My third visit to the Grand Canyon in little over a year. And yet I never seem to tire of it. The few moments of silence which I experience, seated on a rock, facing the Eastern Rim of the grand canyon is worth the winding line outside the park and definitely worth the cold winds that kept slamming against us early that morning.

A nature trip leaves you rejuvenated. While trips to amusement parks always leave me exhausted and wanting another vacation, hikes and nature tours fill me with wonder and silence and energize me from deep within. It is like renewing a connection with natural habitat, which appear to be more centered and put together. We even had a deer encounter inside the Kaibab National Forest. Five forest deer went past our car and we shot them, with our video camera, of course.

On our way back, we hiked the Oak Creek trail at Sedona. It was lush green and full of ferns. The stream had dried up a bit but that did not stop us from taking off our shoes and playing around in the gushing water for a while. We did not hike the entire trail as it was almost sunset.

So, here I am back at work today. But I definitely have brought along with me a bit of the smiling green of the red rock trail, a splash of the bubbling enthusiasm of the creek, and loads of the strong splendor of the canyon.

I chanced to visit the website of renowned singer Bombay Jayashri. The intro had me captivated.

does not music
light a spark
fan a flame
set a soul on fire?
Listening...
to the silences within
and the sounds
of silences...

Click away for the entire piece.

Here's a line from her profile that had me nodding my head in agreement - "When music seeps into the hearts of rasikas without themselves perceiving it, then it can be said to have served its ethereal purpose". How true! The very purpose of music is the resonance of souls.

Bombay Jayashri is one of the most popular singers of today with several albums to her credit. Her movie numbers are commercial successes. I was listening to her voice in Suttum Vizhi from Ghajini and it had me wondering about how we have loved her voice in Vaseegara, Ondra Renda Aasaigal and Narumugaiye. And her very latest Partha Mudhal from Kamal's latest flick Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu is also amazingly convincing.

But when someone mentions Bombay Jayashri, the song that pops into my head is the melodious Pahi Pahi Jagan Mohanakrishna set in the enchanting Nadanamakriya. It brings back fond memories of childhood times.

It is almost impossible for any photographic lens to capture the towering magnificence. It is altogether impossible to take in the monumental water-carved beauty with two mortal organs - the eyes. It is getting increasingly difficult to word the thoughts about the grandeur of this place - the mind was constantly going blank and thoughtless at the timeless magnificence that we were spectators to. All we could do was gape in awe.



They stretched much beyond the field of view and flaunted intracacies in architecture that daunted us. They seemed to beckon, wanting to pass on some timeless message in silence and at the same time, they seemed to be untouched and unabashed by people and events around them. They seemed to share a gushing relationship with air, water and the space above. They are the beautiful Glen canyons. We were at Lake Powell and visited the Glen, Antelope and Marble Canyons over the weekend. This trip, if anything, was only more momentous than the previous ones - The Grand Canyon and Sedona.

What makes one feel the divinity in another person ? Everyone is divine, just that in some it is more conscious, so conscious that people who come in contact with them are able to feel the divine presence.

I think you feel the divinity of a person when you feel so at home and comfortable with them. You have never known them before, you have never mingled or socialized with them before, but yet you feel so much at ease and peace with them. You feel they are at the same 'level' as you and they seem to understand you instantly and connect with you very deeply, yet very very effortlessly. And not just you, but everyone around seems to feel exactly the way you feel about this person. Even children.

Then again, you feel comfortable with people with whom you have been around with for a reasonably long period of time. So that means you already recognize the divinity in the other person! Isn't that so ?

It takes divinity to recognize divinity. We feel the presence because we have the presence within us - just like how it takes a magnetic pole to attract another.

This moment of pristine joy sponsored by...

...

God!!


Who else!!