The Winds of Wonder

“Winter with its snow” — An Appreciation by Claude Chamberland

The reference is an email, with the pictures, from Claude Chamberland Montréal Canada:

Dear Friend,

Sometimes, you need to be very patient with me…

For example, I started to write these comments almost one year ago, just after the 1^st of April which means, here in Canada, a good day to play tricks. Yesterday, it was the St-Valentine day, the day of Love. The sun was so intensely brilliant and moving that I immediately felt the need of taking a few photographies to share with you and accompany your poem and Arora Silky’s painting with appropriate beauty.

The context was this: After three or four weeks with wheather turning between -10 and -25, it suddenly went “up” to -2 yesterday! The park, in the heart of Montreal, is emblematic and named “Le Parc Lafontaine“. In the summer, there is a pond with a waterfall. In winter, it turns into a giant ice rink.  Yesterday, Laurence and I went there for a romantic walk.

In the end, I kept the comments I had started writing last year regarding your poem and added a few more:

      2025:

1. At once Arora Silky’s  extraordinary painting and the general orientation of the poem  convey the meaning of the radiant peaceful presence easily felt when snow is falling on earth, winter being the time when all in Nature seems dead. It is almost like in the book of beginnings in Savitri except that the general colour is a glittering white instead of a black density. So the White Winter promises something more positive than the Black Void of the beginnings. If we plunge in the painting, we almost feel the same as when we go out for a walk in this huge bath of Peace that snow falls are bringing . You never get tired of this magical feeling.
2. After this introduction,  let’s go to the second line of the poem. Based on an inward feeling and as a “snow expert”(!), I would rather say that it is the warm passion which is involved in the peace of the snow instead of the contrary (“tranquil in some warm passion…”). But maybe your intention is to insist on the manifestation of “unknown’s haste” toward the spring and the summer? In any way, I would have insisted a little more on the aspect of the Peace covering the radiant Light to come.

2026:

3. Yesterday, Laurence and me were clearly “governed by the fortune that never fails in mortal frailties“. In this line, I like a lot the rhythm and the sound given by the last five words: “that never fails in mortal frailties“, the sound of “fails” echoing the one of “frailties“, with “never” and “mortal” as opposites.
4. You will see in the pictures that the reflect of the sun’s light on the snow is “Radiant in soaring flight of thoughts, in gifts of nobility” and “Triumphant in diamond race excellence the unreached quest pursues”. 
5. My general remembrance of your poem was that of a heart-touching marvel. That is why it took so long to me to be able to give you at least some a post that would tentatively be “à la hauteur”.

With Love and Respect.

Claude

RYD:

I had sent the following to Claude:

This first one belongs to the set of 12 poems dealing with the possibility of the future ‘man’, the divine Agni materialising in the evolutionary manifold, as the Mother reveals. I shall put these one by one on the blog, possibly one in each week. The word-file is attached for convenient reference.

Please have a look at these critically and let me know what you think, particularly the Sanskrit renderings about which I am not really very competent. I shall appreciate it very much if corrections are suggested. I shall incorporate these suitably in the final text. It will of course be wonderful if someone can do this in some suitable Sanskrit metre. The lines in English are sixteen syllabic echoing the Sanskrit Anushtubha.

The illustrations are by Silky Arora of Savitri Bhavan at Auroville.

https://savitri.in/blogs/light-of-supreme/o-son-of-the-body-ry-deshpande-01-winter-with-its-snow

Here is the original poem.

01: Winter with its snow …

Winter with its snow freezes not time nor the brook’s unceasing song,

Tranquil in some longing is yet the unknown’s haste with speed of light;

शिशिरः हिमेन सह स्थिरं करोति न कालः न च नद्यः अविरामं गीतम् ,

शान्तं कयाचित् आकाङ्क्षया आग्रही अज्ञातस्य प्रकाशवेगेन सह त्वरितम्;

Zealous in the will to conquer heights rises resolute spirit,

Governed by the fortune that never fails in small mortal’s frailties;

ऊर्ध्वतां जितुमिच्छया उत्सुकः सङ्कल्पात्मा उत्तिष्ठति,

क्षुद्रमर्त्यस्य दुर्बलतासु कदापि न विफलं भाग्येन शासितः;

Radiant in soaring flight of thoughts, in gifts of nobility,

Triumphant in diamond race excellence the unreached quest pursues;

आरोहणं विचाराणां उड्डयनम् दीप्तिमत्, अभिजातापुरस्कारेषु,

हीरकवेगः उत्कृष्टतायां विजयी अप्राप्तः अन्वेषणः अनुसृत्य गच्छति;

Hastening and loud significant in strides of the wind-haired joys

Vehemence and life’s impatient hopes care not clamour nor death’s shout;

त्वरितम् उच्चैः च वायुकेशानां आनन्दानाम् पादौ महत्त्वपूर्णम्,

ओजः अधीराः जीवनस्य आशाः च न कोलाहलं न मृत्यो: उद्घोषं चिन्तयन्ति;   

Harmony is roar of gladness when begins the seventh octave,

Rapidly ascends in that calm the utter sense of wonderment;

सङ्गीतसौहार्दः सप्तमसप्तकस्य आरम्भे आनन्दस्य गर्जनः भवति,

तस्यां शान्तौ शीघ्रं आरोहति सर्वथा आश्चर्यस्य भावः;           

Harder is yet physical’s mind, ungiven to coming marvels,

Bare to surprises it must hold in its matter gleaming substance;

कठिनतरं तथापि भौतिकस्य मनः, आगामिचमत्कारेभ्यः अदत्तम्,

आश्चर्यं प्रति उद्घाटितं तस्य द्रव्ये दीप्तिमत् पदार्थं धारयितव्यम्;

Violently, O flame-intensity, set ablaze the shadow,

Son of unbelievable body, sculpt thy wonder of beauty.

उग्रतया, हे ज्वाला तीव्रता, छायां प्रज्वालय,

हे विश्वासात् परम् शरीरस्य पुत्रः, शिल्पं तव शोभनविस्मयम्.

30 November 2023

And here is an introductory Note about O Son of the Body:

O Son of the Body

That’s Laurence