Reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in

 

Hibiscus photos sent by my father, from their garden

Many years ago, someone invited me to join sessions organized by what sounded like a cult. They said " having spirituality in one's life is so important". Which I completely agreed with. I replied, without even thinking, that I am spiritual, but my connection to the universe is through nature. It wasn't a prepared answer, it came out of me, just like that. It only struck me much later where that originated from. 

We are all gardeners in the family. I am so grateful to my parents for instilling a love of gardening in us. Not that they EVER spoke to us about it. 😁 My brother and I just grew up watching them dig, plant, weed, fight against poor soil, harsh summers, in the garden, every single day, despite the busy lives they had. We learnt the immense pleasure of receiving something after putting in effort and love. And the humility to accept graciously, when sometimes we did not. 

Gardening is one shared interest we have between the 4 of us, otherwise very different people. 😀 And so we also started having our own garden patches, as children. My brother grew cactii, a whole amazing collection of them. I grew trees (because trees were my refuge, I used to climb up and hide, my parents couldn't reach me there 😂), carrying one of my kittens with me every morning to go check if there was some sign of a tiny head unfurling, from the seed I had planted. We are lucky that my sister-in-law shares our love of growing things, the planting and the waiting, and the amazing reward of each new leaf or flower.  

With age, I grew to see how gardening is a metaphor for life. It is now more philosophy, a reminder of the flow of life itself, than just the planting, the fertilizing, the joy of new flowers, and the attempts to kill mealy bugs. 😁The earth, and nature, reflect to us so many truths that govern our lives, cycles that mimic our journey. 

We dig to make space for yet another plant - and learn how to live better, and become more humble. As T.S Eliot said, "the only wisdom, the wisdom of humility".

"Dheere Dheere Re Mana, Dheere Sub Kutch Hoye
Mali Seenche So Ghara, Ritu Aaye Phal Hoye."

Slowly slowly O mind, everything happens in its own pace
The gardener may pour a hundred buckets,
the fruit arrives only in its season.

Kabir 1398-1518

And therefore I can completely relate to this beautiful beautiful poem 😍: 

While there is still time: Reach out, keep reaching out 

Grahanam

 

The opposite of daanam (giving) is grahanam. Receiving. A dear friend told me about this recently, when I visited her. It jolted me. 

Receiving, and gracefully, is as important as its opposite. It completes the circle. For someone for whom giving is just a way of life, a reflex action, not even requiring thought or reflection, receiving has always been hard. It had to be learnt. 

Because for that one must truly believe one is worthy of love, despite all evidence to the contrary. Hold the hand offered to lift you up, with gratitude, even if you can climb up yourself. Accept the gift of shelter, without apology. Pick up the phone and say, this time, yes, I would like someone to come with me to the hospital. 

And know that the circle is completing. Everything you gave away is coming back. And you must not stem that flow. You must allow the universe to restore balance. You must bow down and open your hands.

“… because who can look in the mirror for three minutes
and say I love you, I love you, I love you

without bursting into tears over all the ways
we have not loved ourselves.”

Jennifer Saunders

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Because for that one must tear down the walls, brick by brick. 

Lie down, let go, and notice how the earth is supporting you always, as my dear yoga teacher tells me, again and again. Break, so the light will come in through the cracks. Look at the beautifully adorned stone gods in the temple and say, “Here it is, my life, let your will prevail”. Add “Insha Allah” to everything you claim to do, every plan you make, so meticulously, nothing left to chance.

“Be Ground.
Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. 

You have been stony for too many years
Try something different. 

Surrender.”

Jelaluddin Rumi

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Because for that one must encounter the opposite, the other side, have the things you believed in turned on their heads. To see that the reverse is just the other half of the story you could never see, the knowledge that you had to grow humble enough to receive. To know that age comes to you with gifts like nothing you ever imagined, if you are not busy trying to hold on to youth.

"…And most importantly let them believe in themselves

Let them be helpless like children.
Because weakness is a great thing
And strength is nothing.
When a man is just born,
He is weak and flexible
When he dies, he is hard and insensitive.
When a tree is growing,
It is tender and pliant
But when it is dry and hard, it dies.

Hardness and strength are death's companions.
Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being
Because what has hardened will never win…"

The Stalker's prayer at the well, before he takes the two men into the Zone.

from the film 'The Stalker'
Andrei Tarkovsky

That Commonplace

More conversations around mortality these days, as everyone I know nears or crosses over the mid-way mark. Or just hit by an increased awareness of the randomness of death. So what do you want in the time you have left? More and more I am tempted to say "ordinary days". When so much is actually happening that is sustaining me, quietly. When nothing is distracting me from the minute detail. Like how the orange flames of the Rudrapalaash flowers have quietly started reaching upto the sky, while I wasn't looking. Just in time, announcing September, and the festivals to come. 

What is the measure of a life? Would really living every day count? Whether or not you remember the details. :) 

Re-reading, Gilbert, who asked of the gods, "Teach me mortality, frighten me into the present". 

Highlights and Interstices

http://whilethereisstilltime.blogspot.com/2016/11/that-commonplace.html

The Disappeared

 

To the ones who lost loved ones, and to the ones who saved lives, in the summer of 2021

A Splash Quite Unnoticed

Decades ago, I remember reading a poem about a man sitting in front of his house, waiting for the crows to come eat the rice balls kept on a plantain leaf - as part of the Shraaddha ritual for his father's death ceremony. He is devastated by the loss of the person he was closest to. But outside the gate he sees children in uniforms going to school, chatting, laughing, care-free - it is just an ordinary day for everyone else. And he wonders whether the most painful part of grief is how private it is, how intensely lonely.

But should it be? 

It is exactly one year since thousands of Indians lost close family members or friends in the horrific  Covid wave of Apr-June 2021. We even lost perfectly healthy people, fitness enthusiasts, and thousands of our young working population. And thousands nearly lost loved ones, went through long traumatic waiting periods of not knowing, not being able to even see the person who was struggling alone.

The world has moved on. As it must. This summer people have been partying, getting together, making up for lost time. Even as the possibility of yet another wave looms large. But for the ones who suffered the immediate losses, and the rest of us who were impacted by it, this is a horrific anniversary.

It is important to move on. That is part of being resilient. But the brutality of that summer. How does one get over it? What lessons did we learn from it? 

We have never seen a disaster of such proportions, cutting across class and caste. 

We have never in our lives seen our vast medical system collapse to such an extent. Thousands of people died waiting outside hospitals for oxygen and beds. 

We have never been in a situation where thousands had to die without seeing their families. Where families were not given the bodies of their loved ones. 

And the millions who lost their livelihoods, their bread winners, and have never recovered their old lives.

And the doctors and the hospital staff who worked tirelessly across months, without sleep, putting their own lives at risk.

And the ones who went on to suffer long Covid, or died of sudden heart attacks well after recovery.

And the ones who went on to suffer PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) and never fully recovered.

And through it all, the thousands of amazing volunteer groups that formed within days across the country, working across cities and villages, forming task forces, war rooms, desperately trying to get oxygen, beds, and medicines for strangers, supplementing what the government struggled to do. So many of us are alive, so many of our family or friends are still around, because someone somewhere struggled day and night and got us help at the right time. 

We saw our worst, but we also saw our best, the incredible amount of compassion and drive there is in this country. 

Remembrance

In Akira Kurosawa's movie "Dreams", there is this amazing scene where  a stranger comes upon a funeral procession in a village. He is astounded to see that everyone is singing and dancing. When he asks why, they say - "We are glad that we got so many years with this amazing man, we are celebrating that!" 😀

It always reminds me of this evening in Toronto, 2006. 

"On a San Juan city side walk, outside the Rawson neighbourhood bike shop, one shoe and a pair of glasses got left behind. Last traces of you."

So read the lines next to one of the numerous photographs at the Steelworkers Hall on Cecil Street, Toronto, that cold evening. The Argentinian immigrants in the city had a week-long program in memory of the 30, 000 people who "disappeared" during the military coup of 1976, that ushered in a dark period of 7 years where countless people were taken away and killed, so many of them so young.

It was a lovely evening of remembrances, music, and dance. An evening to honour the ones we lost so they are not forgotten, and also to remember to be happy and move on despite our crushing losses. An evening of solidarity with those who lost loved ones, and still suffer.  

I remembered that evening today. It was such a befitting celebration, understated but warm and joyous. An affirmation that we are all connected, and we need not allow others to suffer sad anniversaries alone.  

What could we do to honour the thousands who disappeared last summer? 

What could we do to remember the strangers to whom so many owe their lives? 

What could we do for those who are re-living the nightmare on the first death anniversary of their loved ones? 

Heroes of our Time: Malvikaa Solanki

 

I must have met Malvikaa only once, briefly. It was so worth keeping in touch to see her amazing journey in the mountains of Bandipur. On a really bad day, watching any of her videos just lifts up my spirits. 

Malvikaa Solanki is one of the heroes of our time - reviving not just the land, but also our tradition of working together as a community for the common good. We forget so easily that we are all interconnected. The video is just 5.53 minutes long. I promise you it will change your day. 

Transforming landscapes through Agroforestry Systems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9yAqPiwTY

The 1000 Tree Project: 

https://en.gaonconnection.com/1000-tree-project-reviving-degraded-farmlands-in-karnatakas-bandipur-through-agroforestry/

Swayyam

To know more about her and her work, watch these short videos:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtZ4G30RUyQrUqrYnZtvnGw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swayyam/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swayyam_permaculture/

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage

 

There must be better ways of spending your mornings than sitting under your favourite Hongai tree and listening to the small flowers falling, like the first drops of approaching rain. But thankfully you don't know of any of them. :) 

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In the evenings, if you sit and wait patiently in your city balcony, you get to see the changing of the guard at sunset. The kites circle lower and lower and then come down to roost on the huge trees in the West. And once the kites have cleared the golden-gray evening sky, the bats come flying in from the darkening East, wave after wave, hundreds of them. Without fail. Day in, day out.

A change of guard that is so easy to miss, because it happens in total silence. When you sit quietly, the world is a different place.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage.

So I sat still for three days

and God came to me.

Kabir, in 'Love Poems from God, Twelve Sacred Voices form the East and West'

What kind of car would you like?

"What kind of car would you like?"

"A small one covered in Hongai leaves would be perfect. 😍😍

All year I'll park it under different trees shedding leaves or flowers. 

I'll mostly be walking. So a cheap car will do."

😀