A POEM AND SOME MORE THOUGHTS ON LOVE AND LOVING

here is a poem I wrote thirty years ago on the same topic

If there isn't any,
love,
let's make it!

Sexual connotations notwithstanding, it is still true today. First, that we make (create) love, by loving; and secondly, we are creators, reflections of the Arch Creator, Creatrix, and have it in our power to create that which we most need. I think we would be going astray if we thought we could do it entirely on our own, with the muscles of our will power, without divine help, and as with all major endeavors (isn't love the greatest of them all?) we have to begin with a prayer to the Arch Lover of them all. Seek divine aid honestly, sincerely, and you cannot fail.

FOOTNOTE: I do not only mean to include sexual, erotic love with the Other, though that is primary in our consciousness, but all sorts of love, including love for strangers. Just try it: sitting in an airport, in a mall, just send out love vibes as an experiment. Do it for your own sake. People may or may not benefit by our love (though they cannot fail to do so), but it is we who benefit most of all. I think love and loving can cure illnesses and can certainly makes the juices of our clogged hearts flow. Nothing can infect us more seriously than love ungiven. Human relationships can be hugely complex (I am not denying it in the least), but if we begin our journey towards love with loving the matrix of our being, the Universe, God, Goddess, plasma of this mystery in which we live so very unconsciously, we would have taken a giant step towards easing this brief journey we call life.

LARGER VERSION OF MY DEATH'S HEAD PORTRAIT

some of you couldn't see the picture well, so here is a larger version. Also, Libby, who took this photograph, remembered the artist's name: Clemente. Here's a portrait of him, too. Didn't mean to attach the photograph of Payson and me in Loreto, but here it is!

MY REFLECTION IN THE DEATH'S HEAD MIRROR ON MY BIRTHDAY

Please look carefully at my picture in my profile -- it isn't very clear, but you can see that the mirror has a skull on it. I found this mirror in San Ignacio in Mexico when we were there for our whale kissing tour in Kuyima camp this February. We stayed in San Ignacio in the pensione of Juanita, an American expat whose home was full of the art of a local artist whose name I forget in my dotage.  Such is the story of obscure artists who labor in love in anonymity. Payson wanted to visit him and though I was tired of funky camp living and wanted just to return to the relative comfort of our hotel in Loreto, I accompanied him and our artist friend, Libby, to  the artist's studio. I was instantly drawn to the mirror and told Libby to please take this photograph.

Why do I mention it? Because I turn 65 today, the official age of becoming a senior citizen in the US. You go on social security, Medicare, and you start getting notices in the mail to pre-pay for your cremation. If you haven't lived with death before now, you better start doing so now, for you are on the threshold. Actually, you are always on the threshold, each moment can be the gateway to whatever there is or isn't on the Other Side.

If I hadn't thought the death's head mirror too heavy to carry back on the plane to the US, I would have bought it. But I didn't, not only because it was too bulky but because I am stepping into that space  time where things matter less as less, or matter only as symbols. The journey towards that abstraction from which we come has begun. I still love things, am still quite materialistic, was thrilled by Payson's many gifts to me this morning, paintings, a poem inscribed on a painting, and three pairs of 2500 year old antique gold earrings from Rome and Greece (a virtual gift so far, photographs on my computer, since I won't get to see or hold them till I get to the US), and our staff's annual gift of flowers, so many flowers that our house is full of them. But what I loved most of all was the very, very simple, ordinary (only till it becomes extraordinary in the death's head mirror) vibrant fact that I was alive, Payson was alive, my mother, my dogs were alive and with me; that a new day had begun, quite ordinary in every way, thank heavens.  Though I do not subscribe to the hype around birthdays, I think it is a good day to fill with gratitude. Ultimately, of course, it must be a reminder to live each day as if it were your birthday.

MISTRESS INSTEAD OF SLAVE

Thanks, friends, for your comments on my last blog entry about Oxygen. I don't want to impose my blogs on you, so if you want, you can go to my blog at kamlakkapur.blogspot.in and sign in to receive  my posts. Or not. I will continue to forward for a few months to give you ample time to sign in, or not. This is the first time I have forwarded a post to my friends in over two years of blogging owing to a subconscious desire to be read by people I do not know, a sort of an objective evaluation of my 'worth' so to speak. But this is phooey baloney, so here I am, sending it to my dear ones again.

After I heard from you in appreciation of the last forwarded post, I had a subconscious (it's always that, isn't it, till you pull it out by its tail from the depths with conscious probing) urge and stress to write  more posts, get more wonderful comments! But I turn 65 in a week, and I have resolved to be mistress instead of slave to my subconscious urges. Another resolution is not to hurry anymore. This may be a sign of aging, but I adore the idea of not cutting corners with myself, of pushing, pulling, conforming to some idea of what is 'productive' and what is not.

A LESSON ON LOVING LEARNED FROM MY DOGS

I have two female dogs, Foxy, 6 or 7, and Bhalli, three this month. They live in our India home and I do not take them with me to the US when I leave to be there for around five months. This is difficult for  them and for me, though I try to make it as easy for them as I can. I have our chawkidar, or grounds keeper, Himmat and his wife, Meera, move into the house where there is a German woodstove, ensure there is plenty of wood for the winter, pay the Chawkidar really well for their food, chicken, milk, eggs, ghee, rotis and rice, doggie biscuits and bones. They are always healthy and happy when I return, and I know they have been well taken care of. But that isn't really the issue. Though I try not to worry about them too much (hungry leopards come down to the village in winter and eat dogs, goats, cattle) since Himmat takes really good care of them and we have a fence around our house, I always wonder on my return whether I should love them wholeheartedly or not, fearing we will get too attached to each other. There is always a distance when I return -- they don't know how much to love me, either, considering I have been leaving every winter for a long stretch. But each year I come to one conclusion -- I have to love them wholeheartedly, and more, if possible, because I know I am going to leave. I think this is a definition of detachment -- love wholly and then let go, easily, when circumstances demand it. And circumstances always demand it. If nothing else, there is always death.

SOME IMPORTANT LESSONS ON LOVE AND LOVING

I know many people, including myself, who want to be loved for what they do instead of what they are. I had always thought that if only I wrote enough books, I would be loved. You think that if you are important, somebody, who does interesting things, achieves this or that, you become lovable. Nothing can be further from the truth. You will be admired, or envied, but you won't be loved.

I have learned that this is a very important thing to learn. It is not something one learns once and for all, but is a process of continual remembering. The only way to be loved is to love; to learn to love; to become the kind of person for whom love and loving is important. This includes, first of all, loving oneself.

What was that line by the Beatles? The love you take is equal to the love you make.

DOING NEW THINGS OR THE POWER OF OXYGEN

It is very important to do new things for brain plasticity. I have had cabin fever, low grade boredom and depression, nothing serious, but just that nagging need for newness, something different, another way to be than the usual one of waking up and doing the same things every day: in my case, being in my study, reading, researching, taking notes, emailing, making music, embroidering a bit, knitting, playing backgammon, watching TV. I thought I needed to travel. I  know a lot of people who do a lot of traveling just to get out of the rut, so to speak. Let me clarify -- in the best of times, and most of the times it is the best of times for me, I love to do all the things I do, but sometimes even the best of things becomes a rut. So, I wanted to travel, but our driver in India was away for two weeks taking care of his severely diabetic wife, so that was out of the question. I knew I had to do something new right around here, for even the usual hikes in nature were not working. Even the days I took off from my chores were not rejuvenating because then I just lay about, and glorious laziness was glorious no longer.

Three days ago a very simple thing happened. I woke up, it was a warm morning, and I wanted to be outdoors, so I made myself a cup of tea, took the portable lounger into the garden, and just sat there, sipping the tea and watching the sun rise from the cleft in the high peeks around our home, and listening to the early morning chattering of birds. And it wasn't just chattering, but the Blue Whistling Thrush, that sings my favorite birdsong, lyrical, liquid, long and so soulful it makes you stop and listen, was in a happy singing mood. I must have sat for an hour and when I returned to the house, I was a new being. But the one hour wasn't enough. Payson and I took a picnic of cut vegetables, olives, cheese, and some snacks for the dogs and went to one of our favorite places -- Shoja Nala; some call it Jalora Nala -- to while away many hours later in the day. We crossed the Nala, a fallen tree provided a merciful bridge over the crystal waters, and we were on the other shore on a patch of moss covered earth by a huge boulder. The dogs were ecstatic and so were we. No, ecstasy is the wrong word. Nothing that dramatic, just a quiet being, doing nothing but looking and being in the green, listening to the sound of water, watching the movement of water and clouds. Nothing like nature to bring you out of your head and into the present, the moment, Now. We spent hours there, doing nothing, just talking occasionally, and playing with the dogs.

Talk about being in a rut -- it took us three months, workaholics that we are, to get to a place that is only twenty or thirty minutes from our home and which we both love. Too much of being in the groove of work makes the soul rebel, and we have to listen to it when it speaks to us so persistently that nothing we do of the usual thing works anymore.

That evening, too, we brought our chairs to the porch -- and wonderful chairs they are, that recline and make you look up at the sky and the wall of green across our home -- and watched the light fade. Sometimes, you know, it is just pure oxygen that the body and soul crave.