Well, actually I can say a lot, but will I?
I did well with the 10 things to be grateful for. With a little help of course, from Master Jaci. It was one of the movements today as part of the Qi party. And I had a lot to deliver, which I did. Otherwise, the day had been pretty melancholy with the overcast skies getting to me. Just like the UK, which A says has been the same. Supposed to get better the day after tomorrow. In both places.
Duo lingo reminded me just in time to do what I do, so I was able to save my Streak of continuity, and even earned Legendary status, except forgot to take a screenshot of that.
K made the most delicious Japanese noodles, with oodles of veggies and generous portions of crunch white asparagus, and the Japanese greens such as Bok choy.
Had started feeding the crows and the pigeons, and now they come regularly. Glad they’re not getting familiar yet, as it’s better they not get too close because the pigeons especially, can be quite messy with no sense of toilet hygiene. The crows are different. Love that they are always looking out for their kind, and the rest appear out of nowhere, as soon as the one caws on first bite. Actually, they come out of that tree which keeps watch over me, the First Time Dancers poem tree. I haven’t named it yet. It has a lovely canopy, no flowers though.
Had tea at 11:30pm and sleepy now. I’m one of those rare specimens that can sleep after drinking tea at night. My tea has to be hot or I can’t enjoy it.
Well, I think I’m going to head to bed. At least it’s not as late as yesterday. Now today’s and yesterdays just mingle together as one. Loving that, “mingle together as one,” the Sun and the Moon, day and night, or rather uniting in the Emptiness, in the darkness of midnight, (except in summer in places like Sweden) one day merges into the next, knowing and trysting, that the Sun, devoted friend of the Earth, will come again and again and again, brin7Life giving rays of light and warmth for the welfare of all of Earth’s children. What devotion, what commitment, it must be love. And the Earth never doubts. It surrenders to her Faith in the Sun, knowing that together they nurture humanity.
It also reminds me of one of my maternal grandfather, Bauji’s, favorite verses. The one he recited for me, when I was just 20, and had just experienced my first nervous breakdown. I remember it now as if it’s a rite of passage all girls are entitled to at age 20. When it happened, everyone who loved me was hurting more deep, and it fell upon my grandfather, to salvage the broken bits and make them whole again. My grandfather, and time, and the wisdom of the poets. In this case, it was Lord Alfred Tennyson’s verse from In Memoriam:
“We have but Faith, we do not know
For knowledge is of things we see
And yet i\we trust it comes from Thee,
A beam in darkness, let it grow.”
I have often shared these lines with those in my life, when they have needed them, like I once did. My grandfather drilled them into me, with repetition, with examples, with loving elaboration, with his arms around my shoulder as we went for our walks, and sat in the middle of the Mandi House roundabout, while the traffic went around us, and my grandfather identified the flowers and trees for me, as the gardeners tended to the neatly laid beds, and several of the concrete benches in the garden remained vacant. In those days New Delhi did not have so many cars, and crossing the Road around the roundabout wasn’t much of a challenge. This part of New Delhi was sprawling with dignified buildings, well kept gardens. The stately Sapru House, Sangeet Bharti, where mummy had enrolled me for classical dance class, Triveni Kala Sangsm that came up later, the grand homes further down on Barakhamba Road, the FICCI building, across from it, and so on. On the other side was Lady Irwin College, my first Nursery school, before I joined Convent of Jesus and Mary, starting with Kindergarten. So many memories. All possible because, Life moves forward, inherently we know this.
“We have but Faith..” just as the Earth has Faith, and the Sun keeps its promise, day after day after day. Human beings do not. We are betrayed, and we betray in turn. We do so, because we know. We we know that Nature does not betray our nurture, we have that Faith, and that we take for granted, and yet we complain, forgetting, that “ beam in darkness..” we should grow with that, looking to that. Just as an acorn on the forest floor, looks beyond the thick canopy, with Faith in that one beam of light that it catches, latches in to that hope, that it will see it through to growth. We, foolish mortals embrace darkness, and dark deeds. If the acorn, returned to the darkness of the ground, it would never grow into a tree. Why don’t we trust the light? I think we know, but we let that go, we let go of our faith, when that’s the only thing we need to hold on to. Why do I forget this, when melancholia overtakes us? Life and its loops of time, power, station? Karma? Or just a lack of Faith? Distraction, shallowness of thought, of vision. I don’t have answers, and Bauji is not here, so who can I ask?
Veenu Banga
19th May 2026
1:25am.
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