Mindfulness

It was Dusherra vacation and we were in my hometown. The generous rains had turned the garden into a blanket of green. In a basket by the veranda, lay marbles both flat and round, a memory of the games the children played the previous evening. I ran my hands through the basket and the marbles glided through my palm, clinking, making that pleasant sound of glass as it tinkles. 

With no planned motive I began to pull out the marbles and arrange them into a pattern on the ground. I began with one small 5 petals flower and then the pattern kept growing. As I was engrossed in this activity, my daughter walked up in curiosity and asked if she could join, so both of us began to create together. It was at this point I felt that I should photo document this process. Sadly I don't have pictures of how the marbles came together in its first moments. 

As we began making the pattern many things began to happen- 

My collaborator wanted all the flat blue marbles for herself 

With a tinge of regret of having share my peaceful activity and also having to turn it into a mindfulness talk, I began to tell her that we were making this together and that the main idea is to put together a design that the both of us are proud of. Eventually who put in how much of what will not matter. So readily agreed. 

We will not change what the other person makes

My collaborator was constantly unhappy about how I was placing my marbles. There was no silence and constant interruption to an idea. So I had to lay down the next rule, we work in silence and don't get into the other persons' mind. Let us build together. The silence was hard to achieve at first, but the working together part worked immediately.

My collaborator began to build, and build beyond

After a while, my collaborator began to run around collecting leaves and flowers from the garden to build the design. From a marble mandala, this turned into a multi-material pattern that kept evolving into something that had not been planned at all. We were working in tandem and building from where the other person stopped. 

The design was presented as ours 

My collaborator called the entire household to display our design and said the both of us made it. She went on to explain the rules of making the Mandala and how it only works when you make it in silence, as your mind is peaceful only at that time. 

The experience reminded me of how we create Pookalam’s as a family for Onam, where each family member contributes to the design, just that there is no silence or as much fluidity in the process. 

What started off with as tinkering at the start, ended up as a mindfulness activity in the case!