Ratnadevi
‘Ready’, called the egg when it was laid. ‘Now I’m ready!’ called the tadpole when it had hatched. ‘Now I’m completely ready! ‘ called the creature, animal when it had two legs.
‘Now, finally, I’m absolutely completely ready! ‘ called the creature when it had four legs and a long tail. ‘Who knows what else might come…’, said the frog, when he was ready.
(author unknown)
Warm enough now to sit outside at the allotment, in cross-legged meditation position, contemplating eggs. How we blew them empty, half a century ago. And then painted them, under instruction of mum, turned into a high priestess transmitting ancient wisdom. A dozen of them attached with cotton thread to a willow branch – so light they are, swaying in the blow of our breath. We also boiled eggs and dyed them in luminous tulip colours, magic sulphurous odours filling the kitchen. Who will eat them all? Seemingly rituals are allowed to be wasteful and non-utilitarian.
At the allotment again, with our 5 years old granddaughter. Eagerly she collects the treasures the Easter Bunny has hidden among the fresh green, variously shaped leafs of the perennials along the borders and in the little nesting places where the fruit trees branch. When she has found them all she wants to find more. While she gets busy with her grandpa doing a little weeding and digging, I re-distribute a clutch of those metal-foil covered chocolate eggs. ‘Some kind of bunny has hidden some treasures for you’ I announce. Her eyes light up and she bounces up and down: ‘A Granny Bunny!’
Children manage to make magic at any time, under any circumstance. For us adults, a surprise find may open that door to us: like finding a ‘real’ bird’s egg. That speckled perfection, clearly containing something. Some part of us may awaken, curious, wondering and intent on making meaning, but perhaps not only in the literal way. Yes, it’s probably a blackbird’s egg, but really: What is it? What is inside? What wants to be born?
Maybe we don’t have to wait for those chance happenings or the ritually planned surprise of a gift. What would it take for us now to tap into that child-like aptitude for wonder-filled appreciation, on a daily basis? There is a way of approaching meditation that does that for me: sitting and being open to the ‘unknowingness’ of this moment, and the next.