Anadi and I were enjoying a hot and humid Hyde park ‘morning meditation on the move’… Gently jogging around the Serpentine, we had just passed the Peter Pan statue when we saw a man ahead of us – a young strongly built man – his hair in a pony tail… He was walking very slowly with his hands cupped together….
We stopped beside him… ‘What have you got in your hands’ I asked… He opened them a little to reveal a brightly coloured orange and green baby parakeet. ‘It’s fallen out of a nest in a tree and can’t fly’ he said, ’I’ve been told there’s an office I can go to, I didn’t want to leave it to be savaged’… It was sitting in his hands quietly watching.
‘It trusts you completely’… I murmured as I gazed at the little creature… My body, responding with goosebumps… ‘I feel the same’ the young man said
A little baby bird, demonstrating presence, silence, stillness
Pure existence…
That evening almost five months since my last alcoholic drink I found myself sipping a delightful concoction, quite magical in its light fragrant intoxication.
The sound of happy diners all around us, a birthday party in the corner, where gales of laughter rose from at intervals… My birthday dinner too – I decided on the spur of the moment – three months on from my birthday… I have always liked an never ending birthday and this year has leant itself to that…
Pure passion was the name of the cocktail Anadi and I chose…. Looking across into the eyes of this beautiful man, I was reminded of the words by Kahil Gibran in his work ‘The Prophet’….
‘Love one another, but make not a bond of love; Let it rather be a moving shore between the shores for your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from the one cup’
We had one cocktail each 🙂
We were in a corner of a restaurant on the corner of a street in Chelsea called Chelsea corner! The rain was pouring down outside so hard; glistening road, windscreen wipers going on the fastest setting to no avail…
A young man passed our table, making his way to the bathrooms looking as if he had been in a swimming pool… ‘They said it was only a two minute walk’, he gesticulated to his crowd of friends who had trooped in just before him, all with umbrellas dripping….
‘Two minutes turned Into fifteen’, he continued, ‘and now I feel like I’ve been in the bath…’ He disappeared to dry himself as best he could and we glimpsed him later, continuing un deterred with his evening…
More of the same passage from Kahil Gibran came to me…
‘Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone. Even as the strings of the lute are alone through they quiver with the same music’; and I reflected on the richness of this day, of all my days – so full of love and connection – with Anadi – with all of humanity… A baby parakeet and a big strong man, and all who I have encountered today on the path of life.
All of us journeying alone on our own path together…. The words are from a passage on marriage, but they speak to me of the journey of life, of humanity, of oneness…
We are all one…
‘You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore’