Sumangali Morhall's Blog, page 5
May 23, 2015
The Best Spiritual Memoirs
(…in my subjective opinion). This is a work in progress –I hope to collect more spiritual memoirs and autobiographies here as I read them, and write more on the ones I enjoyed. Do leave me your own recommendations in the comments, I’m always looking out for more…
Acedia & Me, by Kathleen Norris
Waiting on my shelf:Hand Wash Cold, Karen Maezen Miller
Open Secrets, Richard Lischer
Widening Circles, Joanna Macy
A Life of Saint Bernadette Soubirous in Her Own Words, René L...
May 21, 2015
Gavarnie
Were I to set more store by the zodiac, I’d blame it on a Cancerian date of birth. Perhaps it has more to do with past-life experience, or maybe it’s just one of those things. Either way, the fact remains: my thoughts about leaving the house generally range from ambivalence to reluctance.
I use the word house loosely, as it is neither manor nor cottage, nor even a town maisonette, but a single room by a railway line. I fancy I could live quite well somewhere as an anchoress, so long as there’...
March 25, 2015
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
Do you remember believing that adults know everything? One believes a lot of silly things as a child, and perhaps a lot of sensible things that ought to be remembered.
Statistically speaking, I am over halfway through this life. The longer I live, the less I seem to know, but the less it seems to matter. Take times tables, for example. Some people have a knack for ball sports, and some for line drawings. In either case there’s a certain amount of progress to be made through practice, but ess...
January 18, 2015
We need money-power to live on earth
A rhyming play, based on the story We need money-power to live on earth by Sri Chinmoy. Performed for Sri Chinmoy’s students in Dubrovnik on January 11th 2015. The actors played their parts behind large masks on sticks, while their lines were read aloud off-stage.
CAST:
2 Husbands
2 Wives
2 Doctors
[Enter Husbands]
HUSBAND 1:
Dearest friend, it must be twenty years since last we met!
So much time has passed, yet here’s a face I’d not forget!
In fact I must confess it comes to me as some surprise
to see...
January 13, 2015
Dubrovnik
A boat was rented for an afternoon
to show us the surrounding isles,
cutting through glassy Adriatic blue,
inviting us to villages of white stone houses
shuttered blind in hibernation.
At one shore the air hung pungent
with oranges in stages of decay –
bright baubles on every tree
and fallen in abundant waste
to alleyways and gardens.
Neglected fruits
seemed the only life,
but for feral cats and fishermen
absorbed in old habits of stillness,
so all was quiet as a postcard photograph.
Till chi...
December 1, 2014
A Pilgrimage in 50 Parts
My goodwill is itself
The height of my victory,
Even if I cannot or do not
See any satisfactory result from it.”–Sri Chinmoy, Flower-Flames, Part 2
York is a wizened little city, halfway from London to Edinburgh. Tourists come by their busload between the two, alighting for a day here, taking high tea, snapping group portraits against medieval backdrops. It’s a place that asks little and gives much, like one of those lone benign family members who’s glad when you drop by, and always has som...
October 17, 2014
Vallée de l’Orb
The hushing of leaves
in tune with the river’s rush,
while crickets sound alarm clocks
that nobody heeds,
as all the world’s awake,
chirruping, squabbling
unseen from treetops.
The spaniel gallops on
to dive-bomb her reflection,
but we follow gingerly
on two legs apiece,
picking our way unshod
down a dusty track
of pebbles and brush.
On land we are various
veterans and teens,
and all stations in between,
dark, fair, mousey,
strapping or thin,
Parisians, Londoners,
coastal and country folk,
Straining...
May 25, 2014
Praia da Falésia
Will you come too, I ask
Yes, she tells me, eyes gleaming
I can hear the distant breathing of the sea
and want to be nearer
We don’t know the way, but follow signs
from this maze of marble and painted tiles
out between the pines in waking birdsong
on a trail of lanterns and gangways
down, down through a dark chasm of shapes
like giant stalagmites of sand
Let’s go barefoot, she says
Wet grains, aching cold
sink under our heels and grate on our toes
Blue light from an icy moon
and the sun hinting orange
revea...
April 19, 2014
Russian Translation
Published by Guru-Noka Publications in Moscow
Contact Sumangali for more details »
December 27, 2013
The Seeker-Writer
A rhyming play, based The Seeker-Writer, by Sri Chinmoy. Performed for Sri Chinmoy’s students in Albufeira, Portugal, on December 27th 2013. The actors played their parts behind large masks on sticks, while their lines were read aloud off-stage.
CAST
Narrator
Writer
Lion
Tiger
King
Minister
Soul
Heart
God
Cosmic God
Sage
[Enter Writer]
Narrator:
Once there was a seeker who’d developed much sincerity.
By writing books he’d also gained considerable prosperity.
His first book was a comprehensive study of zoology...
