Planting Seeds In Our Hearts: Our Time With Uncle Nimo
ServiceSpace
--Trishna Shah
5 minute read
Nov 19, 2014

 
We are so grateful that Nimo decided to grace the London community with the Empty Hands Pilgrimage during the past two weeks, where we collectively hosted more than ten different types of shows, gatherings, volunteer events, Seva Cafe (first one in London!) and school visits to share his beautiful offering of music and love with people from all walks of life.  While everyone who had the opportunity to attend one of these various gatherings was so deeply touched by Nimo's journey and offering, it was beautiful to see the many magical moments outside of the formal events through which Nimo touched our lives simply through his presence and love in each moment.



Our family was blessed to host Nimo for the last few days of his stay in London, which was something Sareena had especially been looking forward ever since I shared with her that Nimo was going to be staying in her room :)  She immediately offered her bed and was excited about sleeping in her baby sister Ariyana's room while he was here and she was really excited about spending time with Uncle Nimo, as she endearingly calls him.  His presence and loving time spent with the kids planted so many different seeds in our hearts, it's beautiful to see the ripples in motion.

One afternoon as we were standing near the lift, Nimo noticed that our terrace in the back was covered in leaves, as its that time of year when leaves come pouring down daily.  When we got back home, he got Sareena excited about doing some "safai kaam" together (cleaning) and off they were sweeping and collecting huge piles of leaves from the terrace.  Sareena came back in so excited and full of energy!  Lo and behold, just a couple of days back, as we were doing quiet story time together after lunch, Sareena said, "Mommy, after quiet rest time can I go on the terrace again to clean up like I did with Uncle Nimo?  I noticed that there are more leaves there again."  I was surprised that this occurred to her nearly a week after she and Nimo were out there together, you just never know when and how seeds will sprout. :)

Kindness was naturally a very big part of Uncle Nimo's presence in London!  We had organised for him to visit Sareena's school on World Kindness Day to do mini assemblies with each year group from 3 year-olds right up to 8-year-olds.  In the lead up to the assemblies, the children were encouraged to participate in "7 Days of Kindness", inviting them to do an act of kindness for different recipients each day -- family, friends, teachers, neighbours, grandparents, the community and the earth.  They wrote acts down in a lovely little Kindness Diary by theme, which they brought along to the assemblies.  Before the day, I wasn't sure how much the littlest ones Sareena's age would understand but I knew it would plant seeds in their hearts, as I've seen with Sareena this past year.  It was amazing to see that even the littlest ones totally understood what it means to be kind, as they shared lovely stories about how they had been kind to their family, friends and people in the community and even picked up on so many examples of kind acts in the Thai commercial video Nimo shared.  Teachers were buzzing about how wonderful and refreshing it was to share this week of kindness with the kids and have Nimo come and engage them in such an inspiring way -- many of them were in tears during the assemblies.   The seeds of kindness are being nurtured and I've noticed that Sareena has been spotting opportunities to be kind and also noticing the kindness of others more mindfully this past week, the journey continues :)

Sareena was even blessed with a chance to be part of her first Circle of Sharing during Uncle Nimo's visit.  As you may recall, when I asked her what we learned from the stories that Uncle Nimo shared and she said, "To share our hearts with other people."  And she has continued to remember that ever since -- during the past few days she has reminded me on many occasions how we can share our hearts, pointing out ways that she can be kind and expressing gratitude for the kindness of others it the littlest ways.  To share the inspiration, I've uploaded an audio recording of Nimo's talk [listen to it here] at the Circle of Sharing, which was a lovely evening dedicated to holding space to learn from and be inspired by Nimo's personal service journey.

While preparing for the one-day retreat, Nimo, Ani and I had lunch together and I was sharing with them how I want to start doing a prayer together with Sareena before we eat each meal, as I think its a lovely way for us to practice gratitude together as a family.  I shared a couple of different prayers I had collected over the years that were on my mind and Nimo had some lovely ideas of talking to Sareena and asking her for her ideas on what we could say together.  The following week when Nimo was at our home, the first time the three of us sat down together for a meal Uncle Nimo suggested we all do a prayer together to be grateful and we sang "Saathe Ramiye..." as they do everyday at Manav Sadhna ("Om Tat Sat" is already a huge favourite of Sareena's that we sing at bedtime daily.).  Sareena immediately took to this prayer/bhajan and we had a few more opportunities to sing it together with Uncle Nimo before he left.  Since then, Sareena has learned all the words and has been trying (when she remembers) to sing it before her meals and she even reminds me when I forget.  A new family gratitude practice in the making, so grateful for this gift Uncle Nimo!

We are so grateful to Uncle Nimo for sharing so many blessings with our family -- your presence was such a beautiful gift for all of us, and especially our children.  We can still feel the ripples of our time together in our hearts and I'm sure the seeds you planted will continue to blossom for years to come.  Sareena has not gone a day without remembering you, your playful nature (yes, the pirate voice is still in action! :)), your noble friendship and above all your unconditional love!  Sareena and her parents and baby sister miss you this {{{----}}}} much, as she reminded me just today when we came home from school :)     
 

Posted by Trishna Shah on Nov 19, 2014


2 Past Reflections