Interior Journeys

(From Anita Nair's book of Poems, Malabar Mind; Poem: A Brief Respite)

"Several years ago, in the Gulf of Akaba, a British tourist was rescued by three dolphins from sharks. Near the Sinai Peninsula, a ship captain had stopped his boat so several passengers could watch dolphins playing. Three of the passengers decided to swim with them, and one stayed a little longer than the others. To his horror, he was bitten by a shark – and more were coming. Suddenly, three dolphins placed themselves between the tourist and the sharks, smacking the water with tails and flippers, and drove the sharks off so the man could be rescued. In 2004, a group of swimmers were confronted by a ten-foot great white shark off the northern coast of new Zealand. A pod of dolphins “herded” them together, circling them until the great white fled. There are several other examples from the area of Australia of similar incidences. In another case in the Red Sea, twelve divers who were lost for thirteen and a half hours were surrounded by dolphins for the entire time, repelling t...

A brave pigeon -- Cher Ami -- bent on performing its duty in a human war -- the madness that costed us a total of about 16, 000, 000 lives and about 20, 000, 000 wounded or maimed. It should teach us a lesson. ====================== "It’s late September of1918 in northern France. The war will end soon on November 11, but one last massive battle, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive is raging on. It’s one of the biggest conflicts of World War I, lasting 47 days until the Armistice. Over a million Allied soldiers are involved and over 25,000 Americans will die by the end of this battle. A group of 500 American soldiers led by Major Charles Whittlesey were trapped in a small depression of a hill, surrounded by Germans. After the first day, only 200 of Whittlesey’s “lost battalion” were left. To make the situation even more FUBAR, their fellow Americans didn’t know their location and had begun firing shells at them. Whittlesey sent out two messages by homing pigeon asking the ...

Sometimes during periods of grief, a nonjudgmental, comforting presence can be all it takes to lift someone’s spirits. A grief therapy dog is a specially trained dog that does just that: providing comfort in times of crisis, grief, or even disaster situations. They will offer individual care, emotional support, and compassionate listening to those affected by the loss of a loved one, as well as to responding workers or volunteers. When tragedy strikes and people are working through their grief, the simple act of petting a dog can give comfort that no words can offer. They offer more than just a warm furry body; many dogs instinctually understand when someone needs comfort and offer it unconditionally. A grief therapy dog can improve therapeutic outcomes with calming effects, brightening of mood and increased motivation. These dogs have provided their care at grief counselling sessions in children’s schools or camps and, more recently, at funeral homes. Source Here

The 33rd Kalachakra Festival, Ladakh - 3 to 14 July 2014 The word kalachakra means cycles of time, and the Kalachakra system presents three such cycles – external, internal and alternative. The external and internal cycles deal with time as we normally know it, while the alternative cycles are practices for gaining liberation from these two. Read more here.

...and being "In Love" is when you learn to walk that path between the best and the worst either without expectation or with the hope that  the worst will disappear and the best gets better;  with the path becoming a stage of pleasant, engaging drama of togetherness