I am just a wanderer, woolgatherer and a writer.
There’s nothing else I’d rather do
than look about in astonishment at this existence.
That is my work.
And that is my leisure.
It has taken me some time adjusting my inner compass to my true north. Some time to recognize that one cannot work hard at living and ‘live’ at the same time. And that the laws of Nature are simpler than the rules of man. I abide by the former.
My writing is just one of the ways in which I explore the inner terrain. I have written in most formats. Film scripts, TV & web series, books and plays…. What I enjoy most is writing poetry, fiction for children (of all ages), stories of enchantment, and, above all, writing this looking within… What does one call it? A thousand names. A Thousand Ways… It fills my days. It fills my hours. It gives me a way to contribute to the creation of a deeper awareness of humanity’s relationship with this great Earth and everything within it. That’s the only job I found worth the effort, after a great and exhausting detour of a search. Now, I am too much in awe of my subject to ever get bored.
How did I get here? The help of a thousand hands, multiplied by many thousands. Writing about them would require countless separate blogs. But one collaborator, ‘coaxer’, if I can put it that way, the one with infinte faith, is Shambhavi Singh. We dreamt this up in many ways, but together. Like rivers, we run our separate geography. But like an ocean we come together all the time. As with this blog. She said it was time. So, here we are.
I read. I share what I read. Or hear others talk about what they might have come across in a book or within themselves. I hear and tell stories. I feel that ‘narrating’ a story is one of the most remarkable ways in which to feel the sumputousness of life. Wandering is the other thing. Wandering among trees, below mountains, beside rivers, inside old ruins, into disappearing trails. And taking the time to stop, breathe and watch. And, then, the woolgathering… Picking up ideas, thoughts, tunes, lyrics, images, glints of light, lovely immaterial things.
Everything I read, hear, see and pick up adds to the music of these words I write here in the blog. This is the only way I know of reaching out to the pulsing, anonymous you on the other side, to share it all. I am a recluse by daring choice. You may be an equally daring extrovert. Or somewhere in between. But this is where we meet, over a cup of something we both love…this steaming love for Nature and its infinite variety. This quicksilver duality of being.
Terrence Mckenna, whom you may or may not have met, said, “The internet is the global brain, the cyberspacially connected, telephathic, collective domain that we’ve all been hungering for.” And he said, “You can find your mind on the Internet.” I am here looking to find mine, which is also yours. And your soul, which is also mine. And if we can begin to talk, if you can say something that you feel after reading all this, it would mean that the conversation is on. And that, in turn would mean, that we are creating something huge… That we are dropping our hesitation, our diffident boundaries, in order to plug into each other to listen to the one brilliant radio of our Existence.
That’s all I have to say about me, about this blog. I look forward to hearing you walk in and sit. I am not on any other social network thus far, since I feel less is more. Do send me a message or an email on rakhi@athousandways.in saying Hi…or more. Share A Thousand Ways…with a thousand friends if you can or want to.
Sending you deeply warm wishes from Jhansi, my rather wintry (at the moment) hometown in the north of India.
Rakhi
