Sorry about the slim posts yesterday. My DSL high-speed Internet connection blew down in Sunday’s storm. It’s probably not good that our telephone cables run down a wire fence between two Brooklyn backyards. Strange how connections that seem solid one moment can completely fall apart in the next.

I’m sitting here in the kitchen now, hooked into the dial-up telephone line. And while I like being upstairs, close to the warm stove, my computer is cramped on the kitchen counter, and a lot of tension from typing at the wrong table height is running up my arms. Since I’m occupying the telephone line, however, I’m not getting any phone calls and that allows me to listen uninterrupted to this most gorgeous album by Karnamrita Dasi called “Prayers by Women.”

So beautiful is her tribute to the prayer of Draupadi, I’d actually like it played at my funeral. (Do you ever think that way?) Draupadi is an icon of Indian womanhood, and when male adversaries sought to disrobe her, Krishna magically turning her sari into a garment of limitless potential. As the men tried to pull it off her, Draupadi rotated, as if on a spindle, wrapped in a spiral of cloth that left her forever protected.