Month: Jan 2020

I could’ve ‘planted 244 trees last year’…?

I’m not a morning newspaper person, but today’s header> ‘TomTom Traffic Index Special declaring our city Bangalore as with highest traffic congestion, globally…’ <got me gagging!

‘B’luru‘ is (if you’re looking at attached pic), the abbreviation of my renamed city ‘Bengaluru’, the renaming of which made our Traditional Linguists feel better about everyday conversations and other hazards. ‘B’luru‘ though!🙄

About Rush-hour & motor dioxide….are we surprised? No.

The fine print says we could’ve listened to Lennon’s Imagine 4673 times, cooked 7,033 pancakes, baked 11,702 cookies, watched 139 soccer matches & 215 Game of Thrones, completed 49 Jigsaws and planted 244 trees??…all in the 243 extra hours, a regular Commuter might lose just sitting out traffic jams in a year. That’s a loss of ten days annually, check the math, I’m no pundit there.

Still, we were getting used to things the way they were. It made even kidnapping hard to get away with.

Last year in Delhi, I think? A two AM Traffic jam gave Cops pursuing those kidnappers ample time and space to track the vehicle, with Zero advantage to some people trying to escape crime scene. Kidnappee got back home in time for breakfast…😂isn’t that the best??

Too, these days I’m a muchhhh better pillion rider/ car mate within city limits, for all the crawling congestion! Not that much woe about ankles being scraped while on bike, or head on collisions due to Speed, or being raced by auto rickshaw on one side, local bus on the other, …

no one’s going anyplace that fast, not with the ‘jam!

So, this works for me in an odd way,

(ACH, you wouldn’t want to drive over 80 with me in tow). Ask my husband- any speedometer kissing 100 mph, and I need Oxygen.

It must be hard to live with my high -inaudible almost- shriek at something coming at us from the opposite direction, or family of sudden goats a bleat away from front wheel….this happens so easy on NH4 past Golden Amoon resort an hour away from here, those breathe easy wide open routes via village and some amount of pasture land, never mind industrial advances.

So, there’s all that. Why make a noise? Felt good to say some things about all the trees we could’ve planted while waiting …

Imagine this :

Bangalore population = 2,327,000

x 244 trees = 3007788000 trees? It is that many trees we could’ve planted while sitting out traffic jam, right? (I google calculated ofcourse..)

Did Tomtom also meanwhile work out all that about Throne games we could’ve watched, and Soccer? I’m no Soccer/ Throne Room enthusiast, but I love my city, it’s traffic lanes crowding with hawkers selling bike mirror & windshield cleaners, key chain, funny faced hand puppets with rolled in red tongues that squawk out at you,

That aside, am wishing for better days on the road,

though, how?

Some of us should shift to villages, some get helipads, more of us share cabs and go buses, go metro. Tough. Someday sometime we shall overcome. Was that daddy Luther or Gandhiji Bapu? It is Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniv today…

*On his 72nd death anniversary, some memorable quotes.*

….

No, Sir Bapu. We best not lose faith in us all…

our spaces and time crowding with kinds of Hawkers, Traffickers! ‘Thrones…’

and oh this ..

where will Transport go with lesser affordable petrol….who can tell?

In honour of today’s post I’m thinking on planting the Lemon seeds I have+ Orange and Desert Flower from Oman. How will they bless anything? Unsure.

Sometimes you just go do what smiles at the moment.

…..

On a different note,

our girls with an impromptu cover👇… 👸is all the ‘Throne” I have space for….

Tears of heaven

…they fall most not when we sin,

but when we repent…

what can compete with the perfection

of a repentant heart…

….

No Redemption

As I post this, there’s just 2 more days for four of India’s most brutal rapists to meet their gallows. They apparently are saying they don’t want to die; it’s been harsh years for them in prison, but after a long drawn out judicial process, the hammer finally fell. Feb 1, these 4 will take a final walk.

There hasn’t been toooooo much national debate on the matter, if you were in India you’d have read up on this ghastly deliberate assault on a 23 year old physiotherapist by 5 (no, 6) ‘men’ on a moving empty bus. What was left of the girl was the shreds of a human being who barely survived to recount the horror; she died, but lives on as ‘The fearless one.” Nirbhaya.

This whole thing is a horror story, both the crime and the result of it. Nothing here is human, but stepping away from this story, am wondering what it feels like to face a sentence and for a crime like that? What are the convicts’ thoughts, what do they ask for in the last hours? Is there repentance, will these four men have soul redemption, do they care? From reports we’ve been reading, interviews…. their remorse has been zero. It is like something in there isn’t working. They’ve no clue what they did was cold blooded murder, I don’t get it. Justice seems cold, too: how else does society get the message, it’s an example to the rest, yes we know that.

I couldn’t sleep last night thinking how it must feel to know you have 2 sunrises left. 2 dusks….

what does it feel like to die… when the human spirit transpires… is that the word… expires… and goes from here to there…

..to that ‘Land‘ so much talked about, dissected, analysed, forbidden to analyze by some who disbelieve such possibilities….

gallows or no, it’s there for every single one of us, and I’m thinking of my great grandma who knew she was dying and when. She ordered her coffin, she bathed, wore a white sari and gave her last words. When she breathed her last, she was smiling with the word, “Jesus” on her lips.

Try and beat that one!

I’ve no clue how to end this post. It’s not a “to hang, or not to” post;

we are all inches away from some kind of wrong or the other. I’ve received forgiveness more than once, for which I’m so grateful. Oh it’s nice to rave about blessings when it is Death row for some. There are no solutions to that one. Have you looked in the eye of a murderer who did what he did and grinned about it later? Shudder, no comment. I believe even death is an easy way out, but it can put at least some amount of fear in a few, anyone trying to play repeats of crime story. Ofcourse there are doubts whether there will be further stay on this order, since one of them has appealed and will be listened to, tomorrow …!

That said, I still wonder about that Death Row, and the act of dying without knowing you’ve received eternal pardon, and that then there is so much more to look forward to than the temporal.

I’m super righteous glad I’m not Supreme court justice, nor a lawyer, nor the cell cleaner, or warden or cook, or doc, or worse still the hangman. Glad I’m not the gatekeeper anywhere near there or the driver of any particular necessary van, or the ropemaker. But we’re here and we share an earth, and I think it’s a good thing to try and look out for each other in buses and dark lanes and places I don’t know to say.

And I think it’s a good thing to think about After Life: it doesn’t just arrive in Death row prison cells…

what a dark post this is!

My blind son learns to write like ‘sighted humans’

If you perish, I do too…

And what good would it do for me to be without your peace? What joy, if only my bones heal, or my fields are freed from fires and my rooms sealed warm with Light and Life eternal, but we care nothing for each other…

…

(Inspired by Esther’s Prayer)

Trenches

Have you had a Faith Moment when you believed in your core something beautiful was coming your way, never mind what else you felt? And you believed it would rain down, no matter the desert you were in… so you built trenches. You felt like an idiot, there were no rain clouds, there was nothing except the silence. But in the silence there was a Song, with your name in it. A Still whisper only you could hear. A Miracle waiting for you. You. I wish you that as you listen to this song. I believe these things aren’t just about blogs and likes, comments and subscriptions. We are human beings with questions and prayers. We have needs that none else may even want to know about.

The next few moments, may you dig deep, build trenches by Faith that God hears, He answers, He knows you by name. This one’s by my daughter Vihan. Recorded on a day that was hard for all of us at home.

Why do I believe in a God who cares? Because of a day like this one, when a new song was born, for you, for me. Hey, stay blest. That River of blessing flows for you.

Vihan Damaris

Something beautiful

Something red, Patti

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” ― Pablo Neruda
Quote — Charmed Chaos

From sun garden@hospital park, yesterday. Botanical name for ‘Crown of thorns’.. unsure, but I hear this one is best found in Madagascar

Euphorbia milii, the crown of thorns, Christ plant, or Christ thorn, called Corona de Cristo in Latin America, is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaciae, native to Madagascar. The species name commemorates Baron Milius, once Governor of Réunion, who introduced the species to France in 1821. Wikipedia

“What ‘Abide With Me’ means to India,” writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi – columns – Hindustan Times

Hindustantimes.com/columns/what-abide-with-me-means-to-india/

Thankyou Sam T. for this Link I had to repost. It’s a worthy 5minutes’ good long look via Indian Republic celebrations to ‘one of the world’s most moving songs…….’ Article written by Gopalkrishna Gandhi

read on…

“…All in fact is still, all quiet in expectation of a musical experience that goes beyond music to life, to the theatre where life itself stands still — in the complete uncertainty of the next moment, the next fraction of the second…..

at that moment, the massed bands of our three armed services begin slowly to play the penultimate number in the evening’s musical sequence.

Abide With Me has to be among the world’s most moving hymns.

Written by the Scottish Anglican H. Francis Lyte in 1847, it draws its opening words from the Bible, Luke 24:29, “Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” Its last but one verse draws from the Bible again, 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”. But that is only an incidental detail. The verse has grown from out of human loss, deprivation, sorrow. Lyte, it is said, wrote it after visiting a dying friend who , as Lyte sat beside him, kept saying “Abide with me…”.

The song wafts on its tune. Indeed, without that tune, the song would have lain on paper. The melody composed by William Henry Monk in 1861 goes by the name of “Eventide”, meaning, quite simply, evening. And if the song has to be among the world’s most moving hymns, that tune has to be among the world’s most heart-wrenching melodies. I wish the words of this column could reproduce its transporting notes. Readers may wish to reach for them through the Internet.

The words and the tune of “Abide With Me” have, for the last half-a-century, become Beating Retreat’s most memorable passage. As the last note of the hymn subsides, the bells from the Church of the Redemption, nearby, peal in pure pathos. To say not one person moves, not one shuffles in his or her seat would be to exaggerate. To say that not one eye is dry, not one throat unconstricted would be to exaggerate. But that is about as near the truth as there can be. The experience is deeply, profoundly moving.

For it brings to mind after our great Republic Day, where our armed forces have been celebrated, the sacrifice of those bravehearts who have laid down their lives for the country and their kin who have endured the loss so bravely.

*Beating Retreat has been an eclectic event, bringing military and civilian sensibilities together in a unique ceremony(Mohd Zakir/HT PHOTO)*
…

New Delhi, January 29.

The year? Any year in the decade starting with 1950 to the one that has just ended.

The winter sun dips behind Raisina Hill. It seems not to want to go, but cannot linger. And as it goes, it swathes the house of India’s President atop that hill with a halo of golden twilight. The North and South Blocks beside it, similarly, turn bronze. These are lights from the sky. Nature’s illuminings, not tawdry emissions from bulbs and tubes held by wires.

Stately camels from the Bikaner Camel Corps of the Border Security Force line the red sandstone ramparts, standing silhouetted along the slopes rockstill. Full-maned horses from the 61st Cavalry stand motionless with their statuesque Sowars…..

Abide with me / fast falls the eventide/The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide/When other helpers fail and comforts flee/Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

The words are clearly Christian, about God. But they are in their core about that source, whatever one may call it, of strength that is needed by those who feel vulnerable, insecure, bereft. It is about wanting to survive loss, outlast bereavement. And to overcome grief. The words are universal, the tune human.

Who does the verse affront ? What does it offend ? Has anyone been, can anything be, hurt by a song that is about the healing of hurt ? And so I want to disbelieve reports that the ministry of defence plans to take this great hymn out of the sequence of music for Beating Retreat, January 29, 2020….

Beating Retreat has been an eclectic event, bringing military and civilian sensibilities together in a unique ceremony. It has traditionally ended with the soul-stirring Saarey Jahan Se Achha Hindostan Hamara. I believe in that line’s assertion. But today, I must invoke the lines from Abide With Me :

…O Thou who changest not, abide with me…”

….

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat and governor. The views expressed are personal.

From the Womb of the Father

That line 👆 has been with me 3 weeks now. I wake up to sit in star-shade by our potted grapevine that snuggles baby pigeon twins: it is quiet, so quiet you could hear us breathe.

***Sophia- the world’s first Robot citizen.***

Times like these, it arrives with a Noise-

that we are Created:

the lot of us- kings, priests, fugitives, the dying, breathing, the reviven. I like that word : Reviven. (People do make up new words: check this from last year. So, this is my own word, unless someone’s beaten me to it and I’ve no clue😄!)..

it is in effect, making our own moment, we crash rigidity, we step down into cellars ‘neath our feet…..places we once knew existed, when we were unaffected by things we cannot physically see.

Ach.

We are not puppets, we have free will, the power of choice, we own soul and incredible powers to make/ break each other. I am blown away by our ‘400,000 species of plant life’, leave alone secrets in DNA or a Robot named Sophia.

I do not understand Rape either, its dehumanization ; or even how it feels to be an Executioner, however just the cause..

… besides all of the above,

what on earth are ‘ghost particles’ surfacing from inner earth?

My gran Tara would’ve hooted with joy, “Finally we have discovered hell!”

I’ve taken after her I know. We are both Encountees of the Divine, we shush no-God theories. It’s our Doxa! We pray in the stars, we pray over meals, in traffic jams, over news headlines and politicians splitting hairs, tails, we are all extensions of each other! So I pray for border countries unashamed by raised brows. Hey, if you’ve hung around MRIs and Cat scans long enough, you’ve lost some dignity, you don’t care who says what about which.

Last year I recovered from a serious heart condition and got home as if nothing happened. Yeah, miracle. From the womb of Heaven. I vowed at the hemline of God, oh Trouser hem if you will…. that if I outlived that ordeal, I’d blog, I’d blig about it, everything under that category.

We die alone, we live alone really- we lean heavily on each other and sibling and spouse but truly it’s a life about Givery– as in Giving. All the fuss about proving Eden wrong? It pales next to our screaming need to know we are inimitable.

Ofcourse,

phosphorus! Always suspected the PH of fish was crucial to our existence. How star studies reveal that, is a good thing.

I look deep in the sky when I can and there they are: Scripture writ with bold hand across the sky. Sometimes I get a loveletter in cloud- tone dialects that go, “When one feels low, they must get some fish. To fry, or to curry.”

On occasion a P.S. “…works even when you’re in a good mood.”

So while we stare at fish ponds & the news, while some run out food and survival, I’m thinking on how tough it is for us to remember we did not make ourselves. (The mysteries of human construction are the biggest news there will ever be about us…)

As I post this I’m wrapping myself around a question :

aren’t you too often startled at how infinitesimally puny our ‘problems’ are in comparison to our Source… the DNA of One who ‘doesn’t exist’…

which very Insistence qualifies Him?

‘Poems are written by fools like me
but only God can make a tree..’
KIPLING

REVIVEN : IT EXISTS! Check here

Lyrics & Life

Healing Rain let It fall, let It whisper Its secrets, it’s time,

Let it scour the rust, of the ashes of dust you & I…

(Do check my song here if you would..)

That Once

Original oil, RN. Sold.

….

He did not reply,

but in the Stillness,

all else was hushed:

that One time was enough,

enough for me to know

the Power of His

Stillness.

The Cusp of Spring

Isn’t that such a beautiful thing

the Cusp of Spring?

…..

Tender tantrums of healing

I’m fascinated at the way our human body mends, physically, emotionally, socially…

*From our visit to valley near Kolar gold fields*

…

It takes tiny baby steps, and It may not even look like a mending. Have you ever darned? Y’know, stitched? I’ve watched my Ma do that, her tiny needle sashaying across a tear in the fabric. She’d turn it over and go again with her needle;

I’ve tried it, but I’m also impatient. My Ma wore a regular old fashioned ‘thimble’ – iron one-finger gloves, they filter/ no they take my needle jabs.

Healing is a many faced darling. It is the firm face of a good Physician, the Ouch! of Physiotherapy… it is God saying, “Be Still and know….” when you’re about to get that needle in your vein. It is the songbird in the storm, she’s yelling sweet delivery in your ears but you can’t hear her for the waves.

It is a boat with no sail (it may seem). It is trusting, leaning of your entire personality on a Thing you can’t see or feel but you know a certain shift. You are Changing, moving, rising, falling. It’s the scab in the wound, or the simmering scar. You’re watching this through cataracts of pure sweet rain in the desert.

Oh yes, if you’ve been there, healing is a darling savage thing.

Last week I had a Word, a power word that began to heal me. Was this, “Lean on Me..” from the Bible, and not words I do not know- They followed me room to room and out the door and in the street and among other faces. It overpowered other words, like a sword. You must know by now, if you’ve read previous posts, this is from a real place. Peace can be faked?

This Post Title got me grinning. It is true, tender, raw, achy raw, real.

Sometimes we do not heal externally, but we are settling down deep within. It is a sunrise in another world deep in your spirit.

I’ve watched a broken man heal like that after his only son was killed in a mobile accident. Don’t ask me how, but I watched his eyes go calm, like he had a new secret.

I’ve seen it in my husband Jeff too, in a few good friends we have, seen it in strangers when they choose not to pick up a fight and they could’ve but they just walk away with a generosity that I’m certain hurts to give away.

You could find silence aggressive, if you’re wanting a fight. A doctor might find it uncomfortable if a patient smiles at a terminal verdict.

Thimbles.

For soul. Psyche. Sometimes I’m the finger, sometimes the Thimble, for myself, for another:

the resistance against dis- ease, the breaking of new skin, the breaking away from old muscle lethargy;

the stir of new sensories, the cry of a newborn, the severing of umbilical cords to past routine habits of Thought; a departure from mindset, withdrawal symptoms of an addictive pattern that must go…

the birthing of a bud, it must sprout off stem, it must spilt in halves and quarters in petal, it must give away its aroma, must explode pollen, must yield to the light, draw sap from stock, must route to Leaf for supply, it is no more in a sapling, It now must host it’s own new sub- support, it must break out and be a whole new creation. This does not happen in a static state of Nothing. It takes a Movement. It faces Change, It must eat Dew and drink the air like never before. A new Bud does not argue with the Process; It can die, It can live.

You and I are more than the birds of the air, the flowers of the field. As I write this, there’s news of a dear cousin’s passing, but she had this peace that passes all human understanding. She leaves behind a legacy of Faith and Love and Strength that looked past the transient temporary into the eternal that was present in her thoughts and everyday activities.

I’m staring at the Act of healing, and how it arrives in Departures & Arrivals of events. I’m amazed at the power of the human mind to overwhelm our frail bodies. There is a secret core we are given, and we cannot give that away to other voices that rule us with Fear, panic, desperation.

I believe there are mysteries to this thing we call Healing, and we will know it better, when we know better. But today a Still Small Voice captures me with Its Word Cover- like a Thimble : “Be Still and know that I am God…”

Yes, healing happens first in the place where we know the things that rule our securities.

(Would love for you to read this one 👇on prayer. It’s worth the five minute read by Mitch Teemly).

Prayer is Air!

Connecting With God

Co-incidence?

Uncanny: last year we were at this 👆 place like at this👇 photograph, courtesy Rochelle Wisoff- Fields, Friday Fictioneers. Thankyou! I needed a Reminder…

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll
…..

**Coincidence**?

2019, early summer.

The bio-dome hosted hundreds of butterfly …our 18 year old blind Joh was at peace, no aggression. We weren’t worrying about the things he couldn’t see, just grateful that his beautiful smile was back in this quiet place lush with flora. Post seizure meds’ aggression had reared its ugly head the past months, holding our gentle perfect son hostage.

Today life is getting better: piecing back together under a Force that held us. Negativity fades like long shadows of dusk as I look at Rochelle’s Prompt and the gentle Reminder that we are all still being held together …

….

@innerdialects

Click HERE to read other Fictioneers’ stories.

Wednesday Wondergirl

She will be 20 in less than a week, loves high heels, and cooking, oh purple soft toy unicorns….my little girl has grown into a caring sensitive funloving young woman with a heart for social work(majoring in it). She showed me this sketch of hers, titled: Mending. Has she had some rough teen years? Yes. Maybe she will tell you about it someday. She’s no blogger like her Ma- she’s a People person who also cares deeply about animal life …

MENDING. Pencil & ink on paper. Kitsy Ruth R.

So much to say about a little one who is getting less of a little girl, more a woman: she hasn’t changed, she has. She’s a little afraid of the 20s, she’s excited. What can I even begin to say to her about the world out there, all I can do is whisper a prayer everyday, and watch and learn and listen as she pours out her heart to me about the dress she’s getting, about hemlines and mascara, blue hair and purple nails….. she has learnt not to trust any boy, she’s a romantic, swears she’ll never fall in love, Haha! Say a little prayer darling, you are one of your kind, tender, tough. And I wonder with joy, that you’re mine…

I’ve loved You before but not how I love You now…

India, soil of my bones: song of my soul. Heal my darling One who birthed my verse, my hunger, my thirst…

**Digiart.RN**

…
Stay safe.
Be *loved*. Don’t be suspicious
of love. It’s all we’ve got in these days of war and crime and lust for hate. You are my Beauty, my core. Don’t leave now, don’t change.
Please stay,

don’t change what You taught me when I was growing.
Don’t go away, into what could so easily re- arrange Your face ..India: Blood of my pulse,
my breath, my core: only You know who You are,
in the skin of our Dust, our streets thick with stories only You sow.
Here the rich the poor the seeking living dying breathing decaying flowers, bloom –
here distinctions, colors fade retrace our tiny large rooms. Here we congregate, we sing we dance
we laugh we pray we say we are humans, we are one;
oh I’ve loved You as a child, but its nothing
like how I love You now….

**Yesterday**.
…

You are every woman in the street,
You are the aroma of things that reek the justice of the meek, the strong, the wronged,
You are the joy of waiting garlands, the tears of our fathers’ mothers in lanes ‘neath these pavements we walk, who knows what lay beneath here,
eons ago…?

**Flower vendor**
…
Who knows what root these flowers know,
Who knows where they will go?
Where do lilies and mogra and champa bloom, what river drew its dew
Which mountain fed its spring
What hands untiring, wrapt each in cellophane and string… from which field of jute, or factory of human hands, from homes I’ll never see,
but they are You, and me,
entwined as if we breathe the same air,
as if we eat from the same field, we do we do,
why then do I now & then ache
anew;
I was once a child, now I’m grown, I know how a mother knows the things she doesn’t know but feels in her bones,
in all the mist of dust, there is love,
whatever else goes,
there is the deliberate stubborn existing persistence
of Love.

This weeks smile!

Joy in the morning

Sometimes Life sits in your hug, It ceases its hyperactivity, it begins to heal. *This capture by Vihan of Joh&me last night….*

Today I woke up with an absence of pain in the area they call heart. As I write this Joh gives me another smile, but wider. I’m fumbly with wonder. It’s been a long year of post seizure med reactions erggghhh! There were days we couldn’t even pray or smile. This morning, gratitude gushes. I’ve not enough words. A smile is the heartprint of wellbeing, thankyou for this Prompt Trent. You put it so well; here I’m incoherent, gawking at peace. God bless y’all. Sometimes you lose it deep, bad. And sometimes you just plain hold on to what Held you all this time. Words fall back dumb founded when a storm ceases and you breathe again, for the smile of a loved one healing. Joh is 18, his gentleness returns slowly. As I write this he’s holding my hand, what can I say – life is worth all the bad moments for the Joy it delivers. 😅

Hey, did something make you smile today?

P.S.

My last Post: Saturday’s child was with an old photograph taken in my years when Joh was at Blind School. He’s since moved and is now homeschooled (hates that word and we’ve had to stop all forms of academy since the past year and half). So we just be. He loves going out, shopping, oh even doodling when he can be still. Big foodie. Loves people, remembers every single ones birthdays; shopkeepers, oh anyone. We’ve wondered what kind of job our 18 yr old would really like, and I think it’s this: he’d love a world desk with everyone’s birthdays registered, just to call and wish them! I’m serious. Maybe it must happen.

Saturday’s child.

**With blind school kids, and a musical I worked with them**

His name was Dhru*; he loved the ‘roaring’ bit. Dhru must be at least ten years old today, when we did “Everybody is differently beautiful”, he must’ve been 7? To think he couldn’t see his costume, had no clue what a lion’s mane was like, or even heard it roar, what a sport Dhru was. All these unknown things and he had to act as well as mime singing! But they were all game, as game can get.

I learned how to appreciate life, how to dance even if we missed a step, how to laugh out loud against all odds- from these kids who were my son’s schoolmates. The School asked if I could help out with Spoken English: oh I hinted broadly at Drama and Poetry. They didn’t get the Poetry bit, but one little girl did. She loved every poem in her braille typed book, especially the one that went, “…and Saturday’s child has to work hard for her living…”

It still breaks my heart to recall how they were taught to cross the street by themselves. Some of the older ones were actually going on crowded buses and getting off alone, cheerfully unafraid.

“They must learn….how else will they face life?” Their Daily Living Skills teacher asked me.

Sometimes I wish our own Joh weren’t as independent as he is. I wish he were less self reliant, I wish our kids didn’t need to grow up in a world that knows how to take advantage of the ‘disadvantaged’. I wish our roads were safer. But then am proud of every young /older challenged person or otherwise who can “work hard” at whatever Life gives them.

Thankyou young Dhru for reminding me today of people like you who still teach me to be brave and beautiful, no matter what.

*name changed

Pause calmly ….Selah!

Much to un-think here, @ a 3 hour drive from Bangalore city, into tiny growing town.

That cloud sits on thatch? …. its an untouched blue sky with no malls or smog.
At Kuppam’s local market, one or two women are speaking fluent English, their eyes are warm. I meet a beautiful lady at the Railways- she mans a 2ft iron wheel that lifts railway-cross gate. There is no time to take her picture…..
want to wish her a *Happy New Year* like we wished some others, but Railway lady in blue sari is busy; she turns to give me another look, then surprises us with a wide smile, white teeth and laughing eyes. The woman must be somewhere around 3o, 40? I send a small hand-wave. She waves back, laughing like a school girl.
On our next visit to Kuppam, we simply must get a pic with her.
Good holidays are also those when you’ve no time for a good photograph?

We stay almost a week here.
That lovely Gate is under repair. There were lesser sheep this time at Kuppam: no it’s not a farm for animals, just us humans+ cuddly paws.

My sis sculpts her fav words into woodwork, grills….
She’s an Eye Doc in this town, border to three south Indian states. Li loves the precious simple life here with a faithful househelp and furry princess.

Like Trees planted by Springs of Living waters; there’s backyard Date palm, bougainvillea, guava, papaya, mango, occasional monkey ….

Bonfire woodies. Such memories here with Mom&Dad in this space by Christmas tree, *Gulmohar*, *shoeflower*, a baby *tamarind* tree. Time has flown by ‘*like smoke through a key hole…’ (Movie : The Bucket List*)

That new double road used to be a rough path to Kupz’s lake. There are more people, cars, school buses, buildings today….

Meshed safety front grill to keep away esp. mosquitoes. That door lock has seated one or two friendly frog. Very tiny ones. They look like *Kermit* to us, but Li doesn’t think so. She says(with shudder) they (her leapy frog) wait for her with sly grin.
“*No, they’re not ..*!” is her horror response
to my Q.”*What if they just want a kiss, and will turn into your Prince?* “
Li loves her Prince of Peace best.

The road back…. miles off city limits: goatsherd!

Thresh time! We must gingerly drive over their sheaves, this helps them? (Green lid *sohmph* my new travel mate from Li’s kitchen).

You can’t see this well enough, but that’s a Church steeple over local temple, rerouting past Kolar gold fields.

Sunset over another gorgeous day; Joh is quiet this past hour. Bangalore city is closer from this long stretch, after brief stop for *Lassi*.

Back home @Greenview, our feathered granddaughter *Tina* has two ugly blonde chicks… soon they’ll grow fine feathers. One must wait. And watch.
And did you know Pigeon can be trained to recognize every alphabet?
*Tina’s mom is our second daughter Kitsy:) Tina herself was hatched here (also mothered by Kit, so*). Complicated!

All this in our little garden which will be busy this season. Phew!
Wishing 2020 Vision for us all.

**Peace**, **Shalom** :
*nothing missing, nothing broken.*
And if there is ‘*missing- broken’,* may each fit in a whole new way, causing Peace beyond belief.
**Selah**: meaning, *Pause calmly & think of that.*

Word of the Decade!

Has one Word stood out for you among billion billion others this past decade?

Heavens… which would I have picked? The American Dialect Society* picks T H E Y: a gender neutral pronoun.

The ADS* has been compiling Words of the Year, the past 30 years; Chairperson, Ben Zimmer: ‘When a basic part of speech like the pronoun becomes a vital indicator of social trends, linguists pay attention.‘ ‘The selection of “(my) pronouns” as Word of the Year speaks to how the personal expression of gender identity has become an increasing part of our shared discourse.’

The title happened after singer Sam Smith announced in Sept. 2019 that they were changing their pronouns to ‘they/them’.

Other words in the running for the 2019 Word of the Year title included ‘cancel’ and ‘OK boomer’, whereas ‘#BlackLivesMatter’, ‘#MeToo’, ‘meme’, ‘woke’, ‘Climate’, ‘Cancel‘ and ‘emoji’ were all on the shortlist for Word of the Decade.

The Word of the Year can be any ‘vocabulary item’, word or phrase, which has been prominent for the past 12 months. The organisation made up of linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, historians and students, also crowned winners for other word categories….

What’s your Word of the Decade?

The American Dialect Society began choosing Word of the Year since the year 1991 and has picked only two ‘Word of the decade’ winners- ‘web’ for the 1990s decade and ‘Google’ for 2000s.

In the past few years, social media has played an increasing role in popularizing certain words and phrases such as ‘fake news’ in 2017.

Vision

What do you see?

What do you see # 11 – January 6th, 2020

Thank you Sadie, here’s mine:

“I see PEACE as a sword, parting day from night

–it puts Chaos to flight.”

Innerdialects.home.blog

#Whatdoyousee

First Monday,2020 Prompt.

….

@innerdialects.

Autumn Blush!

He made me cry with this one:

**NoelJeff : my husband’s Painting goes to a new home tomorrow**.

We thought about Title, I said “Reflections“, seeing I’m supposed to be the family poet. He gets me my mug of hot drink and sits next to me with, “What’s that?”

I tell him we need a title before packing up this beauty and he (Jeff) says, ‘Autumn blush.’ Like he’s done all these kind of words before, y’know abstract words with emo.

It’s been a long day today, longer than I can tell here. I wonder at the colors in this amazing man of mine, colors of joy and Spring, harvest yellows and ripples of an earth tide reflecting the heavens. Gratitude Lord for Your ceaselessness that flows like a Tide through our lives, just because You say so.

Painted Psalm

I lift my eyes to the Hills….Psalm 121
Oil, RN

I love it when You speak to me…

I love it when You speak to me

in quiet things like distant hills,

like soaring birds in empty skies,

*Hills near me, Madikere, where Jeff and I were married.*
⚘

my restlessness cannot deny

Your quiet words

like distant green and blue

and gold,

right here, somehow somehow

on my threshold.

RN.

Hands on, rage.

Janbi Street half hours drive from here, there they were, two bikers – one with bloodied nose, then bloodied mouth, as the other rammed his fist in him, over and over. A crowd gathered, they try separate the two. The wounded guy just sits there taking it, as the other rears to go again, his fist readying….

Jeff and I are silenced, words choke. What’s to say. We just saw rage, violence. What had caused it? An accident prior?

*My son’s palm in mine, 31st December prayer meet*

Road rage, all kinds of rage, is getting more in the news, it competes with rape and glitzy page 3 spreads. I’m shivering as we reach home. Those guys were in their 20s,30s? What makes things go so out of control we can ram our fists into each other over and over till flesh breaks and blood pours down? Why is it easier to be explosive than be anything else? It gets easier to rave than try peace. Tempers are not leash-able, not much.

What happened to us all, that we cannot control emotions; we believe in mortal wounding, anything but a gentler option.

And ofcourse we cannot/ will not pray; it’s a foolish silly old- fashioned, ignorant thing to do, right.

Here’s the thing: something does happen when we hold our hands and join forces with that Unseen power from where Grace flows. I’m talking 100% nonsense, right? Try me.

I’m veering off a bit here, but these past few months at home we’ve had to deal with violence as a family, following post- seizure drug-induced aggression from our youngest who for 18 years has been the gentlest person we’ve ever met. I won’t do details here, but it’s been bad. There’s been days in November we just hugged together and wept. He’s unfortunately been on 3 drugs – previous Neuro Doc should not have given him. New doc now retracts those and we introduce new med. We have withdrawal which is a Syndrome in itself. Rage? You think I don’t know it first hand- my own frustration at a system that is this careless with a serious medical condition.

Psychiatry would call the Act of Prayer ‘Self Counsel’. If I were left to self-counsel I’d have turned into a monster, trust me. What happens when we pray, is beyond me, but this happened here, among a whole stack of other changes – both interpersonal/ personal. Anyone want details, please say. Happy to help. idialects@gmail.com

1. A peace that human understanding alone cannot understand, that’s happening.

2. Clear instructions to not use harsh tones in our own voices, even a loud yell of joy, these could trigger a reaction, among other triggers.

3. Harvesting joy in our own selves, this somehow broke through to our troubled son, don’t ask me how. Joy spreads. He knows the air has changed for the better. I said ‘harvesting’ … because it takes work to do that sometimes, hard work. Forget self, count blessings… 🙄 yet, it works. Joy is a Force to reckon with.

4. Remembering all the 18 years of this young person’s gentle nature, and seeing him through that filter, knowing this is drug reaction. If not, God help us, but there’s that deep well of Quiet, I don’t know how else to describe it.

5. Gratitude, songs of love, thanking God for everything, even for this trying time, it takes the sting off the moment. Horror loses its claw hold on me, it has no control over any area in my life, if, in everything I can say,”I thank you Lord.”

One morning I prayed in the stars; the rest of the family were still in bed. It was softening grey misty, like my heart softening, waiting in silence. And I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell you He sent Comfort and Joy and Strength. (Wouldn’t be blogging without it, 😊).

“I love it when You speak to me…

@innerdialects.

21 conclusions that renew me:

These past months I’ve come to a few (21!)conclusions that renew me; warning though…long post.

Appreciating people is a craft all its own: it breaks barriers in Invisibility & Understanding of human co-existence. (You being here with comment, follow, share: made blogging a truly creative experience for me. My best liked Post was this here, where I discovered that my Art Quotes were liked? Thankyou!)

2. We create new experiences : re-visiting a long past ‘Happy Place’ right here in the Now.This Post: Little chapel in Monmouthshire, surprised me> an Instagram friend’s Photograph that provoked a childhood memory with new realisation that I have this beautiful space in me now forever. It never left, I needed a re- visit/ reminder, via blog? Wow.

3. ‘De-cluttering is also giving away some amount of personal space to listen to another. It is life’s sweetest investment. I haven’t been able to throw away old cards, or my kids’ kindergarten scribbles/ their first baby curls- but we’ve been inviting more people home. Over the months of 2019, I’ve had the privilege of watching my first love for God walk back in. Time has been restored. Time spent nursing health issues: the more I stopped sitting in my own personal fenced Pond, the more healing happened. (If you like, there are a few words from there in Heal).

4. ‘Old’ structures seen again with new eyes renewed my understanding of my own defences (I’m captured by the world around me👀 in blogosphere!) It is beyond belief how a PhotoBlogger’s Capture of Old Cold Bench re-wrote my own indifference to life outside the front door.

5. The Net has some inspiring movies that worked well in my core;listed in my Decade Tag Post. They expose some incredible events in everyday living. Looking forward to more!

6. Working at what I love can change the way I think, speak. New Painting in The Cusp of things stares at Change with a certain joy and dare.

Days painting with visitors at this Soul Cafe

7. Praying more for those in my ❤, or not, (again, am deeply stirred by some amazing Blog friends who remind me that we are humans in the most demanding era ever, and old fashioned as it may seem I’m stoked to pray for others as others have done for me), makes this whole connectivity thing worth the effort and time and love.

8. Play Angel unawares {This Upload inspires me to go out and take more real life pictures of my own. (You don’t have to read all of my Posts, but am getting a kick out of seeing what I’ve been upto 🤗). Humans can be angels, every single basic one of us.

9. True Life Recounts: change us.

10. Go, GLOW : work out, eat healthy, forgive, speak life. I’ve never personally asked myself to do that.😅.

11. Experiencing Silence writes new words Sing. Play an instrument. Listen to birds. Squirrels. Leaves. Rain. It’s no easy discipline, when you’re tempted to not be silent.

12. Gratitude actually works, even in a blog post!

13. Schedule ‘Rest‘. (Hard to believe how we downplay this one).

14. Wait, even on self. This is new for me.

15. Remember that one line that’s been holding my head. “THERE IS A TIDE TURNING…” < that Post was inspired by the trees outside my house. I know now Natures’ Prompts are from God.