Falling leaves and yellow ochre magic

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Today, I had stopped to watch the yellow/ocher leaves of a tree falling ever so gently to the ground after doing a lovely contemporary dance in mid air! One, that could put Astaad Deboo to shame!

I wondered... There was a time, during my monsoon walks with Ginger when I'd thought, how I was going to survive the bare cold winter walks! But today, I was stunned at the beauty I experienced!

An utterly simple act of nondescript drying leaves falling off the bare branches of an equally plain-looking tree tree. A regular winter activity, a seasonal routine, could mesmerize me and hold me captive with it's beauty! That's when I realized how even winter mornings have hypnotized me with their unique beauty, reminding me of an interesting quote... “The beauty of spring lies in its colours, the beauty of winter lies in its imagination!”

It's amazing how when you let down your guard, forget the years, forget your physical limitations, forget just about everything, surrender yourself to that sense of wonderment, and allow yourself to be carried away by the magic of the moment! Nothing else matters! And then the sheer beauty that's surrounding you, kind of gathers itself and directs every bit of it's magic towards you!

You become the chosen one! The entire universe revolves around you! For that moment all your pain, worries, stress, problems seem so inconsequential against the beauty surrounding you! You are the most beautiful person in the world, the most powerful, invincible! There couldn't be a better meditation, a better therapy than this...

Inspiration at ground level...

These are the lovely seed pods of the Mandar tree along with the dried leaves! Don't they make a beautiful picture?

Noticed these on one of my recent morning walks with Ginger. And now every morning, I make it a point to stop under this tree and watch this very interesting carpet of leaves and seed pods. There's so much to observe! The subtle manner in which the pods twist, the colours- ranging from olive green to ocher to sienna all the way to umber, the play of light and shadow, the texture, the symmetry in the distance between each twist ... Utterly inspiring!

Very simply put, your inspiration could be anything or anyone! You can't plan for a seizure of feeling, or for a fit of inspiration, and for this reason I try putting everything aside when I am inspired and simply grab the moment for all its beauty!

I've used these seed pods in my earlier sessions/camps and got students to exercise their creativity to come up with something innovative. And the results have been amazing!

I think Ginger too is picking up my style and now-a-days, I see him sniffing about more than usual and peering at stuff along with me !

The last of the monsoon moss...

I have been observing and clicking pictures of moss covered walls all through the lovely Dharwad monsoon. Even my 5.15 AM walks with Ginger, my lab in the beautiful rains were forever punctuated with me looking over, bending under, peeping into, peering between, looking through... for these lush velvety patches of emerald green moss and the feathery maiden hair fern, so typical of the Dharwad monsoon!

It's about a month now that winter's set in and the walls, that all these days sported vibrant shades of green, have now gradually slipped into robes of subtle sober shades of brown and ocher, leaving me scanning every inch for a teeny weeny bit of green velvet...

A fortnight back, I was lucky to have spotted this patch of fresh green moss on my morning walk with Ginger. I spied it on the part of a compound wall that was fortunately shaded by a huge rain tree. And the beautiful bonus was the drops of sparkling dew so precariously perched on the wispy fronds of the moss. I jumped with excitement! And Ginger jumped alongside in surprise, wondering what I was up to. The moment he saw me pull out my camera, I'm sure he muttered to himself, "There goes my Ma all over again...!"