Color Blindness

A lot goes unsaid in trips of ecstacy
Without you without me
Without this intangible faith
The difference between a trip and a dive gets erased.
While you are staring at the vast skies
Looking for a spot of some particular color
Or hunting wildly among the grey-green grass
For the flying fantasies that you so love
Do you remember that that color
Is a combination of two pairs of eyes?
Do you remember the way it seemed
When u saw it alone?
And how you struggled to describe it?
You need me to be there
It's orange it's yellow it's red
Wont it all be grey otherwise?
Or was I, in my naivette, unaware?
Tricking myself? Were you all this while
Only pretending that you did not know?
You can tell between the colors now can't you?
That's why you dont need me anymore.

Nightmare, Fuseli

Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892















Henry Fuseli, Nightmare, 1781

Damselfly

A few months back, looking through my friend's remarkable website, I came across pictures of an insect called the "damselfly." Beautiful long, slender body with colours on it which seemed to have been painted on by a Color Field painter. They look, admittedly, a little unreal, almost as if a photographer who got bored of the dull colors around himself wished them into existence. During a 'wildlife trip' with the same photographer friends, I, for the first time, saw a damselfly. You have to be in love with these delicate creatures to even spot one. They are extremely difficult to spot, but once you do find one they are like fragile, tiny epitomes of ephemerality. Gorgeous! My eyes had to get used to the macro way of viewing things to keep track of the little fairy. It was literally skipping from blade to blade, throwing a challenge to huge fumbling clumsy human beings.

Most people probably do not even know of their existence. And with their appearance they seem to be effectively keeping things that way. Even if you happen to see one, before you know it, it's not there anymore.
Just for the sake of information let me include some details about this creature. So, although not many seem to have heard of this species, there are more than 4 and a half thousand species of damselflies worldwide. As adults it is fairly easy to distinguish between a dragonfly and a damselfly. The damselfy, as i said before, has a long slender abdomen, and at rest it hold its wings to its sides unlike a dragonfly which spreads its wings on either side straight out. They are extremely strong fliers, and can perform awesome aerial aerobics...! However, possibly because of their larger size and greater body mass, dragonflies are better fliers than damselflies. It is believed that they have great eyesight, their beautiful compoud eyes have up to 28 thousand individual facets. each of these facets points to a different direction and produces a tiny image which its brain then puts together to form the larger picture.

The suborder of the damselfly is Zygoptera, and they belong to the order Odonata along with dragonflies.

The photograph above is something I took sometime back, but if you wish to see really awesome pictures of dragon and damselflies, you should go here.

Rhiannon

Fleetwood MAc's song...Rhiannon..the original version

Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn't you love to love her
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover...

All your life you've never seen
A woman--taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven
Will you ever win...

She is like a cat in the dark
And then she is the darkness
She rules her life like a fine skylark--
And when the sky is starless--

All your life you've never seen--
A woman--taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven
Will you ever win...

Dreams unwind.
Love's a state of mind.

Stevie Nicks wrote the song after this book called Triad by Mary Leader. Nicks had not heard of the Celtic myth really before she read the book. The novel is about a woman named Branwen who is possessed by another woman called Rhiannon. Although there is some mention of the myth in the book, Leader does not seem to have alluded to it too heavily. I think Nicks did not have the myth in mind while writing the song, but later when she read up on Rhiannon she found that somehow she had managed to fit the celtic myth into her song.

Rain

Rain

silence speaks of tragedy.
a chameleon breathes dust.
at a distance the dry bed of a river
sighs. speaks of a thousand deaths.
a black shaman chants and faints.
crickets screech the impending death of water.
the shaman rises.
calls to the adder are made.
the serpent appears reluctantly
and curls around the demi-god's hide,
sinks his fangs in the black ebony of skin.
red rain sinks into the dry earth and disappears.
drop after drop is shed till the last.
and then, the first drop of nectar touches the barren soil,
soaks the cold skin of the bloodless emperor
and golden dust gives way
to the ceaselss tears of heaven.

ya, then, valhalla, oh god! the references and allusions...tomorrow perhaps...am bored

it seems in order to explain what valhalla is...who rhiannon is...who freya is...umm..although i haven't really mentioned freya anywhere...but anyway lets just explain...

first rhiannon...
A man lost at sea was washed up upon an island. The island seems to be deserted and uninhabited until he finds a fountain mounted on a pedestal. This relic is very old, but the water is clear and the man thirsty. He bends to drink, but stops short when he sees the reflection of a beautiful woman in the still water. He looks up and she stands before him. She is tall and thin and frail looking, yet she radiates strength. She is dressed in a silver white gown and her silver gold hair hangs past her waist. Her age is undeterminable, but her eyes speak of ageless wisdom. Three birds attend her, fluttering about her shoulders, but never landing.

The strange and enchanting woman welcomes him, leads him to a cottage and tells him he is welcome to stay as long as he wishes. She leaves him at the cottage to consume the dinner that is awaiting him on the table. Being hungry, the man set himself to eat without questioning his hostess. The food is simple faire, but he notices there is no meat. Nonetheless, his needs are met, he is clothed and fed, although he never sees those who serve him.

The woman comes to visit him and after drinking too much of her wine, he pressured her to sleep with him. She refuses, but after drinking more of her wine, he persists and pesters her to sleep with him again. The woman's face "becomes like the dark moon" and she warned him that he must offer no offense to any person or animal on the island and that if he should use force on any creature there, dire consequences would follow.

The man wanders the island and meets many tame animals who appear to be much more intelligent than any other animals he had encountered before. He often sat and visited with them and although he could not speak to them, he did feel that they where his friends, recognised him and appreciated his visits. They seemed to talk amongst each other, but he could not understand them.

The next time the woman came to visit the man he was drunk again. She sat with him, but he was abusive and grabbed her and tried to force a kiss on her. Somehow she escaped his grasp and snapped his wrist. "I see that you are out of your head with my wine" she said. "I will forgive your behavior this one time, but remember what I have said. Show only kindness to every thing living here."

The man roamed the island in a foul temper, nursing his broken wrist. He stormed and stomped and cursed his ill luck under his breath. He came upon a white rabbit that he often visited while wandering and the rabbit began to follow at his side. It's expression looked worried, but compassionate. The man did not want to be seen in such a mood and began to feel the rabbit was mocking him. In a fit of anger the man grabbed up the rabbit, snapped it's neck and threw it's body in the bush. But the rabbit changed into something else, something with gossamer wings and a long thin body and it flew away, crying as it went. The man did not notice this, for he had only just realized that his wrist was healed. He stomped off and began to walk back to the cottage, but a storm quickly blew up and he was buffeted by rain and winds. By the time he reached the cottage and collapsed into bed he was cut, scraped, cold and soaked to the bone.

When he awoke in the morning he was no longer in the cottage, but on the beach. The shining woman stood before him. "You have killed one of my children" she told him. "I have warned you against this. Now I must send you away." "But what if I refuse to go?" he asked. "I am the Goddess Rhiannon, and this is my island. You stand on my land. You may not refuse." With these words Rhiannon became as large as the moon and she picked the man up like a doll in her hands and she broke his legs, snapping the bones like twigs and she broke his arms, crushing the bones in her palms. She then pushed his mangled limbs into his torso and shaped him into a piece of driftwood and threw him into the sea, cursing him as the tide carried him away.

The man is found on the shore of his homeland and taken in and fed by his kind family. He has lived a hundred years now and he wishes to die, yet he shows no sign of nearing his death. His misshapen limbs are useless to him now and he cannot do more than feed himself and stagger a few steps. Even this causes him great pain. But every full moon he staggers and crawls out to the garden, where he looks at the moon's reflection in the well and he cries and cries, his tears making ripples in the still, clear waters of the well.

Love

I can hear the turning of the key
I've been deceived by the clown inside of me.
I thought that he was righteous but he's vain
Oh, something's a-telling me I wear the ball and chain.

My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost
He's always off somewhere when I need him most.
The Spanish moon is rising on the hill
But my heart is a-tellin' me I love ya still.

I come back to the town from the flaming moon
I see you in the streets, I begin to swoon.
I love to see you dress before the mirror
Won't you let me in your room one time 'fore I finally disappear?

Everybody's wearing a disguise
To hide what they've got left behind their eyes.
But me, I can't cover what I am
Wherever the children go I'll follow them.

I march in the parade of liberty
But as long as I love you I'm not free.
How long must I suffer such abuse
Won't you let me see you smile one time before I turn you loose?

I've given up the game, I've got to leave,
The pot of gold is only make-believe.
The treasure can't be found by men who search
Whose gods are dead and whose queens are in the church.

We sat in an empty theater and we kissed,
I asked ya please to cross me off-a your list.
My head tells me it's time to make a change
But my heart is telling me I love ya but you're strange.

One more time at midnight, near the wall
Take off your heavy make-up and your shawl.
Won't you descend from the throne, from where you sit?
Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it.