incense sticks

Incense sticks are widely used across religions to show our respect for the Gods we pray to and elders who have left us. I have also done the same out of habit when on rare occasions I have prayed in recent years and regular occasions when i used to pray as a child. 

The people from whom I learnt this process and with whom I have done this thousands of times are now on the opposite side and i am lighting these sticks for them as well. 

I have always thought that we do that to pay respect, to probably have a connection with the other world while we chant or say things we want to say to our God's or elders but I think it is more than that. 

It is act of showing that you care and you miss them and even if you're not putting the insence in front of their pictures; by putting them anywhere you feel you're with them, they are part of you, they are still with you. This clearly means atleast for me now, that I'm not doing anything for them but for my own self, for feeling calm, for showing my own self that i remember and care and miss them. 

All these things are for me, aren't they?

Things change...

I think it's only for 10-15 years of your life that you want your own time, away from your parents, grandparents or anyone older and caring in your home; When you imagine your life away from them; alone, brooding about the issues that life has presented you with. Unprepared and unable to share, mostly by choice you wish to remain in your own space. Sometimes these spaces are also spaces of happiness; of teenage; of love; of things you're either shamed of or too shy of. Over the years these things become meaningless and you long for the warmth, the care all the people brought to your life. You want to have it again and feel it again. Sometimes you miss it and feel guilty of avoiding it for years when you had it. Ofcourse, nothing can be done now. 

You can feel guilty, sad or feel jealous of others who have it. Be angry at those who don't value it; forgetting that you were there once. 

But it's a very short duration of not wanting it because when you do it's mostly either not available and available in a very different form which you cannot relate it.