My most awaited month long happiness project. I am not sure why I love this project. Every year it helps me to find new meanings. Not just to the works I do but also to the life and living. Every year I come up with mini-themes as well. This will be of-course my monthly theme resolution. A lot of reading, exploring, gratitude will be on top of the list.
I believe it’s okay to make grand plans with hopes and beliefs. That’s what I did for 2024’s April which also I have been doing from long. While I am still recovering from health, I wake up every single day with unexpected little twists. Some of them are a bother of concern. I woke up on May first with a perfect health and it was not exactly the same on second may. While all of these are my life lessons, I am wrapping around the on-goings.
Here is what I had for April and their status:
My schedule and health demanded enough rest for eyes and body and that’s what happened. I am glad that I could finish A to Z with all the passion I started with. I wanted to give meaning to the spell ‘De La Luz‘ meaning – “of the light!”. My understanding or where I want to throw light is that sometimes we slow down. Only in that slow pace we get to see a better perspective. We get to understand what matters to us. I want to make a post dedicated to it.
It’s April of 2024 and Day 25 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 26: Zen
I believe Zen would be a perfect ending to my challenge of 26 moments. Zen means peaceful and calm. Zen is meditation. I guess that is what maturity at the end of the day means. Our life goal is to achieve that. Zen is about being relaxed and not worrying about the things that we cannot change. Zen is a form of Buddhism that originates from Japan. It states that religious knowledge is achieved by giving attention to one thing and not by emptying the mind of thoughts. Zen travels a long history. It comes from Japanese, which is derived from Chinese word ‘Chan’, which in turn is derived from Sanskrit word ‘Dhyana’. Zen asks us to cherish the simplicity and straightforwardness. It asks us to act on reality here and now.
Poem:
They say,
It’s all a circle.
Do we really need to?
Circle back?
Can’t we just
Stay back
At ‘peace’?
And be a dot.
There comes a day where nothing will make sense and then at the very same time, everything will make sense. We just need to pick that ‘everything’ and be peace with it.
It’s April of 2024 and Day 25 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 25:Yugen
There are several Japanese words and concepts that have a deep meaning. Yugen is one of them. It is a concept borrowed from traditional Japanese aesthetics and these are heavily influenced by Japanese Buddhism. In Buddhism, as I read, everything is considered to be either evolving from or dissolving into nothingness. Yugen is a mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe that triggers a deep emotional response. It could be something as simple as a flock of birds disappearing among the clouds. However I found this particular explanation profoundly touching – “beauty that is only partially perceived, fully felt, barely glimpsed by the viewer”. Yugen is that which exists beyond what can be said and it is also not a reference to another world. It is about our world and our experiences.
Poem:
While we see,
Feel and go lost,
Lose and go dreamy,
Is our moment of joy.
There are ones,
Missing every side of it,
Thinking that moment,
Will come again.
Though there is sunrise every morning, it’s never the same. Of that beauty that we get to see is only one side of it. I wonder what everyone else is seeing!
It’s April of 2024 and Day 24 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 24: X
Let us question the need and existence of X itself. Do we really need it in alphabet set? There are minimal number of words that start with x and I also feel like x is most weirdly used alphabet. The origins of the letter x goes back to the Phoenicians and their writing system emerged around 1050 BCE (possibly). It is also one the mysterious symbols. Well, we use it to solve an unknown, we use it mark something as wrong or not allowed, we use to mart something special with x-factor, we use x to a person when we are no longer in a relationship with, it is used to signify end of something, it is used to represent axis of a plane, it signifies an error etc. The Oxford English Dictionary currently has four hundred English words that begin with the letter X. Isn’t x now puzzling?
Poem:
Some existence
Will remain questioned
Needing at random times
To make a picture complete.
We need to A to Z
Which also has x
Mysterious and mostly
unknown.
The way X plays several roles as an alphabet; we have a great lesson to take away here. In-spite of several roles, the importance is minimal but cannot be ignored as well. It’s like a pinch of salt, which makes everything tastes better.
It’s April of 2024 and Day 23 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 23: Weak Ties
Being read plenty of articles from sociology, one of my favorite sociologists is Mark Granovetter. While we all need strong ties in our life: our friends and family, as much we also need weaker ties: more distant or casual ones. As quoted by Granovetter: ‘Your weak ties connect you to networks that are outside of your own circle. They give you information and ideas that you otherwise would not have gotten.’ Weaker ties help us enable interaction and exchange information. Weak ties are people who are from different social circles and they can provide us novel information. A society is held together by both strong and weak ties. I also like the intermediate links. Like how a friend of a friend at times becomes closer to us than the friend themselves.
Poem:
While we walk
Our life walk
There are secrets we share
With strangers
There are secrets we hide
With loved ones
With every kind
We balance our ties.
There are things we connect with people about. On a random day, we might fall in love with strange thoughts. We never know where our comfort points are. Life is to be explored and we got to do that to the fullest.
It’s April of 2024 and Day 22 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 22: Vorfreude
Vorfreude is a German word and it took me a while to get its pronunciation right even after going through audios. The word has no exact English equivalent. Vor is before and Freude is joy. It’s the word that describes the joyful anticipation. It is that feeling which comes before experiencing something delightful and pleasure. It’s a joyful and intense anticipation from imagining future pleasures. All those exciting things that we wish to do, all our plans, all those happy moments that we imagine, everything is Vorfreude. Those few days that you wait for your trip to begin and all those things that your mind has already planned and visualized to do, that is a Vorfreude. Isn’t that a beautiful word? Isn’t that making our world beautiful?
Poem:
And as randomly as it can get
At a random moment
We dream of
All those could have been,
Should have been,
Will be.
And smile, thank
For this beautiful life.
At one side is the joyful anticipation when we know that is about to happen. At other side are those imaginations that we have, that we know is not going to happen. And still, it gives us an undefined amount of pleasure. This one is to all those that keep us happy!
It’s April of 2024 and Day 21 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 21: U Theory
U theory is by Otto Scharmer from MIT, which talks about change management. The core of the theory is about presence and sensing and is a journey of five moments. The shape of U signifies moving downside, the bottom and going up the other side and each of the journeys connects with world outside our institutional thoughts, world that emerges within and bringing new into the world respectively. The journey talks about letting go of what is not essential and letting come of future essentials. Imagine your current self and future best-self, meeting at the bottom and talking to each other. The journey compromises of being in open will, open heart and open mind. Theory U is about transformation and operating from the whole with a blend of thinking, innovation and leading change.
Poem:
Call it a U, Call it a ME
Every theory
Wants the best
Of within and without.
Whatever is the theory
At the end of the day
Its US
And what that us is to us.
There are souls that never stop. It feels like they are wired differently and nothing really bothers and matters to them. They go on to achieve what they dreamed of. I wonder what’s their theory? Letting go and letting come is our definite part of life.
It’s April of 2024 and Day 20 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 20: Tunnel of Love
We always often fall in love with the routes while we travel for several reasons. What if there is a place where the train travels for 5kms and offers a breath taking scene at all the times of the year – shades of green in summer and spring, palettes of red, orange, brown in autumn and snow in winter. The tunnel of love is in Klevan, Ukraine which starts from Klevan and goes till Northern area of Orzhiv. The route has trees lined up as an arch and railway going in the middle – how fairy tale like is that? History says the train was built for military purposes and the trees were planted because of the cold war. It was later used to deliver wood and the train runs even today. I don’t think we can look for anything else that can qualify for a better – tunnel of love. I would recommend exploring more picture of this beauty on internet.
Poem:
If you hold my hand
And walk along
I will hold your hand
And walk along.
Be there
For each other
And every path
Is tunnel of love.
Love can turn everything into wonders. However, there are places like ‘Tunnel of Love’ that add extra love to the moment. Carry a book, music, or whatever you love to a place and it becomes a happy place.
It’s April of 2024 and Day 19 of the A to Z challenge. This year I am doing the theme of ‘26 Moments’ on my blog. I plan to pull out A to Z parts from diverse set which are more than just the parts and possibly describe the world of their own. It can be a wonder, an invention, a community, the philosophy, a thought, a lead, a culture, a design, or basically anything that would make one wonder and ponder on. 26 imperfect petite flashes that are amongst and around us.
My everyday will have a selection, description, an eight line poem followed by an interpretation.
Day 19: Silent Scream
Of the too many options that I had for S, I decided to go for ‘Silent Scream’. Silent scream is an oxymoron – can a scream be silent? Do they go together? it’s two contradicting words appearing together. It could be the pain that silences us, it can be the fallen tree in forest that no one heard, it can be the scream that has consumed one, it can be a voice against ill and evil, etc. There are several movies, albums, books with the title Silent Scream, each artist giving their own interpretation. The 1984 anti-abortion film created and narrated by Bernard Nathanson with the title Silent Scream tops the chart in the list. We all scream. The silent ones are the most painful.
Poem:
The seen
Are sold,
In the market
Of abstraction,
As a beauty,
As a masterpiece,
Because the silent screams
Are falling on no ears.
Everybody has had their share of silent screams in their personal or private spaces. Some turn into forms of art and some stay within. Silent screams have their own interpretations and with no voices and hidden words, is an unsolved encrypted masterpiece.
Its PH 