'Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density!'
I hope the week is not too hectic and
you have all the moments of calm you need.
Reading corner
Now I Become Myself
By Mary Sarton
Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before—”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song;
Made so and rooted so by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
Source: https://onbeing.org/blog/fierce-with-reality-living-and-loving-well-to-the-end/
Healing notes
I often open up this newsletter and imagine I will write something truly profound. In reality, I am just sharing a bit of myself, often hidden from the world. I wonder if there is anything new to this. I have been doing this newsletter writing for many weeks now (yay to 20 weeks!) but unfortunately, learning and growing is so much slower or longer. Even when I am positive I have learned something, I am faced with a situation where there is more deeper learning tucked right in. For instance, I accept that healing is not linear. It waxes and wanes. I particularly wonder when I am in a valley of despair and hurt if healing truly exists. I realise, once again, that healing is not a destination to attain.
I read this piece by Yumi Sakugawa recently that urges us all to make art for the magic of making and creating. I never consider this newsletter art. Of course, it is not. (Um I think?) But it is a form of creation where the very act of creating makes me feel whole, vulnerable and happy. That is a rare feeling for someone who spends a lot of her time in angst. Even when what I am creating is not 'unique', 'marvellous' or 'perfect'.
It got me to the point of reflection where I felt I needed to embrace the totality of the emotions, stuff, spectrum of life that are in my path, that will come in my path and that I will see in the world. Especially on the creative journeys I undertake as someone who makes stuff. Knowing this, heck even accepting this, doesn't mean I do a good job of reacting to the emotional hell that often knocks on my door every time I sit down to create. But create I must.
I say this a lot - take everything one step at a time and as it comes. Yet, I need to embrace the scale (or should I continue using spectrum?) of different life events that I will encounter; all part of my one life. So time to sit back, walk on and stop running from my difficult life moments. <3 Can I loosen my grip on the need to fix everything? Can I live in the tumultuous as well as the breathtaking moments?
Food experiments
I am so not a broth person. I have never made it before and didn't imagine I would love it as much as I did. But this vegetable broth was amazing. I don't think I have cooked carrots in years. It was always meant to be bought and given uncooked to Layla, my dog. But this, this was amazing.
Vegetable noodle broth
For the noodles:
Boil some water and add a few drops of oil. Then add noodles of your choice. I used rice noodles. Drain and keep aside.
For the broth:
Pressure cook all the vegetables you want. I used beans, mushrooms, capsicum, baby corn, cauliflower and carrots. Add salt, pepper and some jeera powder to it. Last bit is optional. Pressure cook till 3 whistles.
After mix the two concoctions and eat, eat eat.
Hope you enjoy the broth as much as I did.
Dearest you,
Thank you for being here. Alongside me on this often depressing journey.
Have you been cooking something you like? Would you share?
I hope the rains are abetted and you are warm.
'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