the obstacles he’s throwing at me.”