Grounding
17 January 2015
Sunflower bent down
Its petals taking in Earth
To better touch Sky
Catalyst
Morrows’ morning sun
Morrows’ morning sun
16 January 2015
The sun begot trail
Waking in yesterday’s path
It wove its way back
You and I like the sun walked
In memory’s winding lanes
Golden sun rises
Dispelling the dark of night
That tried to cling on
So too did memories cling
But we saw no same landscape
Sun soared pulling robes
Of a trembling day that shook
In the morning fog
Like clouds gathered in my head
I paused as you walked ahead
Climbing leaves reached out
Stretched towards sun’s kiss hopeful
Of new beginnings
Pulsating minds in morrow
Stood separate intertwined
Jasmine bloomed in pot
Its roots reached out to plastic
Oblivious of earth
Roots ripped I followed you not
And grew anew in concrete
Sun rising above
Sighed upon a new landscape
Where leaves blazed like hay
Throat parched with words unspoken
Echoed the transformation
Sun high up in sky
Cast no shadow towards west
All objects swelled round
In centre I expanded
Swallowing my own sun’s flames
Birds flew to no nests
For trees felled had sunk to piles
Fallen leaves rustled
Mind’s trees stood firmly apart
With roots sprouting in between
I felled a tree
I felled a tree
11 January 2015
The bird once more soared
Wings clinging to yesterday
Encumbered dark flight
Into my mind’s nest it flew
Birds, why do you flutter so?
The sparrow revelled
In a nest left free from egg
Where moss met chill’s rant
Cold had crept into my thoughts
That once had felt warmth of faith
Drunken butterflies
Feasting on million flowers
Followed the bird’s flight
Sobering sadness seized me
As lost wings’ scars ached again
Petunias quivered
Pink and white bells of penance
That hung in sorrow
Head followed in remembrance
Of lost trail of upward trends
Jasmine filled the air
With sweet scent of forgiveness
Engulfing senses
A tidal wave renewed hope
As winged creatures sang in ears
The leaves whispered winds
Warning all creatures of loss
As the axe hummed low
Unmoved, the reaper answered
In hoarse promise of quick death
Shivers ran through trunks
As the message now sank in
Bringing hush to woods
Breaking it I felled a tree
That had once been all my joy
Leaves raked into piles
Bundles of forgotten might
Tell stories of trees
That once like us too stood tall
Now riddled with memories
In rapture
In rapture
4 January 2015
The daffodil weeps
In awe of relentless faith
Of sunflower’s quest
To light the soul always turns
Though the mind explores all hues
A mirage shivers
Reflecting shadows of past
Alive and yet dead
Haunting memories glisten
In skeletal white grimness
A mocking bird laughs
Its shrill amusement alive
With petals of mirth
As irony brims within
Chest locks in fun’s crescendo
Uneven sighs play
Upon the grass that trembles
Under pale dawn’s kiss
A memory in two minds
Of similar pallor sways
Cool dawn murmurs chills
Extinguishing the bright flames
Of your wondering
Listen through your darkest hours
To the silence in your heart
Jasmine fills the air
With glorious scent of mist
Filling my nostrils
Nostalgia is like such fog
Cloaking mind in bittersweet
Pale blue haze flutters
Hovering through the darkness
To cast light in soul
In rapture I shape contours
Of sweet long-forgotten face
Robin bursts in song
With happiness of skylark
Treasured in its throat
Abundance grows plentiful
Where the light shines through
—-
Cast in stone
Cast in stone
4 January 2015
Blue is the journey
Of flight of sparrows in sky
As sun kisses land
Still mind initiation
Takes first light to other heights
Ball of fire soars
Shading pink blue horizon
With dragons’ embers
Mind’s fire belly echoes
Golden thoughts’ molten lava
Fog long forgotten
City extends its full frame
Shaking off the dew
As soul discards its dampness
Shedding leaves trapped under rocks
A quiet humming
Announces movement of day
That drive streets abuzz
Souls crossing time awaken
To forgotten trade exchange
A bird on my sill
Hops to and fro observing
Its shrill cry silenced
Mind to mind soul to soul talk
As I gaze into its eyes
Wings outstretched it flies
Small body tricking my eye
Covering the sun
And thus smallest speck of dust
Would bring clay giants to halt
The leaves on trees stir
With an unseen wind of change
That steadily blows
Seeds in my mind’s book dancing
To lost memories regained
The grass grown anew
Forgets heat of scorching sun
That yesterday blazed
No sorrows are cast in stone
For morrows will rise in ice
And the sea roared
And the sea roared
30 December 2014
The sun kissed the clouds
Rising slowly from their midst
Its pale face glowing
The dew responds with a sigh
As it rolls down trees like tears
°
Leaves rustle in wind
That grows with sunlit kisses
Gathered from the clouds
Yesterday hopes were so high
But night had trickled in fears
°
The clouds lit with flames
Shake their silver frame anew
Welcoming embrace
Their entwined rays light my heart
With promises of morrows
°
The path stretched winding
Lanes crossed gardens and bushes
That swelled with dewdrops
My heart in unison swelled
With the oncoming sorrows
°
Cobbled stones shining
Lay strewn across swirling lanes
Like diamonds in crown
Scintillating thoughts hover
In whirlpool that rakes the mind
°
Blue horizon stirs
In wake of morning calling
As seagulls echo
Mew of forgotten lover
Shrill broken shards leave behind
°
Silken sand beckoned
Enticing golden body
Glowing with sun’s rays
A moment of soft rapture
Instant suspended in time
°
The white shells reached out
Life stood still and the sea roared
Its hunger patent
I felt the blue sea capture
All those hopes that once were mine
Swallow in the sun
Swallow in the sun
22 December 2014
Engulfed in shadows
The earth seeks a source of light
As ice takes over
Cold draft stills the mind that seeks
Door ajar to inner light
A ray pierces through
From long forgotten valley
Where day lasts forever
Dumbstruck, in awe, I observe
As it shines, translucent, raw
Bathing in its warmth
A lizard stretches its tail
Remnant of past pride
What is lost is found anew
Says silent spirit to mind
Door closing bathes red
From light seeping through tight veins
That burn with the past
Blood to blood shall call again
As storms well inside abode
The boatman carries
Ten white lilies like ten souls
That start to wither
Will storm flood the lilies’ nest
Building darkness from unrest?
Flickering shadows
Trace a path to yesterday
Etched in my bosom
I yearn in silent sorrow
For two thousand years gone by
A fluttering bird
Rises in the falling dusk
Beak shattering door
Ice scatters around my heart
A thousand rays flow within
Swallow in the sun
Wings outstretched basking in heat
Soars above the earth
Its flight makes mellow my heart
That roared with winter’s approach
Setting fire to the moon
Setting fire to the moon
21 December 2014
While rose petals bloomed
Inky red trail of lovers
The sun set its course
How replenished will it glow?
Asked a bee of setting sun
–
The dusky shadows
Peeled off the edges of day
That haunted yet skies
Withered and wizened old man
Son of none, will you now die?
–
Moon carried the sun
Into a frozen night sky
As it died again
Did heavenly compromise
Seal fate of the fire ball?
–
Sun awakes from chill
Setting fire to the moon
Shakes off its dead skin
As day pierces into night
Will none renew without fight?
.
Reading of the poem on YouTube
Weighing consequences, not weighing down heart
Weighing consequences, not weighing down heart
December 5, 2014
We want to be protected. It seems to be the modern day curse that most human beings seek protection before seeking emotions, experience with their procession of joys and wonders but also heartaches and injuries. The modern man/woman wants to know where he/she is going, whether the journey will be arduous and whether the rewards will be plentiful or painfully desolate. Each decision to enter an unknown field of emotions and experiences is examined carefully before even reaching the field of probabilities and the expected consequences are weighed minutely before the decision is taken.
The protection we seek encompasses a range of fields in our life going from the mere education system to our profession, to our interaction with friends and family and finally to our intimate relationships with our partners. When speaking of partners, I use the plural because it has now become an accepted fact that we seldom can live all our lives with one partner, to the exception of those who have been able to find their perfect soul mate right from the beginning. As we evolve in life and depending on the congruence between our evolution and that of our partner, it may or may not be possible to continue a common life with that partner without a feeling of frustration or other forms of constraint leading ultimately to a separation and therefore to a new partner.
For every matter in our life, we don’t want to be wrong, we don’t want to be hurt, we don’t want to suffer. It has therefore become almost a second nature – except for some rare persons whom society sees as misfits because they simply follow recklessly their hearts – for most of us to weigh all consequences in the most dispassionate way possible before making a decision. Society channels us into this behaviour by reproaching us our mistakes when we have not weighed consequences enough before taking a decision. The young child who chooses the wrong orientation at school because he/she likes some subjects more than others is scolded by his/her parents and teachers if he/she lacks the full natural skills to continue doing what his/her inclination pushed him/her to choose. The young or adult person who chooses friends who cause him/her hurt in whatever way is reproached for the lack of judgement and weighing of consequences in choosing such people within his/her circle of friends. The young adult who chose a partner who caused him/her suffering is to an extent pitied, comforted but mostly silently, implicitly or sometimes even overtly rebuked for making such an uninformed choice and not weighing all consequences. The professional who chooses a path that he/she feels more rewarding but that leads at some point into financial trouble is reproached his/her unwise and non-weighted choice. It is thus no wonder that at each point in one’s life, one would have developed a tendency to weigh absolutely all the consequences of taking a certain decision to the extent that for some it becomes an obsession and they are not even able to take the simplest of decisions without weighing the pros and cons.
While such a process may be right in its generic approach to most matters to avoid the drunken aftermath of a wayward decision taken with no regard for its consequences on oneself and on the larger sphere of one’s dependents, it can somewhat cause one to have a stilted life if it were adopted for each and every matter in life. Imagine a world where you would have a few seconds to hold on to a longer talk with a person you find interesting and you would need a few minutes to process the consequences of talking longer to an acquaintance, you simply would have “missed the train”.
It would seem rather obvious that professional matters should be the ones where a person would need to be more diligent in weighing consequences but somehow more and more people have shifted their focus from the professional sphere which has become more of an alimentary choice to the personal sphere where they have developed a new tendency of a heightened examination of the consequences of their choice.
Social media has to an extent rendered possible a quicker weighing of consequences as far as relationships are concerned but in a more artificial and superficial way than what would be required. Like in a real-life scenario, played out usually at high speed compared to the original, people are able to measure the consequences of their interaction and the effect it has socially. The unfortunate part of this is that because of its superficiality and the ability of people to hide behind the mask that is presented on the chosen social media, the relationship is actually a fake acting out of what it would have been like in real life. At the same time, when both parties are honest and truthful about themselves, there is a possibility of actually interacting on a deeper level of understanding and therefore weighing appropriately the consequences of a life together before it actually takes place.
It increasingly happens that when both have been truthful and not hidden anything about themselves those who have met through social media are then able to have a real-life relationship that is rather quickly more intimate than one which would have started off as a face-to-face relationship. Conversely, some relationships which are face-to-face relationships often take a long time to establish this level of deeper understanding.
My belief is that this difference in the pace between relationships that initiate over social media and those that initiate in real-life is the matter of weighing consequences. Social media with its virtual feel allows one not to feel weighed down by consequences and therefore, where a sincere intent exists, allows a deeper interaction. Real life, on the other hand, is burdened by the grave weighing of consequences that is inherent in an individual because of the self-preservation instinct and therefore each individual takes more time to reveal truths about themselves including their feelings. Suffice to look at how easily people get “in a relationship”, “engaged” or “in a domestic partnership” on facebook; something that they would consider for months or even years before doing so in real life.
So, having said this, should one rush headlong into decisions or should one take proper time to weigh the consequences of such decisions before taking them? Without being a fervent adept of making rash decisions, I believe it is important to leave one’s heart in a permanent state of acceptance that would allow one to experience emotions and events first hand while at the same time being able, for more important and life-changing decisions, especially insofar as they involve other human beings, to be able to weigh the consequences of such decisions before taking them.
Personally, I think that it should not be an issue for a child to make a mistake and take a wrong education orientation (compared to his natural skills) if that is what the child felt would suit him/her best at a given point in time like it should not be an issue for a young adult to choose the wrong partner or the wrong friends. For both of them, making a mistake is part of their learning curve and even if there is some hurt involved in the realisation that the choice was not the best adapted for the future, there is definitely a larger benefit from that choice in defining better what is the better adapted choice for a long-term view of the future.
As far as a professional life is considered, I personally think it is good to try as many professions as one is able to actually withstand sensibly as long as the livelihood of other people does not depend on making the “right” choice. If one has already made the decision to have dependents that one has to fend for, then the appropriate weighing of consequences for the choice of a profession has to be made.
As regards relationships, the only time I think one should really weigh the consequences is again when one has dependents who might suffer from an incorrect choice. To want to weigh consequences when only one’s own suffering is involved is illusory as one can never avoid fully pain in one’s life. Besides, it is becoming more and more apparent in social interactions that the more people tend to want to weigh consequences before making decisions in their personal relationships, the less in touch they are with their inner feelings.
Halting the natural process of reaching out, putting a stop to one’s heart’s momentum eventually leads to a weighing down of the heart and therefore to the disappearance of the sense of wellbeing that goes with a heart that is open, light, enlightened and full of love. So before heeding the reproachful comments or advice of a “well-wishing” friend asking you to “open your eyes”, rather listen to that inner voice that asks you to “open your heart” for it does not matter that you will get hurt along the road in the process of opening your heart. What matters is that you will grow and evolve tremendously every time you are able to open your heart and keep it open regardless of the number of times that you might have got hurt.
Eventually, there comes a time when each experience will stand out as a unique array of emotions and step of personal growth without any sense of hurt associated with that experience. Ultimately, there comes a time when your heart is truly and fully open when nothing hurts you any longer and you only feel a deep sensation of all-encompassing love and satisfaction with your life, whatever the choices you make. As Rumi said “Brother, stand the pain. Escape the poison of your judges. The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do.” and I will leave you with a beautiful poem by Rumi (in ‘We Are Three‘, Mathnawi VI, 831-845)
“These spiritual window-shoppers, who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’ Oh, I’m just looking. They handle a hundred items and put them down, shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping. But these walk into a shop, and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment, in that shop.
Where did you go? “Nowhere.” What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want, buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.”
Beauty in fusion
Beauty in fusion
December 3, 2014
We all seek beauty, breathe it into our souls with ecstasy and revel in its various manifestations. We idealise beauty though it takes for each of us a different, special meaning that more often than not we share little of with others. Yet we all tend to try to blend in when challenged on our thoughts about beauty, about what it is that we relate with as being beautiful, we try to join a common chase for all that is beautiful joined like in a hunt for the rare yet opulent beast.
In our incessant quest for beauty, we have come to ignore the essence of it, occupied as we are with categorising it, restraining it, constraining it to the canons that we know or that we have read of. Somehow, beauty, like all other matters that we dwell upon must, it would seem, fit into yet another box that we can then stow away, content with the notion of having identified and qualified yet another piece of this jigsaw world that bewilders us. Some of us, strong in our sense of what should be beautiful, find the walls of our certainties shaken when we chance upon something that utterly clashes with our notion of beauty but we are still drawn by it, transfixed, mesmerised at the mere viewing of it. It is then, when our hearts and souls are immersed by the sense of that incredibly beautiful “non-beauty”, that we truly come to realize that beauty cannot and may not be categorised, that it may not be forced within the bars of a narrow definition of it, however much the system may wish to influence our view of it.
Beauty for me, is every small thing that touches the heart and soul and that inspires positive emotions. A piece of music, an act, an object of art in whichever form it may be is beautiful when it touches one whether to make one cry, laugh, feel loved or want to bestow love, feel elated, full of hope or even devotion.
When you are open to beauty, you develop a tendency to want to gather around you all things that are beautiful because you want to revel in that beauty constantly, draw upon it as a permanent source of energy. This may clash, however, with the simplicity of life required to continue developing oneself without the external distractions, the most prominent of which are the clutter that can be caused by collecting items, even of great beauty. A good solution to this apparently intricate dilemma is simply having pictures of all that one finds beautiful and to keep these available to one. When one has a vivid imagination, calling upon the memory of viewing something beautiful equates to actually viewing that item again.
The problem with beauty when taken to the level of human beings is that it is often confused with the external appearance of a person and a quote to that effect is that “beauty is skin deep”. While it may remain true that we are often drawn to a person based on the external criteria of beauty we would have assimilated as our own, we seldom keep that initial frame of mind beyond a few months or even a few weeks. For most of us, beyond that external appearance that most of us have been taught to think as beautiful, we need a deeper sense of beauty, something that is beyond the mere skin.
Even when you take people whom one could consider as shallow because they do not go beyond the external appearance of a person, not willing to relate to that person or discover the actual human qualities that the person may or may not have, you realise that their infatuation with the external appearance fades with time. Such people get that epiphany when they realize that they actually know nothing about the person they have chosen based solely upon the external appearance as they have not taken the time to discover the human qualities of the person. More often than not such people realize as time passes that the person they chose for external beauty alone has dedicated more time to enhancing, preserving or restoring that beauty than to developing themselves from a human perspective. When one is really what is considered shallow, one would just carry on, encouraging the person to continue enhancing and preserving that beauty without caring about what goes on within the envelope presented as a delightful package. When one is actually not that shallow, the sense of novelty disappears and is replaced by a longing for something more meaningful.
I have often observed that people with an incredibly beautiful partner from an external beauty standpoint seem to all of a sudden get drawn to people who are referenced as quite plain as compared to their partner. Sometimes, they may even give up their relationship to then live with the other person, leaving their families and friends disconcerted on this sudden turn of events. I believe, this is simply the transformation of the notion of beauty – insofar as it relates to human beings – in the minds of such people. Their personal evolution then causes their view of human beauty to transform, thereby making it difficult to sustain the relationship they had before, especially if their partner did not evolve with them beyond the concept of a still-life beauty. They seem to then seek a person who has little to do with their previous partner at least from an external appearance perspective and also, quite often, from a human qualities standpoint.
Here again, one can say that beauty in a human being is therefore what touches one’s soul, what one relates to and that causes intense emotions. While we are mostly indoctrinated to react and feel positive vibes at the presence of external beauty mainly, when we are in touch with our inner feelings and true to our inner selves, we feel a sense of beauty in a human being when we feel what that person holds of internal beauty. Sometimes it may just be a form of kindness, a sense of humour that we relate to, a formidable capacity to love, empathy, wisdom, openness, simplicity and the list may go on forever as we each relate to different qualities that we find beautiful. We often discover, as we evolve, that the notion of beauty is not just different from one person to another but that it is also different from one age to another and one state of conscience to another within the same person.
Like in the case of objects, one does not need to possess beauty – unlike what some people do by insisting on having a relationship such as a domestic partnership or a marriage – by possessing or attempting to possess the person whose beauty strikes one as worthy of preserving around oneself. Friendship is another form of social interaction which allows one to enjoy the beauty of another human being without the need to “own” that beauty. Photographs too of time spent with that beautiful person can be a good alternative to having that person constantly in one’s life. Again, when one has a vivid imagination, one is able to draw from memories the sense of being in direct interaction with that person whose beauty touched one.
One last thought as I remember the saying « Beauty is in the eye of the beholder »: we need to preserve our individual sense of what is beautiful and avoid the generic input forced upon us by media and society as a whole. Let beauty truly be in our eye, according to what we perceive through our eyes, minds, hearts and souls for we don’t need to be identical to be One.
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