“Despair is a Sin Against Imagination.” – Innuit Saying

Journal Entry: April 27, 2012

Sitting quietly, I breathe in deeply into my belly button.  Life flows into every part of me and I am renewed and reborn.  Silence. Fully inflated belly.  I am round like the earth.  Bigger than the roundness of earth.  Now the breath flows outward again.  Deflated, the death feeling comes to the body.  Who am I?  Inward again, the momentum draws even a larger circle within.  Who breathes me in?  In that last hour, will I know?  Which "I" will know?  The one leaving or the one staying?  What story will be revealed to me in that mystery?  Will I return to the Garden of Eden?  Will I enter a great mansion?  Will I leave the back of a great turtle?  Whose story will claim my last breath?  Breathing outward, the question disappears.  Continuing to inhale, my body disappears.  My last thought is: How can this feeling be expressed in art?  The story lives on.  It is all I know.  Everything.

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing?  When did you stop singing?  When did you stop being enchanted by stories?  When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?”

- Gabrielle Roth

 

Consciousness Creates My Reality

Tomorrow I will draw another fence around my life
And call it being another year older
As every morning the dogs of self-judgment will snarl
I cannot ever remember waking to a feeling of not dreading
That I might be wasting time
Blinded by my pre-occupations
Totally self-absorbed
But after a while
The critical moment passes
When once again I ask for an abundant day
Guided by ecstatic poets and painters and singers
To leave their mark on my thoughts
For generosity to open the heart
With whispers echoing everywhere
“Follow your bliss”
My head bows at the feet of the Creator
Canvas ready
Guitar poised
Pen in hand
Silence floods my senses
The elation comes
To once again proclaim:
“I Am That I Am”

© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry April 24, 2012

It has taken years for me to realize that thoughts can be fine tuned, transformed, deleted out  just like the words on this page.  It is a gift to realize that we are not the mind, but rather the mind is for us to fine-tune like an instrument.  We are something much more than this.  Thoughts come and go.  The world has its shower of thoughts raining over us and when we are aware of this, we can pick and choose what to keep and what to discard.  Thoughts help us to travel with the imagination to places we have never gone to before.  When it becomes overwhelming to deal with the emotions that come with some ideas, then we can slow everything down and focus on a single concept.  There are those ancient sages, musicians, poets, visionaries who have left us their legacies of mastering the mind.  They have taught us that the key to a fulfilling life is not to be found in the mind but in the realm of the heart.  They have guided us to shape words and images toward that purpose of exploring the mysteries of the ennobled feeling heart.  The masters have taught us the essentials are humility and trust in an Intelligence beyond the one we know.  In silence, this Intelligence expands us and guides the mind to accept oneness with the Creator.    

"Be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will fall in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka

His Song Will Always Return Home:

Sometimes a song builds a whole world

In a room where everything disappears

A new layer of Creation rises from No-Thing

Where every thing feels real

Shiva appears and touches the forehead

Arouses the faculty of Imagination

In the Great Temple of Peace

The song now expands and rolls like the sea

Drops of liquid music gently pour 

Soaked with the opulence of Immortality

The beginning and end are one

Beyond past

Beyond present

Beyond future

The Great Silence prevails 

Until Shiva touches the forehead again

Returning once more to the ancient Temple

The mind thinks:

“Please don’t let this feeling end”

As Shiva slowly fades into the shadows

Into the familiarity of the apartment 

The heart softly assures :

“His song will always return Home”

© Ganga Fondan, 2012

Journal Entry: April 15, 2012

Whenever I go to visit a particular park in my neighborhood, the walk in always seems so much more ordinary than the walk out of the park. Yesterday was no exception. Although the trees and shrubs are all nearly fully green on my street, the ones in the park were just beginning to change color. Many trees had been cut down and the whole walk seemed so grey and dead at first. Then suddenly I spotted a patch of Skunk Cabbage in a clearing on the left. I leaned over the wooden railing and stared down into the delightful green hue. Yes there was life and celebration in this park. Walking onward I noticed more and more of these green patches and finally in the distance heard the rushing of the stream nearby. Suddenly I looked up to see the first tiny buds on a tree leaning over the wooden walkway. These trees were definitely ready to burst into the new season again. Finally reaching the stream, I leapt onto a large rock in the middle of the water and sat down. After a long silence, I felt the urge to quietly hum a melody that rose within me. There in that stream, with a soft breeze against my face, I could feel Spring itself singing the secrets of nature to me.

Later at home, my thoughts turned to the Hindu God, Shiva. He embodies destruction and renewal. He is the third aspect of life which follows Creation and Preservation. Shiva has always unnerved me a bit because the idea of change has at times frightened me. I often like things to stay the same for a long time. Something in me lately has embraced the idea of change whole-heartedly. It feels easier to invoke new ideas and possibilities. Perhaps Shiva has done His work with me and I feel this renewal now. Perhaps like that beautiful park, my life is ready to dive into an audacious Spring. Lightness of Being envelops me until bursting with songs and artwork my path opens up to show me the way again. Peace shows me the way.


"One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal." - Martin Luther King