Month: September 2024

Hum of Chitter-Chatter

I’d had a trying sort of morning – my attempts at speaking had come to nought. I was speaking English, folks around me were not. I asked for chips, they told me it was several hours for nightfall. I asked for honey, I was given a shrug and a look reserved for the village fool. I left the chips and honey – life is great without chips and honey, thank you.

So, I veered off civilization and went off to moon in the woods.

It isn’t often that we stop to revel in the orchestras of everyday life. That morning I did. When I did, I found myself transported. I had rarely seen this many hummingbirds together in one place and the noises they were making chittering together was music. What were they saying to one another? Were they discussing plans for the day? 

I smiled and reluctantly moved on – human beings had meetings of their own didn’t they? 

A few days later, I stopped listening to the chatter of the crickets starting up in the evening, even as the sun dipped into the horizon bathing the skies in robes of pink and orange. The deer grazing glowed, the blackbirds fluttered while singing, but the crickets were the loudest of them all. Enough to make you stop and wonder what they must all be saying to one another.

I exchanged glances with the son who’s come on a stroll with me, and we headed back musing.

Later we had a frenzy of celebrations planned – gatherings and people. I stopped to listen to the chatter around me. It was a feeling – not voices that I heard. It was a festive occasion, so all I heard was a pleasant hum – interest, friendship, camaraderie, laughter. 

What is it about communication that enthralls us so much? I remember reading a short story by Louisa May Alcott a while  ago in which a young girl acquired the ability to understand animals and birds for a short period of time. She is baffled to realize that they can actually communicate amongst themselves as well as amongst other species. A woodpecker could talk to a squirrel and understand each other perfectly. So, they could unite and we wouldn’t have a clue.

It was a beautiful touching story, for it helped me laugh once again at our own follies. It would serve us right if that was truly the case – too smart for our own good, but all the time being pitied by the wiser creatures of the Earth. Between all the languages we’ve managed to create as humans, it is truly humbling if that were the case. (No mishaps with honey and chips I assume.) 

It also made me stop and wonder what animals hear when they us jabbering. Many times on my walks, I come across people talking shop – serious talks on finance, technology trends (I live in the Bay Area – it is a way of life – you can’t throw a stone in any which direction without someone yelping ‘AI’ – whether as an expletive or not), movies, music, other people, offices, sports, etc.

What must they make of it? I wonder.

Navigating Life With the Power of Stories

Ooh! That’s a good one!

Read it!

Hmm..must check that one out.

Whadiddesey?

Predictable! 

I was enjoying the narrative voice in my brain as I jotted down the titles almost as much as the commentary given by the folks themselves. It had been so long since we sat in a room where everyone introduced themselves with their names and their childhood favorite book. 

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As I went over the list I was writing, I wondered what those authors would feel when they heard about the kind of influence they had on children, now adults, decades later. Many of the authors we mentioned in our room were no more. Yet. Their words lived on, the worlds they created lived on, and the memories associated with these words and worlds lived on. One person said of their book that it saved them. The escape into the book saved them as a child. 

Isn’t that marvelous?

Our Fascination with Stories

I understood again our fascination with words, stories, images – in a confusing world, they provide guidance. In a fast evolving world with its revolving door of trends and gadgets, books provide continuum. 

To make sense of the world around us using stories is in itself an evolutionary gift. One that whales possess and possibly elephants too. Many creatures pass down knowledge needed to survive – are they in the form of stories? We do not know. We might soon enough. I read this article in which AI was able to decode sperm whale language. 

NPR: AI to decode Sperm Whale Language

Quote from Cosmos by Carl Sagan:

Some whale sounds are called songs, but we are still ignorant of their true nature and meaning. They range over a broad band of frequencies, down to well below the lowest sound the human ear can detect. A typical whale song lasts for perhaps 15 minutes; the longest about an hour. Often it is repeated, identically beat for beat, measure for measure, note for note. 

Very often, the members of the group will sing the same song together. By some mutual consensus, some collaborative song-writing, the piece changes month by month, slowly and predictably. These vocalizations are complex. If the songs of the humpback whale are enunciated as a tonal language, the total information content, the number of bits of information in such songs, is some 10 to the power of 6 bits, about the same as the information content of the Iliad or the Odyssey.

I would love to hear and understand the generational wisdom that these large benevolent creatures have for living in the oceans. The ever changing oceans must be a rich source of material. 

Through our words, and the stories of our lives, we help make sense of the world around us. We figure out what our heart desires, what our morals are, the choices we must make, the work we must do, the characters we want to become. 

Becoming is a Messy Business

So what are the stories we tell ourselves, and those close to us? How do those reminiscences help? I remember laughing at a statement I heard once – “avan oru padiccha muttaal  -அவன் ஒரு படிச்ச முட்டாள் ” which loosely translates to: “He is an educated fool.”, and it stuck with me. How often the growth that has to happen at critical moments in our life does not happen, and we are left dealing with the repercussions of this missed growth? The right book, the right story at the right time.

Becoming is a messy business, and yet as long as we have a sense of working towards who we are becoming, we can continue growing. 

In all these millennia, there does not seem to be a better teacher than stories. Small everyday stories of normal people navigating life in this balancing act of the universe.

Your Favorite Stories

“What about you? What was your favorite book as a child?”

I was somewhat surprised my turn had come this quickly, but I rallied, “The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. We had this 90 foot eucalyptus tree near our home. It was so tall, more than half of it was obscured in the clouds, and it was very easy to imagine that high up in the clouds were revolving worlds – a new one every few days.” I said to a titter of polite murmurs. 

The remaining folks went on with their favorite books. In describing the old tree near our childhood home and all those rainy days spent reading my favorite books, I found myself smiling a small smile. 

This would be a nice thing to share with the children and ask after their favorite books. 

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What was your favorite book as a child?

Nyctinasty Flowers’ Lessons

I could barely stay indoors. You see? The day had started off with a mild drizzle. After what felt like months of sunshine, a little bit of moisture felt amazing. I stood outside peering up at the clouds – in itself a rarity now given how parched things get during Californian summers in the Bay Area. Even with summer flowers blooming and vegetable gardens flourishing, I yearn for the simple pleasures of marvelous sunsets, clouds, a pattering of rain, some breeze.

That is perhaps one of the things I miss most about the Nilgiris – the western ghats in South India where the rain drops and eucalytpus provided the backdrop for magic and mysticism. The rains, the clouds, the winds – how in one day you can experience so many different climes and you have to be prepared for it all, and still go about your day.

Nature is Transformative

That evening I said, “Well – come on then! “  hustling everyone out to see the glorious sunset. The clouds had scattered during the course of the day, but there were enough of them still there –  enough to provide crepuscular glory with the rays of the setting sun. Some clouds looked like an artists reluctant brush stroke jostling right alongside the weightier ones. How every evening a different painting is rolled out to us continues to be a source of wonder.

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Art is transformative – so is nature.

It transforms ordinary days into extraordinary ones.

It assures you that normal is numinous.

Nyctinasty flowers

That evening, I took in the deer grazing near the river banks, the rising full-moon swollen, resplendent and beautiful against the setting sun orangish-red and bright. I don’t have to be a naturalist to know that the birds felt it, the deer felt it, the frisky fox felt it, the fish in the river felt it, the  flowers felt it. I stopped to admire everything – especially those that are classified as nyctinasty flowers :nyctinasty flowers like the evening primroses or gardenias  close up for the night. They show you the importance of closing and resting in order to bloom and spready one’s beauty for the next day.

If ever there is an appointment to keep, it is with nature in those moments in the golden hour when all the world is settling in for a quieter pace.

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Sunrises and Sunsets: An Opacarophile’s Notes of Magic

Every time we go on vacation, I proclaim proudly the first night, “I am going to go for a sunrise walk in the morning. Do not look for me!”

It is old hat by now. The children and the husband exchange amused looks and say, “Sure! Of course!” Followed by a chortle of such mirth that it should offend me. But vacations and all that – I let it slide. You see? I am rather a slow starter in the mornings. The caffeine tries, the shower tries, the folks around me try. But it takes a good hour or so before the spirit can rise and shine and birds chirping can become song to my ears and all that.

This time though, I surprised everyone including myself.

I set off on my sunrise, sunset and starry strolls every day I was there. It was marvelous – one morning, I sat trying to discern all the hues and colors in the sunrise, the shapes of the clouds, the fast disappearing mists that were clinging not a moment ago, making way for the humid day ahead of us.

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I could hear my heart rise in song without emitting a single chirp – trying to keep in tune with the little palm warblers, and the mynahs reminding me of a silly rhyme we would chant as school children, giggling ourselves silly every time.

One for success

Two for a toy

Three for a boy (giggle, giggle)

Four for a girl (giggle, giggle)

Five for a letter (we were in a boarding school)

Six for something (can’t remember)

Seven for a secret (Secret Seven By Enid Blyton must’ve inspired that one!)

And on and on, it would go.

I smiled thinking of that rhyme – something I hadn’t chanted in three decades, and yet, it came to me that morning looking at the little birds hopping about the island. The brain really is marvelous. Scents, images, words, phrases can all evoke associative memory – it truly is powerful.

Taking in the slow way in which the island is drenched in its beauty, I walked back to our cozy lodgings, feeling very smug, and proclaiming that all those who missed the sunrise .. well, missed the sunrise.

“The sun will rise again tomorrow, Mother.” the children chorused looking gobsmacked that I had taken a sunrise stroll. 

I somehow managed a sunrise stroll every day that we were there. On the last day, the husband joined me, and the island, to show us how special that was, even greeted us with a rainbow by the Buddha statue overlooking the ocean.

We were quiet for sometime wondering how a simple play of light and moisture can produce something as beautiful as that. Even the birds seemed to have fallen silent. Then the birds chirped, and the husband chattered again. 

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An opacarophile is a lover of sunrises and sunsets

A solist is one who loves events of the sun (sunrise, sunset, eclipse) etc

A heliophile is who loves the sun

A photophile is a lover of light

I feel the importance of this quote – for both sunset and sunrises

“Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under.” – C Joybell.C

Ooh! The 🐟🐠 O’opu Alamo’o 🐟🐠 & 🌴🎋 The Ohia Lehua 🌴🎋

Shoshin in Hawaii

Friends and regular readers of the blog know the immense peace and satisfaction I derive from the creatures around us. Creatures whose different characteristics serve them well. Some that evolution has equipped them with in order to live and thrive. Patience, perseverance, the ability to soar high while zoning on in the details when required, the ability to look out for one another as a group – as geese do on their long flights, or pelicans on their migrations. To work and play like dolphins and squirrels.

I could go on and on.

Going to a different ecosystem makes us sit up and take notice of all the things that are special to that place. Polynesian islands, or any islands, for that matter have this ethereal quality to their beauty. It is in the tropical colors, the unique flowers that greet us almost as soon as we land in the airports (plumeria in the case of Hawaii), the scents of the island – at once putting a great distance between the mainland and the islands. Floating by themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, these islands, have been written about, explored almost completely, and still holds enough wonder and astonishment for the traveler with shoshin in their eyes.

Shoshin: is a Japanese concept that roughly translates to a Beginner’s Mind, meaning a mindset in which one is eager to explore, learn and stay curious in the world around you.

🐟🐠 O’opu Fish : Stellar Climbers 🐟🐠

Who knew that the humble o’opu fish would take me into streams of new words like: diadromous, anadromous, euryhaline?

Take for instance the o’opu fish. As far as fish go, they are fish enough – they have fins, they swim, and they can fix you with a glassy stare. But then, just when you’re ready to classify them with thousands of other fish in the oceans, they surprise you. They are not just fish in the ocean.

They are also fish in the freshwater streams in Hawaii.

Belonging to a small group of fish with this capability, they are known as diadromous fish – meaning they are comfortable in both saltwater oceans and freshwater rivers and streams. The O’opu aren’t just diadromous fish, they are also anadromous  ( the more famous anadromous are the salmon) – meaning they swim upwards to the fresh waters to breed their young.

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The O’opu fish have the remarkable ability to adapt to different salinities in water conditions. They also, and this is where I stood transfixed, can scale waterfalls of 400 feet upwards – we saw the waterfall they go upstream of (Akaka Falls) from a distance, and it took my eyes a few seconds to take the height of the waters in.  These little goby fish, manage to scale these falls by sticking to the slippery rocks faces behind the waterfalls, in order to lay their eggs and ensure the next generation of  ‘O’opu ‘alamo’o are born.

Now, I am not sure how different this is from, say: a gobi desert dweller living and thriving in the tropical rainforests of the amazon, but it seems like a pretty good comparison to make.

🌴🎋 Ohia Lehua Trees : The Resilient Pioneers 🌴🎋

The next day, we found ourselves huffing and puffing up a small-ish hill to take in the crater of the Hawaiian volcanoes national park. (It is not a steep climb if you’re wondering). As a small group of tourists jostled around the forest ranger to listen to her talk about the volcanic national park, another unlikely specimen grabbed our attention. The short, stubby, but thoroughly resilient Ohia Lehua trees. These trees are apparently the first ones to seed life post a volcanic event. Given that volcanic ash can be quite the problem to a breather,  if you’re wondering how the little trees breathed, it is because they have the unique ability to close their  stomata for up to two weeks.

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Quote from the website:

https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-lava-loving-ohia-lehua-a-pioneer-plant-peril

The tree has a superior capacity for extending its roots vertically and can grow efficiently in cracks and fissures. ‘Ōhi‘a also have the capability to close their stomata, or breathing pores, so the trees can “hold their breath” when toxic volcanic gases are blown their way.

The Ohia Lehua trees and the O’opu Alamo’o fish are the stuff of Hawaiian legends.

Nature truly is a wonder marvel!

Reference links:

🌊 Mystic 🌊 Manta 🌊 Rays 🌊

🌠 Astrophiles 🌠

Knowing that you are floating on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – the satellites only see a speck from space. Gazing up and seeing that band of the sky is amazing. It is also such a rare luxury for lovers of the night sky. Astrophiles the world over swear by it.

My friends have asked me – curious sometimes, amused other times, and occasionally frustrated too. Why the wonder? I don’t have a proper answer. It is what we see everyday – knowing there is a big universe out there is rarely helpful to those of us trying to make a living, improve ourselves in our pursuits, live a meaningful life, and yet …

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🌊 Thalassophiles 🌊

That peek into the universe every night reminds us also to keep our perspectives. That night, I felt unmoored, overwhelmed as I  sat watching the sky. I had gazed into the ocean earlier that day. We had been manta ray diving.  Wait.That sounds way too cool. What that means is that  an experienced set of deep sea divers took us out to the ocean on their speedboats, set out floats that we could hold on to, and gave us snorkeling gear to peek into the waters, while they kept an eye on us in the choppy ocean waters.

Manta rays are plankton grazers – both phytoplankton and zooplankton. During the day the plankton float lazily at different depths spreading themselves in the ocean. And the manta rays follow them. At night, however, the plankton rise up towards bright lights. A chance observation when some construction was happening 30 years ago near Kailua Kona apparently. So, manta ray gazers use blue ocean lights under the rafters. The lights attract the plankton, the plankton attract the manta rays, and the attraction of seeing one of the world’s most beautiful, wisest, and calmest creatures in its natural habitats becomes a reality for thalassophiles (ocean lovers).

The manta rays are astounding. There aren’t words to truly describe them. When I saw the manta rays in the Disney Pixar movie, Moana, I assumed it was a special effects dream come true. But it goes to show that nature is leaps and bounds ahead of us. In how many forms can life exist? In how many ways can life astonish us? The manta rays with their wing-span (or is it the fin-span? ) can be quite astounding even if you have been briefed. The female manta rays can grow up to 16-18 feet in width, while the males can go up to 13 feet.

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There are about 300 manta rays in the area we went to. They each have names. I don’t know the names of the ones who came to see us that night. We were told about Old Bertha. She is estimated to be a 100 years old, but she could be older. Nobody knows how long they live. Maybe 250-300 years. Like a venerable sea turtle. They are also incredibly intelligent creatures. (For amateurs such as us, I could not dream of taking pictures, so a google screenshot would have to do)

Did you know?

A manta ray’s brain to body mass ratio is even better than dolphins. That puts them as one of the smartest creatures of the ocean. These curious, playful creatures show they enjoy interacting with pesky creatures who need rafts, masks on their face and a boat to navigate their dear waters. They flip up to see you, they swim and move with a grace that we can only aspire to.

Evolution really has outdone itself on our planet earth. It is a marvelous to go out into our ecosystems and see what it is that we need to protect, and also give ourselves a dose of humility. See how it is that a creature with no bone structures is able to survive so beautifully in an environment we gasp and splutter and struggle to be in. How the very things that can destroy us can make another species thrive.

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.

Jacques Yves Cousteau

Naturalists have, of course, written about the beauty of the oceans and the lifeforms they hold. But seeing the manta rays, each one with a different pattern on their backs, flip by you as they gracefully swam? I don’t think I have words for something like that. They glowed. Philosophers and mythology often speaks of the inner glow of the wise and enlightened. Did they see the sea creatures luminescence, and try to look for that in humans?

Manta Ray Facts

I felt a shiver as the image of the beautiful glowing manta rays swam up in my consciousness, and I looked up at the night skies once again.

Astrophiles & Thalassophiles

The numerous stars – billions and billions of them, all holding their own in a marvelous dance of the universe, twinkling down at you. The billions and billions of creatures in the ocean navigating the oceans with every swish of their fins and swirl of their fins. How many worlds out there holding out the promise of life? With all the different ways in which life evolved in each of them. I did not think I could sleep that day – the soul so full.  The lights we carry within ourselves and the beauty of life so all-encompassing.

But I did. Dreaming beautiful dreams of manta rays, bioluminescence, ocean depths, twinkling stars, heaving oceans, and brimming lifeforms.

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Each Day An Adventure

I can’t help but think of one of my favorite authors, Gerald Durrell and how he describes the greek island, Corfu and its environs. The colors of the island, the vibrance of everything around them.

Hawaii is similar. It isn’t lost on me how very lucky we are to be able to visit the islands

I was trying to write about our recent vacation at Big Island, Hawaii. But I found myself strangely tied up for words. I could babble, I could close my eyes and let the images of the island rise up and shine out of every cell in the body. But I was having difficulty writing posts for them.

Hawaii is a sensation. A feeling that seeps into every pore, a light that illuminates every cell. It was the only possible explanation. How else could one feel surrounded by tropical flora, the full Milky Way galaxy overnight every night, the ocean and its abundance weighing down on you from every side?

Hawaii-COLLAGE

The colors, scents, warmth, waters, stars – many island destinations provide this feeling I am sure. But there was something special about the Hawaiian islands this time. It was an impromptu trip planned on the spur of the moment, each day unfolding as it came with not much thought or action plotted. Yet, every day seemed like a perfectly planned eternity that heavens boast of. We swam in the beaches, occasionally catching glimpses of colorful fish, or be gazing out at the changing landscapes on a drive and wonder how in one moment you felt like you were in the moors of Scotland with its brambles and heathen covered vegetation and the next in the misty mountains of Nilgiris with rain spattering your windshields; and the moment after gazing upon an ocean so blue and in so many blues that it surely could not be real, could it?

Every morning, I set off on my sunrise walk – quietly taking in the changing skies, soak in the light illuminating the island, and wonder about the stark difference to our work-a-day life and mornings.

Every night, I would set off on my good night walk gazing up at the skies illuminated beyond anything I remember – maybe it was the fact that we were on an island far away in the Pacific Ocean with nothing for miles around, or something else, but the skies felt fuller – darker. Nothing but the piercing light of the stars to behold.

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“Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquillity, a timelessness, about it, so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us, glossy and colourful as a child’s transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.”

― Gerald Durrell, The Corfu Trilogy