She

Photo by Myself

A girl, a woman born with the essence of feminine grace and beauty. With innate qualities and potential for expression of what she can be, with the gifts she is born with.

When she dances to the rhythm of music she becomes her pure essence. When every fiber of her Being becomes a part of the symphony, she embodies the purity of the soul.

A girl, a woman, often since born on earth, has been caged in this mold, a way of living carved out for her, defined for her. Her role-play in this lifetime dictated to her as if in exchange for basic human needs of food, shelter, and clothing. The basic needs are met and she is trained to follow the rules of female existence.

This is from an age when her gender innocence is at its peak, she is barely a girl from a toddler. She is enrolled in a dance class to cultivate discipline. Not to allow her essence, her most beautiful expression of Being to bloom with her own unique fragrance, but just to learn a dance form. No public performance is allowed. Good girls don’t move their bodies this way in public, she is told, as she continues to mature.

The girl becomes a woman with a process of going through a shredder as if, separating her person into strips of ways of Being offered to different relations as designed and defined. She is a daughter of a family, daughter-in-law of another, keeping their smiles of approval beaming as long as she behaves in respectable ways.

One strip, the essence of that woman keeps fluttering in her face through life. It is her sense of being herself, a piece of that person wanting to be congruent within and not stripped off in so many ways. That strip has all the love and devotion towards her relations, yet wants the freedom to dance to her own rhythm, through life experiences of her own.

When this woman sets herself dancing to the music on stage, immerses herself in the realm of her own essence, her soul is set free to be herself. No name, no relations, no conditions, her gender evident only in the beauty, the grace, the art, the freedom that transcends all different ways of her being. This woman then captivates the audience as if in collective meditation, mesmerized and immersed in the rhythm of the soul.

Let us celebrate the awakening of this collective woman power in the uplifting of our human essence. Happy Women’s Day to all of you, those who identify with the gender, and others who support their journey!

Note: To me, She is based on my observation of so many sister-friends around, and the various ways of impact all of us have, from growing up in our particular culture. Do you recognize Her in someone you know from any of my descriptions?

P.S. This article was lying in my pile of unpublished drafts since 2017. It appeared in my mind today, as I was thinking about what do I want to share for this week’s blog post. I was delighted that this piece showed the willingness to go out into the world on International Women’s Day this year 🙂

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Those Moments of Living with Myself

Photo by Myself

I am deeply overjoyed to share this poem, the first to be published today on MasticadoresUsa. I offer my utmost gratitude to Editor and #1 Amazon Bestseller Author Gabriela Marie Milton for finding my poem worthy of their platform.

The Earth
of my Being
as if is splitting
into parts
yet again

Dry lands
of my emotions
as if fueling
Fires
of my thoughts

Wildfires spreading
no tears raining
:
:
Please go here to read the complete poem. It is an honor and a privilege that you would take the time!
Thank You. Thank You. Thank You :)))


Happy Greetings for Amazing Times!

Photo by myself: First Sunrise of 2022

Happy Greetings for amazing times in the year ahead, my dear respected long time friends and newer heartfelt connections through our words in this space! I am always and ever so humbled and thrilled to be here and have this space to be here.

I did not really want to take a break from blogging during this holiday season – I kept coming here and then feeling very silent, so that’s what I stayed with, silence and all of you in my heart.

Silence did not translate into solitude for me – As much as I took an unintended break from much activity, life was brimming full with homely family time, island vacation, and a sense of blessedness for it all.

Life brings so much beauty through intensity, and also intensity through beauty! I raise one to you all, to drink it in with gratitude for the splendor of it all.

Though I feel fulfilled about honoring the silence regarding being here, I do feel the regret of being absent on reading your works. It is my loss when I don’t get to visit you. I will now take the time to make up as much possible for my misses. To my new visitors – I am greatly honored that you chose to spend time in this space. To my old friends – I apologize for being unresponsive to your comments for so long.

On another note, I am very happy and proud to share a poet friend Lalit Kumar’s first poetry book “Years Spent : Exploring Poetry in Adventure, Life and Love” Sharing my favorite lines from him:

“Niggling fear or the raging fire

whom should I choose?

I choose fear,

feels my life beginning to shrink.

I choose fire

I expand beyond my proportion.”

I hope you check it out and enjoy it as much as I did. I like how he relates to poetry the way I do – this surge that comes from experiences of our worldly quests and inner explorations of ourselves. His poetry feels like our story really. He writes beautifully about all things life – success, transitions, emotions, pain, love, etc. For my Delhi readers, this book will also be displayed at New Delhi World Book Fair in Pragati Maidan, Jan 8th – 16th.

The Fear-quake at 3am

Photo by myself

3 am Fear-Quake
Seismic activity
Not plates colliding
More like
River revolving
Not flowing
But like
Pouring
Out of the
Heart cave
To form a whirlpool
In the belly
Richter scale
reading registered
Incessantly in the brain
Momentum of thoughts
Keep pale awake
Heavy eyes
Floods they make
Pulling the river
Reversed
From belly to cave
Heartbeat
Aftershocks
Desolate search
Breath rhythm found
Richter Scale broken
Blank
Lost
Quiet
Grief
No river
Anymore
Cave open
To the ocean
Of Being
Belly becomes shore
For the waves
Of breathing
Vision ships
Awake sleeping
Powerful release
To all turmoil within

About Being Myself

Photo of Moon by myself

Growing up around a lot of extended family and friends who were more affluent than my family was, I never really had envy. It was a matter of fact for me that you have some things that I don’t. I remember once a cousin who owned all the latest CDs, excitedly sharing with me about it, apologized to me “oh I didn’t know, I am so sorry you don’t have a CD player.” As if I lacked a family member, I thought. I just responded “Why sorry, I just don’t have a CD player.” I think I simply enjoyed the feeling of abundance they enjoyed and was very much interested in their life. I can have all that some day I imagined and yet never really prioritized having ‘things’ in my life.

What I craved was people, authentic people. I looked for genuine care and unconditional love, and struggled to fit in, wherever I went. I didn’t know that though. So I envied the confidence in people. Often being affluent made people more confident in the world – like they owned the world in some ways I didn’t. I mistook it as something being wrong with me. It didn’t cross my mind that money made the difference. They kept showing the riches to me, I kept looking at it and saying to myself “yes but I want to become like you, be more confident in being myself”

I was amused to realize that my life long quest of living as authentically as possible, has this root in my envy for confident people and those with artistic abilities. That is how I discovered that what I think of envy is actually my admiration for people who can express themselves in ways I can only dream of.

My honesty and vulnerability in my quest for authenticity was repeatedly taken for my weakness, and that became a further blow to my confidence. I am emerging from that too. I have nothing to prove to anyone as much as I owe to myself, the gift of being myself. This is one journey that I have mastered very well and yet always be a beginner forever on the way. I have discovered that I can be way more courageous than just confident.

I love and admire people who have what I don’t have in me yet.
I keep learning to love myself more and more with all my perceived shortcomings.
It gives me a renewed taste of newfound freedom continually.

I wished to highlight these lines above from my previous post as a reminder to myself for everywhere I am not living this in every fiber of my being. I am committed to waking up with more love and freedom in being myself for the rest of my life. I also know that I will have days when I falter and slide away from this commitment, and wake up in judgment and fear instead. I feel immense gratitude for being in association with those who model greater faith, trust, capacity, resilience and joy of living and being alive. They fill my day and life with abundance and blessings. I get to borrow from them what I might wake up lacking for the day. I consciously practice filling my cup and then rejoice in gratitude when I can be a channel of support to others.

A Similar Post : Envy & Inspiration

More on the topic
5 lines about Envy : Envy & What can Be
Thought image: Eyes Look Longingly
Short poems:
Here, Take them All
Parallel Disappointment
Show up with your gifts

Days are long, Life is short

Photo by myself

2020 is a long year.
And yet it is already mid-November 2020.

My 15 year old said to me the other day “I can’t imagine living to 80 or 90 year old. That is just too much. I feel like I am on this Earth for too long already. I think it is tiring to keep living that long” He had said the exact same thing when he was 13 too.

I was speechless as to how to respond both times and a bit saddened that he thinks so. It took us few more conversations to arrive at the conclusion that the more we live to deliver to the expectations of social constructs, more tedious it seems to keep living.

I explained to him that I actually feel very young and I am forever learning something, growing, waiting to begin my life as if, and find that this lifetime wouldn’t be enough for what I think is possible. He explained to me that he doesn’t have time to think all that after attending school for 6 hours and working at assignments for another 5 or more hours. Then all we did was nod and smile at each other for what we had realized for ourselves.

The days are very long for my son who is in high school. The days can seem very short for me as I juggle my time between family chores and my personal pursuits. It can easily become overwhelming if I try to figure out what I should be doing. Most answers come from definitions of success and other conditioning. I have come to value Being – being at peace and joy and ease through anything that I am doing. This in itself becomes difficult at times as it involves setting boundaries and clearing attachment to certain ways of being.

It is a continuous process of discovery “What do I really want to do today?” that seems in alignment with me being my authentic self, in this moment and situation. Because life is very short really, to spend it any other way.

Dear friends and readers, I have made a friendly commitment to myself to post here every Monday. So I showed up today and simply decided to share what was lingering within and accessible to be expressed in words. I am absolutely thrilled to see if you have any thoughts to share with me on what became this post 🙂

P.S :
Related post : Be-Come
Another conversation with my son when he was 11 : An attempt at success?

Appearances

All of us what we look like
Have a story of our life
Sometimes really brave ones
And then those that we hide


When we want to change
Something in what we look like
It is actually something
We want to change in our life

I had never stepped out in my glasses all my life until this year. I simply forgot to put that attention before I showed up in front of the current zoom world of 2020. I stopped caring if I was wearing my blue glasses, red glasses or contact lenses, eliciting so many responses of how great I look in my glasses and how they never knew I wore glasses. I found myself smiling – at the realization that I have really grown more comfortable in my skin. That I did make this distinct preparation to face the world, was actually acceptable and enjoyable to me, until it didn’t matter anymore.

Social media presence brings some interesting experiences and often loaded with judgment with regards to appearances. No matter how deep my body of work is, my social media posts are at times selectively responded to, as if it is a display fishing for superficial praise, disregarding the story, the very journey that makes me who I am today and continually learning to show up for who I simply am. Gratefully such instances are few, yet they have shown up sadly from those who I considered close circle, long time acquaintance/friend. Mostly otherwise I am blessed with warmth, love and support from those who see me as a person for my appearance, also read me and my writings.

The stories of our life truly define how we show up in all genuineness and joy. There is a lot of courage often in showing up anywhere. And when there is ease, there is a story of our life behind that ease. There is a story of our life behind not wanting to show up – even on social media. There is often judgment we hold for ourselves and against those who do show up.

So many of us often are waiting to look different. Some of us flow through changes gracefully, some of us struggle. Also so many personalities look the same, pandemic or no pandemic. Every instance is a story that we are hiding or not, something we are willing and need to change in our life, or not. What we really want different is how we feel about ourselves. This life is all we have, we are who we are & how we are. There is a lot of love to be discovered in that.

How long was I gone?

Did I go on a long break?

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Photo by myself from a personal retreat in 2015

I have been on this unintended and unplanned break from this blog space. Sometimes I thought I knew why I was away and sometimes I wondered why. It feels more like being in response to the Greater Continuum of Life. It is surrender to where and how I am called to be, on a daily basis.

I am so grateful for the loving kind inquiries on my well being and whereabouts. You, my friends from this blog world, are as real a contribution to me as any other. You truly nourish the soil on which I find my ground to be Here.

The beauty of the space I have been in

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Photo by myself (unedited) : Crater lake, Oregon – the incredible clarity

I found myself letting go of all particular ways of how I spent my time of the day. It led me to venture into new avenues of life and become more consciously present & engaged in the familiar avenues of life. It gave me clarity on exactly how I am a contribution to my relations, my intention, how my purpose is getting shaped. I kept wanting to be back here in time, I had so much to say, yet no urge to write.

My ability to allow life to come to me and follow exactly as guided from within, has deepened more than ever. I finally feel no judgment over what looks productive, or not, in the world out there. The choice of simply Being, living life without the pressure of Doing, is coming more easily to me. I found myself in a profound wave of contemplating, clearly seeing, digesting and integrating all aspects of my life and being, towards a sense of coherence. It is unfolding in incredible ways. It is amazing.

I feel the process of grounding and the blooming of ease & joy alive in me. There is no rushing about this process. It is slow and luxurious. It yields abundantly with the time and space it provides me to grow and just Be. 

Blog Anniversary

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Photo by myself

My first blog post was dated October 5, 2015.  All this time seems to be magical and unreal. I entered this space not knowing what blogging meant, what it took and what could be done with it. I simply needed a place to rest the force that was pulsating within. A trusted friend suggested WordPress, dear husband set up this site for me in one day and I posted my first poetry. The name of the blog, the description of About page – all of it came without any thought or plan. I put my fingers to keys and the words simply came. The description on the About page feels so innocent and newly, deeply meaningful to me today, as I celebrate 4 years of being here, on October 5. 2019.

It took a while for this space to change from a scared place to a sacred space for me. The love and understanding I received from interactions here, wrapped around my heart and helped me thrive.

That was a time when poetry had become a living breathing part of me. Poetry doesn’t visit me anymore as of now. Poetry, as if lovingly conveyed to me that it was time for me to visit life in a different role. I had felt a lot of grief when I thought poetry was leaving me. I even wrote a poem named “What if poetry never comes through me again” (https://pragalbhadoshi.wordpress.com/…/what-if-poetry-neve…/). I did write some more poetry after that as the flow trickled to a stop.

I love the richness of this yet another new life that I am living and also look back at my poet self fondly. Poetry knows the perfect time to come through again.

I trust the process

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Photo by Manish Doshi

I am in the process of integrating all parts of me into one self and embarking on this training ground for compassion, kindness, love, acceptance and courage to live with the truth of my being. It does take me through difficult bends, unskilled as I am – they are lessons I am supported and guided through.

Comfort is not a requirement, and joy is guaranteed in choosing alignment with universal humanity.

I now allow all different realities of life unfolding into one beautiful, magical, miraculous tapestry of life and its expression waiting to be channeled through me.

I would love to hear your thoughts my dear friends. I will find my way to your work and get to as much as I can. I truly missed you all. I will post next when the inspiration strikes me again! 🙂

Amazing Feeling

Amazing Feeling

Photo : Manish Doshi, Editing : myself

A note to my dear heart friends,

All of us who share so much of our hearts in this space and all who have so generously given your reading times for all that came through me:

I am so thrilled to finally come back to this space!!! My break continued longer than I had planned on. I have missed our precious interactions. It is like I came back from around the world and hadn’t yet reached this corner of my home, that has given me such cozy comfort, support, encouragement, inspiration, enthusiasm, a place that feels so much my zone.

I am very eager to visit with each one of your works that I missed, will make my way slowly 🙂 I am curious as to how my own blog work unfolds though, as I am finding a new kind of joy and love for Life – curious as to how I would divide the time available, spent actually living it in the moments and the time spent in the virtual spaces that are so preciously real to me too.

I surrender to how the flow itself leads me, I will follow when it takes me here and I will follow when it takes me elsewhere. I am excited to see what pattern emerges (lightly clapping 🙂 )

I meet you today with a heart filled to the brim with reverence & gratitude for the most amazing shifts that happened in the last month for me, the renewed & refreshed way of being I feel into 2019.

I greet you with my first quote image of 2019, that photo is me smiling at you 🙂 and wishing that may the beautiful simplicity of life touch you deeply, playfully, magically and in ways that support you truly!

Awakening

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Photo Credit: Manish Doshi 

Yes Dreams Come True
The Waking Ones often Do

Fears too Come True
The Sleeping Ones often Do

Each can be stifling to the other
Awakening within, the creator

 

This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays on ForgivingConnect, for awakening is a process that happens where there is acceptance in our hearts.