By the By: Some Old Stuff

Just some old pics from 2012: Drakensberg South Africa 

What I love about travelling is that it opens up a space not just outside but within you. Just look at these pictures and look at the long, barren roads. No traffic. Imagine the silence you absorb from that. And imagine how it feels to be a spec in this vastness, something we forget in the business of life, when we see too much around....that we see cannot see too far. 

Often one can see a man or a woman walking on these roads.  while it is possible that a friend dropped them midway it is also true that people are used to walking far.  

I remember how in Botswana, my mostswana friends used to say, 'You know we laugh at white people, what is this 'walk' they talk about.  We walk for a purpose.  Not just 'walk'.  It is always towards something!!'

All the ideas of development and advancement apart, walking is a form of meditation. 

Here we are back in town or close to...and the silence inside of us starts to break up.......

A Smile in the Sky

A Smile in the Sky

Was at a cafe with a friend, when I saw this. I took a picture of it, as a reminder of the gift from up above.

Ah you say, but it is upside down? an indication of a frown?

I beg to differ

In understanding--It is we who are limited.  Not like us does the sky pose--For the sky is limitless and 

no one knows where is its nose!!

When Art Speaks

I bought this at Pacific Harbour.  About 45 minutes from Suva, the capital of Fiji.  The young vendor said, 'It is a sulu (a wrap around).  It was hand painted and brought (much) larger than life frangipani-the sweet smelling flowers of Fiji, that came in about 4-6 colors, to life. The fabric was a thick cotton and so, not as soft nor as supple to be wrapped around one's body.  But more importantly, using it as a sulu will not show it for it is.  A beautiful piece of art.  I saved it in Fiji, bringing it out only on special occasions using it as a table cloth, with a clear plastic covering on it.

Here in Sweden, I used it as a back cover for my couch.  

But over a month ago, a friend of mine, who is a successful designer/ artist and who has been helping me set up my house, with curtains and shelves etc, said, 'How about we hang this, you will see it more and it will brighten that little area.

I agreed. 

It did made the blank wall jump with joy!!  But more importantly, it made me think of the young man who I bought it from.  He does not know how many years I have kept his simple art with me, as a reminder of one sunday after noon at Pac Harbor, as a reminder of the relief that frangipani brought us on a sweaty Fiji day, which were plenty, and as a reminder of how much art speaks of people who make them.  

It is true, with all the issues that world knows it by, with all the problems that happen where ever there are people, Fiji, like many pacific countries, remains the country of smiles and frangipanis. 

I remember how friends always said to me that I was living in paradise.  While I agreed and was  happy to get much needed dose of dear sun, it was really too hot for me. Especially with a decade of Pennsylvania behind me.  But I also know the joy I felt at seeing the bald frangipani trees come alive with flowers as spring came.  And walking under those blooming trees brought a fragrant breath, that brought a fleeting relief from summer sweats!! We would pick up the flowers from the ground and stick them behind our ears to carry their beauty and fragrance with us.  Frangipanis are not the flowers to be put in a bouquet. They remain on the trees and are a delight for our eyes and noses!!

This is not an expensive piece of art, that people put in their houses.  But it is more valuable.  The hand painted sulu now speaks to me of simplicity and sweetness of frangipanis.  It reminds of sunny Fiji days and how nature lives as art in all of us, especially those who have not been corrupted by formal education.  :) 

May art live and may it travel!!