do you shop for peace........

It was winter in Delhi but the city was warm by our standards. We were in short sleeved shirts and everyone else in warm jackets. Delhi is a beautiful city, it took my heart the first time I landed at Indira Gandhi airport. The teeming crowds, the cacophony of people shouting, horns blaring and the hum of thousands of types of motorised transport assail the senses. I was struck by the order underlying the apparent chaos, how drivers gave way to each other without anger and how everything moved to a rythym redolent of the heart of India. Walking in the markets the first purchase had to be an Aum for my yoga teacher back home. This little stall with it's crowded, bright merchandise drew me in because the indigo called me to take part in it's richness. It was only when i saw this photo, I realised the indigo of my bag carried the colours across very harmoniously. Harmony is at the heart of India. I understood instinctively that this was the start of a personal Yatra that will last till the end of my time.

I had a friend who loved the stars - for Jeanne

I had a friend who loved the stars

In the early days she flew over the African landscape in planes that always landed,

but only the light touch of the pilots fingers and God kept them in the air.

Once she showed me a picture she took looking into Kilimanjaro,

The gaping throat of the African earth reaching for their tiny craft

as they raced the dusk to make an emergency landing in fields

lit by the headlights of the farmers trucks,

the villagers watching spellbound as the plane sputtered out of the sky.

I had a friend who loved the stars

So much that she trained as a tail gunner's spotter in world war two

Even the knowledge that she would surely die

Seemed insignificant when measured against embracing Indra's net.

But she sailed the seas where the stars were echoed in the waves,

bringing stolen women home from their horrific sacrifice.

I had a friend who loved the stars

and watched each night over the water as the tiny lights of far distant aircraft

sparkled like tiny jewels in the still waters of the vlei in front of her home

lights singing to her of places she had never seen, but longed for.

I had a friend who loved the stars

and like the stars her radiance and sparkle kindled love in all who met her.

She would smile from the heart and tell

Stories of an Africa that has has long since been eclipsed

by dark shadows and where death and cruelty stalk the night

and violence sheds the blood of day.

I had a friend who loved the stars

And while I looked away death came and took her to himself

But I'm sure that in the night sky as the stars slide into the dawn

I can catch the echo of her spirit she dances

around the moon, at one with her kind at last.

where it started

"Every Day You Play" by Pablo Neruda

Every day you play with the light of the universe.

Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.

You are more than this white head that I hold tightly

as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.

Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?

Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.

The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.

Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.

The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.

The wind. The wind.

I can contend only against the power of men.

The storm whirls dark leaves

and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.

You will answer me to the last cry.

Cling to me as though you were frightened.

Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,

and even your breasts smell of it.

While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies

I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,

my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,

and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.

A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.

I go so far as to think that you own the universe.

I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,

dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.