Many moons have long passed since I found myself under her spell, too many to count. Those fond memories stay with me like a trusted friend through anguish and delight. This Sunday I’ll come ‘home’ once again to beloved mother India where I’ll spend one month. There is something spellbinding about this part of the world that fills my soul with deep contentment and familiarity unlike anywhere else on physical earth. A place where skies burn orange and purple, and the water kisses the shore.
This land enchants all who open their hearts to her (explains why the British spent a good 500 years here, and had to be forced out) India is like the mystic snake charmer, if you listen from the depths of your being your consciousness enters into a soothing trance. The human spirit is enticed from dusk till dawn by her hypnotic melody, you can’t help but surrender and fall at her feet. The air here breathes life, inhaling and exhaling releasing the crickets song. With each breath her heaving lungs sweep aside the burnt earth.
Sometimes you might catch a palm tree dancing to her hypnotic song beneath the moonlight. Yes she will charm the pants off you, if you allow her. It’s easy to become lost amongst the thick furrows of palm trees, sprawled against the dusk like satisfied spiders that have consumed a good meal. Their leaves twirl happily as the warm winds drift through. In childhood I lived under her hospitality forever connected to the warmth of the stars. Like two lovers dancing in Eternity, this is how India makes my spirit feel.
All is steeped in rich Mysticism, Spirituality and History. Even the national greeting cannot escape meaning; “Namaste” the Chai wala says “the light within me honors the light within you.” I press my hands together and smile “Namaste ji”. There’s a beehive of activity to be found away from the safety of the mountains and ocean. “Here chaos and insanity reign.” says my father, but somehow neither disturbs my consciousness. I welcome them both. Beneath the chaos, the benevolence of the cosmos conducts order.
Across cityscapes cars shout at one another furiously, people with lobster coloured skin go about their business, and a young girl rattles her tin. The mucous around her nose crusted and dry from exposure to the unrelenting sun. It is a land of contrasts, a land of beauty, of despair, an enchanting land that stirs the embers of the human spirit, that I invite to be touched by once more.