One virus that not just impacted health…

I saw them all falling victim during this peace time war-like situation…

A little, broken boy who depended on school meals…

An assistant teacher who had been saving for college tuition…

An old lady who picked leftovers from empty racks at her grocery store…

One sudden layoff that left a family in a lurch…

A single mom who got released from her job in a closing restaurant…

A sick girl who had been waiting for Spring to play in the park…

A housewife who struggled to keep kids quiet as the husband worked from home…

A family that had saved and booked for a vacation…

A student who wanted to pass an exam to support his family…

A family whose visa needs demanded travel during hazardous times…

Parents who had made plans for their daughter’s wedding…

A niece who wanted to visit her dying aunt in a different city…

A family stuck in another country waiting for this ordeal to pass…

So many lives have stopped, changed and jolted as coronavirus continues to spread around the world…

But I have immense faith in the resilience of the human spirit. Hang in there, this too shall pass!🙏🏻

(Image courtesy Google)

Just a Thought – The Retreat Within!

You feel immensely empowered when you carve a retreat within yourself – the charging space that you can get back to whenever the world overwhelms you.

And you come back from it rejuvenated, relaxed and full of energy to get on with life and its challenges. And you hold the power to return to that space anytime! No expenses problems, no bookings just discipline, faith and immense will power.

And the experience – priceless!🙏🏻

(Picture – Shivangi’s Phone)

Just a Thought – Rerouting

We only think about the impediments, the problems that are stopping us to expand. How about embracing the possibilities created due to those problems?

The road block may stop us from going on our familiar road but it cannot stop us from rerouting and finding a brand new path. And oh, the immense joy of discovering limitless opportunities on a path of your own finding…!

Just a Thought – The gap is the link?

When we see the glow between branches and watch the sky behind tiny clouds…when we enjoy the crevices in mountains and the moment before sunrise…

when we focus on the surface of a painting, outlines of human forms, the rest in a musical note, the space between words, the stillness joining two sounds and…the pause… linking two breaths and when we meditate in between chaos…we experience, there is something about the interval……the pause!

What is the quality of the pause, the gap? Is the gap the link to that? And why do we always ignore the gap?

Images: My Phone

Small Things#21 – If the Earth was a Rubik’s cube…

The older brother’s passion for solving a Rubik’s cube has fired the imagination of my five-year-old, lately. He has been trying to imitate the moves of big brother to solve the famous puzzle. “What if the Earth was a Rubik’s cube?” I asked him.

The answer was chatty, funny and thoughtful – “If the Earth was a Rubik’s cube, it would need to be more colorful. The yellow side would be India because it has sand. The white side would be the US because of snow. Orange and red sides would be Australia because many years ago, forest people used red-hot fire to cook there and green side would be Africa because of grasses. The blue side has to be waterfalls…”

Puzzling logic, it got me thinking! what would you say to that…?

(Image – Google)

Just a thought – Expand

The moment, neither in past or future, never in emotions nor even in thoughts, when I inhale and exhale rhythmically, and just be…! When I watch the trees move, cars pass and grasses sway and…I just be…! That moment is precious to me. Because there in lies the key to the new element that makes me actually see. That is when I expand and smile for no reason at all… that is when life blooms!

(Image courtesy Google)

Just a Thought – Control

The more we try to control people, thoughts or circumstances, the greater we are controlled by them. It is always a two way arrest game. Handcuffs are on both the arrester and arrested. But if we let go of control, it’s not that we will be at inactive mode but we would do our jobs blissfully, freely without thinking of controlling the ‘result’. The RESULT is anyway, NEVER in our hands. No?

Some people try to control in a positive way, out of concern but some use negativity as their power. This quote explains the negative types.

But flow is always more powerful than control. Hope we learn to let go, because there is nothing blissful, joyful and liberating than complete surrender! Exhale…!

Images courtesy Google

Just a Thought – You’ve got my back!

When you know someone up there has got your back, you’re afraid no more. You soar, you dive, you float or you fall flat, nothing matters! You look up and say – you’ve got my back, why should I worry? And you smile at the thought of someone watching over you, loving you, protecting you and sometimes pushing you…so that you learn to stand up! But all along you know, it’s all for your own good!

(I took a small break from blogging. But I’m back my friends to share my life and thoughts with you almost every week. Sending lots and lots of love and peace your way!)

Just a Thought – Friends

Grab them tight and they vanish…chase and they’ll run…try hard and harder it is to hold them. So do not try, let it be! Like miracles, true friends will happen in the course of life. Such friendship lasts without any reason… effortlessly…smoothly…based on a secret understanding of souls. 🙏🏻

Image courtesy Google

Just A Thought – Happy Clones?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could fire clones of a happy version of yourself across Time – in the Past, Present and Future? A clone that could appear and cheer you up in some of the gloomy memories of Past. A happy clone who could sit beside you in the Present, reassuring you as you worry about things. And the best of all – a happy clone waiting for you in the Future. Just the thought that this future clone would not let you be upset about anything and make you so relaxed, is exhilarating.

Amazing or delusional? I don’t know….but rejuvenating, Yes! Don’t you agree?

Images courtesy Google

Looking for a daycare of stories!

Raising her chubby arms in air, one tiny story stalks me. She wants to be picked from a swarm of other unwritten stories – sweet, sad, funny, immature…some barely a thought…all of them wanting my time. My time? But my time is barely mine!

There are endless jobs and responsibilities, which needs to be taken care of. The everyday chores of life that kicks away creativity. I will have to ignore the tiny toddler story’s demand.

I sigh, while folding laundry and smoothing the bed sheet! There is cooking to do and kids need to be fed. But the tiny story is stubborn. She stealthily alights on to my lap. She is such a bright inspiration!

For one moment, I smoothen her silky tendrils and smile at her. I don’t want this one to be gone. I know her type. She will vanish forever if not taken care of immediately. Stories like her create history but they require a huge amount of time. Time??

And then, the phone rings! I reluctantly let go of her to attend the call. A relative asking for quality daycare for her kids! I suggest her a few. The conversation drags on and on.

By this time, I see my story vanishing into the thin air…right in front of me. Her accusing eyes moving me beyond words. It is heartbreaking! It feels like a part of me going away forever.

I ask my relative, who is still on phone – “I have a question? Do you know of a quality daycare for stories? I have several neglected, uncared and ignored stories lying everywhere around me. My situation, circumstances and to some extent my docile nature, cannot protect them. I need one urgently.”

She laughs, taking it as a joke. “No, I am serious, I need a daycare for stories,” I insist and she hangs up on me.

I look around and find other stories and ideas looking at me with anticipation. A daycare would be good for them… until I find the time to tend them one by one. The loss of that one little tiny story weighs too much on my heart.

I do not want to lose the likes of her. Chores can be managed, responsibilities can be take care of but inspirations like her are truly rare. And I have been foolish enough to let the brightest one go. I weep!

And that’s why, I have taken to asking everyone – Do you know of a quality daycare for stories? I do not want to lose another like her. May be with time I will know how to balance it all.

For a time will come when I will have leisure but all these stories would be gone. They will no longer come to me. My creativity will perish due to neglect. Therefore I am in need of a daycare for stories…that can keep the ideas, thoughts and even the opportunities intact and fresh.

I am even asking You. Do you know? Please suggest for I urgently need one.

Images courtesy Google

10 Mad Signs That You Are A Dreamer

1. People try to snap you out of your day dream to focus on the ongoing conversation. And you have no clue what the conversation was all about!

2. You do more thinking rather than talking. And you speak nonsense sometimes just because you are doing one thing and thinking about another.

3. You see immense possibilities in mundane things and cannot stop getting your head full of ideas. Everyone feels your dream is laughable, vague and futile but you cannot help fighting and finishing it.

4. Half of your life you have fought rejection but you start again with full zeal. Sometimes you are called a failure but you cannot help being in the process of creativity. That is the fuel of your life!

5. You are considered imbalanced and impulsive person who always trades discomfort for a smooth life but you cannot help it.

6. Sometimes even you don’t know what is it that you are after but you keep trying different crazy ways to reach there. Your efforts look madness, idiosyncratic to others.

7. Your absent mindedness annoys your family and well wishers. Your mind always travels to another space where there is a world of opportunities. And you can see wonder even inside a black box.

8. It is a burden when you have to tackle real life and let go of your dreams for practical purposes. But after a while, at the least opportunity, you are back to dreaming and working for it like a warrior.

9. There are very few people like you suffering with the ‘dreamer’s malady’. And you can spot a fellow mad dreamer as soon as you see them.

10. You are notorious for planning everything out in the head. But when implemented, it looks impractical at times. You want to just relax and let go of your zillions of ideas. But you can’t. Even if you try, you can’t. You are a dreamer!

Now, what do you think? Are you a dreamer, too, my friend?