Today, I saw a Gulmohar in full bloom. Standing tall on green grass, on the other side of the road. An army area; fenced out. Protected, and isolated. With no children like you and me to leap around and play. Simply, in full bloom. The seplets drift down, with no you, no me, to gather them, and make them love.

Today, you and me are worlds apart. We barely know each other. You talk so different, I hardly understand. I bet that I talk insanity, not given to understanding either. You have probably found others to hold your hand and play with you, and so probably have I (um, or maybe not.). Weird to see, be, change. Can things be the same?

Let us not ponder why they should be the same. We both cherish a longing memory of that sameness. The worth pondering is which asks, what is it really to ‘going back’? Truly think. We are here, now, perhaps worse off than that before, but can we make of the coming what it had been that before? Maybe we can, but you and I, we are not isolated lovers in a sterile universe. We are complex networks of people, places, memories, happenings…. And those networks, they will have to change with us. Or we end up in the pyre where all things returned do.

There is a Left and a Right. Must we chose one? Can we not have another, without having to negotiate? Perhaps there is a digital and a non-digital. But for all things practical, is there a viable non-digital? Perhaps there is trust, and then again, perhaps not. Can we see from here, and move? There are the good old days, and then, there are these hideous present. But for the way ahead, do we have to strive for those good old? Is that really a plausible? Can we not see the good from the old, and inherit a future taking off from this ghastly present?

Is there purpose in dwelling in the past, but to learn the happenings, so as to understand the present, and construct a what is to be? (and of course, for lovable memories?)

Not rules and code on top of rules and code to produce a new set of rules and code for another set of rules and code to build on. But reconciling with the what is yet to be for peace…

So perhaps we must just let the Gulmohar tree inside the wired off enclosure be. Let it be. And you and I, changed we are, and apart, once dancers of love, now partners in changing the world, perhaps we should see from here where we are, without hope or agenda of the past. So be it.

Today, as the rain rained, and wind blew, the little seplets drift gently to dance, and I remember you.

Not knowing if the belief was knowledge, or information fed from an ignorant past. Judging not whether each leap took her further, or it took her backward, or maintained her status quo.

Here and there, a pretty potted flower caught her eye. And she hopped yonder. Once in a while to be trapped in their beauty, and at other times, to be betrayed. The lull of the pull was always so comfortable, and also sinisterly familiar.The revival, painful, resisting the pull of fresh air. Ouch.

Her mind continued to pillage her, trying to convince her that the pretty potted flower was part of her flower-path. Trying to prevail over her belief and her heart.

She wanted to fight the powers of that instrument of thought, reaching out to the sun-shine and blades of grass for help, feeling the wind caressing her face, and the newly wet mud tasting her feet. Sometimes, grace showed her the way, but most times, the fertilizer’s glow realised.

Oh, wish the sun’s glow and the wind’s plough, the snow’s dance and the rain’s lance would show her the way.

Sigh. Whither now?

Om shanti.

*tshkoo tshkoo* Gunshots.

He stopped. Immediately. *tshkoo* *tshkoo tshkoo* From quite near ahead, to the left, and to the back-right, very far away. *tshkoo* Adrenaline flowed. Muscles tightened. Ready to duck – a reaction almost logical after years of societal and cultural trainings.

The hound was raped.

A few more moments later, the lapdog realised that the gunshots were actually just calls by birds he had never heard before. These bird songs were so much like the more proverbial gunshot sounds. How come he was fraternised with the pallid sounds which escape the death instrument, and not with a share of the beautiful songs of nature?

The hound had been raped. For years and years of existence, the dog was tortured into accepting, tolerating, believing, and finally internalising his master’s whims. The rape had washed him away from his Self, land-filling it with the banality of today.

*

But once, he wakes up. He asks why? He asks what? He asks when, and then bites back that question. He asks who? He asks again, why?

She glazed at him with Her doe-like eyes. He embraced her tighter. She cuddled in, closed Her eyes in purring comfort, and nestled into his chest. She was beautiful. He stroked Her, savouring those little turns, those rare moments which he always looked forward to. She whispered, “I can hear your heart.” And She opened Her eyes to look at him again.

(He was humbled by Her. As always.)

She could hear his heart. So then, logic follows that the heart is still there. It has not disappeared. He started listening, again.

He kept on walking. The wind was cold, the mind said, lets turn back. Without slowing, he felt his heart, and kept walking. It is dark, and it is getting late, lets turn back, the mind ordered. He felt his heart, and kept walking. Oh come on, be logical, it is cold and you will end up making yourself get sick, the mind said. He felt his heart, and kept walking. And in that walking, with each step, he was undoing his rape. One little step after an other. His body felt cold. His banality had reigned him enough. Stop feeling cold, his heart whispered. He made his mind obey. He did not feel cold any longer. He kept walking. Eyes closed, opened, trusting, loving..

Till where his heart quenched. And then back, when the heart willed. Tears, numbness, doldrums, sniffs and saltiness suspended to the pursuit of the heart; feeling signs, and reading love.

There would be two, his heart said, and you will trust. And this trust will lead you to the next, and towards your answers, and love, and peace. Trust in me.

He kept walking.

-

I wonder if I’m glad that I was once raped. Perhaps it is the reason I realise now. And whim towards empowering towards my Self. Things would definitely would have been different without it. But I think I prefer this difference, to what could have been. This difference at times a few helps me to dare to be blissful, as a close one dies, as a close one survives, as close ones around fear and wither, as torn apart by pangs of love, and beyond all, as questioned beyond existence. I definitely prefer this difference.

Om shanti.

I sit now in a place,
So peaceful, quiet, and charming,
Two years back, the beauty here would be a dream.
A small stream juggles through a shallow ravine created by its flow, next to a beautifully uneven spread of green. I can see the dim, cloudy sunlight refracted and reflected in its waters. It juggles out into a fjord to my right. I sit on a bench, in this seeming paradise. Birds tweet, sing, and quip around me. One little lady hops out on to the ground in front, looking for food probably, and in a quick jump of success or disappointment, flutters away across me.

Its a little cold. My hands are almost freezing. I think I’m also hungry. Haven’t eaten anything but a banana till now. I have no idea of the time. Maybe somewhere around seven?

A couple comes, hand in hand, says a hi, breathes, takes in the view, and walk back. A boat paddles across my sight-frame of the fjord, created by jutting rocks. A small pine forest in dark and light greens to my right.

Mmmm..

I knew you had to leave one day.
The thought was always sad.
But now… almost too soon…
In a world where time is but false, and
ends are but beginnings;
I smile for You, my Love.
I know Love will take you on your Way,
as She will with me.

In ways You do not know, will never know,
Will never understand,
You made me who I am. Thank you, my friend.

In probably my last dedication to You, my friend, A, Salut!

I will watch for your crow.

mṛtyormā amṛtam gamaya

I will always love You.

Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Next; change.

The class scapegoat representative to the student council was sweating it out in front of the 20 strong line. He was trying his best to look perfect, to be be the leader whom his kinsfolk, like me, right now standing behind him, are to follow. He was at what he did best – drum in the brute rhythm of the eight numbers, followed by a count-down, and a “next; change”, while demonstrating the perfect method to perform the physical exercises we are to perform. His female counterpart was doing the same, in front of her own 20 strong line. Physical Education class. Grade seven.

I remember that we never used to look forward to the first part of our PE classes. It involved a twenty minute long drudgery of going through seven to ten forms of stretching exercises, supposed to warm-up our bodies. Our PE teacher gave this pristine responsibility to the MSC (‘Member of Student Council’, also acronymed by kinder folk as ‘Mother of Stupid Children’), who took it up, the exchange now reminding me of a likeness to the colonised taking up the responsibilities the colonisers handed over to them – proud, exercising power, but ignorant of the fact that they were slaves being used to perform otherwise unattractive tasks to the whims of a self-established higher power.

The next part of the PE class is what everyone looked forward for. The PE teacher would come out with footballs and throw-balls. Kick-the-ball-around-and-sweat-in-the-devastatingly-hot-sun time.

Next; change.

Sometimes, our lifes are so simple. Its a simple next; change. Where we know what is the ‘next’, through lifelong brainwash and psychological feeding. We are made aware of what is the next, homogeneous inside the cartloads of information fed into our all time ill satiated minds. And ‘change’, its just a simple order, ordering us to move on to the seemingly undefined, but veritably quite pre-defined, next.

For people who are knowledgeable about the next, which is not an elite few, mind you, seeing that the whip-holders of the change constantly propagate the next, life is simple, easy, and non-chaotic. You can enjoy life in quite many ways – since the whip-holders define enjoyment and access to it, your abiding to their whims will definitely gain you privileged entry.

Its like a traffic light. Red, stop. Orange, fire engine. Green, go. Safe, non-chaotic, streamlined traffic. You are a perfect citizen.

But sometimes, life is not that simple. I wish it were never that simple. Where the ‘next’ is unknown, and the ‘change’ is not an order. Rather, the change is a dive deep into the unknown realms of the next. With trust centred not on an establishment, but your self. A steep dive into the dark cold exhilarating next, hand-in-hand with your beautiful self.

Because at one point in humanity, the hound was raped, and the heart slaved. It was from this point that self gave way to system, in the guise of selfishness giving way to selflessness. Every raped hound should come to think again, why?

And they will, oh rulers of the world, oh holders of the whip, oh dictators of the proletariat, oh Augustus of Rome, They will think again why. And that why will be powered by the love of the indomitable Spirit. That why will roll back the ages of education, which you indoctrinated in the name of your systems, and like a revolting ocean, made of the slew of individual waves which had their goings tough when you were the ocean, they shall lash the waters back against you, and ingest you, and love you. The hounds shall awake from the years of post traumatic stress following their rape. Beware, the light. And beware, the carriers of that light.

Next; change.

^glimpses
BUT NOW CALLED

Warm Snow, Dark Lights, and the Coffee Machine

Like Snakes over icing water
They glide,
North-easterly winds their master
(Just for the way, master have they none),
Over the ocean hat created them,
Without Who they shall not be.
Snakes.

*

Eye in the sky
Behold the majesty afront
Vast big life mirror of Love.
Sheen ice beaches like pearls.
Pride rock, humble ocean.
Warning lights. Human hazard. Slam, sash.
Beauty again. She’s back =)
Dragons, suddenly for company. Crap.

*

People bustle.
An aptly named airport in Hell.
Sjokolade behind moi, artificial addiction.
Red seats, large windows.
Warm. Cold white snow in the out.
“Its all warm, not a thing to fear.”
Nothing beyond us
Psychologic brain wash.
Hiss. There’s a long sleek bridge,
Snow melting trudging a ladder into the snow on ice river below.

*

Yellow lonely swing amidst all white/gray/dark,
Innocence in hostility.
The universal story of Love against tide.

*

Sickness. Human viruses eating beauty.
Creepy crawly mankind.
Ugliness.

*

Canoeing water in the ice.
Crowning majesty with all Her trees
Rise genially. Air of grandeur.
Red house. Green trees. White snow.
Lone traveller’s single light slides.

*

Trees announce Her Mother’s stread
Princess stream jovially meanders by.
Humble.

*

Sleep. He hands on my eyelids.
Like weights on a pendulum -
hangs me down.
!
Spot on!
African inspired, West influenced East Indian music shoots up the metabolic barometer.
Car lights on the cliff wall.
Artsy, spooky.
Is Nature minus humankind ever scary?

*

Retardation. Snow sculptures on
free floating little ice glaciers.
Sigh. Influenced poetry.

*

Trees with iced necks.
Bowing. Albino giraffes!
Ravines. Deep breath;
Cold dark deep mystifying ruts on the ground.

*

Blueness. Slow darkness.
Thoughts, ideas.
Child, running, free.
Not for long;
society caught him, dragged him, raped him.
Artificiality smiled at him.
The beginning, And then,
The beginning of the end.

*

Python carrier swaying elephant like.
Gently rocking us, her babies, to a beautiful tour.
Santa clumps on dry Christmas trees.
Light in a sole-house window.
Where’s your soul?

–

an experiment by neo garfield, whilst on a train from Trondheim (Norway) to Östersund (Sweden). Thank you NSB/Veolia Transport. Dedicated to Mother Earth (Amma), and someone who has her birthday today.

“No” A voice said. “Let it be”; not everything is to be caught, captured. Capture only what your heart loves you to.

She still had those beautiful, colourful wings. Her nimble legs were intact. Her sensitive antennae were ever so delicate. She was still whole.

Whole? No. She was on her way to being. She had to lose all those, her wings, her legs, her antennae, everything, before she became whole.

The sun shone on her. Bestowed her with all his energy. She smiled at him, and took in a little. There was no longer an overwhelming sense of joy. Suddenly a strong gush of wind ruffled her wings, caressed her, and treacherously threw her into a gale. Dull rain and fierce thunder pressed on sorrow. The smile slipped off her many-faceted face, but sadness could not grasp her slippery soul.  She was then lifted into a realm of dreaminess, and there she saw her parents, whom she had never seen, but always loved, dying, over and over again, as if a reel of film was stuck and was replaying itself.  No longer, please. And with a heave, she pushed the realm away. But depression had not been able to grip her either.

She was on her way. On Her Way.

Strong sounds echoed. Stark lights flashed. Strong tastes, strong smells, heaves and blows.  ”You are on Your Way” Somewhere, someone said “Now let go”.

She opened her many eyes and looked over her wings. Her colourful, nuanced, beautiful wings. No! She couldn’t let go of those, could she? No, no, no.. Yes.. She must.. Maybe not now, but she has to, she will. But what about the elixiric tranquilising flower nectar? Yes.. She will.. Its hard, but she will.

She let out a delicate sigh. Its a long way. Lets keep at it. And she let the winds take her, ruffling her wings, the sun shine on her, making her glow, the air, the water, tasting, sounding, gushing her ears… Let it be… She let her body flow, form arcs, beside her..

Aum
Asato mā sad gamaya
Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya
Mṛtyormā amṛtam gamaya
Aum śānti śānti śāntiḥ

Please.

If you believe in God, then please pray.

If you are a strong rationalist, then please read on neotics, and wish the best for Haiti.

All I request of you, is to not ask why.

Peace. Om.

UPDATE 15.01.2010

Aaaaand Witness Times is back in business. For very many reasons, but the most powerful being -

1. Love required in Haiti. Now.
2. Humanity’s stupidity is quite overwhelming. I need a break.
3. I said to a soul-sharer “I’ll restart Witness Times only if something powerful happens, which makes me review my decision.”, and that soul replied “Something powerful has happened. I’m asking you to.”.
4. I’m sure that I’ll require lessons in humility, in future. I’ll have to force humility upon myself from time to time by feeling what kind of a person I was earlier.

Random deviation

If I was asked, like they do in talk shows and sleazy radio programmes “If you were Prime Minister… blah blah blah” “If you were allowed 3 wishes, blah blah”, what would I like to scream out if I was allowed one generalisation (in spite of my being against generalisations), I would love to scream out “Ammmerrricaaaaaaaa! You suck to the core!”
(read the inspiration for this wish on my later post “Stupid of the world unite“)

When you’re on an island connected by a shallow sea bed, and you go like “Is it just me, or is the tide rising?”, and then when everyone runs acorss the shallow, racing against the quickly rising, grinning, malignant tide. And then She proves her might, and wettens your feet.

When you are on the fjord shore, breathing in the powerful rays of the Sun smiling on the water, and mountains, miles in front, and the cold wind caresses you, and you pray.

When you slowly enter the sea, and freeze, and reach a stage of numbness – comfortably unconscious.

When those beautiful chubby ladies, who, invisible to most others work so hard to make you so comfortable, smile at you every morning, and teaches you a thing or two, and give small motherly advices.

When your otherwise wisely silent roommate comes in alcoholised at 3.00AM, and engages you in a gripping conversation about scientology, aethism, fundamentals of religion, and tells you about his religion which worships Bacon (according to which all life arose from bacon trees (mistakenly known to us mortals as pigs)).

When your fingers subtly, carefully, precariously, caressingly applies pressure on to the button, praying, hoping, willing, and you hear a click, and you see that perfect image which you wanted to see.

When you lose yourself in soul-drifting, natural, music played by powerful musicians, whose story will, some day be narrated by grandparents to grandchildren.

When you see the drop of water inside you, which came from the ocean.

..

For a moment, for a second, for a unit of time.

You find peace.

You lose your self to your Self.

You find love.

The drop connects to the ocean.

The weights which were weighing your heart down lifts.

Indifference becomes the love it truly is. Love becomes beyond explanation. Missing becomes energy. Dislikes, those ameobas, attain the size of an ameoba.

Wheat grains stand contrast against the dull yellow fields, and displays the sun as its own.

..

For a moment, for a second, for a unit of time.