Afternoon - Evening - Night - Morning - In Loops - 1

It's Raining Pages And We're Playing Wordsmith

An Afternoon Page - 3:04 p.m. - oh well 15:04:00 hrs - date 26/09/2016

Since pouring out three pages plus, this morning, the currents and undercurrents have been activated. I have been quarreling with many ideas that are fighting for expression, like pesky schoolchildren waving their hands when they want to be the first to answer, the first to be acknowledged as knowing. The postprandial session always tends to be sluggish. One has the overpowering urge to loll around lulled by some random music.

Continuing as an Evening Page – 5:43 pm.

Truth to tell, morning pages are unbelievably easy to write. Though not a morning person, the one thing that hauls me out of bed in the morning – wait there are two things – are new messages from old friends that I eagerly search out,  and the tempting prospect of writing and feeling pleasure and purpose conjoined in the exercise. But – yes there could be a third – on a fine morning one wants to lie a little longer reveling in birdsong that pierces through insistently till the smoking guns of a hundred burning trash piles the road over, forces the windows to be closed against them, snubbing out the foremost joy of being awake and alive. Writing something, anything, comes effortlessly in the mornings because one is still in that liminal zone despite the gate crashing by milkmen, acrid smoke and the raucous waking sounds of the ill-read and none too well-fed louts, slapping their khaini between their palms and clearing their throats. As I start the computer and melt into the world of my own creation, all that recedes to the background.

As the day goes by, this porous veil is tattered and torn by the stresses of being alive and functional amid chaos. Mystical dew has its best-before time and it evaporates into the dry mundane of the growing day. I think about a siphon – there has to be a way to keep the juice flowing all day, so I don’t lose the fine thread that could keep weaving if nothing broke the strand. Dream catchers and dream weavers occupy my mind next. Tomorrow I must try, in the face of all these threats to keep that veil un-punctured and pristine.

For the magical source of all my writing is the alter-verse. One of the alter-verses, as there are far too many, and it takes discipline to keep my connections open with them, strictly one at a time. In other words, I need the ability to switch veils, for there are numerous veils of all hues and textures through which those subtle energies flow to and fro.

The hour after sunset is like another awaking. A disconnection from the day’s cares. So once more I wield the metaphorical pen and try. This then is the second page of today’s evening outpourings. And we might as well bring up some real concerns.

Puja is around the corner. There is an almost addictive “hereness” in the air and a compulsive desire to dream of nothing but Durga and the sounds of the dhak. Whether my mental canvas travels to Maine to the setting of my book, or to the park down the road or to the pictures of Protimas (images) in the making posted all over the place by my friends, there is that pervasive Durga. No matter how hard I try I am unable to wind back to Vishvakarma or Mahabali. And there are  posts on both of them that I have promised myself I’ll write. 

There is another one that is less time bound. It's about the way women are recreating their rituals in a different mold, sometimes subtly and sometimes more blatantly, breaking the one that they found themselves poured into by tradition and convention. Now my mind starts playing with the difference between the two words and I reach for a dictionary. I also tap into my own assumptions about how the words are used. What does convention mean to me? Very little really – maybe as in when I convene with my fellow witches?  Tradition is more complex, because above all it is something that can change. Surprised? Yes you would be.

Traditions are not set in stone but they are connected by roots to a deep essence. And you would be startled to realize that the essence all these diverse roots probe down to, via diverse soils and terrain, is essentially the same. So we come to what essence means. The three words "convention, tradition and essence," convene ☺. I turn to the dictionary to cross check. A diversion interrupts. Or should I say an interruption diverts? I think of a time (there were very few such times and mostly they were devoted to heartfelt outpourings to my parents - essentially me addressing mom while dad listened) when I could write by hand on reams and reams of paper at a considerable speed and keep going without food or water for hours. I would actually produce something. Occasionally the sound and feel of it would please me. But at any rate the fact that I did it, invariably made me satisfied. Those days were different. My surroundings were uncluttered. And that takes my mind meandering down another road to the past to recall the origin and evolution of that cluttering. Could it have been prevented? Yes/no/yes/no.

I return to the three convening words and am looking at tradition first. The key ingredient to the definition is the word “transmission” – transmission depends on the medium doesn’t it? When it comes to “one generation to the next,” the word “bridge” flashes before me. And as I think bridge I think of the living root-bridge that Kim and I have been obsessing with, over the past few days. I think you get where I come from. The connectors while having a direction, no two, also have the space and the need to fulfill a life of their own. So the medium of transmission is not only live, it is alive with its own thoughts and its own essences. It is not ether. What arrives at the other end went through a transformative process, a transition. You see how transmission becomes value added?

I leave you with your own thoughts on tradition. At least I know I got this right, that  everything I pass on to the future will be shaped by inevitable changes as it changes hands. It was never static even when a living, growing evolving person like my mother practiced it. I am a branch of that mother tree but I may drop my own roots down like the spreading banyan. I may be a living, traveling bridge!!

I turn to convention – even more interesting. At its most banal, it is a way in which something is "usually done." As delightfully vague and ambiguous, as flexible, as conventional people are rigid. I smile and think of everything else that it is – an agreement (that seems more agreeable to the rigidity or inviolability I had envisaged) or pact. Or … or … or a gathering. Well that one is dynamic. The place may be fixed and the persons too. But you have not predetermined what anyone is going to say. It could end up as anything from a conference to a confluence. Then comes essence. I think of my mom and her “essential” hypertension. I never quite knew what she meant to convey but it seemed she was suggesting high bp was a good thing to have.  Well, not to the point it gives you a glaucoma attack say I. But let’s not go there. Mom was very fond of a word “quintessence.” Where would I use that as distinct from essence? 

So from writer, evening pages turns me into wordsmith. This is word craft plain and simple. Three words stand out in the definition of essence – intrinsic, indispensable and abstract. Abstract is the part we trip over when we talk of tradition and essence.

I had to sign off at 6:23 pm because the stomach growled. No I wasn’t counting words. This has becoming a freewheeling exercise already!

About this series: Inspired by advice from Julia Cameron and shared with me by Sridevi Datta. In Julia’s words:

“The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is a daily practice called Morning Pages.

“Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*– they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page…and then do three more pages tomorrow.“