JOURNAL ENTRY:

Over the past several weeks we've been trekking out to a small, sandy island; photographing, collecting specimens and diving into deep conversation. Under the most recent full moon, hours passed, cameras in hand, and still there were images left untaken. We've made the journey four or five times now, designating this space for a collaborative art project on companionship, quantum fields and self-discovery. We stumbled upon this pocket universe by accident. Many accidents, actually, as a series of paths revealed themselves along the way.

By motorbike, we followed a dirt road past a fallen palace and terracotta temples, too narrow for cars. I hopped off at a steep incline, just where goats and cattle were emerging from an intersecting path from the agricultural fields below. Potatoes and okra and spinach and peppers. Each crop belongs to a different farmer and their plots are outlined by a ridge of hardened soil only a few inches wide. Balancing along this uneven ground is how you zig and zag and cross over into the common land without disrupting the crops. Only, I stopped to tickle a mimosa flower whose leaves curl up at the gentlest touch. (In Bengali her name, lajjaboti, translates as shy lady.)

Nearer to the river's edge it appears you cannot continue further because of a formidable wall of elephant grass...until spotting a footpath cutting down the embankment. That first visit was during monsoon and shoes came off to slide down the chute, hoping that handfuls of grass would hold steady to their roots for support. It spilled below into a strange light and a peculiar sort of pond, void of water. We trudged shin-deep through mud. Then another flat pond the texture of clay. Here, a swarm of dragonflies swirled around my body like a cloud. Were they guardians or guides?

The basin narrowed into a channel not much wider than my hips; both sides lined with more elephant grass, arching overhead and concealing everything in the world besides a bit of sky. Now, the dragonflies skimmed the water's surface while I waded deeper and deeper above the knees. I couldn't see the end of this passage and kept wading forward into the unknown, until the water felt cooler and we found ourselves at the mouth of the Ajoy River.

Have we reached the end? Do we turn around and go back? Or do we cross? The anticipation grew with each leg of this trek. I held my breath and committed to moving forward. We clasped hands for a moment while walking into the unknown, feeling the terrain shift underfoot as slick mud gave way to sand with sudden drops where the riverbed had eroded. One misstep, plunging unexpectedly to my chest. As the water rose, we lifted arms above waving a flag of shoes and phones and money.

A narrow ridge of mud protruded from the middle of the river, dotted by thin bamboo sticks every ten or twenty feet where fishing line drifted with the current. Just one more crossing--much more shallow--and we arrived at the island. At this moment, the sky had warmed to shades of pink and orange. We were surrounded by nothing except water and sand and a dome of sky. It felt otherworldly.

Through a series of crossings, guides & trust, not knowing what will come next, we entered into a Pocket Universe.