The Lightning Bolt – of Time

Photo: Vidur Sahdev of VerseInEmotion

My Beloved WP Community Friends – I have this deep overwhelming joy as I return to this space, a moving gratitude for finally being led to return to my birthplace as if, after a brilliant yet humbling voyage of life that I wandered off into – always looking back here over the shoulders, not wanting to leave ever.

I left here after “Lingering on the Rim” and the poem I share with you today urged me to come back to my center here:

For it has been a decade since my entire existence was cracked open to the insanity of living unskilled with my raw spirit.

A decade ago
began
a series of
my own personal deaths

A decade after
begin
a series of 
my own personal rebirths

A decade
whole
a series of 
oceanic churnings

Stillness at depths
Turmoils at surface
Redefining coastlines
for where the water
meets the shore

Dipping the toes
not an option
The ocean
devoured
me whole

‘Tis a mystery
Yet I see clearly
Why
I still hover
between
two worlds

Witnessing
the mind rain
in the darkness
Spirit drinking it up
with stilling starkness

I am left dancing
in the vivid rhythms
in between
‘Tis is yet only
the spine moved
with my breathing

In this moment –
A decade ago
and this decade after
and the decade from now
All merged into
one bolt of lightning
across the sky
of my earthly existing

Pray my spine
can sustain
the brilliance
of the bolt
as it traverses
my earthly time

Photo of lightning bolts by Vidur Sahdev of VerseInEmotion – thank you for letting me borrow it to go with my poem, it fits perfectly. Their poetry & mine have been conversing coherently for years now – do visit this beautiful poetry blog, if you would enjoy one more.

I want to visit with all of you, all at once!!! Please catch my beaming heart smile as I wander around old streets, making my way to each one of you. Perhaps help me by leaving a link in the comments for where you would like me to visit first, and not miss an update or a favorite from you. It has been 10 months … I offer this poem above to you, to celebrate my decade, to begin with.

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Note 1: Please join me here for conversations through the lens of yoga that I have begun sharing recently & inconsistently.

Note 2: Upcoming Virtual Seminar & Series in honor of International Womens Day: Embracing Equity through Stress management & Self Awareness

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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 🙂

What are you really looking at?

I felt moved to repost this inspiration first published on August 22, 2016. It has come back to me to help me look at my own deeper wounds and how I am doing at allowing the light to bring healing. I have had a long unconscious tendency to overlook all that is hurtful and gloss it over with positivity and love. Until the lies to myself stop working, I am forced to face the truth. I am grateful to find the capacity for greater deep dives in the crevices of my wounds than ever before. 

“Peeping through the leaves” by Atanu Chakraborty

There’s an empty glass of water sitting on the counter. It is broken. It is holding together but it has been shattered and has cracks going all direction. I look at it and see just that and nothing else …a piece of broken glass.

If you try to think of a situation or event in life that might have shattered your intact way of being …what do you really think of ? A situation that has cracked your core and wounded you open in places? Or something that has been bothering you very much since yesterday or last week? The broken glass probably doesn’t really represent anything to you. Life is perfect …except that this person, yesterday or last week, did not behave well, had a wrong attitude, did not do exactly like you expected or even deserved. My glass is as intact as ever. Now if I somehow make evident to this person that he/she has wronged me, I can get on with my perfect life … 🙂

I glance up out of the window behind the counter. There is this big vibrant sweet gum tree, always standing tall majestically, un-wavered through the winds and seasons. There are 2 men cutting off overgrown branches. The ones that were weighing down on the core were being fell to the ground. The idea made me feel light. They then raked off the fallen leaves and branches, leaving the ground clean and green again. A lot felt cleared on the slate of my mind. The sky was in better view now that the tree was trimmed.

Looking down at the broken glass again, sunlight now reached through the window and pierced through the broken glass …as if pouring through the cracks …filling them up, making it shine like never before.

I closed my eyes. Trying to imagine the healing golden light pour through my wounds and cracks. The glass became all gold but a dull one …no more cracks. Instantly I erased it and opened my eyes. If I am healed of my cracks I better look lustrous, I do not accept dullness!! …Ohhh do I accept my cracks?!!!

Are they caused by blows caused by other people or person? No, I do not play that blame game in my life. Did I allow those to be caused to me? Was I never strong enough to stand up to myself? That self-judgment doesn’t feel good and hurts me. So I am not going to relate to that broken glass in any way!!!

How many times do we try to mask and escape this way? In day to day life, what are we really looking at? Is it really the person yesterday that has made your life miserable? Or is there a deeper patterning at work here, a deeper healing  that we are denying ourselves? Healing of our health, and also relationships, with ourselves and the most significant to us. So, all that is bare and there, is there to nourish us.

Be brave to see the cracks, the deep wounds, let light enter through them, seal them and heal them. Let the glass hold the gold of clarity for you to drink from it. A crack in the roof of a deep dark cave lets the light in …imagine the exhilaration of seeing your path clearly, when you encounter that crack. What chipped the roof to make that crack, all the trauma that it endured, is just the drama that can become your story, that you might tell one day.

Be wiling to see your cracks …not as some external object or person. Sometimes we have shown such enormous endurance towards something un-imagined, or even unacknowledged, we don’t dare to look back at it …making us cranky at the most trivial though. Sure it is very human and also helpful in the healing process. But really if you see what you are looking at and what you are trying to escape, it becomes a true digesting of life events …tantrums, tears and all that are a part of it. Let it flow!

The light will always lead you to solace …if you allow it to enter you …pierce through you …seal you and heal you and shine you!

The trail behind me

I feel that I am personally transitioning through a portal from a known past into an unknown future in so many ways at once. It is eerie how outwardly all the walls of reality still look the same, and yet as if all the mental castles of reality have inwardly collapsed. Each day I find another brick falling.

As if each day I wake up and walk into a hall of mirrors absolutely wanting to confuse me – Is that me? or is that one me? Until I push back on a mirror to have it open on to a very expansive space of peace, joy and lightness, carrying an air of crisp clarity.

It is so thrilling and awesome terrifying to surrender in to that space, and live without alignment or resistance to any mental constructs, comforts of relations, definitions, concepts of what exactly makes up our everyday life. Also it is awesome that I don’t have the ever insistent fear rumbling inside me. For I recognize this portal from 5 years ago, and I know now what brilliance awaits on the other side of it.

I love and embrace with a much robust gratitude and awe, the exquisite and divine guidance, synchronicity and perfection with which this play of life is executed. These are such powerful times that our tribe of truth seekers and heart followers are finding their way with themselves and each other like never before! I am now ready to show up in ways like never before.

And hence, I wished to post this poem and picture today to share with you, my gratitude for the trail behind me. For the people on the trail with me.

This poem was first published on August 16, 2016, 5 years ago today.

There’s a trail from the past behind me
From whence in this moment I arrive
I look forward to see
Whereto it wants me strive
The smile on my face
Belongs to those who helped me thrive

The chosen and unchosen soul friends
The given and unchosen of relationships
With their simply Being or coaxing mends
Diffused and dissolved perceived hardships

I have all of You in my heart
To walk with You, I would go back to start
Gratitude for You will keep You forever with me
Especially when I seem to have parted ways with thee
There’s times when only You can make me less lonely

That’s when I look back at the trail
Find the bend where you found me frail
Then I walk forward steadily a mile
Taking with me the newfound smile

Eyes Look Longingly

Photo by myself

You look to my eyes
and search for envy
I invite you to look deeper
You will find sadness
for what I see in your eyes

I look to your eyes
and you just look away…

Envy is an inescapable human trait. Provoking envy as a motive hurts the spirit of all involved. Sharing the joy of our Being lifts the spirit of all involved.

Envy & Inspiration – a past article on how I learned to turn my envy into inspiration from experiences from my very young age.

Other related posts:

Here, Take them All – my favorite on this topic, a short poem
Envy & What can Be – short post of 5 lines
Parallel Disappointment – short poem

Trying to be Smart

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi

It is amusing to watch back at myself
Trying to become this and that
As good possible and then the best
To become that part of the puzzle
That would fit perfectly in this world

Until I learned to feel and listen to my heart
Simply Be that which I am in my soul
This garment I am weaving will never be done
Because it is this life itself that I am living
I love how perfectly it fits me exactly where I am

Yes life now fits me perfectly
Now that I have stopped trying to fit in …

 

P.S. This post is a contribution to ForgivingFridays of ForgivingConnects

Letting Go

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi @ Death Valley, CA

I am thinking whether to add thoughts to the above quote
Or let go of that need
To say more…

I am thinking of sharing how rich it has been to become slow
Or let go of that need
To say more …

I am thinking of sharing how finally I am able to rest in my Being
Or let go of that need
To say more …

I am thinking of sharing how much more is getting done now
Or let go of that need
To say more …

I am thinking of sharing how amazing it is to choose & enjoy just one thing at a time
Or let go of that need
To say more …

I am thinking I want to say it all, yet wish to just be the Silence, Slowness, Space
Let go of that need
To say more …

I am thinking, writing, wording, and also Being the Silence & Space
I let go of the need
To be or do anything other than what I am right now.

 

P.S. This post is a grateful contribution to ForgivingFridays, an amazing initiative by Debbie Roth of Forgiving Connects.

A true Relation

Photo: Arnav Doshi, our son captured this photo of us 🙂

“Waves on the Sands of Time”

The richness of togetherness
Often is in the casualness
And the assuredness
In the seperateness

There is not much of day-to-day missing
More of the genuine caring and sharing
Relation sometimes easily taken granted
But never in the least slanted
Utmost trust and respect
Not a you-versus-me prospect

The differences are the strength
Work em out or let them be
The samenesses are the faith
On which you operate as WE

There is no as such fairy tale
There’s some laughs and some wail
It’s just how you help fly and sail
Look at the other soar with pride
While keeping pride itself aside

Each is a person evolving sole
Infinite being exclusively
It takes the finest of soul
To watch you on your own be whole
Yet be a partner unconditionally

Do I need an occasion or apprehension
To celebrate this true relation?
The heart spoke to me auspicious today
With such feeling and emotion …

 

Recently my husband & I celebrated our 20th Anniversary, 20 years of creating waves on the sands of time 🙂 The above poem, originally published on Aug 30, 2016, was a raw feeling then and now feels truer than ever. It only felt natural to share it again now, and also it was read by fewer WP friends back then.

 

Related posts on True Relations –
To the Perfect Spouse – 20 words only

Is there a perfect spouse? – short prose

A good marriage is the best – short poem

Relationships – A choice or a privilege – prose

P S : This post is an humble contribution to ForgivingFridays on Forgiving Connect, a blog by Debbie Roth, a beautiful one that you will find.

Of Truthfulness

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi

It is courageous vulnerability
Not a weakness
It is soul confidence
Not an arrogance
It is pure truthfulness
Not a lack of humility
It is heartfelt gratitude
Not a sign of neediness

It is actually an humble attempt
To persist in this made up world
With absolute will and trust
To insist on a world made of Love

Agnized their’s is a lonesome way
Greatest battles fought only within
Rain flowing from the eyes of turmoil
Emotional storms cleansing the heart soil

This is true of the ones who have tasted
The brutality of the life of humanness
The ambrosial essence of existence itself
Their tenacity time & again tested

A strength seemingly divine revealed
Ceded to the oceanic universal current
Soul-calling of intention keeps the ship asail
In the guided direction that Source avails

Clarity

Enter a caption

Creating these quote images has become as if my new poetry. Inspiration comes to me in short snippets nowadays instead of poetic rhythm or lengthy prose. My thoughts then go through my mind lanes leading me to find photos clicked by my husband or photographer friends that I collaborate with – to find an image that speaks the emotion behind my inspiration.

Reverse process happened with the image above. My friend and photographer Vikram Phale sent me some pictures he took on his weekend getaway with his family. And this picture of the sky just astounded me. I spent few minutes intently looking at the picture and the words that came are the quote you see.

Thank you friends for getting me excited in this new creativity with your appreciation for my previous quote images and encouraging me to make more.

 

P.S. I wish to share with you a blog that has been nourishing me with confirmations of my spiritual perspectives on everything related to our existence. I have felt more confidence in how I perceive and live this process called Life, with my regular interactions with the author of this blog through his deeply profound posts. Here is the link for you : https://thejobblog.net/free-to-be-ultimate-you/