A Daily Mantra - from Slo!

There’s no day like today,

No time like now;

To say and do all you want,

To make every moment count;

So go all out and fulfill your dreams,

Give the world your hues;

For, the world is but your oyster,

And the pearl within is YOU!

The bliss of silence!

Hello folks! Ever wondered how much people talk!!! No point.....ALL of us DO! Consequently, there are very few moments when we can really experience a complete silence, the sort that is spoken of as "pin drop silence"! It is in those moments that we can actually sense the oneness between the heart and the mind, the unity between the person we are and the one that we are trying to be! More often than not, the best of ideas and plans emerge in the midst of silence. Relaization dawns in what Wordsworth aptly described as the "bliss of solitude"! Silence, in the physical sense would be absence of noise or sound. But I can say from experience that it is possible to feel it even in a crowd.....a silence so profound, its almost deafening! And we are not even talking about the silence in a "bhoot bangla" which can be petrifying!

Silence triggers the thinking mind and brings about a whole new meaning to things that appeared different all along! It's a simple means of meditation where you have a conversation with your self, your truest confidante and perennial companion! Silence is, contrary to belief, not a sign of weakness, but one of strength; an indicator of knowledge, not the lack of it. As someone said, "True knowledge lies in knowing when to speak and when to remain silent"!

I always try to sneak a few silent moments for myself each day - a therapy I whole-heartedly recommend as a discovery of a whole new world within, a "path less travelled by" (Robert Frost) to seek happiness which incidentally is what we are all after!

SILENT BLISS...

Sometimes calm, sometimes sinister;

In solitude, all around;

The slightest sound amplified,

In silence that's so loud.

Even in the midst of a crowd,

Voices may seem to fade in;

Making way for a numbing silence,

That rises above the din.

The silence echoes the voices,

Speaking from within;

Ever soothing, ever strengthening;

Showing light where darkness had been.

Silence, a mirror to the soul;

Silence can always best console;

Silence, a time to delve into oneself;

Silence, BLISS UNEXPLORED!

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More later. Till next time, from slo, it's Tally-ho!

The Rains' Law...

The monsoons have finally made their entry and HOW!!!! And no monsoon is complete without a poem toasted to it! So here goes!!!!

THE RAINS' LAW

A gray morning, chill breeze,

Chirping birds and quivering trees;

Pregnant clouds, a warning thunder,

An explosion in the sky, a torrential shower!

A splash here, a puddle there;

On the mud here, on a flower there;

The rain lashes on without a care;

Before you know, it's everywhere!

Man or woman, dark or fair;

Bird or beast, of the ground or the air;

The scurrying mouse or the prancing hare;

The docile pet or the wild bear!

The young or old, cowardly or bold;

Are all encompassed in its fold;

The rains make no distinction, told or untold;

On the backs of all, their pleasures unfold!

On lush fields and parched land;

Mercies are extolled, by the skies benign!

A multi-hued rainbow after the rain;

A treat, a reward, for pulling through the pain!

A little more here or a little less there;

A reversal next time, so the balance is always there!

A boon for one, a curse for the other;

AS ONE SEES IT -

A Blessing from Above, or a Banal Shower!

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Till next time, from slo, it's Tally-ho!!

A World Without Colours!!!!

Hi Friends! As an annexure to my post of yesterday, here's a poem on what would become of our dear Earth were it not for the exotic pallette of colours that nature has presented to us!!!!! Here goes.................

A WORLD WITHOUT COLOURS!!!

The sun is yellow,

Blue are the seas;

The multi-hued flowers,

Attract the bees.

The meadows are green,

So are the trees;

What, without colours,

Would our dear Earth be??!!

Imagine a world that's

Just black and white;

No other colour

In distant sight.

The skies would be black,

And so would the seas;

Black and white would be

Everything in between.

We would never know

When it's going to rain;

Because the black sky

Would always look the same!

Roses, tulips, jasmines and poppies

Would all appear alike

If they'd all be just

Plain old black or white.

The rainbow would be void

And quite meaningless;

As it would merge

With the sky so colourless!

Life would be so boring

If colours didn't exist,

Without the reds and blues

That we find so hard to resist!

No one would turn red with rage,

Or go blue in shame;

No one would speak of seeing green,

The colours would be nothing but names.

Pink wouldn't be associated with blushing,

Nor purple with royalty;

Orange and yellow wouldn't be bright;

All we'd have would be black and white!

So let's learn to appreciate

The value of colours in our life,

For without them, the Earth

Would be quite drab and dry!

We now know how invaluable

Colours are to us,

For, try as we may, we could never live

in a A WORLD WITHOUT COLOURS!!!!

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Hope that I've covered all you can think of too!!!!!!!! And just to add that extra meaning to the poem, I've actually made it colourful!!!!

That's all for now.......

Till next time, from slo, it's Tally-Ho!

The Day the Paint Box fell from Heaven!

Hi friends!! I received a mail with the same title as this piece, from dear friend Shruti........a collection of pictures that actually give the feel of a gigantic paint-box full of the rarest hues having fallen from heaven, torn through the clouds and rained on earth, bathing everything it touched in a way that only Nature can! The pic above is just a sample of the collection! John Keats had said, "A thing of Beauty is a joy forever!" How true!

Beauty, that thing which is so pure, yet so subjective, for as has been oft iterated, "Beauty lies in the eyes of the Beholder!" Yet, while the beauty of a person or of a painting may be argued upon, the beauty of nature has always been appealing to everyone. Ever heard of a person who cannot appreciate a serene waterfall; or an ice-capped mountain towering above the clouds (!!!); or a field of colourful flowers (remember Wordsworth's Daffodils????!!!!); the view from the mountaintop.........the deep, almost bottomless valley as seen from the top of a cliff, with the calming sound of water flowing somewhere under sounding like music to the ears; the oranges, reds, yellows and violets of a mesmerizing sunset; or better still, the warmth filling yourself as you see a bright light, sent by the glorious morning sun as you stand in the middle of thick fog; the tiny drops of dew sparkling on leaves and creating the prism effect as the sun shines on them; the gradual opening of a bud and turning into a beautiful flower.....oh I could go on forever!

Nature has, by far, been the favorite topic of poets over time, its beauty having been immortalized in the works of uncrowned king of nature poetry, Sir William Wordsworth, Henry Vaughan, Coleridge and several others. Nature has been no less an inspiration to artists as it has been to poets. Many have tried to recreate nature's magic on canvas with varying degrees of success! Why, then, does nature so inspire the men (and women!!) of art and literature like nothing else???? Or How??!

The answer lies in four small words.........NATURE HAS IT ALL!!!

A poem or a painting is, at the very fundamental level, an expression. An expression of delight, an expression of joy, an expression of disgust, an expression of sorrow, an expression of compromise, an expression of opinion or thought.......an expression! You want to depict beauty, you turn to nature (for obvious reasons!). You want to portray human nature or emotions, you could turn to nature - benevolence and the shade of the tree; sharing and the birds in a nest; love and swans or the doves or the flowers; tolerance and the animals of the jungle (or the fish of the sea); peace and the waterfall; anger and the cyclone (tsunami???!!!); permanence and the mountains (They're always there!); hopelessness and the volcano (Enough is Enough!); ambition and the river (it always meets the sea....NO MATTER WHAT!), so on and so forth. These are associations that have stood the test of time....always been there for the observant eye to see and the thinking mind to connect. You want to portray anything and you can turn to nature.........if you look hard, you'll find what you want!

Of course, I don't mean to say ONLY nature inspires. All I can say with conviction is that it is what inspires most! It's something that always turns ME on, and I'd like to see some people who disagree with me :-P!

And one concluding point - To see HIS (GOD)/HER (Mother Nature!) greatest creation yet, simply turn to the mirror!!!!!!! You may not see the most colourful creation, but you'll see the one HE/SHE's most proud of!!!!!

More later!!!! Till next time....from slo, it's Tally-ho!