the now

Day 656

Posted by

1

While sorting out my clothes and listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning, it hit me  that life will never be the same again. Some of these clothes will never be worn by me again. They are not me. They are what I used to be but now everything is different. My body and my being are different. The planet I live on now is different. There is a huge chasm between where I live now and where I lived when Saagar was alive. Every incident in the past belongs either on this or that side of the chasm. Everything has happened in relation to that one incident – before or after. And there is no way of going back to the planet before. 

The landscape on this planet used to be bare, completely lacking in possibilities, lifeless. But it is slowly changing. It is being nourished by meaningful, authentic and loving relationships. All dead-heads are being removed and vegetation carefully pruned of nonsense. What remains is real. It is guided by a sense of purpose. It is a space that allows for expression and creativity. Most of all, it works on the love principle. There are possibilities. Everything here is tinged with the absence of Saagar yet, it is a place of hope. The essence of the human being that was Saagar is here for everyone. His friend said in her e-mail, “We missed our Saagar dearly at graduation. We wish he — and you — could have been there, of course, and in a way it almost felt wrong that we should get to graduate without him. But all of us carried his memory with us, and without him we wouldn’t have grown and learned the way we did (and still are). I miss him every day.’ 

There wasn’t a penny to his name and yet he was rich enough to enrich all our lives. 

It is for us to discover the potential for pure joy. It is here, on this planet. 

Day 654

Posted by

0

Driving around in hot weather, I found myself looking for a shady spot to park the car so that it wouldn’t be too hot when I came back to it. Walking in the piercing sunshine, I found myself once again, looking for shade. I just expected trees to be there when I needed them. I stopped to think how many trees had I planted myself to rightfully expect them to be there for me. None. Not one.

Oprah Winfrey talks about the poverty she faced in childhood. One year her mother took her aside and said there would be no Christmas. However, at midnight there was a knock on the door and a few nuns brought gifts for Oprah and her siblings. She was deeply moved by the fact that someone remembered them and their predicament that night. She went on to raise funds for thousands of poor children to receive gifts on Christmas. ‘Give what you are given’ she says.

great_dream_1000_400x566

If you want to feel good, do good.

I did plant a bay tree about 12 years ago but after 3 years it died. I felt awful and stuck with indoor plants thereafter. I think it is time to try again.

 

 

Day 649

Posted by

0

The entire planet is in turmoil. Disparaging images surround us.
Many hundreds of people have been injured and killed in traumatic circumstances and many hundreds of others are left with horrifying visions etched upon their retinas and burnt into their brains. The media is explicitly ugly in the details it exhibits.

It’s heartbreakingly bad news all around. The world is going crazy!!!

Today it was revealed that many atrocities are being carried out systematically against young people in detention centres for many years in the so called ‘developed nations’. At Don Dale prison in North Territory in Australia, children in detention are being abused, hooded and bound in a manner likened to Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. It is often arbitrary, indefinite and without right to appeal.Last night a television programme on Australian TV brought the shocking details out in the open in some of the most disturbing footage.

Indigenous youths make up 96% of the young prison population in the Northern Territory and only 30% of the overall population.

The lawyer representing Voller, one of the boys demanded his immediate release and said, “The impact of these years of brutalisation must be immediately measured and he needs immediate assistance.”

“The Modus Operandi  of the NT government is this: shoot the messenger, discredit the report and demonise these kids, so people out of the street think it’s OK for that to happen to these kids.” – Megan Mitchell, National Children’s commissioner.

The present time reminds me of the Second law of Thermodynamics  which describes the limits of what the universe can do. This law is about inefficiency, degeneration and decay. It defines entropy  as a measure of the amount of disorder within a system. It tells us that our actions are  inherently wasteful and that there are irreversible processes in the universe. It gives us an arrow for time and tells us that our universe has an inescapably bleak and desolate fate. Cosmologists call this the “heat death” of the universe, an inevitable consequence of the unstoppable march of entropy.

 

Day 646

Posted by

0

Slumped in an arm chair
Legs slung to one side
I day-dream wide eyed.

The music gently plucks the strings
Strung to my heart.
What is it about art?

My eyes struggle and strain
For a sign to appear
And tell me he’s here.

Could the wind carry a clue?
Would the clouds laugh at me?
Wondering why I cannot see?

Is it clear to everyone else?
Am I the only one blind?
Is there a need to be in such a bind?

He, his smile can’t simply disappear.
The ones that love us never truly go away.
They choose a comfy corner in our hearts. And stay.

They shine in every thing we perceive.
They never leave.
Even though we break our hearts and grieve.

My big toe felt moist and warm
I was shaken out of my sojourn
I looked down to find Milkshake, our cat,
Licking my foot and that was that.

In that instant of cuddly fuzziness I knew,
He is here, there
And everywhere.

Day 645

Posted by

0

Being is Enough

“We are not always clear about what we are experiencing, or why. In the midst of grief, transition, transformation, learning, healing, or discipline—it’s difficult to have perspective. That’s because we have not learned the lesson yet. We are in the midst of it. The gift of clarity has not yet arrived. Our need to control can manifest itself as a need to know exactly what’s going on. We cannot always know. Sometimes, we need to let ourselves be and trust that clarity will come later, in retrospect. If we are confused, that is what we are supposed to be. The confusion is temporary. We shall see. The lesson, the purpose, shall reveal itself—in time, in its own time. It will all make perfect sense—later.

Today, I will stop straining to know what I don’t know, to see what I can’t see, to understand what I don’t yet understand. I will trust that being is sufficient, and let go of my need to figure things out.”

  • From the daily readings of Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) , a set of informal self-help groups made up of men and women with a common interest in working through the problems that co-dependency has caused in their lives. CoDA is based on AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and uses an adapted version of their Twelve Steps and Traditions as a central part of its suggested programme of recovery.