The Lotus Quill

Ganesh as part of Durga's family, holding a lotus in his hand

I am sure now of where my work lies. And that in itself is a miracle. I have to keep writing, hand* or no hand, net or no net. And regardless of who reports for work and who doesn’t. And I leave the rest to my wonderful friends. The tiny handful who don’t rank and grade their best friends. Who in turn are people at peace with one another knowing that sharing, far from dividing, multiplies. A tiny part of that tiny handful are privy to this writing. And you know what? I am hoping to open them up to another tiny part!

While I have trusted the hearts of many, I realize I have been in the closet with much of my writing. I guess I’m afraid of something. Something I can’t quite name? A fear of misunderstanding? A fear that I may discover there are mismatched frequencies between us? And that some of us – myself included – are reluctant to address those zones of un-comfort? Or most of all a fear that the understanding I thought we had, is coming dangerously close to being a myth.  Talking of writing .. talking is also one form thereof  .. there are so many forms writing takes like the Goddess Sarasvati herself. 

Opening portals and communicating freely through them, the skies in the wake of departing Durga’s Pegasus hooves call out to me over their shoulders. And recording those communications I call back. That part is yours I hear their silvery laugh as they sail away bearing the wing-footed horse and Durga all on their fragile, ephemeral shoulders. 

Oh we go beyond talking of writing. We write out the talk that continues in our heads non stop. Sometimes we still it so Ganesha can rest his quill a bit or we channel the whirlpools and eddies into streams that flow as the ink for the magical quill. Lest he have to break another tusk. I love him too much to let him do that. Ultimately it’s Ganesha who is scribe for us all. They say he creates obstacles and removes them. And this is where we cooperate with him perhaps? By stilling our incessant thoughts a little. By helping him to help us calm the turbulence so the pebbles in our path can settle into the river bed and quell the undercurrents? And there are so many different quills the Genius Jumbo uses these days. Like cameras. Well he always used brushes from the hairs his little magical mousy donated to him.

Yesterday I came across Doreen’s Daily Dose** of hope and she was talking about business opportunities. And as I traveled the empty Dashami morning roads of the ever congested North Calcutta in quest of a Rajbari, the letters “business opportunity” were already dancing zigzag before my eyes. And when I came home to read at length, they made more sense than ever. Meanwhile the Durgas of Orissa have been tantalizing me. Well Puja is too short to do it all with others (who are caught up with so many other others) but my guess is that I can still do tons of it with myself and then write, write,write … using all these different quills that Genius Ganesh is adept with. While my companions were opening portals to the divine, my head was working towards how much I could hire my dear cab-owning friend Ranjit for, to make early mornings trips attractive to him, and how much I could turn in from 3 passengers for four hours. I’m guessing the divine leads us ALL sometime or other to business though I stop short of using the divine as my stock in trade. Maybe he and one of his colleagues? That made six. Maybe finally the elusive dollar? 

All along a girl could dream. Now this girl needs to act and feels like acting.
Oh autumn, tiptoe in! You make it easier to write a book that is about autumn and to awaken all those new ideas that were lying asleep inside me as dreams. Rains in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Navami (the 9th moon phase and the final evening of Durga Puja) evening and night. Banish them! Or find ways to beat them! I need to be stronger physically, mentally, emotionally. And autumn - you also make it easier for me to get around and explore. I am an autumn baby. The start of my 60th year (I typoed 50 so let me request Durga for a bonus of ten) is peeping over the horizon. I feel old and mellow like an autumn leaf. But I feel -beneath the stalk preparing to break free among a myriad others and float away into the sunset to make a deer’s bed for winter’s shivers- the stirrings of another spring. Spring eternal. Let (the) spring flow! PS do you see Ganapati’s Lotus Quill??

PS1 *hand* - the infamous hand riddled by allergies finds not-such-honorable mention in many posts.

PS2   **Doreen Virtue was an inspirational writer who helped many people before she suddenly turned into a Christian fanatic