Sew It On Yourself, She Said.....

I haven’t really been able to focus upon my embroidery for the last few weeks.Working on a project to make 2000 origami butterflies is keeping my fingers really busy. One thing that I have noticed about making the butterflies is that, contrary to my expectations – the logical tedium of making the same thing over and over again; I am really enjoying it. Yes, believe it or not, I didn’t at first either, but it’s so calming to just put my full concentration on matching corners and lines and folding the square pieces of paper to create butterflies.

It’s almost addictive to see how many I can make in day. So yes, I am really enjoying it – call it origami therapy if you will. Whatever it is or isn’t, is so irrelevant because there is a designated purpose in doing [they are needed to decorate a canopy for a friend’s parents’ 60th wedding anniversary lunch], there’s satisfaction in getting it done and, it is creative work to boot. I delight at every butterfly that is made, marvelling at how a square piece of paper can be folded into myriad designs. 

 At this point in time, there is chaos, a total disruption of routine in my home. I have been short staffed and in particular, without a cook for the past 6 -7 weeks. Despite a string of interviews and trials, I haven’t yet found someone suited to my need, who cooks well enough. This has meant that along with making the butterflies, I have also had to get down to the nitty-gritty of cooking everyday food, rather than just those party dishes that I enjoy making.

At this point you are probably wondering what relevance either the origami butterflies or daily cooking chores have anything to do with a sewing journal and you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking upon those lines. Had I been in your shoes, without experiencing unbelievable calm in the midst of chaos and work, such as I have seen in this period of externalizing of energy and conversations - when I am generally an introverted sort of person, finding no scope for deep introspection, I would have thought the same. But it is these things -the origami butterfly making ritual and that of daily cooking that have actually saved the day for me. They have enabled a focus on things that need doing rather than looking towards things that I have wanted to bring into play, thinking and mooning and mulling over things – shall I write this, what shall I do now etc,  as is the norm. And what’s best is that most of this work is not about handling people and their idiosyncrasies but actually being able to put my mind to doing things. I have to confess that even though it has been challenging, for the most part because it’s not the norm, I have no real reason to complain.

 With the onset of Diwali, there has been so much to do. I first started with wanting the kids I teach art, to enjoy the festive season by making their own diyas and rangoli.  This meant shopping around for stuff they could use, painting and decorating pieces that they could work with and be inspired by. This exercise eventually led us to take up a stall at the condominium Diwali mela, with only 5 days notice, where the kids and I invited people to come paint their own diya. The stall was an amazing success. It was possibly the most happening stall in the compound and Mahipal and I didn’t get a chance to go around and see what other vendors had to offer. As one mother put it, our stall was akin to the games stall which the older kids had fun at, and the little ones usually have nowhere to go, so this filled that lacuna. We started at 5.30pm, on the dot, and didn’t wind up till 11pm. I cannot say that we made a ton of money because we didn’t, as our rates were so cheap that we just about broke even, but the turn-out was amazing. And that huge black stain on the red, tentwallah-satin table cloth – with little glimpses of green, yellow, orange and other hues that went into making that extra large spill of dripping paint, was proof enough that the kids had a blast.

Inspired by the origami butterflies, I had decided to make origami boxes for sending out little gifts to my friends, neighbours and family this Diwali, which meant that for three Sundays in a row, I was working. At first the novelty of going back to work with paint and brush, after years, was such an amazing feeling and then making the origami boxes all added up to the idea that I was actually using my creative skills in a way that catered to the functional aspect of the season. And that felt good.

Now this is very significant, because even though I use sewing as self-expression and there is a function to this, in that it allows me to explore deeper ideas than just doing things for the more mundane functions such as I have written above. But, the idea that my work - my creativity, which is the basis of the work I do in the world, that this is mostly used for self expression - as art, has been cause for considerable angst. 

It could be that having trained as a designer, this is sort of in my blood – the idea of form follows function has been ingrained enough to flow through my being, and the evolution from design to art thus fraught with multiple questions? Over the years, I have quelled the discomfort and gone with the flow. But, it felt good making things for my friends. And when they called or wrote sms’s to thank me, noting that they had found the gift beautiful, especially so because they had recognized the labour of love, was gratifying indeed. This personalizing of traditional diwali gifts instead of store bought items was appreciated and it got me thinking.

Painting diyas for the art class also led me to paint a bunch to light and decorate my own home with, this Diwali. Armed with so much stuff, I embarked on a rather ambitious rangoli outside my front door.  I was reeling from the agony of unused muscles and incredibly stiff lower limbs for about three days! But, flushed with the glow of praise and appreciation from so many people, for this effort, re-awakened in me the idea of functionality and art – fulfilling the function of more mundane, everyday aspects of living, where I worked to create with my own hands as opposed to designing and then designating the work to someone else.

All of this was building up into something that hadn’t quite crystallized in my mind and the crowning glory was a chance remark that someone made at a Diwali party, the day before Lakshmi Puja and my elaborate rangoli effort. I was wearing a silk Tanchoi saree [brocade] and getting out of the car, the heel of my sandal, sort of caught at the base of the saree. On hindsight, it must have got stuck in the saree-fall, but without really thinking about what the issue was, I lifted the folds off the shoe. They let go easily enough, and I walked into a beautifully adorned home, met many friends and had engaging and polite conversations. In this bustle of socializing, the saree hem caught again. This time, when I pulled at the folds, the fall must have come undone [the lining at the hem which is about 4 inches wide and runs across the base of the underside of the saree, to enable a better fall of the fabric].  After a while I suddenly felt myself tripping and looked down at the saree to find the fall looping beneath. Philosophically, I thought this was my cue to go home - tripping over my undone saree fall wasn’t a befitting end to such a gay event.

I was seated in one of the bedrooms waiting to use the washroom, before I embarked upon the long haul to Gurgaon, when someone else walked in, and we struck up a conversation. She was a rather elderly lady wearing a traditional Kanjeevaram saree in a colour combination of soft, olivish-lime-green with maroon and gold zari border, such that I haven’t seen around for ages. She had a short bob hair-cut, her hair totally grey. She’d overheard me ask my host’s grand-daughter to find me a safety pin and asked what happened. I narrated by story about the fall coming undone and sighing that now, in the midst of my more-than-hectic schedule,  I had to find someone locally, to put it back on. Very quietly and calmly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, she said: do it yourself. And I was stunned into silence.

She didn’t know who I was, or that needle and thread was the basis of my work. She didn’t know me at all.  We were total strangers. I sat there stunned. I wasn’t as stunned about the fact that she didn’t know sewing  was  the essence of my work, but that I, whose hands played with needle and thread every day, hadn’t thought of this simple solution – something that should have occurred to me as naturally as she had said it. I mean what was the merit of working with needle and thread to build up these wonderful stories around it, if I couldn’t even think in terms of doing my own repair work?  I was ashamed, I was embarrassed and contrite.

On the hour long drive, back home to Gurgaon, I was deep in thought. I realised that even though I am adept at working with the needle and had used it to make little gift bags for Diwali [for the goodies inside the origami boxes], and more, fact is that I didn’t think of sewing as work I should be doing, beyond the decorative – it never even occurred to me.  And in a sense, this meant that I didn’t really accord the same kind of value that I would like be given to the humble needle and thread - one of the reasons why I even write this journal.

I mean, it was a wake-up call and seriously, even as I write, I am astounded by the kind of cultural moorings - ideas that have taken root in my mind. It made me see that changing one’s thought-patterns wasn’t an easy thing. It took a lot of effort to work around these subconscious ideas that we have imbibed through the environment that we live and grow up in. I hadn’t seen my mother or grandmother sew but I had worked a lifetime with textiles; admired the skill of Indian artisans and was in awe of their ability to do wonders with needle and thread. I had picked up the needle to bring attention and value to this work that I so loved. But, despite two decades of working with needle and thread, I didn’t think of doing my own sewing for things around the house and general repair work in daily living.

 The idea of stitching, back-on, the undone fall on my saree was not something that came naturally to me. That it took a total stranger to remind me, was a wake-up call indeed! Sew it on yourself she said....the words still ringing in my ears, way above the din of the fireworks on Diwali night. 

For those interested in reading the story about the butterfly that enchanted me which was the beginning of the 'Butterfly effect'
http://garammasalachai.blogspot.in/2014/10/butterfly-wings.html

 

How Selfish Can You Be!

 

Taking off from my embroidered work on the word ‘Liar’ – the mental stain that emerges on being called a Liar, or is left in the mind when judging someone a Liar - 

Liar,Liar,Liar..... http://gopikanathstitchjournal.blogspot.in/2014/04/liar-liar-liar.html  I have moved onto working with ‘SELFISH’.

I first wrote the letters on paper in a cursive hand, going over and over them, creating a kind of stain. I then drew this mark on a piece of cross-stitch matte.  For some reason, this time I have worked only with cross-stitch.  And, so far, without the muslin which I had earlier torn, burned or shred to express the way I felt.

The writing and over-writing on the word, created a kind of blob.

This then led me to draw the letters which extend above the base line - as loops – such as  the loop of the ‘S’, the ‘l’ and the ‘h’,  in a cursive hand. While outlining this, I started seeing, in my mind’s eye, capital letters rising from behind the cursive hand.  I found that I could only fit in S E L F. Now this gave me food for thought – and I started thinking on the lines of ‘SELF’ as emerging from being selfish.

Cross stitch is a laborious process and very meditative in itself. But, at this point I was rather restive and didn’t quite relish the intense routine of the stitch, which created more contemplation on the inner being than expression of the fraught mind. But, gradually as I worked, I calmed down. Naturally ha! 

 

Many years ago an astrologer advised me that I learn to be more selfish. I found it totally weird but over the years, have often pondered on the idea of being selfish. Conventionally, selfish is not considered a desirable trait, so why was this guy telling me to learn how to be more selfish and basically what did it entail?

I found it very curious the way ‘SELFISH’ was evolving through my embroidery and the meaning that was emerging from this creative representation of the word. It lent an entirely different perspective to:  How selfish can you be!!  - A term, mostly used with derision.

 

 I recollect one of my boarding school reports, where the nuns had noted that I was self-centred and how my mother had chided me for this. Possibly, in her scheme of things, being self-centred meant that I did what I felt in my heart. And this I know, didn’t always meet with her approval.

I was not an overtly rebellious child but driven by ‘feeling’ more than thinking things through, until such a point I felt this had alienated my mother’s love.  She couldn’t understand or discipline me in the way she did my other siblings. Later, ‘doing’ things in a way that catered to a perceived need, to gain her approval, met with disastrous consequences - alienating me from myself.

In this condition, to consider being selfish and doing things that suited me, without caring for the approval of others, perplexed me no end. But through a great deal of self-examining which started about two decades ago, I began to see that there were two kinds of selfishness.

One was being self-centred - rooted in one’s being, listening to the inner guidance. Doing what was needed to do to fulfil one’s life’s purpose – identify it and live. Not through someone else’s dictates or what was perceived as their need - often manipulated by guilt, but through that inner vision that comes forth when one is silent enough to look within and feel. This doesn’t mean a disregard for others in your life and insensitivity towards their feelings or disrespect for them. It just means a healthy respect for you. This state of being will always accommodate those who matter. It means finding that ideal balance between their needs and your own- straddling the most complex of all the paradoxes of life.

The other kind of selfish, is where we are driven by the ego, that i-ness where indignation of the mind comes into play and everything is driven by the way we think that things must be. This other kind of selfishness is what we are usually derisive of. Here people become self-absorbed in a dense and secretive way. They can be insensitive and act almost unconscious of their heart-speak. By extension, they have little respect for others, often without even realising it.

In this state of being, one is running away from that mirror of self, chasing things or ideas regardless of whom or what comes under the callous wheels of this carriage – just to get as far away as possible from that sense of wretchedness that comes from being unable to resolve the inner conflict of mind and spirit or subconscious mind and conscious mind or any other conflict that may be taking place within the human being.

So, when I started looking at the discomfort that I felt in being called selfish and then contrarily also being advised to be more selfish – learn to be so, I felt considerable conflict in my being. At one level it was about being rooted – silent and peaceful with one’s being, working from that heart centre that would guide in mysterious ways towards whatever was right for me. Or, there was the selfishness a lot of us have encountered - where people have no time to listen, focussing upon their own pain, recounting woes and living in a constant state of victimization. I thought I was participating in the former, but was accused of the latter and I couldn’t ever feel at peace because how did one really resolve this issue?         

Through my contemplation on the word, as I embroidered, I was beginning to see that being selfish – no matter which way you look at it, actually roots you in yourself. This, I realised couldn’t be presented through the shredded or pulled fabric – which evokes a fragmented state of being, so I decided to go with the intuitive nudge and work with just the cross-stitch.

I started realising that the word itself is not the problem, it is the association attached to it which creates one. When someone says you are selfish or self-centred, the connotation is a negative one. It deems that you are unwilling to help others when they need. But, truth is that giving to the extent that others often seem to need, especially when they are not rooted in themselves, and therefore in their actual need, can be tough, because it will never be enough.

 Continuing my work on the blob or stain –I outlined the cursive-hand marks in a neutral colour, but, one that had tinges of the colour of a ‘tea stain’ - reflective of a mark or stain in the mind. Then I outlined S E L F [there was no space to include ISH] with a soft pink – the colour of rose quartz, also in some schools of thought, representative of the colour of the heart chakra.  This I suppose could indicate love - in embracing the self. All of this was emerging through that intuitive feeling. I was after all in unchartered territory so that was the only direction I could rely upon.

And then I thought I would have the rising letters of S E L F embroidered in this soft pink hue, but as it rose higher, it would merge with the colour of the fabric.  It would go from soft pink into a kind of off-white – suggesting the emotional and spiritual process of how we rise into the higher self, through selfish beings rooted in the ego self and all that came with it – the stains, the shame, the pain et al.

Gradually as the stains of experience are cleansed through knowing and understanding, the pure self - that spirit of divinity within, emerges and merges with the ether or nothingness - as it is also called. Therefore the colour surrounding the ‘word-stain’ is off-white, reflective of this nothingness.

I don’t know what this piece will end up looking like, and how I will bring in the muslin that I have used with the others, which I probably will because it looks kind of naked without it and very stark too.  But, in this language of fabric, thread, colour and stitch, I was able to find an objective distance.

 I realised that the path of self realisation is through the darkness – the ignorance, the emotion and judgements of the world. And gradually, as one does deal with these experiences and our emotions and attachments thereof, going deeper into the stains, some kind of neutrality emerges – without that harsh, critical and defensive judgement of self and others.

            

Examining the ‘blob’ or ‘word-stain’ through the embroidery process, has enabled me to redefine the meaning of the word, where being selfish - either with or without the ego is really all about a process, and that it cannot be forced upon one. We all begin our journey without knowing much and it is experience and sometimes our own hostile survival instincts that eventually teach us different ways of living.

As the capital S E L F stands erect, high above the muddy, stain-coloured letters below, they stand straight, as if exuding dignity, holding their heads high almost as though the issue is resolved. They seem to say that there is now, no need for shame. It is all part of life, where being selfish will eventually lead you to being self-centred – tuned into your inner being where only SELF matters......or nothing does.

And Wish That I Did Not Feel

 “This well is far too deep, deep and black, a watery void.

These dark grey ageing stones are holding onto the surface with bitter ambition, old and darkening, adorned with olive-green mosses. This well was built by my hands, each stone laid down under a waxing moon. I am fated to drown
                                                              beneath its brown shameful waters, waters that flow so deep they touch the very Past, Present, and Future.

I will sink ever further through stagnant tides with my lungs overflowing and my eyes blind, sinking past the places beyond the light of the living world.

I will touch the solid core of the Earth with cold lifeless hands and wish that I did not feel.”

Still Waters [a poem]
Reproduced with the kind permission of Jade Kennedy
www.jadekennedywriter.blogspot.co.uk

The last line of this poem grips me, and knots me up in a bundle of complex emotions which is what the whole idea of ‘feeling’ does to me – of being alive to sensations of pain, of not understanding something and feeling overwhelmed by things – by life as it unfolds.

Why do we feel? Why can't I just be there for someone regardless of my needs and feelings – of unresolved pain, from things in the past, between us? Why must there always be this kashish – this pull, this tension between people and in almost every aspect of living? Why do feelings always seem to get in the way? 

The other day I picked up a piece of six-ply floss that I had earlier removed a two-ply strand, but carelessly left the rest without straightening it out, [as I usually do] thinking that I would be using it soon. But, typically, something had come up and my embroidery and tools hurriedly bundled away. When I came to use it a day or so later, the bunched up strands, of what had been perfectly straight threads, had become knotted.

Just like those unresolved thoughts that one didn’t quite get around to dealing with, because something else came up.

It took time to open the entangled threads and the funny part is that it wasn’t really a knot, but appeared to be one because the threads had become twisted. I pulled a little here, and tugged at the thread a little in the opposite direction. I inserted a needle and made space in the knot so that I could pull the threads out. It took quite a bit of patience and I could feel this irritation welling up inside me. It was my own fault. I had left things carelessly and had no choice but to deal with it, just as the poem says:

“This well was built by my hands, each stone laid down under a waxing moon. I am fated to drown
                                                              beneath its brown shameful waters, waters that flow so deep they touch the very Past, Present, and Future.”

 

 In its own time – of tackling those uncomfortable twists and turns, the floss was unravelled as if the knot had never been there.  I am always amazed at how this happens. Experience has taught me that I don’t need to cut the thread and throw away almost half the strand but that I can unravel it. And when the knot opens it is such a lovely surprise, always.

It’s almost as if the knot was never quite the struggle it seemed and its funny, but I often get the same sense when there is contention in my mind and I sit and ruminate or fume in isolation but, when I meet the person or people who have been catalysts for creating this, I get this really strange feeling that none of that was ever an issue. And yet, I know it had been sitting there like a leaden weight – a knot, somewhere in my being.

However, it did take time and a lot of patience to unravel the threads, much like those complex issues that keep running through the mind, which if left too long, seem to get into a twist.

In this instance, I took the time needed to open out the entangled thread but, when I need space to deal with the stuff that experience throws my way, I lament at why it needs so much time and I can hear my own voice judging me, as selfish!..... and more such epithets.

Yes, I know it's a conditioned reflex that leans on those voices that taught me to how walk and write and more - that it's a voice of judgement that denies or rejects a need in me in order fulfil that of another, but it's a tough call - this tension within, the conflict between what's right by me and to do right by others that often torments me and I throw up my hands in despair saying why, why do I have to feel!

I wish I didn’t feel so much, when every incident didn’t affect me in so many ways – get me into a twist. It isn’t just a sense of pain that one may feel when life tests you, but also feelings of being alive in the world, alive and awakened to the external stimulus of the world, of people and places  - the pain and pangs of being and also the beauty of nature around me, all of that makes me feel. And sometimes, when there isn’t time to savour a pleasant experience that too can be a problematic feeling.

These things need to be put into perspective. What is the world revealing to me? What is the message from the universe? What did the fallen leaf say? Why did those words, that incident topple my emotional balance? Does the spate of raging summer storms reflect the storms brewing within me? Is there any other way in which I could have handled a particular conversation and changed the outcome of things? 

These are countless questions that I keep asking myself each day, as I pause by the window, as I stand up to stretch my limbs after hours of working, shoulders hunched, on my embroidered pieces or typing on the computer. Or as I brush my hair and go about doing other such mundane functions of living.

At one level life is beautiful because one can feel. I cannot imagine looking at the radiant sunsets, especially in the monsoon season and wishing I didn’t feel. The sense of joy that surges through me when I see those transient colourscapes in the sky, is something that I wouldn’t give up at any cost. But the irony is that life is a paradox and feelings don’t always convey such exultation in being.  Those feelings that drag us down – taking us, reluctantly, deeper into ourselves - into that unseen core our beings, where it seems as if we are alone, at the mercy of “cold life-less hands” that do not have the capacity to hug and hold and provide comfort in being, but dispassionately compel us face ourselves, are the ones that most of us would rather avoid feeling.

 That sense of pain, of rejection, of not quite getting what we wanted in the way that we did - when we feel challenged by the world around us, is what takes us into those dark unknown crevices of our being where we would otherwise not have tread, where the poet says:  “I will sink ever further through stagnant tides with my lungs overflowing and my eyes blind, sinking past the places beyond the light of the living world.”

And paradoxically, it is in those dark, hitherto unknown crevices that lay the secrets to release us from these very moments of darkness that we resist. Secrets that life will reveal, only if we allow ourselves to feel - even as the poet proclaims:  “I will touch the solid core of the Earth with cold lifeless hands and wish that I did not feel.”

When I read this poem by Jade Kennedy, an English poet who lives in Kingston on Hull, [whom I met on a Google+ community] I felt a stab in my gut – of recognition of something I’d felt too, but hadn’t been able to put into words, at least not quite so poetically,

 I empathized with the poet and echoed her sentiments. This poem gave me solace in knowing that someone else felt the same way, which counts for a lot in my book. It  made me realise that the poet in allowing herself to feel the full intensity of being in that given situation which echoed something I too was familiar with, had been able to articulate what many others like me may well feel, but are unable to express  - put into words and find this kind of clarity. But reading the poem lent that clarity and with it a sense of relief too.

It is in sharing that we lend a bit of ourselves to others so that they may find something of themselves in that. And it is only in finding these fragments that we do in effect, experience some sense of wholeness. In a world where the essential spirit of our being is separated by form and identities that question each other, what other way can there be to experience this?

It made me think - If as a creative person, I could enable people around me to find a piece of themselves, this alters my perspective on being an artist and writer. It allows me to feel less selfish and self-indulgent, for needing the time and space to put my life into perspective – deal with my feelings.

 Even as I continue my lament alongside the poet when she says:

“I will touch the solid core of the Earth with cold lifeless hands and wish that I did not feel.”

Liar, Liar, Liar.....

Through my explorations of things that create marks in the mind -  those thoughts that disturb my energy levels and lower their frequency, I realised it was not just places where I judged myself that this arose, but when I judged other people I also felt a similar discomfort in my being. In ripping them apart for something, in effect, also seemed to rip apart the equanimity of my own mind.

I started looking at those words and ideas that caused these reactions - of lowering energy levels. As part of the exercise I put out a question on Facebook with a list of words that I had thought of and asked people on my friend list to add to them. Using some the words and ideas that they shared with me, I started writing these words, seeing what would happen to the word-mark if I kept repeating the written word.

I was trying to recreate the stains created while drinking tea, where it had been my carelessness in pouring tea into the cup.  Sometimes it was because of the greedy gulps I could not quite manage to mouth, while drinking from the cup that also created the stains on my saucer. In an earlier exercise I had left a four-piece- layered muslin on the saucer to absorb the stains. At first I thought I would use this fabric itself, but the marks faded with washing and therefore I had to find another way to create these marks.

So, going round and around the contours of the identified words in Hindi or English I found similar blobs could be created. I also combined a few words like fat slob or stupid bitch and even tried repeating them. If you didn’t know which words had been used – they actually looked a lot like the tea stains I had observed in my saucer. 

My hand writing is small and I wanted to enlarge the word-drawings. So, I went down to the newly opened photo-copy shop housed in our building complex.  Nitin runs the shop and he was curious about what I was doing, so I shared the idea. The next day, when I went back with some more drawings and asked him to enlarge them still further, he asked me if my rendition of ‘Liar’ intentionally had two faces.

I had pencilled in the word next to the drawing so that I knew which word I was working with and he had read that. It was an interesting interpretation which intrigued me because I had not quite come to that point of identifying the association a viewer might give these word-stains.  Therefore, I decided to begin the embroidery work with this word-stain/blob.

I don’t know if the ‘liar’ I had drawn could really be interpreted as having two faces, but it does sort of look like what could be double-speak, which is in effect what liars do. I also think that when we do something that is not really in concurrence with the truth, whether we realise it or not, some mechanism inside us does nag. When people shut themselves off from this voice and if confronted, they tend to appear arrogant. I also discovered that in judging someone, something similar goes on inside of my mind too.

One evening at the start of the swimming season I had finished my swim and was sitting by the pool drinking some [mineral] water.  As I savoured the spirit of hope in an early April evening with the fresh green of new leaves reflected in the pool blue, one of my neighbours came down with her daughter. I sat there sipping from a plastic glass wondering why this woman had not responded to my message inviting her and her child to come see the performance  my art class was putting up in the coming week. She had to pass me to get to the pool but had walked by without acknowledging me. She later did look in my direction a couple of times, but in refusing to make eye contact it seemed that she didn’t see me. I was directly in the line of her gaze so that too was strange. I couldn’t give her the benefit of doubt that I was invisible because with my height and frame I am impossible to miss, especially since there was no-one else at the pool at that time. 

I could have walked away, but I thought I had invited her, so maybe I should remind her of my invitation and reiterate it. I walked up to her and said hello and was asking if she had received my message but before I could finish my sentence she said rather abruptly, dismissively and a tad too rapidly, “sorry, I have been too busy to respond to your message”. She used the word sorry without a hint of anything remotely resembling the humility of an apology, it smacked of arrogance instead – implying that she was too busy to respond to invitations from a neighbour or anyone whom she, at that point in her life, deemed irrelevant to her. And clearly I was in that category – a nuisance rather than an asset.

This idea has always bothered me. I often wonder why is it that I never seem to have the capacity to deem anyone irrelevant enough to ignore them or their invitations, especially when they are known to me and there has been no contention between us, or the capacity for it. Is it because I am not busy enough? Sometimes I do forget things, but during meditation or Reiki things just pop up and this luxury, if one can ever think of it as such, does not exist for me. Once prompted, I do the needful.

Her dismissal of me and my invitation didn’t end there, and I wished that I had not taken that step to talk to her because her attitude was offensive and it left me disturbed. However, I wondered, did it bother her at all?

Did her double-speak which came forward as arrogance rather than a genuine apology, create the kind of blob in her being that my drawings had? When she was speaking to me in that defensive way, clearly implying that she was not really telling me the full truth and that behind that facade of being too busy to respond, something else that had been creating the need to make it seem as though I was irrelevant- did that ring out ‘Liar,Liar, Liar!’ in her mind? I wondered.....

Dealing with what I felt, at the receiving end of this attitude, which at some level, dealt with not telling the full truth. This person was not being able to say whatever else had been festering and that resulted in this strange and unexpected attitude - and in that sense dealing with an untruth, I felt disturbed. I knew that it had less to do with me and more to do with the person and her own mind, but I realised that the energy levels do get passed on and when we know that someone is lying or not telling the full truth the fabric of our own mind begins to get fraught – at least mine does!

I can’t just shrug it off. Eventually I do, but I first need to allow the feeling to speak to me. In observing what went going on, I realised that it tears at the fabric of mind. It shreds it and pulls it in different directions because I’m trying to figure out, where did this come from and why? Have I unwittingly done something to upset this person and what could that be? Since we are not exactly friends and nor do we have much to do with each other and  are barely passing acquaintances who have lived in the same complex for about 4-5 years. We meet at the park or the pool and other common areas and events – and that too occasionally, so what could it be?

 I could feel the fabric being pulled here and there – the sentiment and grace of reiterating the invitation, was being shred in my own mind. Why did I have to do that? Should I have walked away and let it ride? In effect, I could tell that she was avoiding me and perhaps it had to do with the fact that a workshop was in the offing and there was a charge and it embarrassed her – to say that she did not want her child to participate or something on those lines? But whatever it was, it was better to know, rather than let it ride and create a sense of awkwardness in my mind. I prefer not to do that – at least not now at any rate, though I have to confess, I have been guilty of avoiding asking such questions earlier on in my life.

And through this drawing of the threads of thought - on one side and then another and sometimes ripping the whole fabric of mind apart, I could hear ‘Liar’ ring out. It was my judgement of her. I had decided that she was not telling me the whole truth and that was why there was defensiveness in her attitude that echoed arrogance rather than a graceful regret at not being able to attend.

This incident and my feelings about it reminded me of the embroideries that I had been working on where’ Liar’ was the ‘word-stain’ I had been dealing with. I had used the ‘word-stain’ or blob that the word created – inserting this between layers of muslin. After seeing what the marks did when over-laid with fabric that had been pulled apart, I wrote ‘Liar’ in long hand with needle and thread. I was working more from a sense of feeling rather than any conscious realization of things. But, when I picked up the embroidered pieces later that evening, I saw that intuitively I had actually created a texture, evoking the same kind of feelings I had experienced, in relation to this incident by the pool.


And imagined it must be what gets created in all minds - knowingly or unknowingly.  When the judgement is repeated, thinking it would form a rigid pattern – a kind of defence mechanism that actually adopts the idea inadvertently through the process of denial, I have worked it in cross-stitch. I used the letters ‘LIARLIARLIAR’ to create a pattern of sorts.

When you are faced with something similar.... innocuous perhaps..... but then perhaps not - would you say that the marks left in your mind are akin to these thread renditions?

Can We Celebrate The Stains of Being........?

In all the years that I have lived, from when I started becoming aware of and trying to understand life – the last thirty years or thereabouts, I have realised that life is not about getting anywhere. There is no destination; there is nowhere that one needs to get to. It is about the journey and that journey is a rich tapestry woven through the way that we experience people, places and things and as such a tapestry of our emotions.

For me the sense of joy is a great feeling but, the things that have kept me more than fully occupied are those uncomfortable feelings - when someone has angered me and when I have felt insecure or upset. These feelings have been the ones that have taken me deeper and deeper into myself, compelling questions that have been impossible to answer. And, in a bid to understand and share my dilemmas and wanting to know how others around me experience life, has arisen the need for creative expression.

Stains, for me, were some of those thoughts and feelings that did not allow me to share freely. And in exploring the idea of stains for the last 4-5 years now, in various ways, I have realised - and it seems really silly when I say it as simply as this because in just saying it so, the profundity of the realization is diminished. But the truth is that for years, feeling uncomfortable and carrying around this burden and with it anger and resentment and more, wanting to find that pristine space where I felt good about being, I began realising that the stains of being were inevitable.

I have started looking at these as the marks of experience that are proof of having lived. And the larger the gamut of emotions, the more full one’s life has been. They were the marks of winning and losing and of falling and failing.

And the other day, just thinking about the stains in my tea-cup which had encouraged this exploration, I suddenly had a thought:  when I look at the saucer with the spilled tea and the cup with the dregs inside it, I am fascinated by the marks but when I look at my life, there are regrets, there is a sense of loss and also a need to erase some experiences from my mind - I want to be rid of them and there is a sense of shame for experiencing those uncomfortable feelings. 

The saint-poets advocate non-judgement. The new age teachers suggest controlling the mind by putting an impenetrable shield around yourself of happy memories, gratitude and acceptance. All of this, at some level, seems to suggest that one should endeavour to shut out the experiences and their emotions so that we can live at a level of such power to create our lives consciously - to be what we want it to be. While the idea intrigues and tempts, it also bothers me.
 

Don’t get me wrong. I am a great learner of all of this and feast on this kind of literature - fascinated with the power of the mind that one can harness with the wealth of techniques out there. But as an artist and writer, I feel that there is such richness in our human feelings and wonder, what would the world really be like without the arts – the poetry of love and longing, of separation. And, what about those films depicting terror and violence - of battles men have fought since time immemorial? What would we do without these and other reminders of what people in ages before us have thought, felt and experienced – the solace of it all - the inspiration and more that emerges from knowing what life has been and can be?

 If you really think about it, then trying to work upon things - this whole concept of control and re-programming of the subconscious mind, would make us all into sages.  And what a monotonous, self-righteous world that would be!  I don’t disagree entirely with the concept and do a lot of this work myself, daily. But as an artist, I revel in the colour of emotions. And difficult as some of them are, they are what I have as proof of the extent I have lived. They mark my experience, my foot-falls towards that pinnacle of self –realization.
 

Much like watching one’s thoughts through the process of meditation, the creative process is also such a mirror. It reveals the inner reflections and feeling and thoughts. Which then also makes this a way towards achieving the same goal  - of finding the capacity to see and understand what the mind is computing and desiring, to  create our lives with greater consciousness.

For me this is a rich and sensual process that embodies words and images. And ironically, greater connectivity with the spirit/soul has led me to find greater acceptance of this as the way that I choose to watch my thoughts and feelings – through expression, rather than control. Transcending those that create emotional blocks by experiencing them fully. This in effect, leads to transformation through the very process of expressing. But, having also learned many of  the techniques advocated by spiritual masters, I find myself doing so with greater awareness.
 

My embroideries and my writings, become a tapestry of threads that I have chosen not as a tool to narrate,  but to live my life through. And with this understanding, the stains have taken on an altogether different meaning.

They may well be the means by which I grieve but, in giving them another life  through these embroideries - expressing and sharing, it seems that we can celebrate the stains of being........

For they also represent experiences, which when distilled, that give us the wisdom to live each day.... happier and more fulfilled....