Everything living on Earth is food for the Moon.

So much of everyday life, including the innumerable religious festivals in India are dominated and determined by the lunar calendar. While the gross impact of the moon on water, especially the tidal waves is well known, the more subtle effects on humans and plants, less so. Biodynamic methods of farming acknowledge the cycles of the moon as fundamental to a good harvest as they incorporate cosmic energy to minimise disease and aid growth.

At a recent Biodynamic meeting, I was fascinated to see a Planting Calendar based on the 6 cycles of the moon. I thought there was only one – Full to New and back.

Every 27.3 days, the Moon and Saturn are on opposite sides of the Earth. This is a great time for planting as their forces synergise to produce strong plants of high quality. Organic wine growers have been using this technique for a long time.

Like inhalation and exhalation, the Moon ascends and descends. The ascending phase is great for harvesting as the natural flow of energy is upward and the descending phase is a good time for transplanting saplings as the downward energy helps them take root.

Apogee is when the Moon is furthest from the Earth, a great time to sow potatoes. Perigee is the point in the orbit of the moon when it is nearest to the Earth. This means there is more moisture in the soil, making the plants more prone to fungus and insect attacks.

Nodes occur when the Sun-Earth-Moon are in line. It happens twice every month. It’s a bad time for any horticultural activity as the Sun’s beneficial influence is negated on these days.

As the Moon passes through various Zodiac constellations, it exerts different influences on different types of plants. At this point, my cognitive abilities were saturated, and I had to leave the rest for later.

I shall have mercy on you and stop here.

Splendiferousness from last night. I am sure Saagar would say something like,”Big-ass Moon. Innit?”

PDA

Posted by kidsaregifts20

(Awakening Needs Cards Created by Linda Nolan and Karen Plumbe)

It was natural, spontaneous and normal in London. Now, we must look around to ensure no one’s watching us.

Holding hands in public? At our age? Oh my God! At any age. Strange.

A hug. Inappropriately bold.

A peck on the cheek? Unthinkable.

A quick kiss on the lips to say hello or bye. Absolutely scandalous.

“Your husband even holds the umbrella for you in the market”, an acquaintance remarked.

I had not given it a thought. “Yes. He’s very good”, I said. I was tempted to defend his actions by making statements like, it’s easier for him as he’s taller than me or it helps me use both hands to select the fruit and veg but I stopped myself. He needs no defending. I was learning about what is normal here.

Affection isn’t a thing here. Public Display of Affection (PDA) is prohibited.

Food. Yes. Gifts. Yes. Laughter. Yes. Folded hands as greeting. Yes.

Hugs. No.

A young man of seventeen studies Biology with me for an hour, twice a week. He wants to be a doctor. He showed me an MCQ that he did not understand. It was about Barrier contraception. I asked him if he had covered the chapter on Sexual Health in School. He said the teacher had completely omitted it. She had asked the students to read and learn that chapter on their own.

The next day I found myself retrieving a little square white and blue packet from the small cupboard outside the door of the local Health Centre. It was labelled Nirodh (the Government sponsored condom). I had not signed up for this, but I turned out to be the one to explain Sexual health to him.

In a society where men and women pretend, they never touch each other and it is somehow wrong to do that, how can the adolescents learn affection, let alone intimacy?

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.”

– CS Lewis.

It is February.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

In January, fourteen blog-posts rolled on to the page, inspired, with sparkling newness, a fresh resolve. Then twenty days sneaked past, and nothing appeared. Wonder why? What is it we can trust?

The body?

One of the most fragile things around, it aches and creaks, often deceiving itself with imagined abilities and fantastical visions. It morphs every day in its special small way, without a clue what happens next. Can we depend on its trustworthiness?

The mind?

It doubts to the point of debilitation, endlessly compares un-comparables, guards its ideas like a dog, but softens and changes its opinions when presented another point of view. Every now and then it simply loses itself, out of the blue. What can we do?

The Universe?

Sounds great. But what does that relationship look like? Seems rather theoretical.

So, what is constant? What can we trust?

The thing that is not a thing and yet, can be called everything. The thing that is nowhere but can be thought of as everywhere. The thing that appears as me but is in fact invisible. The thing that is localised in each of us but is colourless, featureless, unbound. The thing that is beyond stillness and movement, beyond light and dark.

Awareness. The one that knows. Not as a person but as an intelligence. A presence. An eternity in this moment. Here. That always was, is, and always will be. That can be trusted, not to get things done, but to know. Know every experience of being in this body, having this mind, perceiving the world through these eyes. This is how it is. That knowing. Beyond sounds and beyond silence.

My road. And mine alone.

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This is a village being a village. It has done me no wrong.

People are being people of all kinds and shapes and forms.

The mid-afternoon sun is being the sun, not an upstart.

Each one, a character in a story, playing its part.

Seeing them as villains and heros

is the naive mind assigning roles

To what is simply an Is-ness.

They are being them. They can’t be the other lot because they are not.

They have no will, no thought.

The stories that my mind makes up do. Yet, I hold them to be so so true.

I am learning they are not.

Gotta just walk.

I am the cause. I am the cause. I am the cause.

To know that the gaze of the Universe is me.

To be held within the fold of Here and Now of Divinity.

That’s all.

I wonder if that’s the journey.

To find me exactly where I started.

Completely new.

What is your Superpower?

Posted by kidsaregifts20

When I lived a cramped, hectic life in London, I often romanticed the texture of life in a scenic little seaside cottage with no neighbours in Cornwall or a tiny remote island a few miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest or a lonely dwelling on the side of a vast mountain in the Himalayas. Deep down lay an incipient desire to experience it.

A few years on, I make the choice to live in a one bed-room house in remote South India. Malnad, the region of rain, notorious for a long heavy monsoon. The nearest airport, five hours by road on a good day and the closest half-decent hospital an hour’s drive away. After a few months the newness of this rural setting starts to diminish. Mornings begin with chirps and trills emerging out of a serene silence. I draw the curtains to find the morning fog gently floating across layers of overlapping lush green slopes, reaching right up to the horizon. I am filled with gratitude. I say to myself, ‘Don’t ever take this for granted.’

If I start listing all the things that are not here, an exhaustive inventory might appear – a library, a café, a restaurant, a museum, an art gallery, a community centre, a swimming pool, a book shop and so on. But I do have a superpower. On whatever I put my attention, that seems to grow, fill my awareness. Music, chanting, yoga, reading, writing, meditation, nature – all the things that I used to struggle to make time for, are now in abundance.

I can choose where I want to place my attention because this is my one precious life, my one chance to live and learn and enjoy. I am exactly where I want to be and need to be. This is the perfect opportunity to match my inner silence with the one I sit within. To observe and let go. Examine and let go. Feel and let it go. Think and let it go. Breathe in and let go.

Contentment does not need objects to justify itself. In every moment, it is present as a choice. At the tiniest hint of my attention, it shows up, smiling. The more I sit with it, the more it makes itself available. When I touch, its texture is silky.

Caves are well-known conduits to enlightenment. May be this is mine. I wonder if contentment is another name for happiness.