Ken Trimble #51 The game

On the face of it, a simple cricket match isn't much to write home about, however there are times when you think, did I just experience that? Staying in the forest of peace ashram was beautiful with its daily rituals of prayer , meditation, and work. The days had its rhythm of the Hours, the sacred calling into being . My hut was a friend to all sentiment beings; mosquitoes, fruit bats, spiders, gecko, cockroaches and even a giant king cobra that slid by my huts wall in the late afternoon light.  But it was in between the breaks of prayer, and ritual, when I would set off down the dusty road to the main highway, to have a coffee and smoke my woodbine with the owner and his family at his shop near the bus shelter when life really took shape. Chickens, dogs, and children played around me as the big bellied owner smiled his toothless grin as he looked towards his Sydney Harbour Bridge poster,  the one I had given him the day before.  From there, I would cross the road, and cross the bridge that overlooked the canal, where children swam, and mothers washed their clothes, as I set out  to the village to wander through its lanes. The children thought of me as a great oddity as I became their Peter Pan as they danced and laughed around me like a swarm of laughing  bees.  Three children perhaps around fourteen asked if I would like to come and watch the cricket with them at their home. England was playing Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground and Steve Waugh was nearing his hundred just before stumps. I sat in their tiny home watching the cricket with the dogs, chickens, and children , and parents, gobbling homemade biscuits drinking chai. The great man was on 98 with one ball remaining. Inside the tiny home everything became deathly still, even the village itself seemed to be suspended in time, the moment was electric. Up came the spinner with our hearts in our throats as he released the ball, it seemed to take an eternity to reach El Capitan, then whack, Steve smacked it to the boundary for four. The silence suddenly interrupted into a roar that could be heard all the way back to the Antipodes .  Chickens went flying, dogs started to  howl,  and the kids went off  dancing with one crazed Australian and you knew life was good, in fact, it was very fucking good. This is life, I mean this stuff we call ordinary became extraordinary as if that moment was a grace. To celebrate with that family was one of the greatest joys of this man's life.  I walked back to the ashram as high as a kite as if I had encountered God, and maybe I had.