As a baby

I remember, as a baby, lying on the settee in the lounge after lunch; peaceful, satisfied and awake, gazing at coloured lights in the panes of the bay window of a suburban semi. My recollection is of the beauty of the coloured lights being unified with the pleasurable feeling of my relaxed body, of peacefulness and happiness.

In my memory this was a regular event: the qualities of pure pleasure and un-distracted ease, arising from the perception of body and colour, leaving a trace in body, heart and mind. The lack of, or need for, those qualities were motivating factors in my active searching from mid-adolescence to early adulthood.