The Sands of Time

I was digging through my writing today, or rather trawling through that which I've managed to type up, when I came across this piece which I wrote back in 2010, while sitting on the beach which used to exist at Repo, Auroville, TN.

Repo Beach, Auroville days after Cyclone Thane Jan, 2012 when there was still a beach...

Unfortunately, most of it has now eroded and the homes which were there are mere ghostly memories floating above the hungry waves...(I borrowed the picture so I hope the owner doesn't mind ^^) so this is my tribute to Repo Beach which inspired one of my favourite pieces of writing:

As I sit on the shore, letting the course sand particles drip through my fingers like thick water, I wonder…is it possible that I have touched this earth before?

Each minute grain was once a part of something a whole lot bigger. Maybe I’m not sitting on sand, but on the top of a mountain. One rock which rolled and rolled in the mountain stream, carried along in the fast moving current. Further and further it traveled, down into the river, bashed and broken.

Even further still, along tributaries, caught in the gills of a fish swimming south to the ocean. Once there, the sea dislodging and sucking each piece deeper within.

Eventually the tides, moved by the moon, churn and turn each boulder, each small stone, backwards and forwards to places unknown on the ocean bed, smaller and smaller still they go, moving down deeper and deeper, then suddenly without warning, uprooted and thrown into oblivion.

Finally, resting at my feet…

But how long this journey, one, two, ten, a hundred, a thousand or more years? No one knows. I could be sitting on earth touched by millions of souls along the way.

What I do know is that each grain still lives, still feels, still is…

The sands of time - once hard as rock, now soft as silk beneath my toes. Truly amazing to be literally on top of the world!

Immediately after writing this I had also penned the following poem:

The Sands of Time

The sands of time, they say

Billions of particles make up the bay

These grains I hold in my hand

Maybe came from a faraway land

I wonder, have I touched this piece of the earth before?

Could it be possible some came from the core?

The sea rolls in with a roar

On the backs of white horses, memories pour

Not mine, but of the sands of time…

 Copyright   04/01/10   Louise Anne Robinson

Jan 2012 - see the house on the right...

2013 - now it's gone!

Hope you enjoyed my memories...if you did you can always buy my poetry book which is available in 

e-book via my website or as a paperback via my lulu.com store.

Love & light

Louise x

A Monday Musing...

A thought...

'Billy' the kid

Just because humans deem most animals to be unintelligent doesn't mean that they are not so; it simply means that they choose not to display their intelligence to humans...which is very intelligent indeed!

Love & light
Louise xxx

Believe it or not…

There are so many whacky stories I’ve accumulated during my many years living in India, but I’m reserving those for a full book. However, the other day I found an article in the ‘Times of India’ that had me almost rolling on the floor:

Bring midwife as birth proof, 64-year-old told
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-11-19/gurgaon/44241216_1_midwife-old-gurgaon-mcg-official

Joel Joseph, TNN Nov 19, 2013, 07.02AM IST

GURGAON: Madan Lal Jain has a task he is unlikely to ever fulfil: track down the midwife who assisted in his birth 64 years ago.

Jain, a businessman in Gurgaon, needed a birth certificate, so he went to the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon and asked for one. And that was when he was told to get an affidavit signed by the midwife and two neighbours from 1949, the year he was born. The midwife was in her 40s when Jain was born, which would make at least 104 years old now.

Civic officials said the corporation has birth records only from 1963. Jain has moved the district court seeking changes in the law.

In Delhi, the administration initiates a police verification in such cases and a birth certificate is issued on the basis of that. But Jain said he was given no such option.

On the court's verdict now rests the fate of other Gurgaon residents who don't have a birth certificate and were born before 1963. The date of hearing is December 6.

"When I went to the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon office for my birth certificate, I was told records were preserved only from 1963. The officials said I would have to get a hospital record or a signed affidavit from the midwife apart from the signatures of two people who were neighbours in 1949," said Jain, who was born at his home in Gopal Nagar in old Gurgaon.

Jain does have a documented date of birth — his Punjab University marksheet — but says the officials told him it wasn't a valid paper to obtain a birth certificate.

"They also dissuaded me from filing an application with the higher authorities, saying it would be turned down too. It was then that I approached the local court to urge them to change these archaic laws and provide relief to citizens like me. I may not eventually require a birth certificate but I want these rules amended," he said.

MCG officials said they are only following rules. "For those who want to get a birth certificate prior to 1963, they need to submit the necessary documents, including signed certificates from two neighbours and the midwife, or some hospital record. There is nothing much we can do about existing rules," an MCG official said.

 There was however one consolation…it’s all the fault of the British it seems, hehehe, according to one comment posted after the article (which I actually agree with, so thanks for that):

"Our rules were originally framed by the British. After independence, the same continued. Rules and Common Sense have very little to do with each other. Our (Indians') habit of telling lies even for small things made the British wary of Indians. They made stricter and stricter rules as time went by. It was also handy for them as they could make exceptions in cases to favour some individuals who were in their ontrol. Those they could not control were subjected to the strictest of rules. The same system suited the new rulers of independent India. With an added reason. Corruption. Those who paid bribes could also expect exemptions. Both us and the rulers are responsible for the situation as it exists." - Ramesh

The Hour of Dawn

I was very priviledged to have a close friend share this original, never before published piece of writing. It had been submitted to be published in the Auroville News & Notes, unfortunately they don't accept anonymous work...anyway I can vouch for the authencitiy of this incredible channeling and hope it inspires those who understand the deeper meanings and messages conveyed through this source, by the Mother.

The Hour of Dawn       

The following is a message received from the Mother by one of her children a few days after she left her body (document dated November 23, 1973). The person who shares this precious message with you prefers to remain anonymous.

Now there is emptiness in your hearts, a sense of having lost something very, very precious, lost irretrievably.

It is wrong to feel like this because nothing has been lost and more has been given to us than the world has ever possessed before. On August 15, 1973* the miracle happened, Mother has finally given us Dawn, Dawn the beginning. With a stroke of her arm She has removed all that was against those who strive for change, those who are the builders of the future, the builders of the City of Dawn anywhere and everywhere.

So you see, there is no need for sadness, no need for tears. Tears are only for those who see the past dwindling away, who see security and all they have hidden behind torn away. They are frightened to stand there naked, forced to move forward, ahead into the unknown, or to vanish.

We who move forward have nothing to fear. We are gently pushed ahead as fast as we can move without stumbling too often and without too much pain, too many wounds. We are gently pushed by Mother who is, or wants to become ‘us’, all of us and no longer something separate or an object of adoration where everything stops, where everyone, instead of moving ahead stops, staring in awe and expecting Her alone to do the work, to change the world, to change her body, and finally to open the gate and let us all in or only those who have stood by objecting, pulling back, destroying those who wanted to help and become the objects of awe and adoration of the whole world.

Since Dawn had broken, Mother had no longer need for this little frail body; She did no longer need to study the body that was one cell in the body of the Universe. She had finished with her experiences and observations and now She is starting to change all the cells, all the cells that are willing to be changed towards, or even further, than what the one cell has already accomplished.

The pace will seem slow for those who are willing to move, willing to change; and like a cyclone for those who are solidly anchored and believed that nothing could move them, nothing could shake them out of their foundation.

Since the beginning of time, fractions of truth about the changing of the cells and how to obtain physical immortality have been revealed, but as usual those to whom it had been revealed have always been silenced or ridiculed by those who opposed and whose numbers and powers appeared so immense that the ones who should move forward started to believe it to be impossible to achieve victory, victory that looked so near, so obvious, so sure. Or, they finally, under the pressure of the opposing and unbelieving masses of ignorance and darkness, joined hands with them, and so the opportunity was lost again.

Now we live in the hour of God, in the hour of Dawn, and we are given the chance to make it the most brilliant Dawn in the history of mankind; or else to sit in meditation and contemplation, delighted and in full wonder of the glorious spectacle it revealed to us. Or, we can roll up our sleeves and be determined not to let this glorious Dawn turn into a scorching, all-destroying furnace, and finally into a lifeless comfortable coolness of evening, ending in the most impenetrable darkness of night. Or else we can decide that never again will we be satisfied with anything less splendid than what is in front of our eyes and that the only thing all our strength and energy is used for is to create an even more splendid and beautiful Dawn.

But where to start, what to do, how to act - are the questions that search through our dazed fogged minds. We ask because we are used to asking and if we get an answer we can decide with our small brains if this is the answer we wanted and move ahead. Even if it is the answer we wanted, today we are too tired to start moving, and tomorrow there is always something else, something else for so long that we finally forget. We ask again, we ask other questions, we get the same answer; but again we cannot decide to move, decide to leave Mother’s comfortable lap and throw ourselves like brave warriors into the abyss of the unknown, or into light changed into an abyss of impenetrable darkness by our fears, hesitations and indecision.

These are the choices we have, the result will be the result of what we have chosen, and it is up to us, to each one alone to make the right decision, a decision that is unchangeable and final.

* Mother’s last darshan.

Note: I took the picture from the internet and share it with love

Writers Block II

19.11.13

It’s 5:30 am and I’m contemplating at this early hour whether to write or play patience (or solitaire, depending on where you come from). I feel a part of me protesting wildly at having been dragged out of bed at this so called ungodly hour. Yet all hours belong to God don’t they so that part of me really doesn’t have a strong case of defense? I wonder why we use that phrase ‘ungodly hour’, maybe it’s just the Brits. There’s another part of me demanding I turn out the light on the terrace, surrounded by a myriad of greens and the early morning calls of the fauna – actually read here, the almost annoying squawks of one particularly boisterous crow at this point. Somebody give me a gun… He’s sounding very excited, almost like an insistent child who knows if they continue in the same monotonous pitch, with the same word, for long enough they’ll get the attention they vie for, “Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum…”

Oh God, I’ve suddenly gone deaf! Oh no, the crow just stopped mid-track, leaving a gaping void in the noise space. Not to worry there are more coming, one’s there already with a slightly different, somehow more acceptable pitch.

As you can see, the part of me which wants the light off so it can listen to the world waking up is quite a healthy and hearty fellow and I force myself to write what I see, hear and feel. Even now the silence is interspersed with the distant sounds of the cockerel’s chorus. If you take the time to study these sounds you’ll discover that their crowing is much the same as the messaging system used by the dogs. The morning chronicle seems to echo for miles. First one ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo’, followed by one a little more faint and coming from the village half a kilometer away, followed by another more transparent ‘Doodle-do’ still a bit farther away, probably the village down by the sea…and then suddenly back next to your ear in an unapologetic, “Wake up I’m hungry” kind of fashion. At least that’s what used to happen with my cockerel Lucky Chucky as he would do this from just underneath my bedroom window – but that’s a story for another time. I realize that they are very polite, the cockerels. You never hear them fighting to be heard. We humans could learn a lot from the behavior of most of the animals we deem stupid enough to eat.

There’s a calming but powerful ‘whoosh, whoosh, whoosh’ overhead as a bird, outlined black as coal against the early morning dusty blue hue of the new sky pushing the moon away, hastily yet effortlessly flies about his business. I realize that what only seems like moments ago, when I raised my pen to transfer my agonies and indecision to paper, to extrapolate all the negativities so as to begin anew, I realize that it was then what one might consider to be night-time. Now there’s soft light all around me and the first glittering’s of the stretching sun on the tops of the trees. Did the earth suddenly accelerate its rate of rotation or did I maybe doze off into my coffee a while? No, it can’t be the latter as the honeypot, sitting tantalizingly on the tired, wooden-slatted blue weather and grime washed circular table hasn’t got any ants feverously trying to scramble their way up to the lid where they might wiggle their tiny bodies into the helter-skelter spiral under the ill-fitting lid. It can only be a matter of minutes since I began my little exercise as the coffees still hot…which now proves to me just how easy writing everyday should be if I can only firmly and resolutely apply some self-discipline and perseverance.

The bonus for this morning is that the water in the already leaking, brand new Prestige kettle is still hot enough for a second cup of brown and sludgy elixir so I have a little light work to do.

Plus tard mes amis…Louise x

Writer's Block - Part I

I've recently taken the plunge and enrolled for an on-line/distance creative writing course. I know I've already produced some stuff but I need some skills so people will actually buy my books. Just the fact that I've enrolled seems to have given me the much needed kick up the proverbial backside. Hopefully now I'll be motivated to make regular contributions to my blog...here goes:

18.11.13

‘Write…just write. Write when the thoughts come and don’t worry about what arrives on the paper. Write, write the essence of the story…’

…is the thought which just came to my mind. So here I am, writing. As usual when a thought to begin the creativity comes, especially, or rather it only happens with the writing – not the poems though, there is always something to distract from the original track of thoughts. The distraction is most often enough to take me off on a tangent so I don’t actually start to write. I wonder if it’s a subconscious block or if it’s a real part of me, say the vital, which fights this particular gift of mine so it will never get to shine. Or, maybe, it’s an entity, or more than one, with the same negative intention, stifling any chance of success.

Just now, for instance, I began with a thought and wrote almost 2 pages in my head before I awoke to myself and reprimanded that ‘me’ for not taking appropriate action. I forced myself out of the chair and went to retrieve my notepad and pen. These basic instruments had been in virtually the same vicinity, together, for weeks. Yet, as I decided I needed them both – they mysteriously separated. Now, I knew that I had two black ballpoint pens yesterday, and I knew they were in my rucksack. However, despite unzipping and zipping, delving and ferreting around amongst the 2 possible pockets in which they could fit and which I knew was where I kept them, nothing materialized; except a small piece of sad looking white chalk (just in case) and the inevitable fluff balls and biscuit crumbs which always lurk in bags and pockets even if you don’t eat any biscuits – the fluff is obviously mandatory. I checked the table outside our room where we’re staying with our most patient and understanding friends while we try and sell the house so we can end our refugee status. I checked all the chairs, under the magically multiplying mound of clothes, under the bed, on the table again, in the wardrobe and then went back to the bag a second and third time. All the while I was muttering “It’s impossible, always the same, impossible. I know they’re here. I know you’re here somewhere…”On the fourth, determined rummage in the bag…another deep diving expedition, this time even more meticulously scanning the edges of the dark corners with my furtive fingers, confident now that there were no small beasties lurking there…and voila! Two pens gleefully revealed themselves at the bottom of the first place I looked! Phooey!

Even as I scribble this little distraction I desperately hold on to the line that had risen in my head, the one with which to start my prose…and all of a sudden, ‘whoosh’, a magnificent teal kingfisher mischievously swoops in and landed to dance on the roof top of the unfinished building which loomed from amongst the trees a little way away. There he swayed, twisting and turning in the early morning sunlight so that his true brilliant blueness dazzled through the sea of shimmying, whispering green cashew and neem trees in my avenue of view. A cheeky glint of yellow, a seductive sliver of red and as I giggled to myself at the audacity of it all…poof, he was gone, taking his long, strong shoe horn of a beak with him. Me, I was left scribbling feverously, still trying to keep the original storyline in my peripheral vision and in parallel wondering if at all I should still be in the mood to start that new story today or whether I should simply add the note of the storyline and the characters to the ever growing list of scenarios…I wondered if the electricity had returned too, so I could have my morning elixir and reprimand myself at the untidiness of my hand writing, which no-one else but me would probably ever be able to decipher.

I must print out all the typed up pages of all my notes (just in case).

Have a beautiful day!

Love Louise x