12/10/2009

Fare Forward Voyager

Preludium will continue for the next few weeks, but with fewer entries, while its blogger (Mark Harris) goes on vacation with Kathryn, good friends Sue and Karen and their family in and from India. It has been a long time dream to go to India and so, now at long last we are off!

I will be blogging from India on a trip blog, Fare Forward Voyager.

The title for the blog is taken of course from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, the Dry Salvages:

Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)
'Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death"—that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward.
O voyagers, O seamen,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination.'
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.


Please go to FARE FORWARD VOYAGERS to check in on trip.

8 comments:

  1. Have a wonderful time! I've longed to go to India myself. I'm sure the place will be an eyeful. Everyone I know who has ever seen it says the Taj is worth the visit, as is Agra and Akbar's palace at Fatehpur Sikri. Don't forget Banaras, the great Buddhist stupas at Sanchi, the rock temples at Khailasa, and the temples with all the randy religious sculpture at Khajurao.

    Coins to Ganesha to prosper your journey.

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  3. Must be what a recent poster (sixth from the bottom) to Baby Blue's blog was referring to when he mentioned "the ever-shrinking circle at Preludium".

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  4. A blessed, happy, and safe voyage to you and Kathryn and your friends, Mark.

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  5. Heavy frolicing amongst the clashing colors...I love clashing colors.

    ENJOY,

    Leonardo

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  6. have a wonderful trip!

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