Who’s to Blame….Whose Fault is it…..

May the tide

never tire of its tender toil

how over and over

it forgives the Moon

the daily exile

and returns to turn

mountains into sand

         as if to say,

you too can have

this homecoming

you too possess

this elemental power

of turning

the stone in the heart. into golden dust. 

                                     

(Forgiveness) by Maria Popova

Patterns fascinate me. I’ve been studying patterns in myself. I found them difficult to contend with, find forgiveness, acceptance and leave behind regret and shame. Years of therapy helped, but not nearly enough. It was my walks along the sea shore, looking at nature in its myriad patterns that solace started emerging. 

Nature is renowned for her exquisite patterns and living by the Arabian sea, I have been spoiled by those created by water, wind, crabs, sand, leaves and the sky. I’ve been particularly mesmerised by the patterns that water creates. Or, rather co-creates, wherein the resultant pattern that the eyes see is the consequence of multiple layers of water, over sand, rippled by water and wind, and water rippled by incoming and out going tides and/or the wind, as also the sun glinting on these ripples. It’s a marvellous experience to see this unfold and I never tire of it. 

My training as a textile designer, means that I have created numerous patterns over the years. I recall my early years of learning -  one of our assignments was to dissect a bhindi (okra),  draw it, the repeat it in pre-set ways.

The Art Nouveau patterns with their sensuous lines and mirrored repeats have been another favourite. However, all these years of making patterns, looking at fabrics with patterns, has probably sensitised me to finding them everywhere. 

The patterns I’ve seen at the banks of rivers and the sea shore can be complex in their layers, such that they become evocative of the patterns of our psyche which emerge in similar manners. 

As human beings, we are co-created in layers. By people who themselves are layers of history, politics, familial and cultural traditions and conditioning, technology and so much more. It’s impossible to visualise them, much less find any sense of awe and fascination in them. Particularly in contemporary times, when scientific analysis creates a kind of judgement, even if it’s not intended. Psychology labels these patterns and traits creating scope for judgement rather than acceptance and forgiveness. 

For instance, if you have/had a narcissist parent, you have developed patterns of coping that may habituate you to accepting abuse as familiar and even attractive (however weird and foolish it may sound) This leads one to create more and more painful experiences. Some may recall the Stockholm syndrome, which is not that different. When you realise the reasons for manifesting this and other patterns, there’s judgement of both parent and self. Acceptance that it’s just another facet of being, in the larger canvas of life, could take a life-time of therapy, if that. 

Earlier, before CBT and other kinds of psychotherapy became popular and were deemed necessary, it was all put down to karma. Cause and effect, which it is. There’s not much one can do about the patterns that life generates within us, knowing what caused it quells some of the anxiety perhaps, but visually perceiving the tantalising effects of the patterns co-created at the river banks and sea-shore provide a very powerful tool for finding beauty where otherwise one is inclined to blame, shame and self hate. 

We need to find forgiveness for ourselves and others. Taking photographs isn’t enough to move beyond the negative feelings and connotations that have been imprinted on the mind, leading to feelings that self-destruct, so I decided to try and re-create the patterns I witnessed the manifestation of, at the river bank.

I had some photographs sand ripples and patterns digitally printed onto cotton fabrics. This provides the bottom-most layer. I then drew out warp and weft threads from a black and gold tissue fabric. Initially I had intended to just reduce the ends per inch to make it supple. But, the weft was plastic thread covered with gold metal and it didn’t lend itself well to being tweezed out of the fabric. I then started to pull the gold threads together, creating dense woven threads amid a loose weave left by moving the weft threads. They formed ripples and I loved the effect. I later did the same drawn thread processes with the aquamarine and silver tissue fabric and white silk organza. 

I haven’t covered the entire base fabric equally. The layers are replicating the colours of the bank of the River Chapora in Morjhim, Goa. 

The top layer is fine silk organza. It creates a layer that is transparent and holds all the others together. 

I’ve printed the photograph so that I can trace the dappled light and create a template for embroidery. I’m not sure whether to embroider the organza extraneous to the rest of the layers and then add more stitches later to bind them together, so do the needle work with all the layers, picking up some with the embroidery thread, but just minimally, to keep it light and evanescent. 

I’m thinking of the latter for it’s more organic, albeit more complex too. The thread will be stranded cotton and some metallic threads in gold and silver. The Split stitch seems just perfect for this. All in all a tall order, but I’m super excited. 

An inspiring passage by Nick Cave is what I’m hoping to meditate upon as I stitch, recreate the water dappled with sunlight, the sand ripples adding the dark backdrop for perfect reflection on the water’s surface. Where he  shares that “- In a way my work has become an explicit rejection of cynicism and negativity. I simply have no time for it. I mean that quite literally, and from a personal perspective. No time for censure or relentless condemnation. No time for the whole cycle of perpetual blame. Others can do that sort of thing. I haven’t the stomach for it, or the time. Life is too damn short, in my opinion, not to be awed……We all have regrets and most of us know that those regrets, as excruciating as they can be, are the things that help us lead improved lives. Or, rather, there are certain regrets that, as they emerge, can accompany us on the incremental bettering of our lives. Regrets are forever floating to the surface… They require our attention. You have to do something with them. One way is to seek forgiveness by making what might be called living amends, by using whatever gifts you may have in order to help rehabilitate the world. - Nick Cave

Stitching is meditative. It’s expressive and the layers, the photographs add such a sense of beauty to this process, that one hopes, it will re-habilitate me and you. 

Stitch Meditations , 7th July 2024

Music has been an integral part of my life, be it playing the piano or singing. I gave up the piano when the instrument I had was too old to be tuned and the piano tuner also died.  At this point I was past 50. 

And returned to singing (after some 30 years) which I had given up to pursue the piano. While I’m doing crochet - working on the ‘Patterns in Being’ project, I try and do some riyaaz. With the tanpura to keep sur now an app, I can do this quite easily, though not as often as my teacher would like me to. This is a ghazal she suggested I learn. I recorded it to share with her as my last class was missed. It’s far from perfect. I start off, off-key and the high notes are still a challenge, but it’s a WIP, just like my crochet project. 

https://youtu.be/Lvq6Ii6a6iA?si=ot_ibSpoHtwWJuck

As I sang, pondered on the lyrics and popularity of this ghazal, a 6mm aluminium crochet hook weaving the fabric - of a pattern I used to make a lovely silk scarf from my younger sister’s recent birthday. Having constructed a 7ft long one the pattern should have been second nature, but using two threads instead of one didn’t permit the usual flow. This too added to my reflections on stitch and the song.

The lyrics of which were written by Fayaz Hashmi, a 20th century Pakistani poet and songwriter who also worked in the Indian film industry.  The music was composed by Sohail Rana and the song was popularized by classical vocalist, Habib Wali Mohmmad who also sang it as playback singer for a Pakistani film ‘Badal aur Bijli, in 1973. 

The profoundly romantic and soul piercing lyrics expressing the pain of unrequited love and longing for a beloved, combined with a heart stirring melody creates an emotional listening experience, and has inspired many artistes to add it to their repertoire. My favourite rendition is by Farida  Khanum  (1993) whose vocals evoke the intensity of yearning that’s real and palpable.  I remember hearing it for the first time and feeling a familiar tug of the longing the poetics evoke. 

And don’t we all? I mean isn’t that why the lyrics appeal to so many?

Making me wonder if somewhere our idea of love and romance has become associated with longing, that which we cannot have. The unattainable, the challenge which brings us to a state of pathos. Pushing us into the depths of being, rising up like the phoenix from the ashes of disappointment. Like moth to flame, unrequited love can become an addictive pattern that challenges the being, its growth. 

Often, when I think of the verses that Swami Parmahansa wrote and sang during satsangs and which have become part of the Sadhna of his devotees, I find this same sense of longing for the idea of God, for what is attainable but ever so briefly or through rigour and intense discipline. Or always just beyond one’s reach. Saint poets like Lala, Andal and Mahadeviakka also spoke of pain, rigour and strife, as the ways into the soul of our being.

Yet, the world judges those that seek but do not find. That strive but fail. Often shaming each other. Even as our most romantics hero’s are Heer and Ranjha, Romeo and Juliet and even Rumi’s profound poetry comes from his separation from Shams. A pattern of social acceptance seems to be to reject the idea of longing even as it’s what’s embedded in our psyche. 

The old Hindi film songs, which I so love. That era of poetry in film that made the songs so memorable and singable, are also more about longing, more than love itself. The bitter-sweetness of parting, waiting to be re-united and that ilk. It’s almost as if we are programmed to fail to achieve the desired, because the journey is probably more exciting, hopeful, poignant than the destination. Which in the context of human love is inevitably a huge disappointment. 

And we cope with heartbreak to realise we were never really broken, but being opened up to explore horizons of being, beyond our imagination. And, these songs remind us of that journey, that longing, the hope - that romance of being which is never quite fulfilled through another, if at all. 

With these words 

“Waqt ke qaid mein, zindagi hai magar 

Chand ghadiyaan yehi hai jo aazad hai 

Inko khokar mere jaan-e-jaana, umr bhar 

na taraste raho. Aaj jaane ki zid na karo” the poet almost suggests that the beloved leave, for otherwise who would yearn so sweetly for him/or her…..

This post is in continuum of the previous one 

http://gopikanathstitchjournal.blogspot.com/2024/05/stitch-meditations-on-being-patterns.html

The Resolute Word-Stain

          When you think of ‘dheeth’, what comes to mind?

For me a ‘dheeth’ has always [until now] meant someone who wouldn't budge. One who didn't see another’s point of view and wouldn't budge from his or her stance. Nothing seemed to mattered to them, neither insult nor barb. They remained resolute in a way that went much beyond mere stubbornness. It wasn't a compliment if you called someone a ‘dheeth’ It meant that they were being stubborn in a way that was annoying to those around and was considered to be somewhat in bad form.

When I chose to make a cup of stains using the word-stain ‘dheeth’, I did it initially, because I really liked the form that emerged when I was drawing out the word to make the blob or word-stain. Going over the letters of the Devnagiri script, with a black felt tip pen, going round and round the word, I created a blob that looked like a more than usually rotund Rudra Veena, [used in Hindustani Classical music] where both the resonators [made from hollowed gourds] were too close to each other to create a harmonic resonance and perhaps, no music at all. Ironically, isn’t that what shame does to us – anything that stains and shrinks our sense of self tends to diminish the grace of being – that music of the spheres that resonates within. 

I used a piece of fabric, that hadn't been stained using tea, but was cut out of a large image of tea-marks in a cup, digitally printed on fabric, layered and stitched with Kantha. I wasn't thinking ‘dheeth’ when I was doing this. I was allowing the form the word-stain that I had made - the blob as it were, to lead the way. 

The cup became part of the installation - THE STAIN TEA PARTY, which was part of my recent exhibition in Delhi and will be shown again at my solo show - 'The Piercing Needle' in Kolkata, in January 2016.

 I'm curious to know what you think about this cup of embodying the word ‘dheeth’ – a word-stain. 


For me, it didn’t appear to represent the meaning I'd grown up with and in some sense seemed to have a quality of celebration around it, which intrigued and made me question my preconceived ideas. When someone is called stubborn, or persistent it is assumed that they are not looking at another’s point of view. In a sense, they are not accommodating the other, but sticking with the way they feel about a situation. And, because of that they are judged in a diminishing way, because stubbornness has evolved to have a negative meaning.

This exercise made me re-think things. I thought about how as a child, I was often called a ‘dheet’. Sometimes, in these situations, I would try and speak but the feelings were very intense and hard to share what I felt and or why I persisted with doing something that others felt was unworthy and derided me for. As the cup of word-stain ‘dheeth’ evolved, I realised that  not only did it  question the negative connotation that I had carried in me, about being called a ‘dheeth’, but made me find a depth of meaning about something that I hadn’t consciously acknowledged before, but the stigma carried in some part of my being emerged intuitively, enabled through this creative venture.

The colour of the fabric that I chose [intuitively] was dark with virtually no light being reflected off that greyed fabric, despite it having a rather tactile quality. But the way that the rotund, sort of plump form seemed to grow from its ‘lumpishness’, to rise up from the base, to skirt the inside of the cup – it lightened the mood, lightened the sluggishness of mind, that I suppose, one does associate with a ‘dheeth’. The assumption being that if you cannot explain the feeling then you are mentally lazy.

And then the beads – round like the ‘lumpenness’ of the blob [word-stain], but coloured a little more vibrantly - not so dark, but of the same family of hues that generally surround the colour of tea. The beads added a sense of delicacy. They added a jewel-like quality to the whole cup of marks created from a word with generally negative connotations. A word that denounces someone for being resolute in a way beyond mere egotistical stubbornness, of coming from a space of knowing or feeling that couldn’t be explained.

In exploring the ‘lumpenness’ of this form, in examining it and allowing it to speak and unfold through this creative process, I seem to have arrived at some understanding. If not understanding then at least the possibility that could exist for understanding, that, behind this resolute stubbornness which was ‘lumpen’ in some sense, there was a kind of knowing which when unravelled, lends itself to embodying a level of elegance or grace.


I feel things intensely; sometimes it is impossible to put those feelings into words. Sometimes this feeling is a knowing that is beyond words. It is not always easy to live with but not only could it take hours to unravel, it sometimes takes years to understand why I was so resolute about something. I have annoyed people, have even felt isolated, but sometimes one persists because you feel something from the inexplicable space of knowing that even if challenged will keep you going in the same direction. To others it may seem annoying, foolish and even detrimental to a perceived/ preconceived state of well being. Some even call it being self-destructive.

Looking at what emerged through the cup of stains, I wonder, that despite all these barbs, if it could actually be a high level of sensitivity which accesses a state of being where the nuances of feeling are deep and subtle, but resolute. And it is this which keeps such people rooted, to remain in that space of inexplicable knowing with conviction, which has been misunderstood?

Intensity of feelings can be uncomfortable to live with and I have worked hard to understand my own, using words that never seem to end – it is almost as if explaining feelings is the most difficult thing to do and one should just have the faith to stay with the feelings – so what if you are called a ‘dheeth’? 

Life will unravel through the unfolding of experience as it is lived, and trying to figure it out, to explain to the world around you, while not a totally futile exercise, could be end up being one where you realise that there really is no point in explaining? At least not all the time?

Being a ‘dheeth’ in our world which has given it negative meaning, then, seems to be an exercise in faith. To live without the conscious knowing and clarity of thought to justify the feeling, but keeping the faith by being true to this feeling, however unfathomable and questionable it may be?

And here one is not referring to those without qualm or decency who are are at the opposite end of the spectrum, where the stubbornness comes from ego, arrogance and even from fear of allowing their sensibility to be challenged. I guess there is always a fine line that distinguishes the ‘dheeth’ who is egotistical and one who works from a deep level of connectedness to their soul.  

 

The Stain Tea-Party invited people, visiting the exhibition, to make a cup of stains. It was an exercise that came up with many surprises because not only did I find a lot of people willing to explore the ‘marks’ in their mind, the quality of the material, which included beads and sequins, allowed the participants to enjoy the process and not think stains or marks. It liberated them, to some degree, from any associations they may have held with the idea of marks that create a sense of shame. Many revealed how they found a sense of relief in doing this exercise. And when their chosen word transformed through this process, which was purely visual and tactile, light-heartedness in being was experienced. Some even shared how this creative exercise had also deepened their understanding of ideas pertaining to shame they may have felt for issues about themselves that had gone unacknowledged.

My creative work has always been about unravelling the self. It has been about me talking to me, relieving pent-up feelings and ideas that dwarf, to rise above. But to share this process with others through the Stain Tea-Party Interactive Installation and have them experience something similar was gratifying indeed.

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.”