globular tablets

then it was Christmas, for which i travelled to the town in tamil nadu called thiruvannamalai.  my plan was to participate in the giruvalam - the 14km circumambulation of the holy hill Arunachala, performed by thousands of pilgrims every full moon as an act of devotion to Shiva.  somebody i met at sadhana was there for the last full moon and told me that every circumambulator found their own pace and the feeling was that of a molecule of water moving glibly among a river of humans.  my other plan was to meet up with friend Sam and also a couchsurfer in bangalore, who i first contacted before i left scotland two months ago, and who i had been planning to meet for some time.  my plan to walk under the moon did not come to pass because my estimation of the date of the full moon was three nights too early.  my plans to rendez-vous did not bear fruition either.  instead i spent the day walking about town from time to time fruitlessly using the public one rupee phone boxes and otherwise observing

observing the bus-strewn views to the temple

observing these pigs ambulating around the woods 

i also took an interest in the flowing geometric shapes chalked onto the pavements outside everybody's front door in the little lanes.  i was sketching one of these rather ineptly into my notebook when a young girl saw me and called her mother to come and do a better sketch for me.  i asked her why those patterns were chalked onto the pavement like that.  i had the feeling that the purpose was devotional; i had seen that the patterns were more elaborate and decorated with flowers on religious festivals.  after humming for a while, she responded simply, "it is our culture"

i spent some time online researching Arunachala and read this 14th century description of the Shiva's holy hill, quoted in a wikipedia article: "Arunachala is truly the holy place. Of all holy places it is the most sacred! Know that it is the heart of the world. It is truly Siva himself! It is his heart-abode, a secret kshetra. In that place the Lord ever abides the hill of light named Arunachala."

and also:  "Words spoken there are holy scripture, and to fall asleep there is to be absorbed in samadhi, beyond the mind's delusion. Could there be any other place which is its equal?" 

unequalled throwing oneself passionately into being!   - being descriptive - even before reading that description i knew Arunachala was a special place because i had clambored up those rocks the first night and slept nestled among the rocks far above the sound belching town traffic, the rocks that radiate Stillness.   and the Wind that was not still but moving with freshness and eagerness and urgency.   and Jeff Tweedy's song echoing ringing true in my mind: "in a sleeping bag underneath the stars he would lie awake and count them.  and the gray fountain spray of the great milky way would never let him       die alone"

and in the morning the monkeys surrounded me with agility and i knew they were eyeing up my peanuts, then the devotee in the little rustic temple at the top invited me to drink chai - sweet milky chai - the first cup of a day offering it to tourists, pilgrims and all those who ascended the hill.   we sat in silence.  his little devotional mudhut throbbed with rustic get-away-from-it-all charm.  he blew on the flames and allowed the chai to brew for long time.  he threw the first cup against the wall, and there it trickled and glistened.  i offered him some peanuts.  he told me he is the one who keeps the pyre of ghee burning for ten days during the karthigai deepam festival.  tonnes of ghee which devotees haul up to keep that pyre burning and visible for miles around.  that explained to me the sticky substance coating the summit rocks which i clamboured over in the dark the first night i arrived.

the wind whispered urgently, but that didn't detract from its warmth.  the monkeys and the peanuts made a far fetched comparison from yesteryear: a scottish bothy hogmany, losing our way in the snowdrifts before eventually descending upon the holy shelter of shenavall there to shiver round the meek and paltry flickering flame, rotating our sitting positions round the fire to allow everyone his hallowed proximity to the flame's sacred warmth.  we roasted garlic bread and my dad declared it was the best thing he'd ever eaten.

stillness in the rocks,

movement in the wind,

everything bathed in moongleam.  

if the moon wasn't full it well-nigh was.  however, after a couple of nights, instead of staying on for the circumambulation i decided to head back to the hare krishna temple in karnataka and begin the painting projects tattava had given me.

tattva's eyes light up with enthusiasm.  he is adept at engaging others in his projects.  "we got this jeep somebody donated to us which you could paint with a really cool camouflage colours.   you could be real creative...the only thing i would like is a tilak - you know the mark hare krishna devotees wear on their forehead? - on the bonnet.  you could also get a peacock feather, or make it kinda jungly..."

 - what about some streaks of fire? ...make it really wild,  i say

"oh yeah, wild! let's get it looking wild, real distinctive.  everyone in kollur is gonna see this jeep and say "who did that? i want him to paint my jeep like that!"

tattva's enthusiasm really fired me up, and made me elaborate and pursue my artistic vision for several days i got lost.  i talked to myself a lot about one's artistic vision; the necessity of being allowed to pursue one's artistic vision.  even when praveem took the remaining red paint and used it to paint the front gate, i had to relinquish the use of that red paint and recognise that praveem too had to follow his artistic vision.

however, for a couple of days when tattva was away there was some indecision about the appropriateness of me following my artistic vision.  one of the woman looked at me painting one day and said, "too many colours...chaitanya says if you go on big roads and police see this jeep, they always stop you.  nobody ever see jeep like this...  trouble...too  many colours."

praveem's comment, which he made more than once, gleefully, was, "if i ever see a jeep with so many colours, it is in a children's park!   and not even there, with so many colours!"

but tattva returned and said, "nah, those women...more traditional.  they have a different vision of things.  seriously what you've done looks great"  he restored my enthusiasm and heaped encouragment upon me:

(i had told him:  i was beginning to feel discouraged.  he said: "no, don't feel discouraged, feel encouraged!")

"man, i don't know what we are gonna do with this jeep, drive it around, or take it straight to an art exhibition."

i realised how important it can be to have somebody who believes in you, or likes what you do.

people are ambulatory spheres of perceptors - messages-givers and message-receivers  -

who follow their elliptical perambulatory orbits

and when they catch sight of another circulating ball of energy

a chemical reaction is produced.

this person radiates something very smooth and shanti and easy to be with.

that other person's presence did not bring glad tidings; it was only a momentary glance, but all i did was shrug inwardly and murmur inside: he did not smile.

we are all billiard balls buzzing around the gigantic spherical billard table-globe, knocking into each other's energy fields and at times bouncing down cavernous stairwells to knock upon doors we never suspected we would ever knock upon.

nawkt a pawn.  globular tablets.   tabular globlets  lets

lets set sail.   lets hang around.   lets have another round.    lez move on

two people meet, and greet

with or without a peck on the cheek

no, but that woman's energy was too intense, too intrusive, her too gaze piercing with too much passion, it was like boiling water in her company - disquiet - but i had to listen to her out, to meet her gaze.  i couldn't very well tell her dispassionately to pencil off, the way some others might have done. at the same time, those lingering gazes are difficult to sustain... maybe some measure of iciness in my return gaze is necessary to preserve some inner calmness, so as to not let my snow be scattered by the snowblower.  otherwise i'll become like a melted ice-cream lying on the pavement.  and nobody likes a melted ice-cream lying on the pavement.

reach for the sta  hars        climb every mountain higher

reach for the sta  hars        climb every mountain higher

however, lale - the goat - he didn't have a-n-y qualms about trying to headbutt me when i tried to befriend him.  he rejected outright my offer of friendliness.  he wanted to butt me out of his life with his horned head.  the message "pencil off!" was all but tangible on his lips, bleating like a goat.   no greeting me him.

the verb to greet is polysemous for those from the north east of scotland for as well as "to say hello" it can also mean "to cry", (not like the town-crier, nor the boy who cried wolf but the boy who cried himself to sleep) hence its ambiguous poetic validity.

to say hello.   say hello too

i greet you.   you greet i.   i cry.  ice-cream, you scream we all scream.
we greet we.   us greet us, aff the green bus

greet for yourself,   or you greet iself,   then our greet weself.   put wee book back on shelf.

you're just being shelfish with your bookbackputting.

okay, you put the backbook on my shelf, and i'll scratch your...

you're writing drivel

you're drivelling write

you're right about the swivel chair

you've driven right off the map!

might is right

right...might be alright

might as well give up for the night

• who said writing was fun?  writing is for nuns.  profoundly cathartic.  a tiger in the arctic.  in the atavistic circle.  she got off at partick.  he's at it again

sound + meaning = mathematical equation for good writing.   well written.   well read.   well said.   well made.   well held.   well welded.   welded well.   well did well.   disjoin meaning from sound, what is left?
a soundless meaning?

a meaningless sound?
what came first, the meaning or the sound?

a  soundless sleep.

a sleepless sloop slipslop sling bring on the slack.

a groundless foundless cutlass cut less this time; found less that i would have thought at the foundry groundbreaking meaningshaking meaning what? meaning is making ground still shaking breaking and flaking the nonsensical shaking still making me all shivery not willing to stop shaking the shaking say stop to the king.

shay hi for me.   it was about yay high

aye: you know why.

why?

fit?    foo?   fit for a two foot boot, that's hoo.