Health – Page 6 – Nourish-n-Cherish

The Fascinating Behavior of Songbirds: A Morning’s Musings

It was one of those mornings in May – clear skies, the sun’s rays dancing through windows, and replacing moans quickly with sharpness and dedication.

I stood there wondering how it was so thoroughly that we transition from a supine, sleepy form to an alert, going-about-the-day form. The demands of the clock are relentless indeed.

For an instant, I stopped to hear the beautiful voice of the songbird on our garden fence. It was trilling and beautiful, and I could have sworn just a little inspired – that last note a little higher than a human would have envisioned for that piece.

It was as I was musing thus, that I noticed the son charging down the driveway to get to school on time – a sock hanging in one hand, a school project in another, and off we went. The songbird flew from my mind as we navigated the traffic, spoke of this-and-that, and chose music for the ride there.

When I came back, the songbird was still flitting about here and there. I stood mesmerized by the little flashes of movements that my phone camera would not be able to capture anyway, and listened as it chirped, and went about gathering its breakfast.

I remembered a book that I had from the library – patiently waiting its turn.

A Songbird Dreams of Singing – By Kate Hosford, Illustrated by Jennifer M Potter

I flicked open the book. The poem about the songbird was there:

Other birds may dream of worms

Or flower beds or thunderstorms

But every night this bird performs

A concert in his mind.

How marvelous to imagine a songbird rehearsing and getting better at its craft subconsciously – every night.

The book goes on to talk about research made about sngbirds:

In the case of songbirds, scientists at the University of Chicago have done studies on zebra finches demonstrating that the males practice and refine their songs while dreaming, adding little flourishes to make their version of the song unique. Zebra finches are diurnal birds who rest in the afternoon and sleep for about ten hours a night. Like many other songbirds, when they awake in the morning, they sing with particular enthusiasm in what is known as the dawn chorus.

Children’s book illustrators are so wonderful at their craft. This book too has beautiful illustrations, color schemes, and an overall look and feel of a book that is all set to send us to our worlds of dreams too.

So, what should we dream about, and subconsciously try to get better at?

What is April to you?

April is many things to the poetic brain, to the romantic at heart. It even somehow manages to give a tinge of optimism to the incorrigible pessimists amongst us.

It is the month of gorgeous signs of spring in the bay area. Hillsides filled with green grasses and wildflowers in hues of yellows, pinks, purples & oranges everywhere. It is difficult to not be buoyed up in spirits when spring gets going like this around us. The butterflies flit, bees buzz, woodpeckers peck (drill?), tulips push up through the soil, flowers burst forth from buds, barren trees cloak themselves in new leaves.

Life, it seems, wants to be up and about.

April is not just when Spring is in its glory:

📜 It is the month of poetry – I picked up a bunch of poetry books from the library the other day, and have yet to get to them. It is the thought that counts.

🌎It is the month for our dear planet Earth – well Earth Day, but I really think we should dedicate a month in which we consume more conscientiously, make choices that help our only home and all that.

📚It is the month that has a day dedicated to Books – World Book Day. I found my pace of reading especially slow this month given everything, but I still clutched them inhaling the scent of my dearly beloveds that night – too tired to read, but too stubborn to put it away and fall asleep. Someone must’ve rescued them, for I saw them in a tottering pile on my bedside table in the morning, and smiled.

🧬April 25 is also World DNA day.

This month, I found myself wandering the planet, wondering where the time went, and watching in awe as the goslings hatched, and the bird parents showed us good parenting. I found myself being inspired by humans achieving remarkable things, finding time to do the things they love, pondering on what is inherent via DNA and what can be changed via nurture, being taken aback by what we are capable of doing to one and another, and so much more.

I did not even feel my usual sense of helplessness as my to-do list remained stubbornly long. It is a list and has a right to exist, I told myself. Spring cleaning can wait, to-do lists can wait (maybe it is why we have World Workers Day on May 1st – to remind us to get back to that list)

What is April to you?

Analyzing Love

The niece & I were discussing the what-ifs, what-abouts, and why-nots of life. A vibrant character, she is also blossoming into a lovely young lady, and I told her so. She laughed.

“So do you believe in soul-mates?” she asked reminding me intensely of the sort of things the daughter would throw my way in terms of conversation.

“Yes!” I said without hesitation. I hope all of us have had that tug of friendship or love where we do not know why exactly we love a person, but we do. People name it different things: wavelength match, soul mates etc.

She tried narrowing it down though, to whether there is a soul-mate, whether destiny plays a role in determining our love lives and so on.

After a chatty session in which I got to enjoy the perspectives of the younger generation , I finally threw up my hands and said, “I don’t think we should analyze love too much. Just be glad that we can give and receive love.”

She was kind enough to not roll her eyes at that, but I knew what it must’ve cost her to do so. “That is love!”, I said, and this time she did roll her eyes.

All the talk about love and destinies and soul-mates and what not got me thinking on what a messy business life and love is.

Love in Literature

In the book, Forest of Enchantments, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni talks about all the different things love makes us do. This is a retelling of the epic saga, Ramayana, from Lord Rama’s wife and consort, Sita’s point of view.

“My first lesson on nature of love was that in a moment it could fulfill the cravings of a lifetime, like a light that someone might shine into a cavern that has been dark for a million years.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Forest of Enchantments

It is true:

Love anchors us, and unhinges us at the same time

It refines, and sometimes defines us

Love is predictable

It also makes us do unimaginable things

Love keeps us rational

It also makes us behave irrationally

As quixotic and frustrating as it all is

Love is our only hope

I thought of all the heartbreak and hurt feelings that Love leaves in its wake, of all the great stories of love that play out in our lives. Every single person around us has been affected by love or the lack thereof. We only need ask, and they only need tell.

It is my fervent hope that we all feel the positive and nourishing powers of love – whether from a friend, parent, uncle, aunt, teacher, guide, maid – at some point or the other. Every loving interaction has contributed to who we are, and why we are the way we are.

As Jane Austen says,

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”

-Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Even the love we feel for each person is defined by moments in time. So how can we rationalize, predict, counteract, and otherwise analyze this marvelous force? There is only one thing for it – be grateful.

It is why most of our literature, songs, ballads, and poems all need either love or war to make it enduring, as the daughter so eloquently put it, a few weeks ago.

War & Peace, Love & Power

As many Personalities as Versions of Success

Personalities, quirks, energy levels, circumstances, capabilities, talents – they all provide an unending range of curiosities in people. How many of us are architects, debaters, peacemakers, advocates, entertainers, logicians, schemers, investigators, engineers, doctors, artists, writers, dancers or a marvelous combination of all of the above.

Each one of us is different, yet the world is always trying to get us to be as close to a narrow path as possible. I remembered a discussion I had with my nieces a few months ago, in which I told them, “There are as many versions of success as there are personalities in the world.” , and they grinned as if to say, that is exactly the sort of thing their loving aunt would say to them, but I could see it touched a nerve for them. These young girls were vibrant, talented and looking to make their career choices.

The world is ready to give us a charter for what is considers to be success. The pursuit of making a living sometimes aligns with passions, and interests. The lucky amongst us get to pursue a vocation that aligns closely with our passions. Many float through life living ‘lives of quiet desperation’ as Henry David Thoreau so eloquently put it.

Personal Energy has always been a curious phenomenon that flits through it all. How best do we utilize the personal energy given to us? Many of us manage to find ways to keep our passions alive. Take the example of my sister-in-law and her friends, who as mothers in their 40’s managed to pursue their love for dance and performed an Arangetram.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/2024/Apr/08/age-is-just-a-number-three-mothers-in-their-40s-have-their-bharatanatyam-arangetram-in-bengaluru

The Gospel of Thomas (From the book, The Great Work of Your Life – By Stephen Cope)

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

-Gospel of Thomas

Finding out what sustains, motivates and makes us gain that spark of interest in our lives, so we may embrace our Dharma and commit to it, is a journey in itself. There are as many versions of success as there are personalities in this world. Maybe we owe it to ourselves to find what is it that needs bringing forth in our lives.

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”

– E E Cummings

Who was it who said, There are two greatest days of our lives?

The day we were born, and the day we realize why we were born?

Must’ve been a smart cookie!

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

– Mark Twain.

Of course – it was Mark Twain

For many of us, finding that spark that sustains and motivates us is a life-long quest in itself. Let’s hope we all find our sparks 🎆

The Cave of Quietude

In Quietness the Soul Expands

I sat watching the water flow, feeling the sweet caress of the gentle breeze at night, and had this strange urge to just sit there and enjoy time flowing by. It had been an exceptionally hot and dry day filled with activities and emotions.

“These are the times in life — when nothing happens — but in quietness the soul expands.”

– Kent

As we grow older, I find we need to fight for those moments in life. Find those quiet moments in which to let the soul expand. My mind wandered to what I had read about Keats and his Cave of Quietude as he calls the quiet and expansive moments of our lives.

They say of books, that each book appears at a particular moment in your life. I was reading the book, The Great Work of our Lives – By Stephen Cope, recommended to me by a good friend. I shall be ever grateful – it was marvelous and precisely the sort of book I required to read.

The Great Work of Our Lives – Our Dharma

I see this is the sort of book that I shall be giving to people who find themselves at the cross-roads. I have always thought that concepts like Dharma have a certain weighty interpretation. But to have them handled in the skillful hands of a writer like Stephen Cope makes all the difference. In a lucid style, he talks about the important concepts of the Gita and compares and contrasts them against the life of well-known poets, naturalists, and writers. He also draws parallels of the teachings against real-life people (with their names changed of course)

Excerpt:

“ Keats, in a brilliant intuitive move, now attempted to work out the problem of grasping through the protagonist of the poem he was writing.”

“How does Endymoin work it out? He enters what Keats called “The Cave of Quietude’, a retreat into the depths of consciousness. In quiet retreat and contemplation, Endymion realizes that success and failure are not the measure of life. He sees the way in which both light and shade, success and failure, and praise and blame, are all parts of life.”

When you wonder which pieces to highlight in the book, and think you shall have to re-read multiple sections because it resonates with you, it is a good book, wouldn’t you agree?

May we all find our Caves of Quietude and find moments of calm and peace in which nothing happens, and the soul expands.

Time as a Map of Reality?

Time in our Universe

I was reading about time, its paradoxes, black holes and white holes while awaiting our turn at the salon. It was a busy day, and luckily, the son and I had the foresight to take our books along to pass the time.

Every time I looked up, I saw hairdressers concentrating on their craft, while making small talk and easing their customers to relax into their chairs. It is a gift, I realized, to get their customers to trust a stranger with scissors nipping at their heads. It is hair, and it does grow back. But it also does change your immediate appearance and the perception of yourself and those around you, even if only momentarily. For a species that is vain, visually conscious, it is a fine balance to get the right look.

Time as a Map of Reality?

Back in my book on White Holes by Carlo Rovelli, the paradox of time was being explained:

white_holes

I can’t say I understood it all, but it was lovely to try:

“The reason we remember the past and not the future is entirely due to the fact that the universe was further from equilibrium at one point in the past than it is now.”

Whatever did that mean?

I read on about equilibrium, till I found something that I liked.

“The flow of reality is always more fluid than any of our frantic attempts to capture it might lead us to believe. Time is not a map of reality: it is a kind of memory storage device …”

I liked that. Time as a map of reality, or not?

No Trace Will Remain

I looked up trying to fix the concepts and the reality of my physical space at the same time. I noticed the many small ways in which we trust ourselves to those around us. It should all be organic, safe, slow, and yet in our quest for productivity everything has sped up. Watching barbers and hairdressers doing it all with confidence and aplomb in such a short span of time, was fascinating.

Watching the people in the salon getting their hair cut with those cutting the n-th customers’ hair, while trying to understand the concepts of equilibrium and time is a strangely meditative experience. The son and I watched and read in turns. The annoyance of the long wait mitigated by the philosophies of being.

“Sooner or later, every memory vanishes, canceled through the wear and tear of time. Sooner or later, of our proud civilizations, of everything that we have understood, of the words in books such as this one, of our controversies and of our desperate passions and loves…no trace will remain.”

“Would you come please?” It was our turn.

“Soon of our long locks of hair, no trace would remain!” I smirked to the son, and chin up, we made our way in.

At that moment where we are not in a black hole, or not reversing into white a hole, there is only the experience of time, and the trimming of hair.

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Chance Encounters For a Magical Journey

🐕‍🦺🪷🦌🍀🐺❄️🐀🍁 The Deer Families 🐕‍🦺🪷🦌🍀🐺❄️🐀🍁

“Think we’ll see James and Lily today?”

“I don’t know! Hopefully. It has been raining, so the poor things may have moved away, ” I said. We’ve christened the deer family near our homes. The mother and father are called Lily & James (I know!). Sometimes, there are several families – we call them all James & Lily.

We caught sight of them – much closer than they usually are, that evening, and exchanged a look so close up, it was … revealing, deep? (hard to pin down in one word). It isn’t often one gets the chance to exchange a deep searching look with a deer. It is a marvelous experience – and one we wouldn’t forget soon. Those brown eyes seem endless, and so full, it somehow fills up your being too. When poets write of moments feeling like eternity etc, I suppose this is what they meant. It could not have been more than a few seconds, and yet, the eyes spoke a language of eyes.

Whenever writers talk about pools of emotion showing in the eyes, and the shapes of their ghosts flitting through their characters’ eyes and all of that, I am never sure what to think of it. Sure, it sounds brilliant and poetic, but can we really show all of that in one glance? Looking into the deer’s eyes was oddly satiating, and it was definitely more than words can try.

Clearly the son was moved too, for he said, as soon as it left, “Do you want to talk to animals sometimes?”

I nodded. “That would be nice.”, I said

“What do you think they’d talk about?”

🐕‍🦺🪷🦌🍀🐺❄️🐀🍁 Understanding Animals 🐕‍🦺🪷🦌🍀🐺❄️🐀🍁

“I suppose it depends on the animals. Elephants have different concerns than pangolins. Bees, squirrels and ants – being more community animals may have similar concerns. But I think I’d like to know the range of emotions they have. Do squirrels have greed? Do ants have jealousy? Pelicans have been known to sacrifice themselves for their pod. “

Are there some emotions or behaviors that are completely unknown to man that our creatures possess? We know many animals feel love, despair etc.

If a wolf is kicked out of its pack, it never howls again.

– From the book, Sad Animal Facts – by Brooke Barker

“For instance, and we all know whales have complex legends in song format that they pass down. With all the skills of navigation, survival, and protecting required, I am sure they all have different topics.”

“I think I’d also like to see what kinds of things they keep in long term memory. I mean we know elephants have long-term memories, but what does that constitute? Just routes to water during times of drought or also towards betrayals etc. They must have some extraordinary lives and stories to tell then, isn’t it?”

He was nodding along. We talked about the size of their brains in proportion to their sizes. Brain ratio requires a separate post in itself, but there are so many fascinating things once you start looking into it.

For instance:

“An alligator’s brain weighs less than an oreo. “

– Quote from the book, Sad Animal Facts – By Brooke Barker

The alligator literally has the smallest brain to body ratio. Only 0.2 % of its body mass is the brain.

🐘 🐊 ⌘ Gajendra Moksha & Vishnu Sahasranamam 🐘 🐊 ⌘

This led to research on a few things about body to brain ratios, and curiously, the myth of the crocodile vs the elephant in Hindu mythology, Gajendra Moksha. It is curious how the myth pitted the lowest brain ratio animal against one of the wild animals with the highest ratios (the elephant). It is supposed to be a reminder to keep our egos in check. Gajendra finally relinquished his ego, and required the great god, Vishnu, to come in avatar form and save the elephant.

Gajendra’s plea to Lord Vishnu is called the Gajendra Stuti and is the first stanza of the Vishnu Sahasranamam (the 1000 names of Vishnu)

Please read: Post by Krishna2 on the Vishnu Sahasranamam – this post helps us comprehend us the depths of Vishnu Sahasranamam

शुक्लांबरधरं विष्णुं शशि वर्णं चतुर्भुजं ।
प्रसन्न वदनं ध्यायेत् सर्व विघ्नोपशान्तये॥

śuklāṃbaradharaṃ viṣṇuṃ śaśi varṇaṃ caturbhujaṃ |
prasanna vadanaṃ dhyāyēt sarva vighnōpaśāntayē ||

We came home fascinated by all the different things we usually do not pay attention to – filled with wonder, and awe. Many of us have forgotten what it is like to have encounters with our fellow beings – sometimes, exchanging a glance with a deer is all it takes to take on this incredible journey.

The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird, the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And on and on. It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.

–Good Morning – By Mary Oliver, Book: Blue Horses

References:

The Power of our Emotions

Patience is a Virtue

“She can be hot-tempered!” my mother would say with a damning tone, which I thought was pretty rich coming from someone who had always been a bit of a live wire.

“Patience is a virtue!” the father would say, and sing a terrible song in an even more terrible voice:

பொறுமை எனும் நகை அணிந்து

பெருமை கொள்ள வேண்டும் பெண்கள்

Meaning: Women should wear the jewels of patience, and feel pride in it.

And I would just lose it.

Again, coming from the pair that bickered their life through, it was a bit much.

From a young age, I was led to believe that impatience, anger, and hot-headedness are vices. So, every time I felt this way, it bothered me – less over time, but bothered me nonetheless. While anger is better wielded when in control, there is a necessity for righteous anger, and even anger to defend oneself, or someone else. There is also a necessity to wield it as a protective shield – especially as a woman. So, why do we continue to tell women it isn’t okay to be angry?

Is Patience a Virtue or a Vice?

Even as recent as last month, I was told that a friend of mine never lost her temper, in glowing terms. I had a cold, and was coughing and sputtering through a phone-call.

“Did you try boiling the water using the kettle?” the mother said, not listening to what I was saying at all, but telling me what to do in a voice that did a thin job of veiling her true thoughts of my competence in the kitchen.

“No mother! I took three bricks, broke a branch, and tried scraping firestones together to light a fire on which to boil water.”

Hence the : patience is a virtue refrain. 👀I could try being endlessly patient like this friend, could I not?

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As though that was her most redeeming quality. It wasn’t – she was loving, kind, generous, and funny. She was also judgmental and stubborn (her patience actually helped her win her way in the long run, so far from it being a virtue, I saw it as sometimes being problematic), but there it was.

Cranes are endlessly patient, brutally so, in their quest for what they want, aren’t they? Ask the fish what they think of that.

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“Maybe, Buddha should have been a Bodhini and taught us the way”, I snapped and put the phone down.

I did feel a twinge afterward – the poor lady was only trying to help, but really! She hadn’t even listened to what I was trying to say, which was somewhat time-critical. Too wound up to speak, and the timezones not contributing to the late hour, the crux of the communique had to be sent as a cryptic message on WhatsApp instead. This, of course, resulted in tedious messages of varying hilarity, and interruptions.

Sigh!

Anger from When Women Were Dragons – By Kelly Barnhill

women_dragons

A quote from When Women Were Dragons – By Kelly Barnhill swam to the forefront:

I am sorry. I said, I couldn't look at her face. “I .. I don’t get angry”. I shook my head. “I don’t usually get angry. But lately…”

Mrs Gyzinska gently cupped her hand against my cheek “Anger is a funny thing. And it does funny things to us if we keep it inside. I encourage you to consider a question. Who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry. Clearly not you.”

She glanced around the room. “Look at where you’re living. Think of what you’re being asked to do. You’re not angry? Hell. I’m angry on your behalf.”

I suppose, this is another of those things we need to stop telling our women. Instead stopping to think:

“Who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry?” – Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons

Just as much as we should stop telling our men to not cry, or feel vulnerable.

Be A Man

Anger and vulnerability are human emotions capable of just as much as love and loyalty, so why do we deny ourselves the power of these emotions?

Happy Womens’ Day: May we allow ourselves to be angry for the right things in the right proportion at the right time, so that we may do the right thing!

Time just slips away!

“So this is how it is,” I thought. “Time just slips away.”

― Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation

I can well understand this. He writes about how everyone has it in them to write a single piece of work – a book even, but to consistently get back to the paper and do this over and over again – that is the making of a writer. I found myself nodding and smiling at that.

While writing sagas, and series isn’t the same as writing a novel, and writing a novel isn’t the same as a novella or short story, and a short story isn’t the same as writing an article, and all of this is different from writing short bursts of poetry, or a truly honest sentence, there is one thing binding it all together. It is the search for the right words, the right phrasing, the right emotions, the right concepts, and the right flow, that is everything.

That is where the time goes. It slips away in building a life with memories worth writing about. It slips while thinking about writing. And it goes in the process of writing.

Why do you write?

Many friends ask me why I write, and my answer has been – Because I want to, have to even sometimes – an idea lodges itself and rattles itself inside till it is released onto the paper, and once done, other ideas are able to take root.

🦌 Sometimes writing is a catharsis, other times a pleasure.

🦅 Sometimes it is inexplicably hard, and other times easy.

🐿️ Sometimes it is creative and wild, other times banal and plodding.

🐦‍ Sometimes it is a thankless pursuit, other times it is rewarding.

🦢 But in its very paradoxes lies its appeal, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Writing through Time

There is also a strange comfort in knowing that writing has been all of these things for centuries – from the humans who inscribed their thoughts into clay tablets, scrolls, to those who could do the same on paper, to those of us who take to pages on the internet. Scribes, quills, pens, typewriters, and keyboards all helping the human mind make sense of their limited time on this planet in wondrous ways.

I am constantly in awe of storytellers – the kind of writing that requires not just a fount of wisdom and ideas, but also an unrelenting combination of imagination and discipline.

The Three Selves

How people write series, overarching stories, sagas spanning multiple threads, years and characters is stupendously inspiring. The ability to imagine, craft and execute is nothing short of miraculous. There are thousands of books being published every year, and that only means that many people are choosing to expand their energies in these constructive ways. How can there not be hope for humankind?

The time that slips away building all these fantastical works – is it not time savored by the writer, and then by the readers if they are able to immerse themselves in it? Is there a measure for that sort of time slipping by?

Close-up fountain pen writing notebook

🌿Loud Walks in Quiet Places🌿

Walks : Loud & Quiet

There are quiet walks and there are loud walks in quiet places.

Henry David Thoreau called it, “Taking the village with you.” or something to that effect. What he meant, I think, was that we took the problems occupying our minds and held onto them tightly, and a trifle obstinately, thereby making it harder for nature to soothe and calm. Really! The human mind is a strange thing. Sometimes, nothing sticks, and other times, nothing slides.

“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

These walks are trying at best. I found myself fiddling with poetry to try and distract the mind from the village, and the people in it. It was a feeble attempt, and one that requires far more concentration to be approved by Bard/Gemini maybe, but it’ll do. It would have to do.

Poetry: Balm to the Soul

Was poetry not the balm to the soul?

The trees are trying

The waters are waving


The swans are soothing

The squirrels are scampering


The deer are divine

The eagles are evocative


The vultures are volatile

The pelicans are pure


Yet the spirit

Remains dispirited


Some days are trying

For your mind is wavering

Just as I had managed to get nature to work its magic, I was summoned back to reality by three loud gentlemen discussing the virtues of housing all their data in the cloud, and how that reduced their costs. I found myself calculating storage costs and estimating budgets.

I looked resolutely at the clouds overhead and said loudly, “Nope – look at the real clouds!”. I may have startled a little wren foraging for food in the bushes nearby, and it took flight in an alarming manner after throwing me a reproachful glance.

Oh well!

Nature did do its work!

But, I found, on getting into the car, nature had done its work. It may have had to try harder and send a few more butterflies my way, but it did. I was much refreshed in mind and spirit, clearer in what I needed done.

I chuckled remembering Thoreau’s quote on Walking, and spending at least 4 hours a day in nature – a luxury most of us can seldom afford, but we can afford smaller bursts of it:

“I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

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