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!

Nature's Sparklers!

प्रकुति कि फूल झडि - പ്രകൃതിയുടെ കമ്പിത്തിരി!

A shower of blooms of miniature bamboo soaking in the rays of the morning sun.

A dew drenched strand of a web, shimmering with rainbow hues. The white light of the sun touching the strand, only to explode into myriad colors!

Moths at Night!

While fruits attract a large number of birds during the day, they are also magnets for beautiful moths at night! They perch on fruits, only to be playfully pushed aside by their friends who covet their luscious space. However, I have not noticed them either actually eating the fruit, or laying any eggs. Perhaps someone could throw some light upon it. But one thing is clear, whether it is light or dark, nature never sleeps! From her home of perpetual rest in the infinite emptiness of space, knowing neither day nor night, which are but concepts of the human psyche, she keeps on growing, changing in her eternal dance of perpetual orgasmic joy!

Miracle Fruit in Bloom!

Walking in the garden, the sweet smell of ripe custard apples fills the air. However, we do not have a custard apple tree as it does not flourish in our climate. As the scent grows stronger, it draws me to our little miracle fruit tree which is full of blooms. Each flower is hardly a quarter of an inch in length. The tiny tree is flowering for the first time since it was planted a year ago.

In case you do not know why it is called a miracle fruit, it is said that once you eat a fruit, (it is small, the size of a little cherry or olive) and then bite into a tart or bitter fruit such as a lemon, for example, the lemon will taste very sweet.

Evidently, the miracle fruit temporarily changes the chemistry of our taste buds. Hopefully, it won't be long for the fruits to develop!

Some people, though few, are like the miracle fruit, blessed with a transforming touch. When we come in contact with them,  sweetness enters our lives! 

In the Warmth of His Gaze!

Wafting her heady perfume,
The water lily yearns for her love.
Nectar she proffers for free,
Pollen to feast for her amor!

Her patient wait never in vain,
On swift wings arrives her swain.
To his frenzied wingbeats she shivers,
In anticipation, her petals a quiver!

From stamen to stamen darts he,
Gorging himself greedily of pollen,
Rubbing and dashing on the pistils,
Unknowingly, she with progeny he blesses!

Pleased, he alights on a leaf,
Spreading out his wings to dry.
Basking in the warmth of the sun,
Bee and lily do know, nature is kind!

Above, as he traverses the heavens,
Quietly, silently, watches the sun.
Beneath, as drama mundane unfolds,
By virtue of the warmth of his gaze! 

When Nature Plays, Bitter Gourd is Sweet!

The twin beauties hanging in our courtyard were neither planted nor tended. The bitter gourd vine just came up from the decomposing kitchen waste deposited at the base of the poochapazham and sappota trees. In a few months, it climbed up the sturdy branches and produced little yellow blooms followed by the light green bitter gourds. Seeing them, one smiles in joy. They seem to say, “Like you, we are the children of mother nature. Man thinks that he is doing everything, but he is just a tiny cell in our mother’s body, for it is she who thinks through him and acts through everyone and everything. Let go of the belief of doership, and free and childlike, sit joyfully in the lap of our mother!”

A Wild Flower of the Field!

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard.

A Drama in Emptiness!

Ever content, restful,
Slumbers the ocean,
Seeing playful gusts,
Of fancies, unperturbed,
Pushing up undulating forms,
As waves, ever restless,
To dash upon rocks of ideas,
Creating bubble things afroth,
Thence to ebb back to itself,
Formless, blissful, eternal infinitude!

Feast!

While most Keralites are about to enjoy a grand Onam feast at home, nature makes it a point to present all her children with food every day. Here's a Glory Lily bloom peeking through our hibiscus 🌺 hedge, so enchanting in beauty and at the same time, toxic to humans if ingested. You can see a family of four grasshoppers upon the Gloriosa Superba (മെന്തോന്നി പൂ). They have already devoured generous portions of the petals as well as the stamen; for them, a delectable feast. My friends, wish you all a very happy and prosperous Onam! May the spirit of togetherness and compassion pervade all hearts!

Give Hope, Get Hope!

When dark, sinister clouds,
Worries and troubles about,
Just gaze around to see,
Others in despair deep!

Do spare a loving glance,
Compassion, a word of cheer,
From doldrums drag their hearts,
To beat, to dance encore!

Thine words are wings of hope,
Dawn to genesis new,
Seest thou someone down,
Dither not, proffer thy hand!

For t'is verily the way of nature,
What goes around, comes around!

As thou holdest a lighted match,
To up someone a flight of steps,
Know another dost hold a torch,
To help thee up thine own!

A Hearty Meal on a Rainy Day!

A parakeet enjoying a guava in our courtyard. Luckily for the bird, there are enough fruits on the trees to get through the monsoon. By giving a helping hand, by replanting some of the trees that we humans destroyed over the years, we can help nature take care of her own, including of course, ourselves!

If a flower can do so much…

See how many lives a little flower supports! If a flower can do so much, think of what a tree can do! Plant a tree now! It may seem such a little thing to do, but perhaps it may be the greatest thing you ever do!

Cocoa!

As chocolate is hidden in cocoa, divinity is hidden in man.

Alien is just a Name!

Space has no boundaries. Neither do universes have walls. The mind says, this is I, that is them! My body, his body, my house, his house, my country, foreign country, earthling, alien! The mind divides, multiplies, complicates, confuses, misleads, misdirects itself into believing the one to be the many. There is just one light, shining in darkness, as darkness, as light; but the mind reads it as a multitude of lights. Only one life pulses through consciousness, through all existence. But the mind divides it into infinite lights. Separating the eternal now, into past, present, future, the mind weaves story after story. As storms cannot blow forever, at times, the mind rests, often in deep sleep, and sometimes in restful wakefulness. Awareness awakens and knows, all life is one life, its dream. Earthlings, nor aliens, but children of thought, just oneness! Ever content being!

Long exposure photograph of the night sky at Sharanyam.