Zhuangzi's dream, red leaves and a cat

This morning, when I woke up, I said to Monika, 'What if we were really a couple of deer?'

We usually say a 'Hari Om' to each other when we wake up, but the waking up moment is such that one could be anything, really, A lot can happen while sleeping. I am reminded of Zhuangzi's famous dream of a butterfly, and how he had no way of knowing if he was now a butterfly dreaming of a man, or earlier had been a man dreaming of a butterfly. Anyway, so thinking of ourselves as deer, we gently rubbed ourselves against each other (since we didn't know what deer did to each other in the mornings. Of course, we could have done anything, but we weren't that kind of deer this morning).

Later, I wrote:

Your love comes to me
    in particles      and yet
 in waves     giving me
no reasons, but only
tendencies to exist.
Still        the leaves turn red.

Speaking of red, we went out to the beach a few days back when we saw some evening clouds forming. We watched the sun set behind an island.

While still on red, the Sea Almond tree outside our house has been changing colours and I have been watching this change keenly. A few days ago it looked like this

before turning into this one morning.

Now that the tree is bare I find the crows have also shifted out to the adjacent tree. Everyone likes a bit of privacy, I guess. Or perhaps, no one likes a bare tree.

Meanwhile,

she comes and sits on the wall some afternoons. Fortunately she is well behaved and doesn't raid the kitchen. A few nights back she was at the open window of our bedroom, meowing in the dead of the night, asking permission to get in. I woke up with a start, a bit freaked out at seeing a cat silhouette at the window. Very Egyptian it was. Anyway, we shooed her away. The next day we saw a big rat in the house.