Sadness in Spring

Winter has passed and spring has arrived with her vivid colors, sounds and scents.

Yellow sunlight, filters through the cherry trees with white flowers and pierces the cool dimness of my study. Gold dust seems scattered into the air and patterns of light are painted upon the floor and the bookcases.

The blue-sky, ochre bushes, pale pink flowers, green blobs of sprouting tender leaves arrest the wandering mind making one want to participate in this fairy tale architecture with a sweet story filled with pretty illustrations.

I too was excited about spring.

 I almost started with; Once upon a time - children playing soccer in parks and playgrounds, came back home to their loving families, ate dinner while they laughed and chatted and were tucked into bed with a story filled with adventure.

And then I heard on the news that such stories don’t happen everywhere!

Elsewhere, dark hues of boiling red blood, charred flesh, pieces of bones, hair, molten metal, jarred remains, smoke, dust, shrill cries, screams, panic, pain, murder of hopes and dreams all wrapped up and tied with helplessness enters the life of young children.

It is truly heartbreaking, and an unspeakable dejection of the spirit, far beyond all pain and all anxiety, simply because I cannot comprehend such hatred aimed at young children.

The weariness of an unsafe and callous world has come to visit me and I feel helpless in my inability to control or influence it in the least.

There is but only one thing left to do at such times – to exercise self-compassion.

 This is the time for compassion towards my own self. To respond to the self, like I’m responding to a suffering friend. To shut off the news channels and to trash the newspaper, to be quiet, to soak in silence, to meditate, to sip a cup of tea, to take a warm shower, eat a simple meal, care for a pet and snuggle with someone I love.

I know my heart will open once again to happiness, to kindness and I will feel deep gratitude not only for sunlight, fresh breeze and flowers but for being blessed with a human heart that though battered, wounded and patched up, can open and learn to love life all over again.

When the world is poised on the edge of a sword, ‘one’ less angry human is perhaps enough to keep it from tipping over.

What makes us great?

The ice age came and left, taking with it the wooly mammoth and the saber-toothed tiger, both great beasts! The receding age did not dispute their greatness; it did not frame them, bind their legacy in a book or place a head stone upon their remains.

Nature renews herself and disposes that which is redundant without hesitation; this may as well be the open secret of her consistent ‘greatness’.

Human history is a continuum of great civilizations that have risen and fallen throughout time. Many a people of these fallen civilizations secretly long for the sense of greatness that has been lost.

Why do great civilizations fall?

We can argue that the weightiness of ‘being great’ is selectively prone to the gravitational pull of humility. We can also assert that inner inertia and staunch resistance to change leads a stagnant civilization to its downfall.

However in my mind the most common cause is hubris. Pompous leaders who are disconnected with the prevailing reality have led many a great nation to its demise.

Complacent egotism, excessive pride, haughtiness and unrivaled confidence do not bring about the kind of ‘greatness’ that is lasting.

 Lasting greatness is brought about by the cultivation of courage in facing the unknowable, by tolerating our anxiety in the face of change, by upholding that which we truly believe in, by honoring the choice of a people who may choose a path that is different from our own and by withholding the exercise of our own power over others.

Much is demanded from civilizations that wish to remain great or hope to be reinstated.

Like nature, greatness too requires that we face life as it stands and corresponds with us today. It requires that we relinquish those ideas and institutions that are incongruent with our times in order to thrive.

History, be it individual, national or cultural can both inform our success and inhibit our progress. Like nature we too need to hold our changing identities lightly. Or we risk becoming a wooly mammoth protesting the end of the ice age.

Life as I know it: Why Art?

Life as I know it: Why Art?: The cicada bug has arrived and unpacked its bags for a long and disconcerting visit.   Oh! There will be unrest for the next thirteen t...

Why Art?

The cicada bug has arrived and unpacked its bags for a long and disconcerting visit.  Oh! There will be unrest for the next thirteen to seventeen years! This time it hums the question that I’ve evaded for a while. It bids me to seek answers and steady myself.

“Why art?” it asks.

‘Is that even a valid question?’ I ask myself. Can there be a ‘why’ for human need for expression, hardwired as we are to communicate?  Should art have a purpose beyond the healthiness of a satisfying process?

Before I proceed to find my answers, I think, I need to ask myself the most important question – why am I drawn to art?

They beckon me; the stray sculptures in manicured parks, the murals on abandoned walls, carved wooden doors sealing entrances to discarded homes, cave paintings by Neanderthals, the bronze cast ‘Dancing girl’ of the Indus, the great Sphinx, the architecture of Gaudi, the intricacy of the Faberge eggs, the visual trance of Van Gogh and on and on.

Why am I drawn? Why do they entice my attention?

The answers are no more than questions themselves.

Is art merely a reflection, maybe just a human aspiration to be surrounded by all things beautiful? Is it simply punctuation, from the unenviable and grosser aspects of human life?  Or is creativity simply an evolutionary proposal aimed at polishing the skill-set that ensures our smoother existence?

 All answers are true and they are all relevant, like light dispersed through a prism. After all most of us decorate our spaces, even our work desks with a picture, a planted pot, a candle or a lamp. A good majority of us would enjoy sitting around decorative fountains and breathing crisp air after long and exhausting days. Even more so it is with great creativity that we are capable of negotiating peace, harmonizing the unharmonious, shedding light on that which is relevant and encouraging the pursuit of personal liberties as best we can.

I wonder then if it’s even possible to further integrate that which hangs on our walls to that which we experience as life?

How do you explain; the character of a home filled with paintings, the restiveness of sculpture small and large, the assured company of a familiar author, timeless music and enthralling dance performances?

These human creations are as integrated as a peaceful sunset, the beauty of a lane filled with cherry blossoms, the laughter of streams, the sturdiness of snow-capped mountain ranges and the simplicity of a mushroom in the far corner of a forgotten garden.

In my mind art is already integrated, only attention needs to be engaged.

The cicada is only asking me to boldly live within my questions themselves before I find my answers.