'Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up'
Reading corner
It is hard to have hope
by Wendell Berry
It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
for hope must not depend on feeling good
and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
of the future, which surely will surprise us,
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?
Tell them at least what you say to yourself.
Because we have not made our lives to fit
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge
of what it is that no other place is, and by
your caring for it as you care for no other place, this
place that you belong to though it is not yours,
for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.
Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are
your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,
who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,
and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike
fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing
in the trees in the silence of the fisherman
and the heron, and the trees that keep the land
they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.
This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power
or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful
when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy
when they ask for your land and your work.
Answer with knowledge of the others who are here
and how to be here with them. By this knowledge
make the sense you need to make. By it stand
in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.
Speak to your fellow humans as your place
has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.
Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it
before they had heard a radio. Speak
publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.
Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
from the pages of books and from your own heart.
Be still and listen to the voices that belong
to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.
There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,
by which it speaks for itself and no other.
Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground
underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls
freely upon it after the darkness of the nights
and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.
Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,
which is the light of imagination. By it you see
the likeness of people in other places to yourself
in your place. It lights invariably the need for care
toward other people, other creatures, in other places
as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.
No place at last is better than the world. The world
is no better than its places. Its places at last
are no better than their people while their people
continue in them. When the people make
dark the light within them, the world darkens.
Healing notes
Trigger warnings for death, ideation and unkind thoughts.
I cannot remember the first time I thought about dying and death. I might have been 8 or 9. My school counsellor didn't take me seriously. She thought I was joking. And told me life isn't so bad and I should relax a bit. I told myself in turn my feelings didn't matter. Brushed them off and learned to toughen up. Much later at 20 ideation began again or that time when I couldn't hold it back, I had a sister who was a therapist already. I confided in her and she shielded me a bit from the world and reassured me it was going to be okay. But she couldn't shield me from it all as I had to go see a therapist and a psychiatrist by myself. Not pleasant experiences even at 20. At 29, I can detect the slumps and I allow them - only way I know. I see the panic attacks coming, high as waves. I hold onto my beaded chain. I do origami. I sleep and watch movies. I eat. I work through the slumps. What else is there to do? But how I talk to myself hasn't really changed, you know? I've been in therapy for so many years now and if you asked me I am much better than I used to be. I have so much more control. But then there are days like today when I find my thoughts being cruel to me. 'You can swim see if you set your mind to it, simply complaining.' 'Your laziness is the biggest problem.' 'No one believes you.' In the midst of all this chaos in my mind, I somehow manage to hold onto the kind words of others and my better self - on good days. But it's still pretty damn awful, how I can turn on myself this way. May is supposed to be mental health awareness month. I don't know what awareness I would like. A part of me wishes more people knew the terrible conversations we had with ourselves because of the rabid dismissal of others, especially health professionals. I joke about it a lot because I have no choice but to be steeped in the medical system (because of my varied and growing list of illnesses). But the trauma that accumulates strips me of dignity on bad days. Shames me for experiencing pain and hurt this way. So when all this consumes me, when I need to break free from my own voices.. what does a good day look like even? Is it a day when I am active? Happy? Eating? Reading? Or a day free from the voices that question my experiences? I don't know.
I really don't.
Food experiments
Pachi pulusu
2 cups tamarind water
1 onion
Coriander cut up
Green chilli cut up
Curry leaves
Mustard, jeera and anything else you temper with
Salt
And a pinch of jaggery
Temper the chilli, curry leaves and mustard and jeera.
Squeeze the juice out of tamarind and keep aside. Add the cut up onion and coriander to it. Add salt and jaggery. Mix it with your hands a bit so the spices blend well.
Finally add the tempered part. Serve with any rice. I ate it with khichdi! :)
Dear you,
Do you have a safe place you go to?
I hope you are held in that space in a way you want to be <3 and you can go there
if the times are tough. <3
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke