Can you hear something out there?

I am sitting here with a quite lively breeze questing through the trees just outside. The garden seems to in a noisy mood today and its given me a sense of communicating out there. And this speech brings to my mind an experience I had the other day with, Anay, my 18 month-old nephew that might tickle you....

My nephew's voice is beginning to discover him at the moment and when the moods strikes, he practices making noises, babbling, languaging. On this early summer morning, whilst he was sat in my lap, I heard a delightful sound coming from him. He was repeating the noise over and over again and sensed he was getting deep pleasure in explore the various inflections and variations he could put into this one word. Each time, the same phrase, and each time, a slightly different sound.

I listened for a while, trying to figure out what word he was trying to express but couldn't quite get him. Then I just found myself repeating and discovering a pleasure in making this sound. We entered into a conversation as I walked around the house with him.

I then decided to step outside with him. There we continued making the noise together and we both became louder in our calls. And as we became bolder, I was gifted a moment of grace.

Standing there under a vaulting blue roof and framed by leaf-laden trees, a third voice joined in our dialogue. I gasped in joy as the noise Anay was making made absolute and complete sense. My nephew had not been copying a gujarati word he'd been hearing inside the house. No. He'd been mimicking the sound of a bird outside his bedroom window and what I had been hearing was a fragment of his conversation with those light wonders.

In that moment, I saw that an idea that we humans talk and the rest of the planet makes noises is just a little more than hubristic. I saw also how our own communication has its deepest roots in our relationship with such more-than-human language. From where else would our language come, if not from the birds and trees alongside whom we grew up?

We carried on for a few moments - the three of us chatting away - and then I returned inside feeling rather honoured for receiving this unexpected gift - a chance to hear the sounds of river, breeze and caw whilst talking about tea and toast at the breakfast table.

Presence and presents

Hello there

Various of you have asked Kajal and I about what we want for our wedding. I wondered whether we should think about what we might like to receive but Kajal admitted that she was not comfortable with preparing a list of things that you should buy. We discussed this some more and I also felt a little unsure. After going around in circles, we thought we'd offer you a list that would serve our purpose well. So here goes.....

1. Both of us would love to be more peaceful, enlightened and creative human beings. Any presents/presence you can give that would move us towards self-understanding and liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth will be gratefully accepted.
2. We'd love to receive any 'experience' or 'thing' that is crafted, created or inspired by you (obviously if it could contribute to achievement number 1 above that would be great).
3. The chance to spend time with you learning, discovering, playing or just kicking back over a cup of tea and home-made strawberry tart. Combining 1, 2 and 3 would be the jackpot.
4. Our deepest dreams involve having a set of towels in a variety of shades, such that when guests come over to stay we can match the towel colour to that night's sunset. Given that between us we only have three towels at the moment - cream, dull green and chocolate brown – you can help us achieve our toweling dreams by getting down to John Lewis asap for some vouchers. 
5. We'd love to walk El Camino, Hadrians Wall or some other great route. If you can give us the gift of time and knees to do it we'd love you. You could join us as well if you like.
6. We enjoy reading, and we already have too many unread books lying around. Whilst a book would be a dear present, the ability to read more efficiently would be a greater gift.

At this point I realise that several of these items involve giving us 'time' and 'space', which are really gifts of the gods. If you can have a word with your particular boss man/woman or animal in the sky and see what's possible on that front it would be great.

7. A guarantee of good weather whenever we go camping. Or, if not available, a portable, solar-powered, wind-up, ethically-sourced, vintage-effect, light-weight, Lib-Lab, vegan lamp to go in our beautiful tent.
8. Nothing. I think it was the Arabs, or Indians, or perhaps Scousers, who invented the number zero. Whoever it was, their genius transformed human society and form 2 maths lessons beyond belief. We think you could effect a similar change in us by presenting us with nothing. And remember, you don't need to give us your gift of nothing on the day of wedding itself. You can wait a little while and offer us a bigger, higher-spec, wide-screen nothing when it comes out next year or the year after.
9. Your own happiness and peace. And we're back to where we stared just from the other side. If you can offer us this gift, we're sure to derive a lifetime of joy from that.

warmest

Rupesh and Kajal