Migrations

As we leave the Cochin harbor,the water in the channel is jade..the harbor is filed with naval ships, long and skinny traditional fishing boats, small dingies, gulls - hovering over fishing crafts, and...dolphins. The sun is harsh in a white glare, tossing silver mirrors on waves to reflect the pale blue sky.

I stand on the back deck, and my thoughts turn to the migration of hummingbirds-those tiny irridescent fliers that migrate from central to north America on journeys of thousands of miles. If those little suckers can do it, fly and so be free, so can I, across unknown oceans to where my sails will take me. But the question that haunts me is what drives these migrators so? What drives me constantly to seek new shores?

The water has turned a glittery teal on the west with a lowering sun and and bounces in opaque cones of blue on my east.

Migration in the wild is driven by instinct for survival and procreation-neither of which drive my migration from the nesting ground. My goings in and out, for short or long durations are often rudderless, searching, arbitrary exploration of external spaces to guide internal journeys, in small miniscule progress towards a search for myself.

At a different level, isnt movement itself a direct manifestation of life? All living things move- and in my migratory movements I experience life - most alive. Is then stopping to move- death? Movement versus stillness, animate versus inanimate? And yet, all great sages, seers, have practised this stillness- in body, and then mind, distilling slowly into spirit till existence itself is purely and consciously experienced-a fully conscious awareness of living - of life force surging through one's being, pulsating, vibrating, fully alive in this stillness, deadness, pure awareness. And thus Bunan wrote:

Die while you are alive
and be absolutely dead.
Then do whatever you want:
it is all good.

I watch fires turn gold and red in the western skies- I stand still in a rocking boat-void thoughts-past, future-I stand still and attempt to die.