5/21/09

When worlds collide

All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.
~Rumi

Truth tell, anywhere is a life, once there is love...

Is this the universe, lying across the knees of one who mourns? Things dying...things new-born. There will be a story of a world held in a walnut shell, cracked open by love's finger and thumb. There will be a story of a planet small as a ball, and a child threw it, or a dog ran away with it, and dropped it on the floor of the Universe, where it swelled into a world.


How we think about our world... not just this one but the many worlds that live within us. What we love, we keep alive or else we die not knowing what we've lost. Everything has a lifespan... If only we could see the beginning and the end, we would treasure the time in-between even more. And at the designated time, we walk away and there would be no need to turn back. The flowers on my lime plant bloomed and fell away, each leaving behind a tiny green dot which, with a little blessing will grow into a whole new world. There are kittens playing on the roof, kittens being themselves wholeheartedly, in the present moment, open to whatever happens. And there is a woman who happens to comes by in the night to feed them. A new world opens...


A quantum universe - neither random or determined.
A universe of potentialities, waiting for an intervention
to affect the outcome. Love is an intervention.
Why do we not choose it?

~Jeanette Winterson
;)

5/12/09

Eyes-wide-opened!


Eyes-wide-opened. Life is so personal and yet impersonal. Remembering the movie, "Accuracy of Death", it is indeed a wonder how death in general is "nothing special", and yet to the individual, it means everything or everything else. If you look at our history as a human race, and simply by the number of wars we have fought, the death toll must be a staggering number. Yet it means almost nothing to the living. We may watch some really bad news over the telly, but as long as it doesn't really affect us, life goes on as usual. It's as if nothing changes. Young people become old people, new generations replace old ones. Nothing lasts - it is just another drop in the puddle, another wave in the coming and going of the tide. Nothing really matters. So how to live?

Death is a good way to learn how to live. That should be the first rule, because it takes away most of our problems. Faced with death, everything else seems trivial, and the seemingly little things that we take for granted become important - the simple beauty of life becomes apparant. This is our the spirituality regardless of religious inclinations. To understand our own true nature is the road towards spirituality, and for that, nature is the best teacher (personally it's the cat, the sky and currently a lime plant haha ;)! The second rule, for me, is the practice - that's one of the hardest thing to do as we're caught up in so many things. So take time to stop (and that includes playing your PSP when you have nothing to do, or fiddling with that i-touch). Visit with nature. Have faith that you will find yourself, and you will.


We all walk two paths. One is based on physical reality and the day-to-day. The day-to-day has a big hold on us. It grinds us down with the same old things, make us weary, impatient, and will leave us complaining and frittering our days away. It becomes important then to break that hold in whatever ways you can think of!

The other path is the inner journey (or the spiritual path), and that is always a great adventure. It'll take you to places you'll never dream of...


;)

5/2/09

Orange Sky!

One of the most beautiful piece of nature you can find anywhere is the sky. What makes it so great is that it can be part of your home. You just need a window (I love balconies but that's such a rare commodity these days) - one window to one sky that houses the rest of the world. You can't help but feel that everything is connected that way...

So lie on the floor and look up, or turn upside down and look down at it, touch it, play with it. It's a beautiful, ever-changing landscape. In the afternoons, my cats always come down to sun themselves for a while before moving to slumber in the shade. Watching the cats sleep, like watching the sky, is a great way to stop and do nothing for a while. Sometimes I think we're too concerned about using time. We do whatever we need to do, and when're we free, we still do whatever we need to do (like watching TV...). We never stop.


The weather is terribly hot these days, but the sunsets are awesome! Once, the entire sky was painted with yellow hues and as the sun set, the entire canvas turned orange (the photos below were not treated in any way). I'm moving again to another place. It has been a real adventure moving from one part of Singapore to another, (feels like an expat in your own country) although it's one of the most energy-sapping exercise that you'll swear that you'll never do it again. Also realized how attached I am to so many things, things that you probably wouldn't need and couldn't bring anywhere in the end. It's probably time to let go.


And is there anything you would withhold?
Some day, all that you have shall be given.
The trees give that they may live,
for to withhold is to perish.
~Khalil Gibran


This we have now
is not imagination.

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

those come
and go.

This is the presence
that doesn't.

~Rumi

;)