a fish, a sunrise, a step

You stood by the edge of that endless river.

it was that moment just before dawn.

Some say it is the coldest moment;

Some say the most beautiful;

Some say the softness of the hand that motions to wait

in that moment is as soft as the breath of things unnecessary to say…

You cast your line out.

The line went tight to the current’s pull.

And you waited.

You had taken a lifetime to get there, to the edge of that river.

You saw what looked like a star,

as if right there at the end of your line,

out there upon the water, shimmering upon the water’s surface.

Why were you there?

Maybe trying to catch a little bit of daylight ?

Only one brief moment maybe?

Thinking for instance that the first moment of a new day like a soft hand touching time?…

Waiting, to be timeless…

Then there was a tug…

what felt like large fish lunging at your line

and you began reeling in, quickly,

reeling, reeling, getting tired quickly,

getting excited, fearing,

in your excitement, in your tiredness,

that you might lose that fish.

“Keep the line tight,” you heard a voice say next to you,

somehow insistent, yet as softly as

the calmest of sighs, the softest of hands telling you to wait,

to hold on, to be steady

within a steadiness of trying to maintain that tightness,

that hold upon such vibrant life,

and then the surface broke, the star there shattered,

and suddenly, the day - it dawned…

and the night - it took that star

and just disappeared with it

and as if wanting also to go

just then, the fish broke free, and the line went slack…

A glint, a flash of beauty.  A splash of light,

a simple, beautiful moment, the simplicity, the beauty

of that moment

and then, the fish – it disappeared…

And then there was nothing there but the endlessness of that river… 

And you took a step, forward, didn’t you,

looking, maybe not thinking, maybe only leaning, forward,

maybe feeling so alone, maybe lost, maybe bewildered, leaning,

as if maybe only wanting to be close to all of that beautiful disappearance…

And there you waited.  

And there was silence.  And peace.  And calm.

“It’s the way it is with the dawn,” you heard a voice say - not so much

a voice as the feeling of a soft hand upon your breast

in that moment.

“There and then gone,” it said.

 “Like that star,” it said.

“Like that fish,” it said.

 “Like that moment,” it said.

“Sometimes it’s the ones you love,” it said.

“Always only that one step – maybe only a leaning forward,

looking, waiting,

like that one step in your whole life where you might think

you are so alone,

like there is only disappearance before you…

like there is absolutely no one to guide you, to hold you,

to hold you tight…

A step, there and then gone…”

We will all take that step, we will maybe wait, maybe listen…

But is it our step to take, ours to have - to call our own?

A step to take alone and then to be gone?

No.

It is not ours to take.

Because we are not alone in that moment.

(In this moment.)

Because there are always the infinite spaces

of light, and love..,

And that one step, that needs no guiding…

that one true step through the dark night to dawn…

that one step upon all of this assumed solidity…

That’s the fish – that’s the star…

there in the depths, there upon the surfaces,

at daybreak, at dawn and light and love

are not at all like the disappearance

of that star, of that fish, of that moment,

of that step,

but are the emergence

of a calm beauty

of the endlessness of river

whose edge takes us a lifetime to get to.

Peacefully, calmly, bravely, serenely, faithfully, trustfully, simply, beautifully.

Like your whole life, solid, good and true.

The magic that will be

It was, for all practical purposes, an arbitrary glance in an arbitrary direction.  It was, for all practical purposes, a view that lasted no more than an instant.

It was a moment of a memory of a time when we were sitting around a blazing fire.  Someone threw on wood, and kept throwing on more wood.  No one spoke.  We all sat around in a broken circle, staring.  Every once in a while someone would get up and throw on some more wood.  Everyone threw on some wood, even the smallest child, a six year old girl, I remember she got up and looked around as if expecting someone to tell her no; that it was too dangerous, that there didn't need to be any more, that only grown-ups could put on wood, that maybe she should ask first, who knows why she looked around, she looked at everyone but no one said anything, indicated anything, just watched her pick up a piece of that rotten timber from the torn down barn and throw it on the blaze.

Does wood hold fire even before it ever is touched upon by flame?
Does fire hold us in its sway even before it is touched upon by wood?
Does our sight hold vision even before it happens upon arbitrary glances?
Does vision hold memories even before it happens upon itself?

Thought and thinking

Well, it's done; after many weeks of (on and off) tending towards realization, my "thinking spoon" is finished.  I hold it and its sense of presence melts like butter within the contours of my hand.  The surfaces of wood and skin intermix and meld...

I haven't decided whether to call it a thought spoon or a thinking spoon...  Its reason for being, or reason for having come into being, or the tendency of thought that has been there within its becoming, has been...  thought and thinking...

But, thinking about it... "thought" is an abstract sort of conceptual sense of the "thing" the "it", whereas "thinking" evokes a sense of action...  But what does that imply when the sole object of the process of holding my thought/thinking spoon is to reach a state of calmness that allows for all thought/thinking to disappear?

Maybe it should be called my not thinking spoon.

European weeping beech

Reverse-engineering restfulness

It's interesting how the thought of a particular aspect of a particular spoon gets into my head sometimes for instance in the early mornings like nestling into a soft space of warmth of half-waking and then lingers there throughout the day, nudging towards awareness, subtly blending in with the day's ongoingness like a shadow that for all practical purposes should not be there, but creates a nice kind of presence within all of the other plays of shadow upon the day.

The thought that got into my head today was about the bowl portion of a spoon I'm working on - what I call a thought spoon, whose sole (presently imagined) purpose will be to be held in my hand, meld into my hand and allow for simple moments of its not having to be anywhere else as I mentally, emotionally, sense-fully take in its shape of naturally melding simplicity of flow that, I'm imagining, will allow my thoughts to wander within a similar, parallel, maybe enmeshed sense of its own, or maybe a cojoined simplicity of restful flow...

From a certain perspective the spoon can be seen as the outcome of a process of reverse-engineering a hand-induced sense of restfulness...

Yeah, go that.

There's a bit of a challenge with the bowl - the wood presently stops at a point where I'm thinking it could so very easily have continued - that is, there does not seem to be enough wood at one particular point of the curve that arches from the handle down to the spoon's concave inner surface.  I've been thinking about that space of lack of wood for most of the day - not in any festering urge of constant bothersomeness, but in wash of breeze sort of way.  It keeps coming and going in that lingering nudge way...

So now I have a few free moments and will go explore that emptiness, which is also the sense of a potential for a smaller imagining.  What is my thumb meant to be doing there?  Can it rest elsewhere, which will be the where of a smaller space of flow?

I love my knife

Intention is like a child

I did not intend to carve two "musical spoons" for anything more than to have them be spoons for making music.  
I did not intend for them to take off on their own, like children, like a child - like their sound made together, their resonance, their way of being their own sense of musical creation - like a singularity, as if a child, heading out into an unknown, wondrous landscape that no parent can ever prepare them for...

But like children, like a child, the intention of their music has taken off.  It is beyond my grasp, even as I want to have some sense of it being something I can still feel close to.  But I am not close, but I am...

I received an email today from the woman who I had carved them for:

I just returned this morning after a wonderful concert in Trichy. It has been a wonderful experience not just for me, but for my whole team. While individually the spoon sound was great, neither of us was sure how it would complement the other sounds on stage. But it was simply beautiful. A very subtle yet very grounded sound. 

The concert was part of an initiative called 'Svanubhava', that takes classical music to children. So our audience comprised mostly school and college children. So it was an amazing opportunity for me to open out their imagination to a new sound and the possibility of imagining new instruments. This is the first time anything like this has been used in Carnatic music. The children showed a lot of interest. I seem to have had some influence on them. Many kids came and told me after the show that they wanted to go home and try. I also signed some autographs for the kids. The mridangam player's 6 year old daughter collected all forks and spoons from the dinner table last night and said she wanted to do a concert. It's just so heartening.  

उत्साहवर्धक   utsahavardhak