The Fragrance of Light

Ever thought about it? All relationships have an outer sheath and an inner light. Body and soul. Outer sheath is the title; father, mother, son, wife, friend etc. Some titles are unchanged for a lifetime. That’s why father of a son remains the father forever or the son of a father remains the son forever. The spirit of their relationship may swing from amiable to animosity but still the title remains the same. It’s a funny situation where the body is eternal but the soul goes through a metamorphosis. There is no death here because the body remains and death essentially means burial of outer sheath. This phenomenon pervades in all relationships of lineage where labels are static and the light has the scope to flutter. But in lineage the gross aspect of relationship is more important than the subtle aspects of it because legal language has serious limitation of expressing whatever beyond the obvious.

There is a second type, an opposite of sort. The outer sheath or the title of the relationships is shed somewhere in the journey but the soul continues to radiate; brighter sometime. Ever noticed? The paths once crossed will have to diverge at one point or other. The title ‘fellow traveler’ gets dropped at the point of diversion but the warmth may linger for a lifetime. It’s a death of outer sheath but the soul is reincarnated and takes a different shape. There is a wooliness around those diversions and that is comparable with the white fume that surrounds death but beyond that phase there is a tunnel of sunlight. Bliss.

And when she backpacked and waved hand I could see the white fume first and then that placid radiance of sunlight. The outer sheath is dropped but the soul is not just intact but elevated to a celestial plain. Those conversations during the journey will transcend time and space. When I waved my hand, like what happened in Macondo at the death of Jose Arcadio Buendia, I saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They fell on the town all through the night in a silent storm, and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and smothered the animals who slept outdoors. So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion. (From Gabriel Marquez). But unlike in Macondo I did not clear them with shovels but instead I walked on them barefoot. So carefully that they are not crushed.