Burn the Witch! Burn the Witch!

Last weekend was epic to say the least.  My roommates and myself and what seemed to be the rest of the world celebrated Holi Krishna aka The Festival of Colors. 

This is a Hindu festival based on some of their beliefs and it is widely celebrated in India.  The legend says that there was a prince who prayed to the Hindu gods.  His father, the king, didn't like the fact that his son was praying to other gods so he decided to burn him as punishment.  He had a witch who was known to walk through fire, carry the son through the flames.  The son prayed to his gods and was delivered while the witch burned instead.  To celebrate this victory over death, the Hindu's have a ritual burning of a witch.

The other legend that inspired the festival is of a beautiful and immortal love between the Lord Krishna and Radha.  Krishna would often complain how Radha's skin was so fair and yet his was so dark.  His mother advised him to throw some colors on her face to see how her complexion changed. And that is where we get the tradition of throwing colors.

We started out the day with a little taste of India at the India Palace. The best food you will ever eat is right there. I think the owner is starting to recognize us we go there so often.

Next stop, the temple in American Fork to throw some chalk. It was a mad house there. Loud music, lots of chalk, and of course...llamas. :)  We all gathered together to watch the burning of the witch and chant "BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!"  Then we counted down from ten and threw the chalk into the air. Holy cow... it was insane.  It went pitch black.  You would think that you could hold your breath but no.  It was so long I just had to breath.  In the process of breathing I managed to suck in enough chalk to turn my tongue purple, like after you've eaten an otter pop, purple.  I could have probably spit in 7 different colors if I knew how to spit of course. So anyways, here's the results of the afternoon:

The Roommates. :)

Me and Jared showing off our color pride.

the car ride home

The Fierce-Some warriors. (and Katie Pitts who once again looks like she does drugs. (we still love you.))

Now that our clothes are all officially stained pink and our shower looks like we use Kool Aid instead of water we can officially say  HOLI KRISHNA!!