It’s a cold sunny autumn day, the biting wind announcing winter’s first signs. I roam through variegated leaves—burnt orange, mocha, yellow—shades enough to put Joseph’s technicolour coat to shame. The air smells of earth and ending things.
A quote by Eden Philpotts comes to mind :
“The universe is full of magical things waiting for our wits to grow sharper”
I reflect back on the passage of time ; autumn lending itself naturally to this - the season of impermanence and change.
Last week I celebrated Diwali with my family. My father cooked a few simple dishes, set up the altar and recited a couple of the main poojas. We ate together. We put on some traditional clothing and a few lights. It was spartan if you compare it to anything in India. But the intention was there ; a festival of light, a celebration of the conquering of light over darkness.
Diwali is meant to be a 5 day festival with many rituals and routines within it (as it is with so many Hindu festivals).
When my mother was around, she would do everything to make as it was in India, although I never appreciated it growing up. The house would be alight with divas, flowers, patterned rangoli. The house would have been deep cleaned and ready for the festivities. She would spend hours preparing food for us.
I recently went out for a walk with a friend and he asked me “What did your parents do to raise you guys so well” (talking about me and my sister). I had never really thought about the question.
But as I walk through the autumn leaves, thinking about the passage of time, the answer that comes to be is care.
Not grand gestures, but the steady accumulation of small devotions.
Attention - and that is of course synonymous with love. As children, we don’t know the alternative lives we could have lived. But knowing how others grew up now, I can’t help but be grateful for the incredibly safety net and sense of security afforded by having a stable family environment. It is invaluable.
I suppose this is what seasons, rituals, festivities offer us ; a way to pause and make sense of the narrative structure of our lives. To make sense of the flowing river of time. Who are we today, how have we changed, and what are we grateful for? Otherwise the unstructured passage of time can seem daunting.
I recently read a beautiful article titled : ‘Seasoning a kid : a search for a practice of place’ An idea that resonated with me was treating time like a space.
Seasonal practices allow you to enter time as if it were space. By providing structure and consistency, practices create moments. We were here at this time last year, do you remember? See the buds? They’re almost here again.
They’re what give flavour to life – semi-colons in the flowing river of time, reminders of the ever-evolving nature of existence.
Spring whispers of potentiality, summer of love and freedom from the clock. Winter teaches silence and stillness. And autumn — the most poignant season — teaches the passage of time itself.
The leaves know something about letting go.
I think back to a walk in the park. Bundles of leaves surround us as we climb up Greenwich hill. A little boy rides his scooter through a collection of leaves, scattering them in the wind. The sun sparkles off the glasses of a man smoking a pipe on the bench opposite us. I fall into open arms and laughter as transience and change surround us; attention rapt, enraptured, captured, alive.
We ascend up the hill to the observatory and stand as London, evolving shifting timeless marvellous London, plays out in front of us.
Anytime I’m asked what ‘happiness’ means to me (surprisingly common for some reason) : I always say absorption. When attention is so deeply captured, that the self disappears and in its place is just the world. I get this through writing, through dancing ,through spending time with loved ones, through good conversation, through walking in nature, through joking around, having fun, and luckily in my vocation too. I can’t help but be absorbed.
There is a river, where attention pools like light —
And on it, ceaselessly flowing, a woman dances.
Her ivory bejewelled sari sways rhythmically defying the orders of the wind;
To and fro. And below her, a river : in constant motion
Such that it appears still ; a crystalline sculpture.
One inches their way closer to the bank and stares deeply into the currents —
Mountains crumbling. Glaciers melting and reforming.
Tornadoes, hurricanes, but also flowers blooming, trees shedding leaves and regrowing.
Forests sprouting from weeds, lovers in locked arms dancing, fires all consuming.
‘I am Sarasvati’ she says never pausing from her silken dance ; Goddess of all things that flow.
Ending with one of my favourite quotes by John O Donahue :
I long to live like a river flows, in constant surprise at its own unfolding
LISTENING : SUNSET ROLLERCOASTER
I want you to breath in, the wind will be gone tomorrow
EXPLORING :
- Lindy hop dance
- Writing as a daily practice (Writing Down the Bones)
THINKING ABOUT :
The importance of play.
The necessity of having a philosophical framework for life. Religions provide this, but with added mythology
David Chapman describing the textures of life : feelings and ways of seeing that emerge from our interaction with the world. These include :
- Wonder - a sense of awe and openness to mystery
- Joy - delight and happiness
- Curiosity - interest and desire to explore
- Playfulness - lightness and experimentation
- Seriousness - gravity and importance
- Confusion - disorientation and uncertainty
- Clarity - understanding and coherence
- Connection - intimacy and relationship
- Purpose - direction and meaning
They are not there to be optimised or eliminated, but just ways of relating. He says that meta rationality involves navigating those textures skilfully e.g. knowing when to be serious vs playful, curious vs decisive. The context shapes it.
This is perhaps what ‘poise’ and ‘grace’ is. The ability to navigate the textures of life skilfully.