Silver Lining

SILVER LINING

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I found my silver lining in the confines of a Plane at 33,000 feet ...in the year 2010.

Strange... because I have always hated Flying. The mere thought of 'IT' would make me shiver, feel incredibly claustrophobic, make my palms clammy, sweaty and my heart beat erratically ! NO. Not because of some nameless fear. Or some bio-illogical OCD. But because of a near miss air accident as a Child while on holiday with my Parents, which we miraculously survived and lived... for me to tell this tale.

Since then, every time I boarded a Plane after that fateful journey... every flying experience was a literal torment...a fervent wish for 'can this be over soon pleaaasseee" ?? I remember feeling suffocated, unusually tense, and on the verge of 'something terrible is about to happen ANY MINUTE". The mere sight of an Aeroplane, induced acute emotional palpitations, at the naked thought of tons of gargantuan impersonal metal ripping through my fragile, fatalistic body.

And so..... most of my Flying time, would be a forgettable one,... with moments of vague lucidity, when I actually remember doing something normal ... like drinking water, or stretching my feet, or just staring at the back of the seat before me with the plastic white food tray latch... in stupefied moronic silence. And Always... in abject surrender to the inevitable finality we all worry about at the back of our minds.

Our own overriding Mortality.

And the image in my mind would loom so large [damn my capacity to visualize in such detail!] 

...in case ...Just in case...the Plane dove unexpectedly into a downward spiral and I felt myself thrown through the air helplessly, like an abandoned feather ejected from an angry Silvery Bird ... and loosing consciousness as I hurtled through Space into the eagerly waiting palms of Death and the afterlife ... in the certain knowledge that I would never get to experience the joy and splendor of this beautiful world we live in.

Every wakeful moment on a plane thus became a Living death and every step on terra firma after each journey like this, became a rebirth of sorts.

But that particular day in 2010 was different somehow. I was on a Plane to a *somewhere* for a *someone* who I would willingly give my Everything for. Death was no longer something fearful. Death was just a transition from the physical body into the spirit one... 

because when Love is more powerful than your Fear... you can transcend dying as a price for it.

But I knew I had to live. I had to live ... to carry through the commitment to someone so dear to my heart. 

Someone so close to my spirit. Someone for whom i would give my life. 

Someone to whom I had given life. My first born child. 

An oxymoron yes ... but a Someone with whom my responsibility indivisibly lay.

And so i mustered all the courage I had within me, to dare to look out the window at 33,000 feet, 

for the very. first. time. Ever.

To see what I had all along, been too petrified to See.

My eyes were awashed with a vision so breathtakingly ethereal, it melted all my fears away and debunked my apprehensions forever.

The night sky was a sprawling carpet of inky blue darkness, hung over with a velvety cloak of clouds, wispy trails of grey blue smokey pathways of light and dark ... and shimmery stars which seemed to twinkle at me, like happy little faces of light. I remained suspended in that vision for the longest time, as I felt a blessed Peace well up within me in waves of champagne bubbly. And for those subliminally glorious moments, I experienced the 'no gravity space', between my Mind, Heart and Soul, uplifting my inner spirit to a gossamer light weightlessness.

I took a conscious moment to whisper a wordless prayer.

And... With my head in the Clouds and the Earth just a speck, John Lennon's words 'Imagine there's no Country, It isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too'...became a no gravity reality space, uniting my Being to the star light and to myriad slivers of Day just breaking, where the World for a few suspended kaleidoscopic hours...lived as One.

I have never been scared of Flying since .

My Tangible Butterfly

I walked the longest walk,

And As I walked, I talked

within Me without Me,

and Myself

into the reasons

for every Reason in my mind

wondering

wandering

In search of my everything

that lies within

the Grace of a Love

so sublime,

It is almost not there

I, me, myself ... am not there.

From one end of my mind

to the other end,

I have walked and walked

Divided the breadth, with a

sometimes quick step

Sometimes an excited Hop

And a break into skip

Or even an occassional trip

No valley of imagination

No stone unturned, just in case,

left upturned,

I find unvisited ...

I walk

in search of the Me

that fit

that fixed

that felt free

to be more of the Me

that only I can be...

Night falls in folds

in self imposed silence

100 s of Sparks flash

in the envelop of darkness

On wings of a thought

cloaked in the apathy

of another's illusion

Of a Me that does not,

has never Fit

with the me

that is Me...

And So...

IDream of Butterflies

in colors so luminescent

on wings be alight,

They give me the being to fly

Suffusing the length

and breadth of my mind

In tingles and tangles of

that elusive Love sublime

And I walk on

and on, looking forward

and an occassional

look back momentarily

on a reflective echo ...

Seconds dissolve into minutes

into hours and days

Alone in the Valley of my Mind

caught by the temperateness of my thoughts

I walk the streets of my mind

and wait in the shadows

in the veiling of the

incessant Rain,

and run into fascinating corners

illumined with the

elusive after glow

of a before Moonshine ;

I break into a Run

I don't know towards what

I just know that

I have to keep running,

Right here, right now,

I feel myself hurtling

I hurtle towards an

indelible I am perfect Now...

lucid and clear

as the crystal mountain water

A Now that is waiting

in a You

as is reflected in Me...

I run in steps so light,

I hardly feel my flight

and suddenly, magically,

I stop

For I feel

a light knock

on the back of my Shoulder...

And when I twirl around...

My eyes are blinded by the light

before Me...

For I stand in my own Valley

sprayed with the shine

of brilliant yellow Sunflowers

and as I look up

slowly

I see the most wondrous sight

of a 1000 Purple Butterflies

rising up above

in tangible

shimmering flight.

SONG OF THE SEA URCHINS - A DUET

DUET - PART 1

By

Rejoy Panakkal

My heart beats surely
Slowly, lovingly
Did I have to wait this long
For your dance, for your song

An embrace I now remember
Of your perfect sleep in my arms
After a sweet surrender
And a night filled with the scent of ur jasmine balms

Will we be forever parted
Is this how we always started
But to end in flame
Of desires long harboured and of Souls O so same

Under the evening stars here I think of you
Is this our eternal fate
To look for each other forever
And eternal destiny and journey to you my soulmate ...

DUET - PART 2

By

Sunitha Choudhry


You start
where I begin
A Soul melody
as age old
as the frolic of a
Sea Urchin's sing ;

In the winter
of our parting
lies the sweet autumn
of lingering memories
of a Love so poignant
there is no ending
nor knowing beginning ;

A seam less
electric impulse
between twin Souls
in an Ocean of
Remembering
and Lingering...
A spirit Dance

echoed
by the wind
rustling through
the Jasmine Trees ;

Smoky shadows
of many Suns
in many Moons
of days gone by

And
Days yet to come
lie Oblique ly
in swathes of
luminosity ...

We breathe in
the Stars
as One;
Interconnected
Energies
indivisible
by the gravity
of our separation
within the
brevity of
endless cycles
of Beginnings

and never
Endings ...

Bugster ;)

If I walk away,

you scuttle towards me.

If i sidestep you,

you wiggle walk to

the nearest part of me.

If I walk towards you,

you scuttle into me

like greased lightening!

The bigger you are,

the more stupid you behave!

The friskier you are

the more erratic I behave.

Heyyy lil bugster -

Just remember;

ONE well-timed aim

from my Bata chappal

and History will mark you

as part of the archaelogical

findings in my home!!

DAMN YOU to hell

and back

YOU silly little

little silly Cockroach!!

;)))

Split wide open

Up down
Inside out
Outside up
and
Inside down

Is the way
we go around
and round
and around again
this used thing
called
gravity zero
Love Love
Love.

Confused
Conflicted
Slither back up
and feeling
dim witted
I look
right back
just one
more peek
When
I am arrested
by your
look alike
Love
in parts
afflicted
but
on the whole
twisted.

Can i just say
I am taken aback
by the way
you say
you do
do you
Love me,

when honestly
I hate
hate hate
the way
I'm supposed
to love you
Split wide open
in reflecting
your tainted
Love back

back

back.

Cranberry cellophane

Drifting

Silver fog

licking my window pane
in shimmery slithers
recall languid murmers of
cranberry hued cellophane
in liquid crystal symphony

reflecting

jumbled murmurs of a
seductive We
in intangible moments of
melting fiery symmetry.

I remember Us
burnishing
a brilliance of Love
so white
it swallowed;
consumed me
in its blistering bright.

His sea like intensity
enclosing me in shades
of aqua blue luminosity

yet compelling me

into rooms
of strange mediocrity
whenever I tried
to sift through
his need
for a desperate
uncertain profanity.

I am hungry
for my sanity
hellbent on seeking
an inarticulate
reticency

when all of a sudden
i realize
that the funniest thing
he never said

was
just how much

He still loves me.

Proximations of Yes and No

I say Yes
You say No
Here we go
An indifferent So.

Lets face it
We could not face it
When I said No
and you heard ... Go.

We know
what we had known
without knowing
where it could flow.

But...
Its not the same know
I think you think
I know
or the same know
You think I think
I know

And yet we knew
Its a know that
makes a lifetime
of knowing;
a mere second
in a Soul travellor's
existential telling.

Its a know
that had too much
Implosive impulsion;
a short circuit
in spontaneous
self-explosion
in shooting stars
of I you retribution.

Let's just
Just face it.

We could,
could not fake it.
Fake it
and Be.

Any more.