Sometimes the spirit is so bright it must be concealed in a coating of grime to protect it. Or perhaps to protect others.
I have seen the truth of this in India.
It is threatening, this light. It is not easily understood, only because we seek to understand it. It is meant to be experienced to be bathed in, not dissected and studied. It is what lights the path, not the path itself.
It’s easy to confuse them sometimes.
If it were allowed, the light in India would illuminate the god in everything, but it is dulled by the haze created from burning trash. It must be this way, I think, otherwise it would be too much information all at once and the secrets revealed would be garish, like the exotic girls billboards on I-95 in Florida.
Instead, a rare day without haze, without dirt, uncloaks the mysteries to be discovered one at a time. A dirty man wrapped in orange under a leafless tree allowing a dog – equally as homeless – to take the shady spot. An entire village walking along the Ganges on pilgrimage to sacred sites – some with shoes, some without. A rickshaw philosopher who shares his musings freely. A yoga swami who has never really done a yoga posture, but prays endlessly. When he’s not laughing or teaching.
And then the haze returns. The light obscured. But now we know, now we have seen.
Dirty covers the bold, bright truth, which would be easy to dismiss as fantasy if handed over all at once. We must do the work. We must wipe the glass clean in our own time, in our own way, to reveal the clarity that is meant for each of us individually.
Dirty is a gift. Or perhaps it is the wrapping.
Allison's Wanderland 