10 Gift Ideas for the Gardening enthusiasts in your life

Back with a gardening-related post today. This blog was started as a chronicle for my balcony garden, but as life goes on and brings changes along; the blog is gradually evolving into a space for my experiences, experiments, and musings. My love for gardening, however, remains unchanged even though I cannot indulge in it as much as I wish to.

Heralding Spring

The sun arises from his slumber long,
flame of the forest erupts with fiery blooms;
the world of green adorns vibrant hues,
heralding the end of wintry gloom.

GURU OR NO GURU?

You are smart, you read. You theorise and infer and hypothesize. When you come across concepts, you remember having read that somewhere.

And yet, when it comes to spirituality, the words and concepts are all so simple that while your eyes may read and your brain may store, your mind doesn’t quite register the depth and implications of the meanings.

The Origin of Thoughts

Most thoughts that arise in our minds are reactions to what we consume through our sense organs.

Hues of Yellow

A simple colour, Yellow.
Stunning and bright
But sometimes mellow.

The flirtatious cheeriness of daffodils,
The opulent hue of gold.
The unctous paleness of butter
Or the bright passion of fire, behold!

The Shades of White

Which colour should cease to exist, Nature asked.
White, answered man.
It maybe the colour of purity
– chaste, serene, pristine, unsullied –
But it is unremarkable!

Nature laughed and asked, which shade of white?

Heartbreak can be silent

अब मैं चीख कर नहीं रोती

सीने में दर्द
रगों में खून
सांसों में सिसकियां
अब मुझसे नहीं होती

Attachment and Loss

Loss is one of the basic principles of nature. There is no growth without loss. A child loses his milk teeth to gain permanent teeth. An infant has to gradually lose the warmth and comfort of nursing to be able to grow to be his own person. A baby bird has to lose the comfort and protection of the nest, in order to be able to fly.

Loss, more often than not, is a precursor to a new chapter in the story; sometimes literal rejuvenation, and sometimes simply progress.
Death, a return to the elements and rebirth with a new body, life, and destiny, is an excellent example of the former; a tree undergoing the cycles of seasons with the loss of its leaves and all signs of life in summer and autumn, and bursting with vitality, lush greenery, and ferociously vibrant blooms in rains and spring, an example of the latter. Unintentionally, both the examples chosen are of a cyclical nature – birth-death-birth is a cycle, as is bloom-wither-bloom.
Is one to understand, then, that loss and progress are cyclical?

Survival of The Stoicest?

The only true cheat code to survive in a world increasingly getting detached from its humane nature is to hide your true emotions.
Stoicism. Stiff upper lip; while ensuring your lower lip doesn’t quiver. A neutral smile. Dry eyes. Or at least eyes not brimming over.

Stoicism is not tough to achieve if you’re a grown-up. The art of maintaining dry eyes though is a bit more complex. Complex, but not unconquerable.
Cultivate your imagination. Read. Fiction will work as well as non-fiction.

Fiction allows you to daydream and escape the sharpness of the thorns pricking you. Non-fiction, while not as interesting, will give you food for thought – will force you to consider issues that loom larger than your small inconsequential ones at hand. It’ll give you perspective. Before you know it, you’re someplace else; not getting dragged down by the weight of the boulder that you’ve placed on the deep cavern of your heart to keep your emotions from bubbling over.

Friendships for New Mothers – Are All Friends Equal?

Hello, and welcome back to The Vibgyor Chronicles!

We’re back this week with more musings on new motherhood and friendships. In the previous post we discussed about the importance of friendships for new mothers and how they can strive to make time and space for friends in their newly busy, sometimes chaotic lives. It is difficult, but not impossible, to create space for some soul enriching friendships in the lives of new mothers.

The cornerstone of a good friendship is mutual respect and support; even for those not in the same boat, empathy goes a long way in deepening bonds. Sometimes, however, friends do not quite understand the situation or needs or emotional state of their counterparts and end up doing more harm than good.