The best spent $375 ..

Sydenham River, Ontario

This year when Ontario Nature organized a campaign to raise funds to buy and create Sydenham River Nature Reserve, its 25th nature reserve, we made a small donation of $375 for the campaign.

Though the donation was nothing but a tiny drop in comparison with the $860,000 needed to acquire this property, I felt a great uplifting rush when I read the email from Caroline Schultz early this December that this dream had became a reality!! Sydenham River is now permanently etched in my heart and I cannot wait to go see her next spring.

Tagore: Day after day, you fill with love, life and song ...

Tagore

No words can capture the sublime beauty of Tagore’s songs. They must be savoured in quiet solitude. The more one listens to his songs, the feelings go deeper and deeper and eventually touches the very depth of ones being. In this simple song, the great poet meditates on that eternal power that fills us day after day with renewed life, love and songs ..

Nishidin mor parane priyotomo mamo

Kato na bedona diye barota pathale 

Bharile chitto mamo nitya tumi preme prane gane hai

Thaki arale

Meaning:  

Day after day in my life,  O beloved of mine..

You send messages in the form of pain..

and fill my mind, ever with love, vitality and song ..

Alas, you remain concealed.. 

Rupa Ganguly's rendition of this song is unparalled ..

Less of the material, more of the intangible ..

The quest for a meaningful life will inevitably lead us away from the material, drawing us more and more towards the intangible treasures of the universe. Knowledge, love, friendship, music, truth, solitude, beauty .. none of these can be touched, they can only be experienced. Hellen Keller so rightly said "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."

To cultivate and nourish them daily makes life so much more meaningful and fulfilling, unlike material pursuits which always leaves us feeling unsatisfied and wanting for more of the next in thing.

“The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less;  - Annie Dillard

Embracing the Spirit of Sabbath ..

Burnt from too much work and too many activities over the last several months, I have come to realize the great need for quiet and rest. Too much importance is given to work and too little to rest.

I have embraced the restoring spirit of Sabbath in our lives. A day to withdraw from all outwardly activities and turn the mind and attention inwards and homewards. A day for rest, quiet reflection and for noble aspirations towards a simple, moral and intellectual life.

In his article titled Sabbath for the NY Times, Dr Oliver Sacks captures the spirit of Sabbath, its "utter peacefulness and remoteness from worldly concerns", "of a stopped world, a time outside time". Sabbath is about "achieving a sense of peace within oneself. Sabbath, the day of rest, .. when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest."

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. - Ovid

Rest belongs to the work as eyelids to the eyes. - Tagore