Dreams of Return

"Then they followed
Where the vision led,
And saw their sleeping child
Among tigers wild.

To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell,
Nor fear the wolvish howl
Nor the lion's growl." (77)

When I was a child, I often would dream of wandering into the wilderness. I would explore the jungles and forests of my imagination, ride on the back of the panther i befriended, just like in The Jungle Book, and fall asleep with the wolf cubs. Funnily enough, I wasn't the outdoorsy type at all... but i did enjoy dreaming up different scenarios to play out in my mind of different lives I could have.

Perhaps it was a product of the stories my parents told me of growing up in South Asia. My father was a city boy - he always lived in towns and cities, but my mother grew up splitting her time between city life and village life in Bangladesh. At the time, of course, there was no Bangladesh, only East Pakistan. City life and village life were very different, and my mother's proximity to the country and experience with village culture gave her lots of background to tell us stories from. Village culture is rich in oral tradition, and I would hear stories about how my great grandfather once killed the tiger threatening the village. I'd hear stories of ghosts with ridiculously long arms terrorizing people walking around alone at night, lonely ghosts, ghosts that spoke to young women who were too beautiful for their own good, and ghosts simply out for revenge. I would hear stories of how a bull once ran over my mother's foot when she was a child, and my uncle's favorite calf.

Even though I personally never got to be on such an intimate scale with Nature, this was how my parents grew up. I never really thought of that kind of life as existing, it was always just stories to me, but they were stories that I imagined myself into. It was easy, knowing my mother had led that life as a kid, and her mother and her mother. I often wonder what my life would be like if the world hadn't progressed so far, and my grandparents hadn't left the villages behind.

"But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom." (83)

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Secret Garden

Stories like that helped me develop my capacity for imagination. Mine tends to be overactive and highly visual - maybe everyone's is like that, I wouldn't know, having only experienced mine. But the tales of magic and human feats and beasts and struggles for survival that my parents told me mixed with the different stories i picked up growing up in the West, about fairies and wizards and secret gardens and gave me what I believe is a very unique blend of cultural influences. A sense of wonder, you could say - a powerful curiousity for life and its intricacies and unexplained mysteries. I like mystery. I like not knowing all the answers - and I don't want to have the answers . I don't want to know how everything works and why. The mystery gives life magic, and there's nothing worth giving up the magic of life.

"...but when he had put the Mutteeanee Pass behind him that was all done, and Purun Bhagat was alone with himself, walking, wondering, and thinking, his eyes on the ground, and his thoughts with the clouds." (87)



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Thoughts in the clouds

I often feel just like Purun Bhagat - my thoughts are in the clouds. This weekend, I  was walking to studio and the entire time, I was staring up at the sky. It was the perfect shade of blue, and the clouds were a beautiful, cottony white, puffy and full of shapes. THere is something very soothing and peaceful about being alone with your thoughts, of taking a step back from all the doubts and questions and troubles and excitement and thrills of the busy lives we lead, and focusing inwards on ourselves and the thoughts going through our minds. I think its the best way to figure out who you are, and get back in touch with the world. Isnt that what Ishmael suggested? That we humans go back to belonging to the world?

"But religion is more than rite and ritual. There is what the rite and ritual stand for." (102)

What rite and ritual stand for is what gives religion meaning. The rite and ritual in and of themselves are simply movements - its faith and belief, and the purpose of the actions that give it significance and importance. Prayers follow different forms through every religion. Whether it is in the form of offerings to the gods, prayer five times a day, or holy communion, the point is that you are worshiping God, and thanking him for all his blessings. So really, all these religions are very similar in that the teaching is to believe in a higher being, and be grateful for life.

Humans aren't as different as they like to think.