In the Deathliness of Space

The annual festival of life is in full swing - flowers are everywhere.

11th October, 2009  

This morning, no rain. The ground cool, but not cold. Spongy, but not wet. The air still, intense, and pure. The sounds, sharp, and separate, and beautiful; a sudden cry from somewhere above, then a song, then a warble, then all of them at once, then silence.

The tree is in loveliness, bunches of petals have emerged from wood, a common miracle. She surrounds me. I squat, eyes closed, hands joined in prayer; I think towards her.

I feel as if in a circle, as if her branches reach down over me to the ground, encircling and wrapping me so that with the roots plunging down below and the branches circling above, I am enclosed by her and held. All the other flowers and under-plants are within that encircling. I feel her as concentrated energy, relaxed energy, which is entirely directed, single purpose – strong, therefore, in its force. Perhaps the circle is formed by her connection with her own root mass, an attraction between the upper and lower zones that bridges the gap.

I rest there in nature’s lushness and beauty, nature’s soft hand and determined intelligence, I am accepted into her circle of benign power. The plants are all still. The ground is still.

I pour the water, and it seeps. I place the incense and the smoke curls slowly up. I place the jyoti. The little light with its flame form and flame colour is like a flame flower.

The other flowers love the flame, they love the incense, they accept them into their beauty, their circle, their subtlety, their peace. They all sit there together, making effortless beauty and sustaining all the life of this planet, in the deathliness of space.