23 May 2020
Today is new moon and also World Turtle Day. A critically endangered hawksbill turtle was sighted coming onto Singapore shore to lay her eggs.
She spent about 2 hours on the East Coast Park beach before covering her contributions with sand and swimming out to sea.
This evening I received gifts of fruits, bread, noodles & soup.
Around this time in 2011, Ron and I took our first trip to Nepal.
It was the mango season then.
It is not something to be taken for granted that the same friend who lugged mangoes back to our hotel that day sent me mangoes this evening 9 years later.
I remember vividly Ron & I eating mangoes by the dusty window of Hotel Harati in Thamel in silent gratitude as cars honked madly on the street below.
This stay home imposition has provided me the grounding I need to recall & process lots of stuff.
May the new moon open our eyes to see our own buried past clearly, so that we can gather compassion & wisdom to move forward. And as the scales fall off our eyes in the new moon light, may we develop the courage to look at our own movies, instead of just the ones on Netflix.
May the new moon also refresh our ears even as our mouths are masked shut, so that we can listen better to ourselves and to others, before we speak.
Lisa Ong 