on movement
bidding goodbye to 2022 and welcoming 2023 with Joy Harjo, Naomi Shibab Nye and W.S Merwin
"Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river," Borges.
These past few weeks and days felt like baubles of lost time coming out of the darkness to dance under the winter sun. I kept flowing through different nooks and trails with hardly any rest. I have laughed, cried, lost, broken, danced, rejoiced, hugged, and experienced many emotions that were in exile. It was the first time in many years that I did not miss nor look out for my loyal companion, the online portal to the otherworld :). The guilt of missing sending out this newsletter and the 100-day creator's challenge lurked in my mind at times, but that was about it.
As the intensity of the busyness in India simmers, a familiar wind blows again. I wonder if this was life's plan to act out the grand play of flow. This year has been a brutal battleground for survival. It was a special maze of emotional, physical and mental wars unleashed with the greatest propensity. The only constant in all this was my persistent efforts to keep flowing. Having spent quite some time trying to understand the way of the Tao Te Ching this year, it feels surreal as it unveiled parts of itself with all the continuous movement. There is still so much to process, but the scars are starting to heal.
The ability to not indulge in ruminations as one keeps moving is perhaps what works best as one is healing. Movement of any kind feels like a godsend. I enjoyed the simplest of things while out here. I also had my share of upheavals, but they did not render me lifeless when they struck. The day did not start and end in the company of a salty pillow. It's not stillness that held me but gentle currents that pulled me along to flow.
"Who can by movement, little by little
make what is still grow quick?
To follow the Way
is not to need fulfillment.
Unfulfilled, one may live on
needing no renewal." - Tao Te Ching
As I bid goodbye to this year, I am thankful that poetry, art and a handful of kind souls have helped keep me afloat. I don't know what promises or disappointments await me in 2023, this I know that I will try to keep going like a river, many a time like a stream, a creek with poems and art in hand until I converge in the eternal sea. There are no larger goals but to keep living with little joys, sadness and everything that life offers me in this play.
This post might seem like a ramble, so I chose poems that I felt would be apt to close this year's edition. Some of the poems were written in different contexts, but poems speak to its reader in a hundred different ways. These spoke to me as I get ready to say goodbye to 2022. Thank you to all who have been kind enough to read and subscribe to this newsletter.
For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet - Joy Harjo Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop. Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control. Open the door, then close it behind you. Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean. Give it back with gratitude. If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back. Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire. Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time. Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters. Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you. Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them. Don’t worry. The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves. The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more. Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time. Do not hold regrets. When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed. You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant. Cut the ties you have to failure and shame. Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. Ask for forgiveness. Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor. Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes. Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go. Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short. Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper, sizzle like moth wings, marry the air. So much of any year is flammable, lists of vegetables, partial poems. Orange swirling flame of days, so little is a stone. Where there was something and suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space. I begin again with the smallest numbers. Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves, only the things I didn’t do crackle after the blazing dies. To Myself - W.S Merwin Even when I forget you I go on looking for you I believe I would know you I keep remembering you sometimes long ago but then other times I am sure you were here a moment before and the air is still alive around where you were and I think then I can recognize you who are always the same who pretend to be time but you are not time and who speak in the words but you are not what they say you who are not lost when I do not find you.
I hope you enjoy the Poetry Lantern and my somewhat confessional outbursts on life. I wish you a splendid 2023. May it be filled with everything and more that you wish in life. Do your little dance and find your tune to keep moving through this beautiful life.
Here is a little snippet from my vacation. Find your rhythm and keep moving :)