Walking Skywards

On the first of this month we were on our way skywards. The night before, I had suddenly woken up from many dreams, a little past midnight. How quiet it was. How quite it is in the mountains. Troubled sleep gifted me a night wake. How quiet, despite the dogs barking. Why were the dogs barking?

Close your eyes and the take the deepest breath.

I feel the warm sun wash over me, as if to say, the day has now begun. Make hay and dream a song from the gargling stream. Breathe with the birds and walk, walk skywards… That is where, when the sky is clear, you shall be immersed in the most majestic verse ever conceived. Walk… the day is young…

Many have walked this path and felt the stretch of its beauty and pain across ages… journeying to find what I had lost in the hum of white lights in noisy nights, somewhere in keen pages of odorless thoughts. The night was cold. The fire went out and we shivered in the humorless fest of merciless dreams. Every sound was wound in a darker fantasy of itself. He wakes up in fear of a phantom I couldn’t see… The warmth of a soft snug bed is a painful memory tonight. It’ll soon be morning now, it’s still dark outside, and the mountains bathe in eerie moonlight. Some birds are about. The fire has been out for hours. Inside the sleeping bag my hands wonder and bask in the warmth of my breath and I leave the discomfort of my homeless bed. Our lives plead for fire, and I follow the ritual without a doubt. Shadows have risen from their sleep, their dreamless sleep, their lifeless sleep, their unfeeling weep… From flickering flames, to spirited flames, the shadows inspired, they dance… come out dear sun, we want to be walking skywards again…

Above the clouds we’ve been walking for long… hail storms… strong winds… and then it snowed… skywards… skywards… what if I were to just lie down and close my eyes… so tired… so tired… the air is so thin… I keep seeing things… so tired… and another twelve hours… the skywards path ended.. above us there was only sky now… no land… and we kept walking… now downwards… earth bound… till deep into the night… life reflected on death quietly…
the third night we slept in a warm bed… and the following morning met a few sadhus who sang and told us that there is only joy in the fair of saints..