One of the lovely memories I have of my visit to India was seeing the Hindu shrines of candles and bowls of water with flowers floating on top (I think there called gayas, someone correct me if I’m wrong) in the lobbies of the hotels in Mumbai and Vadodara. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been wanting to create my own little shrine on my secondary prayer table where I keep my holy water and always have a candle burning for my intercessions that particular week.

While doing one of my walks the other day, I noticed a whole bunch of pretty purple flowers had blown off one of my neighbors’ hedges, so I scopped up a whole bunch of them and put them in a small bowl of water. It created a really lovely and calming setting:

Pretty, huh? Well I was pretty proud of myself until I checked on them the other day, only to find they had turned into a mushy gray. After doing a little research, it turns out those bowls in India contain a special kind of flower – the lotus – which are actually designed to grow in those kinds of settings.

And from the looks of it, they take a little work to make happen. So, I’m thinking maybe I’ll just stick with the candle for now. That’s OK, but it sure made for a pretty picture.

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Pool temp: 84 degrees