I’ve said before how much I like to spend a little time here, at the foothills of the scenic Velliangiri in the windy season. I’m lucky to be summoned here again and what a glorious time it is!
We’ve not had too much rain in these parts the past couple of years. The green hills had been showing brown and farmers were worried. But we’ve made a promising start this time. A couple of days of howling winds, gray days with intermittent drizzle and perpetually misted hilltops... the slopes are slowly turning emerald. Straight from my balcony, at about four or maybe five kilometres as the crow flies, is a hill stream and waterfall. It had slowed to a trickle but now it has turned frothy white again. Occasionally, when the wind dies down, you can hear the water thunder down onto the rocks below. The stream that flows through the ashram is swelling.
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The gales howled so much the other day, I became a little fraught. Door hinges strained to hold their own and the walls felt constantly under siege. How long could mere brick and mortar hold out against such purpose? If not today, or this week, but sometime, something would give!
I leaned out of the window to feel the wind on my face and found that the peacocks in the valley were having a wind bath too. They each had taken fence to perch on, and they sat all braced and hunched up, enjoying the drama of the gusts.
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Wildlife sightings are very possible here, and ever since my sister saw a leopard in the valley before us, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. Even so, it was a casual scan last week that yielded a gray presence push through the scrub. A lone tusker wound his way through the jungle, revealing only the trunk here, the body there as he walked towards the water. Barely two minutes and he was gone.
I spied three wild boar babies scurrying in the bush a few days ago, and today, a black-naped hare came out into a clearing to give himself a thorough wash in the pale morning sunlight. He would start every now and then, turning his long ears to the sound that had alarmed him, but it turned out to be nothing. He stayed so long, I even dropped my binoculars to go and get myself something to drink.
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I remember once wringing my hands over my urban life, wishing for a forest full of trees to love. The trees here are not old, but the tree jasmines (the fast growing Akasha Malli - Millingtonia hortensis) that line our perimeter are very friendly indeed. My Sadhguru loves them and although they obscure the view of the hills from the windows sometimes, I cannot resent them.
We’ve not had too much rain in these parts the past couple of years. The green hills had been showing brown and farmers were worried. But we’ve made a promising start this time. A couple of days of howling winds, gray days with intermittent drizzle and perpetually misted hilltops... the slopes are slowly turning emerald. Straight from my balcony, at about four or maybe five kilometres as the crow flies, is a hill stream and waterfall. It had slowed to a trickle but now it has turned frothy white again. Occasionally, when the wind dies down, you can hear the water thunder down onto the rocks below. The stream that flows through the ashram is swelling.
+++
The gales howled so much the other day, I became a little fraught. Door hinges strained to hold their own and the walls felt constantly under siege. How long could mere brick and mortar hold out against such purpose? If not today, or this week, but sometime, something would give!
I leaned out of the window to feel the wind on my face and found that the peacocks in the valley were having a wind bath too. They each had taken fence to perch on, and they sat all braced and hunched up, enjoying the drama of the gusts.
+++
Wildlife sightings are very possible here, and ever since my sister saw a leopard in the valley before us, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. Even so, it was a casual scan last week that yielded a gray presence push through the scrub. A lone tusker wound his way through the jungle, revealing only the trunk here, the body there as he walked towards the water. Barely two minutes and he was gone.
I spied three wild boar babies scurrying in the bush a few days ago, and today, a black-naped hare came out into a clearing to give himself a thorough wash in the pale morning sunlight. He would start every now and then, turning his long ears to the sound that had alarmed him, but it turned out to be nothing. He stayed so long, I even dropped my binoculars to go and get myself something to drink.
+++
I remember once wringing my hands over my urban life, wishing for a forest full of trees to love. The trees here are not old, but the tree jasmines (the fast growing Akasha Malli - Millingtonia hortensis) that line our perimeter are very friendly indeed. My Sadhguru loves them and although they obscure the view of the hills from the windows sometimes, I cannot resent them.
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