birds nest update

Posted on December 31, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #183: Bangkok: I have to say that there’s not a lot happening here. One bird is tucked away down inside the ceiling fan wire guard and the other bird flies in with two or three longish springy lengths of leaf growth I can’t really identify. The seated bird inside takes the nest-building material in its beak, pulls it inside the enclosure and tucks it in around the space. The other bird watches for a while then flies away. In the photo you can see the long tail of the seated bird sticking up. The bird is inside the wire cage of the ceiling fan and the other one perched on top watching me take the photo.

Most of the day I’m sitting next to the glass doors of the patio, reading my book and a small flicker against the sky tells me when a bird is either coming or going. Strange how this whole thing is happening a second time… some years ago in Switzerland a couple of birds built a nest on the balcony and I encouraged this in the same way I’m doing now; next thing we had a whole colony of pigeons and doves, creatures of the air perched out there on the balcony among old discarded objects and summer furniture. I wrote a few posts about the experience, excerpts follow:

Switzerland, August 29, 2012: Awake at 4:00 AM this morning, came through and switched on the kitchen light; old style fluorescent neon tube-light, flicker-flicker flick. And a bluish white light everywhere with electronic buzz you don’t notice after a while. The light shines through the windows illuminating the balcony of this 7th floor apartment and the pigeons wake up. A very loud sound: croo-croo, croo-croo, croo-croo, croo-croo! So I switch off the light again and they’re quiet as soon as I do that. Now I’m sitting in the darkness, held back in my domestic activities by the wildlife on the balcony. What to do now? Can’t read my book. Stand there in the darkness, and it takes a moment to notice the silence the birds are in. I sit in my chair and fall into meditation state… first thing I’m aware of is entering the quiet space of the perched birds – so silent here, 7 floors above street level. There’s a presence around these birds in roost mode; it takes my breath away, winged animals, so close to me… metta loving-kindness to all beings. I can’t see them but I know I’m very close to a small family group inhabiting the balcony. Two adults and two young birds and there’s another one – the mysterious ‘other’ … the alpha male has taken a second wife? I’m saying this because in the evenings there’s often some extended flapping of wings as they get their places in the hierarchy settled for the night – it’s like who gets to be next to whom. I can’t imagine… return to mindfulness mode.

After a while, and maybe I’ve fallen asleep, the wing-flutter, flap gets my attention, in the light of very early morning. Then there’s an odd silence in the bird group out there; no wing-flap. I get up quietly and go over to see. They’re poised on the balcony handrail; all looking out, little necks extended, heads focused downwards on the space below; the great swimming pool of sky. Still no movement. Then simultaneously they burst into an instant wing-flutter-flap-flick of feather tip flip of flight, and they’re gone. As one unit they drop over the balcony and down. A moment later I see them swoop and swirl in a great arc in the sky then on eye level with this 7th floor and in a direct line away from me, they vanish in the distance.

‘… so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings; radiating kindness over the entire world: spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection.’ [from: Karaniya Metta Sutta]

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Happy New Year Everyone all the best for 2016

every picture tells a story

Posted on December 29, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #182: Bangkok: Some kind of cute little long-tailed dove-like bird has built a tiny nest in the ceiling fan we never use that’s outside on the porch; formerly the porch was where compulsive smokers would sit and flick ash into their ashtrays. Then smokers became less and less, dwindled away, became non-smokers like everyone else or joined la résistance, an underground movement. The fan hasn’t been switched on in years, the ashtrays were removed and everything was renewed, painted and no one ever went out there again.

So the birds decided it must be for them. We’re now standing behind glass doors, watching a bird arriving with small twigs held in the beak and squeezing through the bars with the structure of twigs to create a small nest base inside the metal guard. The process strikes a memory of another post in this blog from our time in Switzerland [Birds on the Balcony 1] about pigeons nesting on our balcony up there on the 7th floor. I had no camera and made a sketch of it.

The nest was in the old Christmas tree bucket we’d just put out on the balcony after Christmas had been and gone. Some of the bells and everything still dangling from the branches, the faded coloured paper of Christmas-Past… a forgotten thing. So the bird(s) just went ahead and built a nest in the abandoned tub. Strange really because the wrappings were intact, it was as if it were a continuation of a pagan rite. After a while two eggs appeared, which became two living beings with wings – and I saw the whole thing; their getting fed from the beak of the parent bird and the flapping of little downy wings. The birds on the balcony were the main focus of my attention for a long time. I feel I know such a lot about rearing birds, I’ve been through the whole thing.

Early on I realized they build their nests near human habitation because the proximity to humans is a good thing; humans chase away crows. And it was then I knew I had a part to play in this little family situation, patron and benefactor, and sure enough, security system… I had no time to prepare.

One day, I was looking out at the two cute little baby birds all huddled up in there, parent bird off to get food leaving me in charge, and suddenly I become aware of a black shape in the centre of my vision. It didn’t immediately click in my brain that it was a huge crow because maybe it’s so black, mysterious and a peculiar invisibility, a photographic negative, something that’s not supposed to be there, glinting a kind of deep purple and blue… a being materialised out of the unknown. And I’m kinda, speechless; hypnotized by it’s presence.

It slants its head with long pointed beak in the direction of the baby birds and makes a hop in their direction. I fall out of my chair, knocking over a few things in the scramble to get to the balcony door; collisions with the furniture: then a primal roar: ‘AAAAAHHHHHH!’ and wild flailing of arms, fling open the sliding glass door and the crow was gone, two little birds happy and safe, barely aware of the interruption.

My relationship with the birds became quite bonded since the visit of the crow and I felt a certain sadness when they both got their flying sense and left the balcony. Now another opportunity arises to see the beginning, and not the end….

Beauty is not caused, it is.
Chase it and it ceases,
Chase it not and it abides.
[Emily Dickinson]

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the road

Posted on December 22, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #180: Chiang Mai: For most people in the Christian world, the Christmas festival has jingle-bells, santaclausisms and the Jesus Teachings are embedded in this but that’s okay. Somehow the essence of it got assimilated in the warmth of our Christmas-shopping and why not, it’s all-inclusive isn’t it? For a reason that seems odd and perplexing to us, somehow the two go together; spending money and generosity means exercising the purchasing muscle… and it feels like there should be more to it than that but we’re not willing to say there’s anything wrong with it because we’re all in some way compromised. A tacit approval of consumerist behavior integrated into our lives. The essential part of our spiritual Truth got shifted out of the way and consumerism came along in its place.

The Truth of the Jesus Teaching can be applied today of course in the same way as it has been for centuries. What’s missing is the gnosis (knowledge) part of the teaching. The instructions on seeing the constructed nature of appearances and the stepping-through the illusion of our world to discover the non-duality between God and ourselves:

‘His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?”  <Jesus said, > “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is.’ Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it (113).”’ [Nag Hammadi Manuscripts].

The Jesus Teaching is immersed in a oneness of spiritual teaching all of which say something happened, in a particular geographical location. An event (or events) took place, somewhere in the region stretching from Israel and the Mediterranean through to North India, a distance of about 3000 miles. There was an ancient highway there, a road not unlike the East/West route in the early days of the expansion by American pioneers – except of course along the way, there were already communities and townships, and here and there a populated place hundreds of years old or more. This road, formed through the necessity of trading, had become part of what was called the Old Silk Road trading route stretching all the way from the Pacific side of China to the Mediterranean Sea.

We can quite accurately imagine the people living there then – some of them traveling on the Road as a livelihood because it had always been there. Facilities were set up alongside for travelers, rooms and all kinds of industries and businesses were connected with it. There’d be talk about politics, marriages, births, deaths and there was the Mystery, whatever name it was called in one place and different in another.

Others would discern the truth, discuss and explain aspects of it and an understanding of the Mystery evolved; refined learning, study and excellent teachers instructing students: it’s not about worshipping someone else doing it on your behalf, the Truth is within, you can do it by yourself. This Truth, though, was thought to be subversive by the power structures, and in that sense there’s no difference between then and now.

It is interesting that all the world’s religions arose here in this same region: the three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and those related. Also the Brahamanic religions Hinduism, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and those related. We could quite reasonably propose that something took place here long ago that changed the world – maybe more than one event, enlightenment had become possible. All sorts of discoveries happened in the vicinity of this route… as long as the width of America coast to coast – the impact of it spread everywhere and all through time.

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Note: excerpts from an earlier post: Maya & Christmas
Image source: Dhamma from Phra Ajahn Jayasaro: ‘Teachers who have gained insights in the dhamma have confirmed that no matter what difficulties one has to endure, the results of the practice are worth the effort.’

words

Posted on December 19, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #179: Delhi/Bangkok/ChiangMai flight: It’s four hours flying time overnight, travelling West/East, same direction as the rotation of the planet. Arriving in a different time zone, and it’ll be morning when we get there but still night at the point of origin – flying away from something that’s not happened yet, a directionless experience, darkness, an invisible route that leads to its destination without any sense of getting there. Falling into occasional sleep with the sound of the engines, the hiss of the air… it feels like we could be flying sideways or in a slow rotating movement. Wake up with no time for anything, gather up my things and leave the plane.

Transit time at Bangkok for Chiang Mai is precise, speeding along moving walkways. Standing people coming towards me or going along with me, behind and in front. We’re all in transit to or from the domestic terminal; entering-into, and getting-lost-in long halls of steel and glass mirrors, holding on to signs as indicators in the mind. Noticeably more Chinese than Indians, the geographical switchover…

This is where the road takes two directions. Instead of the Hindi I’m used to all around me, there’s Standard Chinese (Hànyǔ), spoken by Southern Chinese tourists on their way to or coming back from Chiang Mai. A language of soft syllables and unexpected melodic intervals, a kind of tumbling down of words scattered on the floor. And blending through it all is the unobtrusive birdsong that is Thai, a language that sometimes enters a different frequency of intonation; sounds are simply known to be there and barely pronounced.

Through the gate and boarding the Chiang Mai plane, passengers already here in transit from Singapore. Find my seat and Chinese Singaporeans mostly Mandarin speakers (Singdarin) all around. They can get along reasonably well with the Chinese tourists from Southern China visiting Chiang Mai – listening and watching, interested in their shared roots, aware of the ancestors and historical meanings contained in language. Words cling to things, insist on their identity.

Indian Sanskrit is found all the way through Thai. Spiritual meanings found in Chinese are mostly assimilated and they’ve called it their own. In English we lost most of our conscious history but words are like acrobats, they name, describe, improvise; a metaphor just falls into place quite often, or like glass beads of different colours on a tablecloth gathered up, strung together with a little rethreading of the sequence and it’s a necklace.

All we have are words; there are no actual people here in our WordPress blogging world. No ‘you’, no ‘me’, just words and a dialogue. Friendships that go on for years. There are times when I hear something in the words, a familiarity in a voice I recognize. I can’t see you or hear you. I can’t touch you and will never meet you in the normal sense of the word. I just know you’re there (or ‘here’), or somewhere nearby and coming back later. Whatever language is yours, words are the same, arise from and return to a shared, received consciousness. Wherever you are it’s ‘here’ for you, and I’m ‘here’ too. Greetings, it’s the season of good will. Fare well, go with a clear, easy composure and abide peacefully.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness. [Wayne Dyer]

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floating mountains

Posted on November 27, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #173: Dhammapala Monastery, Switzerland: I cannot seem to get a good photograph of it – as the sun appears over the mountain and lights up our small valley. Maybe a better photographer than me can try; there is a strange illusion on walks around the monastery. Mountains appear to be travelling through the landscape like great ships. Looking from a position high up on a steep incline, with tree tops near enough so you can follow their trunks down to the forest floor below, then looking up at the mountain top that appears above the tree line, which is still in the same frame of vision – and suddenly it looks like the mountain behind the trees has disconnected itself from the earth below, drifted away from its moorings; a gigantic gravity-free mass of rocky earth and vegetation suspended in the sky. I’m reminded of the floating Hallelujah Mountains in the Avatar movie; based on the Huang Shan mountains in China.

There’s a simple light-headedness about it, seeing these massive mountains drifting around in the air, I have that gravity-free feeling about everything I was formerly attached to in the mind. This is how it is; maybe all beings tend to be in a permanent state of ‘on hold’ because we’re earth-bound creatures attached by gravity to a spinning planet. Born with the received, deeply built-in default mindset that there is this holding-on thing we have to live with; it cannot be explained, it cannot be questioned – we can’t let go whatever happens. But today this usual uneasiness about letting go has vanished for me… just slipped away, the heavy pull of gravity is absent, missing, I feel released from a tremendous pressure; stepping easily over the snowy mountains of the mind. Leaping over the precipices, this freedom has always been here; I just didn’t notice it before. The mountains are liberated from their roots, groundlessness… it’s like this because everything we see, feel, smell, touch taste and hear is a perception, saññā . Things feel solid and appear to be real but they’re not ‘real’, there’s nothing to prove that there’s anything out there at all.

I came here once and spoke with a man who was experienced in hill walking and had been climbing for some years. He went into these mountains alone and started running and jumping over dangerous ravines to small footholds and making all kinds of joyful leaps but taking crazy risks and he got lost for most of the day. When he found his way back to the monastery he had a major epiphany about it all – realized he’d lost all normal sense of control. Gravity had gone from him for a while. I wondered how many mountain climbers really have a tendency to want to fly that they have to be rational about…

Normally we human beings assume the world ‘out there’ exists just as we perceive it (by way of eye, ear, nose, tongue and physical contact) but if we consider these sense organs, it must become apparent to us that the world ‘out there’ is really dependent on our particular modes of perception. For instance, the human eye limits conditions, by its very structure, the objects we see. It is well known that a bee can see, as a colour, ultraviolet but we have no idea what such a colour looks like nor, of course, can we find any words to describe it. It follows therefore that our sense organs being differently constructed from that of a bee (or any other non-human being), our world “out there” is not necessarily the world as it really is.’ [Phra Khantipalo, ‘Buddhism Explained’ 1965]

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Lower photo showing the sun leaving the valley. In the middle of winter there is sunshine on the monastery for only a few hours per day

cold as a presence

Posted on November 25, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #172: Dhammapala Monastery, Switzerland: Breathe out this huge cloud of steamy vapour, such a quantity, it feels like there’s nothing left in my lungs, it’s used up – can’t breathe, quick do the inhale! The cold is a ‘thing’, it enters my nose with every breath, fills my mouth every time I speak, pours into all the tiny cranial cavities and spaces I didn’t even know were there, it becomes an ice-cream headache – mentholated turquoise and pale blue razor-sharp ice edges. Teeth are cold, lips are a rubbery fumbling. It reaches around my face and exposed places, freezes these delicate little hanging earlobes.

Breathe normally, haaa! the cold is a presence, it seems to me, coming from the benign climate of Delhi, here it’s a motionless cold. Even so, there’s this raging inferno inside my head, a blazing coal furnace – I can hear it roar. The meds for my condition only convince me the pain is not happening, but I know it’s there; the wall between ‘it’ and ‘me’ is thin, fragile… hope that wall holds out! I mentally dive into this snow; the frozen everything. But let me get indoors quickly… leave shoes at the door, the monastery is warm, everything is soft and colourful, autmnal faded tangerine/brown robes, the monks seems to float across the carpet. I’m shown to my room, comfortable square pillows, freshly laundered bedding. The shower works, everything is as you’d expect it to be. No internet connection, I’m momentarily devastated… I’ll have to write the old fashioned way, but forgot to take note paper – no notebook to write on. So I rummage around in my wallet for receipts that I can write on the back of, all kinds of blank bus tickets and scraps of paper.

There’s an immediate familiarity with holding the pen, pressed point seems to etch the characters into the surface of the paper, black figures on a white landscape covered in snow; a photographic negative. So, what to write? What I thought it was, wasn’t – so I had to rethink that one. What else can be said? Everything overwhelmed with whiteness, I have to wear dark glasses. The monks don’t seem to feel the cold, shaved heads and smiling faces. They show me pictures of the standing Buddha outside and I notice something strange about one of the pictures; there’s a reflection in the upturned palm of the buddha while the arm is held in shadow.

Some hours later when I manage to get a connection, I write up the notes created in scraps of paper and the picture image used as the header for this blog is the one with the strange reflected light in the palm. Sleep that night and in the morning it is 10 degrees below zero Celsius, but the internet connection is suddenly good enough for a moment so I hit publish… and it goes.

Lovely snowflakes! Each one falls in the appropriate place. [Zen saying]

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The header photo is from the Dhammapala collection
~ G R A T I T U D E ~

something lost regained

Posted on November 21, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #171: Zurich airport hotel: Hard to believe that, as I write this, everything in our old house in Delhi is being folded up, layered, packed, sealed into boxes and labeled with a number. When I return, all our possessions will be cubed, diced up, chopped into boxes and stacked on top of each other inside the waiting truck. Larger items will retain some of their shape; a chair will be recognizably ‘chair’, swathed in corrugated cardboard and bubble-wrap. Upside down table will be recognizable by its legs sticking up, wrapped to protect corners but its upside-down-ness, disconcerting… tables shouldn’t be seen like that. A bit strange, but we’ve moved so many times and it’s always like this; as if a surgeon removes a part of the mind/body organism, it’s taken away and never seen again, then strangely a new organ grows in its place, exactly like the old one but different… after that there’s no memory of it happening.

Except, of course, if something is broken or lost during the move and this thing, this object, is mourned and held in the memory for a long time. It must have been something like this that happened to me when we moved from the house in Japan to the new place in Bangkok. I was still working when the movers were boxing up everything and Jiab reminded me that if I wanted to get the bus leaving at 16.40 I could run down the hill and probably get it – if I left right now, She called out as I went that we’d all meet afterwards at the station. So I rushed out the door, ran downstairs and off down the path. Suddenly I remembered something, stopped, turned around and looked up at the house; top floor of a small 2 storey house – I’d stayed there for 3 years, and this would be the last time I’d ever see the house… how could it be so sudden like this? I would never be back here. Tears sprouted from the eyes, what to do? Just look and try to remember it… at the same time, turn my head away, a wrench, something torn – no time, against my will I continue running down the hill, almost as if I’m running away from the house… but focused on getting the 16.40 bus. The last image of the house clear in my mind for a moment then dissolving away and forgotten. Next day I was on the plane to Bangkok and that’s the last time I was ever in Japan.

In Bangkok a few weeks later, I was telling a friend about this, Curtis Cairns – his name was, and sadly I lost track of Curtis in the end… so if you’re reading this Curtis, please get in touch old friend! Anyway I was telling the story about the house to Curtis and he was just listening. When I finished, he nodded and looked at me, felt my loss. Asked me where the house was, and what was the address. It happened he was going to Japan the following week and when he got there, unknown to me, he took a few trains from Tokyo and got on the bus up the hill, walked the last bit and came up to my old house, took a photo of it (before the days of digital images) had the film processed and put the photo of the house in an envelope, stamped it and addressed to me in Thailand. A week later the post came to the house in Bangkok, there’s the slim, letter from Japan, opened it up and pull out the photo of the house, no accompanying note, just the photo. I still have it, pasted in an album – something lost regained.

Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with truth. [Thich Nhat Hanh]

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Photo: The last pic taken of the rooftop in the Delhi house

sailing away

Posted on November 19, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #170: Delhi/Zurich flight: Leaving it all behind, a far and distant shore slipping away… there’s a feeling I could be on an old sailing ship, clouds and air currents like the swell of the sea. Jolts of turbulence like the flip of waves at their peak and passengers have to fasten their seat belts and remain seated. These huge engines, velocity 600 mph, bolted onto a lightweight metal cylindrical structure with wings; sailing across the world in a gigantic wind. In my mind, it’s like this; massive areas of stretched canvas sail cloth filling out. The creak of long hemp ropes, old wood decking – a wide open sky….

Sitting here lost in my screen most of the time, I don’t usually consider passenger jets flying above the clouds 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Active shipping itineraries reaching out around the globe, and down below, train tracks, highways and rivers of traffic. Arterial routes, ring roads, crossings, lights, junctions, and one particular lorry rumbling along a bumpy Indian road containing all our goods and chattels – rattle, bang, crash, in a cloud of dust; our temporary home. We’ve moved so many times it’s as if it were continuously on wheels.

The present moment is forever in transit, on-going, always underway. It goes by itself, I don’t need to do anything. I try not to dwell on the anticipation of things unforeseen, mind showing a disaster movie of it all crashing through the restraints of planning, and there it goes… it’s all coming to pieces in my head because I’m holding on to it too tightly. Let go, let it go, let it all go, and return to the stillness I feel contained here in the interior of this passenger jet, an enclosed bubble of air flashing through time and space… seeing the curvature of the planet sometimes, so wide and all-encompassing it includes absolutely everything – a breath-taking sense of ease, a very long drawn out out-breath, like the never-ending horizon seen from the aircraft window at dawn, cloud layers upon layers below.

‘Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.’ [John Milton]

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This post inspired, in part, by a dialogue with Michael Mark
~ G r a t i t u d e ~

fragmented

Posted on November 15, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #169: New Delhi: Sitting at a table in the mall, the frothy cup of coffee positioned in its saucer with spoon lying there dutifully present. The splintered present time, persistent headache dulled by meds… ‘comfortably numb’, watching people go by, hearing snatches of conversations, fragments of stories, and I never see them again; actions that will forever remain unfinished. There’s too much happening, I’d like to be content with just the movement of it, like a river rushing by, the awareness of the thinking process goes on by itself; I’m kinda flying away from it; looking back when something catches the attention and a glance to see what that could be. Not having any inclination to have it be different than what it is – not wishing it were something else. Just being open, a kind of alertness about the sensory function, face turns here and there, eyes take things in, ears hear the music track drifting in and out. Colours, lights, and things are sort of pink… childlike. It’s a state of awake receptivity, a curiosity about pieces of small events taking place. What’s this? What’s that?

Jiab comes back from having her nails done, arms extended and hands held out with fingers straight and separated from each other because the nail varnish isn’t dry yet; has a startled look, cartoon-like. In my whole life I’ve never had my nails varnished, maybe I should. She holds her bag by the tip of the thumb – doesn’t want to smear the still-wet surfaces. Wants me to take out her things, pull back the chair a bit, she can’t touch anything… open her bag, get her iPad out please, thanks and she’ll have cappuccino, pain chocolat. So I go tell the waiter.

We’re moving house, and I don’t know what to think about it except I suppose I’m glad we’re leaving because the guy next door just bought his son a drum kit: brrrr-kaboom-crash! He practices in the evenings and weekends. But the whole thing is slightly complicated by the fact I’ll not be there when the move takes place; Swissair Flight to Zurich departs 2 o’clock in the morning on Thursday November 19. I return November 30 and by then we’ll be in the new place. Sad to think the birds surrounding the old house will go on chirping in the small twigs of tree branches and I’ll not be there listening near the windows, or lying on the sofa surrounded by the sound of it in the early morning. The sofa will be gone, silhouettes on the walls where pictures used to hang, empty rooms. The whole accumulation of what we were there dismantled and removed. Birdsong enters the empty rooms echoes off the bare walls and cold marble floor.

‘… we are only dust. Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows, and we are gone – as though we had never been here.’ [Psalm 103, 14-16]

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diwali 11/11

Posted on November 11, 2015 by tiramit

POSTCARD #167: New Delhi: There’s this colossal BOOM… so loud it sets off a car alarm down the street. The glass, brick and concrete of the buildings resonate like a huge drum. Startled, is not the word – it’s the nearest thing to jumping out of your skin I’ve ever experienced – automatic response. Confusion in time… what happened first? Was it before it happened that it seemed like I saw, in the darkness of mind-space, this amazing bright sky-blue colour appearing behind bars of intense black, parts of the structure that had been holding the immense blue, falling away in pieces, collapsing, and more and more of this lovely sky-blue colour is revealed.

HAPPY DIWALI EVERYBODY! I’m up on the roof terrace watching the fireworks display, another explosion of sound and light blows me away for an instant, takes time to recover… then there’s another one. It’s too loud for me, having this PHN condition, sensitive to sound and light, so I go downstairs where it’s less smoky. Even so, some very loud explosions as I start up the laptop to write this post.

Driving to see the doc yesterday and there were people everywhere cleaning doorways with water and brooms. I read about it later. Before Diwali night, people clean, renovate, and decorate their homes and offices. An important turning point, and that’s enough for me to feel something of its significance. Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs and some Buddhists to mark historical events, the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, hope over despair. The main festival night of Diwali coincides with the darkest, new moon night of the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika.

Another interesting thing about Diwali this year is that it falls on November 11 (11/11), a significant number for many people. The perception is that throughout our lives, external forces guide and protect us, commonly represented by guardian angels. The number 11 is a ‘master’ number; two ones in conjunction are thought to symbolize a doorway opening to new opportunities. This number represents creativity, and presents itself to innovative individuals as an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of self and purpose.

‘You’re not living until it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn to you whether you live or die. At that point you live. When you’re ready to lose your life, you live it.’ [Anthony de Mello]

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