My cousin Lars and his wife Anna...more pics later!

Flower Fairies

Fear freezes us into inaction. As a defense mechanism, inaction works quite well. What fear also does is fills the silences that it creates with despair. Despair fills everything with everything unsaid. Words, chiseled and polished in the mind, in the hope of the sentence being perfect, come out instead haphazardly and strew themselves around, so that all one ends up doing is hurriedly gathering them up and trying to string them together again.
Fear. That is what it does to us.

And so it is the fear of loss that causes the loss. We go back to our fetal self . Close our eyes, curl ourselves into that state of being which was the safest. We weld slowly and surely each link of the chain that we allow to rest on ourselves, cold. What is that strange comfort that we find in allowing ourselves to be so bound?

Inaction the conjoined twin of Fear freezes us.

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

………………………..

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
………………

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all
already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

Extracts from the love song of J Alfred Prufrock-TS Eliot.


And so fear prevents us from feeling, from believing, from accepting want.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”


Extracts from the love song of Alfred J Prufrock-TS Eliot.

Bleak?....defeatist?....yes…but also true?.....

I am not talking here about having the will to conquer fear, nor about being able to pull together and all the talk that accompanies such thoughts. I am limiting myself to understanding Fear and its possibilities……and I am still groping….

CUPA-Large animal urban camp

Last month I helped out in an large animal camp near mysore road. CUPA holds these camps every month. One camp is held in a village and the other in the city. All kinds of animals are treated free of cost here. Horses, bullocks and cows form the majority of the animals who are treated.You can sponsor a camp..Rs 5000/- for a ruralcamp and a little less for an urban camp!....do help.

Cat went hop hop hop….flew up the curtain, hid behind it…and no..she does not care if you don’t come to look for her. An occasional paw , a careless tail , grins and says she is still there incase you forgot……

Soon enough she gets bored…hops out…strolls…no…blinks past….gives a quick lick to an already gleaming coat….(ye she says, I know I am beautiful)…….lands on the bed…and purrs…talk of seduction! Learn it from a cat!

Naturally when you pick her up and cuddle her, she, queen like, tolerates it…and when she can take it no more flies off…leaving you with shredded hands and a bleeding heart…

The not so pretty always have it hard. Try as we may, it is difficult very often to shake away the sheer physicality of a person. More so if that person is us. Superficial? No.
Even our folklore tells us that it was the beautiful one who got it all. The ugly step sister always lost everything. Besides being ugly, she was a wicked conniving vengeful creature, as opposed to the simple lovely well meaning beauty. Thus pairing up beauty with virtue and ugliness with all that is bad.

I wonder if we have the courage to look within and honestly say that physical attractiveness or the lack of us does not affect our relationships with people. In a group of people with everything else constant except that one is a stunner and the other has some form of physical drawback, a person is very unlikely to get attracted to the ugly twin. True?......

So then what happens to the ugly twin? With society reinforcing constantly her limitations, she withdraws. What is the use anyway?.....

What stuff are we made of?

Alice Sebold’s Lucky made me sad, angry and strangely happy. Rape is a difficult word. Difficult to say, difficult to discuss and indecently invading to read about.

Alice, who was raped when she was 18 tells her story in a language that is simple, straightforward and uncomfortably honest. The world for her is divided between those who have been raped and those who have not. She speaks of her anguish at being treated like something no one knew what to with, of her humorous tolerance towards those who tried to be nice to her, of her having to become her family’s emotional crutch post her rape and her relentless battle to get her rapist convicted .

Makes me question empathy. To what extent can we truly claim reach out and feel another’s pain as our own? A pain that we may never have experienced? “Oh I know how exactly how you feel!”……empty even if well meaning.

The fumble, stumble of words. “Just give me a call if you need me”….., the discomfort of hanging around the person, not knowing what to say. The intellectualization, or worse, the “it could have been worse” cliché….(someone had told Alice she was lucky that she had not been killed), the pity, the deep sighs and the whispering of “poor thing” compound an already terrible situation.

Perhaps sexual abuse is the worst of traumas that a person can experience. Even as I type this, I am already dividing and distancing myself from those who have experienced such abuse. I wonder how I would feel if I were to read this if I had been abused. Would my mind replay the trauma each time? I do not know.


And what about life? Is it ever the same again?.....relationships? will they ever be the same? The way a person is perceived?...what changes?....

We are a cowardly lot, we humans. We cannot deal with our own discomfort. And don’t we feel a guilty relief at not being the person we cannot suddenly deal with?

Disillusionment….that’s what I feel…with myself and with the way we have turned out to be.

One essay I was reading says “Our Sun is one star in a Galaxy of a hundred thousand million (100,000,000,000). That is 20 stars for each person on the Earth.”

I am disappointed! I get to have only 20 stars?!

School School!!!

One week of school ….almost done…..mostly a good week. Loaded with extra work this year…hmmm…

An interesting bunch of new colleagues…..one of who promptly came up to me , struck up a 2&1/2 minute conversation, mostly hers, and told me that I seemed to be the kind who will not settle for just anybody….whatever that meant!.....further to that she said she could just see it……right away…the moment she saw me….and went on to add something that was supposed to be a compliment about the way I was dressed…..did not quite come out that way…..hmmm…

And…..yesterday I had a chaat orgy at school……lunch had chaat added to it…so yum yum yum!

Meanwhile our school….getting their documentation perfect …are making us do the following….

1. Curriculum overview- something that spells out all we will do this year….
2.Scheme of work.. something that spells out all we will do this year..
3.Lesson plans…. something that spells out all we will do this year
5.Level-1 Planning.. something that spells out all we will do this year
6,Level-2 Planning… something that spells out all we will do this year
7.Level-3 planning… something that spells out all we will do this year
8.PBL-Problem based learning.. something that spells out all we will do this year

Apart from lots more….join to find out.

……and…..when we get out teacher hand books….this is hand written once again in the form of Daily Planning….

Now beat that!
……………….
And we get chocolate chip cookies everyday….

I miss the kids….badly!
I want Brandon George!
I do not want to get back to regular classes…..
…………

I am currently bunking the IT workshop……never thought that the staff room, that I avoid totally, fully and completely will be my refuge!

My colleagues look at me with holy horror ( how can she dare to bunk?!)

Ah! Dear ol Meenakshi joins me!

Bunkers love company!

The world of the Dream

"-People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes."

- John Dee, in Preludes & Nocturnes



So I am all excited once again about interpreting dreams. Just for the fun of it. I am re reading Ego and Archetype as well as a few other books on Jungian Psychology and find that even commonplace dreams can be great fun to interpret once I have got all the symbols in order.

Some are as simple as reminding me that I have a dental job to be done to far more complex ones. The unconscious can be quite funny and often gives you a comical angle to an otherwise annoying situation and even offers solutions.

We are the best interpreters of our own dreams. Symbols are not standard and any dream dictionary that tells you otherwise is not near the truth. Basic archetypal symbols are universal however, but will vary in each culture in the way they manifest themselves.

Once the dream is written out, the associations made with each symbol in the dream and applied to the waking life of the dreamer, the interpretation is absurdly simple. I would recommend the website-mythsdreamssymbols.com for a basic guide.

Currently I am having tons of fun noting down the archetypes in the Sandman comic books and applying Jungian interpretations to them….verryyyy nicee!! Neil Gaiman has consciously or who knows unconsciously used superb archetypes in his books.

Also, it is very interesting to note that people who may not necessarily have had an exposure to a particular archetype specific to their culture, still have that as a symbol in their dreams. Collective unconscious at work!

Of course all our myths, legends, fairy tales etc are excellent studies in human behavior and human interaction. Read the interpretation of Snow White to know how a woman can consciously ruin herself because of allowing herself to think about herself in a particular way. ….yep….the step mother and snow white is the same person!

And…meanwhile…tell me your dreams!

hmmmm

Jecic has achieved the impossible…taken pics that I actually approve of…

Ye ye I am a narcissistic brat

Shiva…God with the dancing locks….wild Lord….wanderer in the cremation grounds, Bhairava, … the greatest lover, the most innocent, bindingly blindingly powerful, fascinatingly dark……

Some of the Shiva Chants I love…..

Sri Lingashtakam

Brahma Muraari Suraarchita Lingam
Nirmala Bhashita Shobhita Lingam
Janmaja Dukha Vinaashaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

Aatmashatakam

Chidananda rupas Shivoham Shivoham
Manobudhhi ahankar Chitta ninaham
Nacha Shotra jive nacha ghrana Netre
Nacha Vyoma Bhoomir na tejo na vayu
Chidananda rupas Shivoham Shivoham –1


Bilvaashtakam

Tridalam Trigunaakaaram Trinetram Cha Triyaayudham
Trijanma Paapa Samhaaram Ekabilvam Shivaarpanam.

nainam chindanti shastrani nainam dahati pavakah
na cainam kledayanty apo na sosayati marutah


"-You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell.
You grieve. Then you continue with your life.
And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on.
She is dead.
You are alive.
So live."
Dream to his son Orpheus, in Brief Lives


Still.......I miss you.

Any Takers!!!?????

I have always wanted to write something that combines myth, fantasy, history, altered states of perception, altered, not necessarily by the use of drugs, but perhaps on the strength of will, the concept of parallel dimensions layered indefinitely within our world as well as infinitely in the universe, stringing in the unsolved mysteries of our world-the Stonehenge, Easter Island, Bermuda Triangle, the myan temples, the Incas, Atlantis, Egypt, …….all into one huge or maybe many bits of story……….illustrated or otherwise…though I think illustrated will be great…..

Jellic keeps telling me to do at least some, any writing once a week. I must.

Anyone who thinks the story idea is exciting enough…please do write stories that include all or most of the concepts mentioned above and perhaps then we could just have fun exchanging them……


so??....

Beginnings

Then winter gave way to spring......

summer laze

So it a nice long summer holiday…….
Will do…
Renew the house
Gym myself silly
Walk around the lake at sunrise
Try to be social and politically correct
Give Freddie a haircut.
Get more books.
Bookshelf.
Music. (non funeral!)
Write.
Work in the garden.
Cook! Yes Cook….eeep..cook.
Eat loads of calcium for broken bones and nails.
Watch some real nice movies at home!
Get off my teacher mode with my friends.
Try to live down to my image of a snob.
Scowl less.
Drink more water….
Sleep even if it is after 5:30 in the morn….
Hmm…enough….

VERSE?????

On one windy mournful October forenoon, while the kids sweated away carving answers in unending white sheets, we decided to throw 5 minute poetry challenges at each other.
1.On the husband we would meet….our message to him.
2.Based on a pic of a woman looking at a couple…….speaking of sadness..
So…well…very mediocre….not meant to be a poet…5 minutes or otherwise….


poem to an unknown husband.

I am the person I warned you about my dear,
Crazy, quirky, moody ,sulky, distant, bossy,
My list is quite endless I fear,
Passionate too,and very blue,
With a cherry merry smile.
I’m Hamlet, Eliot, Plath and Keats,
I dance with Cummings dine with Yeats,
With my 11 jumpy dogs and 10 haughty cats,
All that is missing are black pointy hats.
Yet, while I dance a jig , shout and scream,
I’ll hold your hand, I'll build your dreams.
Each morn I’ll look at you and smile,
I’ll be with you every rough mile.
Though life it’s seasons will bring,
I’ll make yours an eternal spring.
All then that I ask of you,
Is love me as I love you.

Chocolate Eyes

Because of you someone smiles,
Remembering chocolate brown eyes,
Eyes that looked into my soul,
And tossed me into the wind.

And spring sings as she dances,
Dazed mesmerized by those glances,
Glances that chilled me,thrilled me,
On hot summer days,

She must live a hundred lives,
Lost on those smiles,
Smiles that fell on me,
Like Aprils hasty rain.

I must walk away,
From a world that is not mine.
A world of chocolate brown eyes,
And summer rain smiles.