There are no dead stagnant places in our world.
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To saunter, says Thoreau, is to either rove idly in search of a holy land that one has no intention of reaching or to become so completely bereft of home that one is at home anywhere.
On a dreary evening, wilfully bereft of my home, I sauntered to the edge of a nearby pond that I had no intention of reaching. Having sauntered there with my feet, I sauntered now with my eyes. A sludge- and muck-filled pond, it instantly conjures metaphors of a sluggish mind in which the clear stream of reason has lost its way. This pond, as I gaze into it, reflects the sludge, muck, and stagnation wrought on my mind by the day’s stupor.
But wait.
I let my gaze saunter slowly from surface to depth. I see the leaves of the water lilies shimmer. The baby paddy frogs sit stoically on the leaves. Their sibling tadpoles dart around so fast that it looks like a single tadpole appearing everywhere all at once. The fish rake up the muddy water looking for food. The puddle flies walk nimbly over the water weaving invisible silvery threads. I see how even the unmoving dull mud undulates in corralled algal peaks and valleys.
Then I reflect on how the mango leaves, yellow, brown, and some even green, tremble to their death. The weaver ants bend lush green leaves to their iron will with their frail bodies. Dragonflies and damselflies fly in a symphony of point and counterpoint.
The bulbul shakes his crested head as he pops a fruit into his throat. The orb weaver spiders braid all this magic into their webs burnishing them with the fading sun’s golden threads. I reflect on how the pond reflects all this embellished with frog eggs that criss-cross in grey threads. There are no dead stagnant places in our world. There is only life sauntering wildly over everything with silver, golden, and grey threads. And in the sauntering wild lies the preservation of everything.
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