Leafy Benevolence

The Big Banyan tree stood in the middle of the village

With support from its many arms

Like a Grandfather among other trees.

From a distance leaves piled on leaves,

Like a gigantic umbrella against the sky

Shading the children who played beneath it

And a thousand meshed stand

To rest the birds who perched atop it.

 

It was a complete theater of love, affection, quarrels, play, both above and beneath.

 

 

 

 

The Blessed Lord said: There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.

– Bhagavad Gita

Chapter 15. The Yoga of the Supreme Person

 

Smile with Nature

The flower hid within it a smile; so honeyed and innocent,

It blushed at the bumbling bee that tried to alight on it.

It sang a song with its sister-flowers and rejoiced with the laughing stream,

It shared some of its happiness with me, and bid me invite you do the same.

 

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden

when the flowers are dead.”

– Oscar Wilde

Music in Nature

The winds rushed by.

I stood on the balcony high up above the ground, circled by lush trees watching it’s tearing hurry.

Perhaps it wanted to take the trees along with it; it blew with such force upon them.

The trees bent low as if begging the earth for assistance against Nature’s flying fury.

The wind gods took mercy and calmed the trees with gentle, breezy music.

 

The music in the air stirred the strings of my heart till I felt One with nature.

 

 

 

 

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring,
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For, above, and around me, the wild wind is roaring
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

– Anne Bronte

Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day

 

 

in Nature’s Company

I had a lovely companion during my vacation in the queenly Himalayan hill station. Her beauty struck a deep response in my heart for, it was highlighted by a mystery, a certain something which seemed to reside veiled within her.

She was there for me whenever I needed her. I just had to open the window of my room and look out and there she was, mirroring the sun-lit sky or glistening under the moon.

………………. She is fondly called the Lake of the Goddess.

 

 

“If the surface of a lake is lashed into waves, the water becomes muddy and the bottom cannot be seen. The lake represents the mind and the bottom of the lake the Atman.”

Patanjali Yoga Sutra

Patanjali

Translated by Swami Prabhavananda & Christopher Isherwood

 

Love Yourself

Showers of abundant love poured on me as I walked out into the rain. The droplets of clear water rolling down my face and arms seemed blessings sent by a Higher Power. Their sapidity enveloped me in a peace I had not known before.

All nature seemed out to hug me, to touch me, to cover me with it’s affection.I felt beautiful just like this birdie here.

 

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest, It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes . . .”

- William Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice

Soothe Your Soul

 

It was dark as night at 9 a.m. in that tiny tropical village atop the plateau. I opened the door to see the gathering of clouds hanging low in the sky, as if each mushroom of dark vapour was vying with the other to reach out to the earth first.

It seemed the rain-heavy nebulous guests had come to greet the earthlings with a message of Beauty and Love. My soul was soothed as I looked up in joy to see the first drops crossing the expanse to kiss the earth.

 

Image : Thanks for the great pic!

 

 

 

 

Slate-coloured clouds with ragged fringes are drifting slowly overhead. Between them one has a glimpse of higher clouds of a lighter gray. I can hear the gentle swish of the rain striking a clearer note on the gravel path and a duller among the leaves. Sometimes it falls straight and heavy, till the air is full of the delicate gray shading, and for half a foot above the ground there is a haze from the rebound of a million tiny globules.

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Stark Munro Letters