Big Sky

Today I burrowed myself out to walk in search of a big sky. I walked till I found a sky soaked in silence and girdled by a circle of  distant trees.  On this cold february evening, spring already swelled within a still winter. Old gnarled branches gleamed in brass and copper, steel buds swelled in velvets on charcoal, new grass shone in dew and carpets of tiny white daisies with mauve backs. My winter heart unfurled and and my pores swelled with new buds. My voice rang clear to touch this big sky  - the brook then gurgled and the birds also chorused - all in raga basant.

Autumn in a Bottle, and other tidbits from Metz

I. Yesterday I went gathering autumn. I picked it up, color dripping leaf by leaf, and brought back a bouquet, which I stuffed in a bottle...

...and a  Vase.

Now I sit and stare and wonder at the autumn, in my room, and me.

II. Metz is Stained in Glass: and I wonder why? I wander within this stained light and watch it color me blue, purple, yellow, orange, red and green...and many other shades in between. Is it to illuminate the heart? and bear it ? this blue heart, this red throbbing heart, this soaring yellow heart, a sinking violet heart? to learn that hearts can be stained and it is better this way?

 

III. I go swimming regularly. Swimming happens here in a very disciplined manner with strict rules that guide people swimming in loops within lanes meant for lap swimmers. Every now and then, someone breaks the rules, overtakes, splashes, and plays...and people pause in wonder.

Yesterday I found to my delight that there were three sumo wrestlers in the same narrow lane as me. They were as sombre and majestic in water as when they are on ground. They swam in full control and practiced style and grace. However each time one crossed me, there was an enormous wave, a surge, that hit my face, and I drank gallons of swimming pool water, even as I watched a massive whale glide away next to me.  I watched in amazement and awe. Yesterday I drank a lot of swimming pool water.

IV. I have wasted substantial portions of my last many days trying to figure out travel plans within the country - to the mountains, to the sea shores, to all places wonderous and beautiful. Such planning is challenging here - where communication is little with the french speaking nation. Also, people are not in need for business and hang up on an english speaker, do not respond to email queries etc.; train timetables are horrendous, and non-Paris connectivity poor. Finally I have given up. I have realised that if I were not constantly trying to have a better life, I could actually have a really good life.

V. What is it about Ambers - of tree saps from aeons ago, of the solidified, and transparent molten golds  ,that fascinates us so? Just the beauty? Or is it the perished prehistoric bugs and insects it once embedded inside? Or the imaginary trees whose sap once flowed so freely and golden? I bought some Amber jewelry and hold it to the light, peer within its mottled inside to wean out its secrets, from times when dinosaurs roamed a swampy land, dragons roared fire, fish were learning to fly and earth was still a fantasy land. I wear on my ear to hear its whispered secrets, dangle it close to my heart and wear it on my finger to remind me that fantasy once existed - and maybe it still does.

First Impressions:Images from Metz

First Impressions from France

We are on our way to Metz, France. At the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, we have a four hour layover:
I sit - a speck in a giant and mobile patchwork quilt - of fractured people and voices. Vaccuous silent bands mark inviolable spaces dividing people of different colors, races, language, culture, religion and style; it is a study of high contrasts, and separations, lacking an artist's touch of synthesis to create a vibrating and a living, whole.

It is Sunday. Everything is closed in Metz:
We are on a deserted planet - with wide empty roads, an occasional racing car, bus or an unbearable  rearing motorcycle. We walk closer together, than we have done since our youth, bonded by our strange mooring in this silent, sterile and non-peopled world.

Nature, on the other hand, revels in our enchantment and blooms, many thousand times over. Leaves hint at crimson and gold, swans glide, and a hundred birds take off in chorused flight - just for us.  We are hungry on only chocolate bars, coffee and pastry. Would die to have sambhar-rice. I buy an extravagant potted plant - purple-black Calle lilies now bloom in our tiny and barren studio apartment. I sleep hungry, but with a smile......... 1 Sept 2013........

After a First Week:

The population of Metz is 2 lakh. We have seen people now. Most smile and say "bonjour" without making eye contact. Restaurants and beauty parlors abound - including parlors for kids, and pets. I must say that people are really interesting to look at; everyone is so interested in practicing a personal style - from the ultra sophisticated and refined, to really weird and funky. People do seem to care very much about how they look, to others, and that makes them interesting to watch. Yesterday, we sat eating pizza with a rose wine, at a sidewalk pizzeria and watched people. We might be the only boring ones in this city. Today, I have kohled my eyes jet black and no longer feel a drab sparrow.

One could never successfully have such street side cafes in US, but one could in India.
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I was stopped on two consecutive days by security and asked to open up my bags..I try to not feel bad. Their racial prejudice is part of their job and profiling it requires of them. Yet, I consider that I do not look like a thief or even needy, by most standards. Maybe because I am so thin...? and not because I am brown? Clive used to laugh and say I looked like a famine victim from Africa.

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I enjoy wandering by myself. Have a sense of their land shape, soil color and texture, the unexpected dense copses of trees with dark mystery, the deeply interesting and forgotten cemetery with ancient gravestones, stained glass, ivy and flowers. In a over-organised layout, I search for dirt roads and shortcuts, sniff out abandoned cottage and still blooming poppies in mowed fields. I search under trees for sweet plums warmed by the sun - and pop them into my mouth, unwashed..ambrosia! Pears weigh down heavily and knock my head; orchards are filled with apples that no one wants.
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I am tired of all things complex and human...and "too much mind".  Visited the Pompidou Museum for Contemporary Arts...seems like so much thinking and analyses of all human processes. All the western psycho-analyses seem to be mere fabrications of bored minds - and then others analysing the original analyses, and so on...really, societies with too much time and too little to do - a veritable devils workshop. All this thinking, and still they continue to wage wars on real human beings, based on duplicity, lies and for profit and power. What has all this thinking really taught anyone?

I sit meditating on "No Mind"                      ............9 Sept 2013