That Am I! A Twilight Meditation with a Grand Old Tree

The multifarious duties of the day are done. As the sun dips beyond the mountains, my weary feet take me slowly to the terrace, where stone benches await one, offering a welcome rest.

In the background of the reddish grey twilight sky, the bare branches of a couple of large deciduous trees stand out in stark contrast. Once clothed in dense green foliage of thick, rounded leaves, the heat of summer has seen them shed their pride. The ground is blanketed all around, rendering it cool and retaining what moisture it can for the benefit of the countless little creatures residing therein. 

A little scratching sound catches my attention and my eyes are drawn towards a family of wild Red Spurfowl foraging for worms and insects underneath the leaves. As I settle down comfortably on the bench, the eldest and largest amongst the tall, gaunt trees seems to whisper. 

" Greetings, dear friend! Often, I see you here at dusk, sharing with me the stillness of nature. Here I grew forth from a tiny seed, and here did I spend many returns of seasons. In time I grew, not just in height and girth, but also in understanding. 

Drought and deluge, heat and cold, I have endured over the years. Storms and lightning, monkeys stripping off my leaves and lumberjacks lopping off my arms, the pain I have borne. As much as I wanted to, I could not escape from these trials. I could not run away even when I yearned to, for I had rooted myself to this place. 

I had my share of joys too, when the first raindrops descended, quenching my thirst, when little birds perched on me and sang of love, when they built nests upon my willing boughs and raised their young. 

Every summer, the leaf sucking insects multiply and bite me endlessly. As the pain becomes unbearable, I ripen my leaves and shed them as they dry out. Now's the time for me to rest for a while in peace. 

Without my leafy possessions, I am, to a great extent, free. Free of weight, free of the need to find water and nutrients for my leaves, free of fear of hurt or damage to them. Free even of the thought of yesterday or of morrow. And thus, I rest in my nature, in contentment. 

After a while, again I start dreaming of my lush green foliage, of the cool breeze gently rustling my leaves, of the warmth of the sun, of the kiss of the dew, of my sap running through my leaves. 

And then, new shoots appear in profusion upon my sleeping branches, now fully awake to the world. Tender leaves are accompanied by millions of flowers, their nectar smelling of fresh honey and feeding thousands of wild bees. In their maddening hum, I lose myself for days, until all the flowers are gone and seeds grow in their place. 

Once more, I am painfully aware of the vicissitudes and fears of life and start yearning for rest. These repetitive cycles finally prompt me to accept what comes and to hold on to my precious peace within. 

Acceptance brings forth the impartial witness and with the birth of witnessing, fear is gone. Unconditional acceptance of life makes me one with the immutable, eternal presence, my being, in which my body, my thoughts and my whole world appear to float. 

I know that my body is valuable to your folk and that one day, a woodcutter will be here with his chainsaw. That too, is alright, for what must be, will be. Nature has revealed to me that I am not this form, but the deathless essence, the awareness within and everywhere. So dear friend, are you! "

My Own!

When ominous clouds,
Of darkness and of despair,
Of sickness and of death,
Seek to smother you,
Seek to swallow you,
When your heart aches in anguish,
Screams and yearns for solace,
Lifts the veil of heaviness a moment,
A kindly light shines forth,
A warming ray of hope,
Silently whispering; My child!
Ere you donned the mantle,
Of human flesh in play,
You were always mine own;
The instant you shouldst drop it,
You’ll know, you’re always,
My own, my very own!
A being of light like I,
Immortal and Eternal,
For the fleshy garbs you wear,
Time after time after time,
Are but mere sandcastles,
You build,
To play anew on the shore!

Borrowed!

Flaming swords of grass aglow,
Lively sway they in yon breeze,
Luminous, bright and joyful,
Knowest they, one wonders,
Their effulgence borrowed from the sun!

Moonlight!

Through the moonlight of awareness,
Flit cloudlike forms of thought,
From nowhere they appear,
Only to disappear elsewhere!

Donning the mantle of flesh,
Awareness plays hide and seek,
While thoughts, as desires and fancies,
The sensory world doth create!

Sparks of awareness enact roles,
As individual egos, they play,
Engrossed, the play gets serious,
Playground and players so real!

As colorful varied scenes follow,
Interesting and exciting they seem,
But then repetitiveness reeks of boredom,
And disenchantment lashes out pain!

Fed up, the sparks now intent,
Seek not to play, but the playwright,
Entering the silence, their home,
Is awareness, awake from its dream!

Crabby Wisdom!

In our fields live a great many crabs. They dig holes and tunnels everywhere, excavating mud from the bottom. Hiding during the day, they come out at night to snip off the tender vegetable plants with their strong, sharp pincers. In olden times, they had natural enemies - foxes and owls that hunted them at night. With the advent of the green revolution and the rampant use of pesticides, the predators vanished, dead from eating poisoned crabs. But the crabs somehow outlived the poison. Now the crabs have multiplied to such an extent that they have become the nightmare of farmers. We and others who do only organic or natural farming never use pesticides to control them. Old farmers speak of the ancient way of saving the crops which we found to be highly effective.

Dry grass and weeds are sickled and arranged around the vegetable plants. The crabs are wary of approaching the plants because their many legs get entangled in the springy dry grasses and weeds. In this picture, you can see our cowpea seedlings shooting up through the grass which also acts as mulch and later crumbles unto compost. We always sow more seeds than needed, for a few cunning crabs simply tunnel under the grass and rise up right under the seedlings. The crabs get a share of the succulent young plants.

Soon, the plants grow and the stems become thicker and hard enough to survive the crab attacks. Nature always strives to maintain a balance!

A Melody of Nature!

Here are a couple of puff throated babblers entertaining us in their sweet, beautiful voices on the old staircase outside our window, two years ago. The video was recovered by my son from our old mobile phone which suddenly came to life after months of not working! The birds had a habit of visiting us every morning at around 8 am, singing and knocking on our window, before flying off to the woods. Enjoy!

To be a Rose!

A rosebud, half-eaten,
Turns not black, nor bitter.
In time, doth she bloom,
Fragrant, full of nectar!