and that's how we get it moving!

Nia all of 12 is back from school. She has a ritual - 45 mins of reading with her evening snack to wind down - then get on with chores for the evening - her dance practice, bath, a little bit of homework and getting ready for the next day.

I try not to schedule meetings around the time she comes. I love hanging out with her - getting snippets about how her 2 days at school have been, how mine have been (and an occasional lecture about something she missed doing before she left for school).

Nia, of course, has no intention of engaging. She zealously guards her me-time (something I am hoping she'll remember to do all her life). So today, as i am continuing to play mamma - she fervently appeals to me, "Mamma please fix my snacks so that I can start my quiet time. I have grand plans for the evening - i need to do this and that and this and that," and in the same breath she adds, "And you right now are my weakest link!" 

Even as I burst out laughing at this absolute bang-on focus to get things moving for herself, this was enough to get me moving!

A sacred space

Working from home has its many benefits. Specially when I am blessed with a house and green community as beautiful as ours. The pain point does seem to be how blurred the boundaries become - between work and family, between my time and work time, between what to focus on vs everything else that seems unfinished around the house.

It took me a while to figure this out for myself - the shift i needed to make is to accept this reality and then create clearer boundaries (first in my head and then for the rest of the family). Step 1: creating a clear physical boundary - to have a room only for work. Sure it meant taking over the guest room - and then having to give away our room when friends and family came visiting. But it has been truly worth the trade off!

After the physical space was carved out, what helped me create an energetic boundary has been this special altar in one corner of the room. Each morning begins with attending to the altar, lighting the dhoop stick and taking in all the symbols and meanings of what I have placed there. The altar anchors me in my work world. In times of stress and confusion, it helps me anchor in myself. And it serves as a constant reminder to send out gratitude for the many blessings in life (including this very house!)

Lessons from my little Buddha

I am in Delhi over the last weekend - a rather unusual work commitment. Nia is excited about coming and picking me at the airport. The practical, sensible me of course thinks its an awful idea.

Here's how the conversation unfolds:

Nia: we are coming to pick you up

Me: of course not - i'll see you at home

Nia: but whyyyyyyyyy??

Me: Coz it just doesn't make sense. Its Sunday evening, you'll be tired after your dance class. Its a really long ride for Pappa. You need to pack and have your bath and figure out dinner. I'd rather have you finish all that by the time i get home so that I don't have to nag you - and then i just get relaxed time with you

Nia: Look it doesn't make sense because you club it all together. Let's deconstruct it - one problem at a time.
And over the next two minutes - she breaks it down - one issue at a time - giving very doable solutions for each:

tired after dance class - i'll take it easy
long ride - we'll leave early
you don't want to have to nag me - i take complete responsibility
dinner - pack a subway for me, i'll eat it on the way back
(you get the gist)

Me: Look can i just talk to pappa?

Nia: It'll be unfair to bring him into this discussion without giving him a background. Can you hold for a couple of minutes? (some quick whispering and mumbling) OK here you can now talk to him.


I think I am hiring this child to be my COO!

Today I wish...

Having a smart phone has many advantages but a big bummer past few months has been zero writing. Thanks to FB links and forwards, I now end up reading such well written pieces that my own musings and articulation seems to pale in comparison. Recently I ended up lecturing a friend about feeling free to express without judging and a little voice inside nudged, "how about practising what you preach?!"

So here's a re- reentry! I thought of posting some of my poetry. In the past few months, attempts at writing poetry have been a healing, creative process. I find myself stuck in a situation, a mood and attempting to express that through poetry helps me work my way through it. It's clarifying as much as it is cathartic and I love these moments I give myself. Somehow limited exposure to poetry has somehow created a mindset in me that I need to rhyme. Only once have I written a piece when there was no such compulsion and here it is:

Today  I wish ...

Today  I wish to bind myself to the  earth,

Though I see the unending free skies stretching overhead.

Today I wish my hair strikes roots in the ground,

Though the winds strain to caress it.

Today I wish my feet get swallowed by the wet mud,

Though the dew kissed grass offers soft solidness.  

And though the thoughts scamper like restless squirrels on the branches,

Today I wish to be like a tree, 

grounded, and quietly swaying to the rhythms of the seasons. 

P. S. my little girl, nia also seems to enjoy writing poetry and has been planning to blog herself. Can't wait to see her foray into the world of writing and blogging! 

Resolution for 2013

Finding me

 

In others I've sought to find myself

How meaningless that now seems to be

For it took me away from my own inner world

That nurtured the introverted part of me.

 

Am I doing enough for him? for her?  for them?

These questions now need to change

It's time to try out some new rules

Even though they may seem a bit strange

 

Going silent than talking things out

Seems to be the way of the world

That I am now beginning to grasp

As I console within me this girl

Who always thought that confronting helped

in healing relationships that matter

But that seems far from the truth

Now shoved beneath safe chatter.

 

I am learning how we all have our own versions of truth.

Between two truths what's truer - who's to say!

And self disclosure and confronting seem rather naive

It's time for me to find a wiser way

to sort thru the complications of these relationships

To make meaning of my life

To think through what it truly means to be me

and not just a friend, a mother, a wife.

 

To find myself I seek solitude now

To dive into my own inner world where I belong

The relationships, the reaching out can wait for a bit

While I create my own rhythm, my song!

 

Shadow Work & Poetry

End of 2012 - beginning 2013 - I see myself equally drawn to Jung's work and expression through poetry. I love the way Jungian analysts write - such richness and depth in their writing and at the same time - wirtten in ways that non-jungians can get.

My current favourite author - James Hollis - his book on working with the Shadow is definitely worth a read. Post reading that book - I have a way of working with what happens within me everything I expereince a strongly negative reaction instead of focusing on the outside. Sure, its wok for a lifetme - but I am able to see how I am able to work through some tough things within and emerge feeling a little more whole, a little more clearer and a lot more peaceful!

So here's a poetry that emerged from my last such journey within (written in my room in Bangladesh):

In the Shadows of Silence.....

On a quiet afternoon, in an even quieter room,

I sat by myself in anger and despair
triggered by feeling isolated in a strange land,
craving for some conversation but no one to share.

It was then that my eye caught this waterbird –

Alone in the paddy field, motionless it stood
As I marvelled its stillness, its focus,
it seemed to telling me that I too should
stay still a while and go past the tears
to truly hear the crying of the soul
to confront what lies in the shadows within me
and listen to my silenced truths now waiting to be told.

It was then that I met this little child in me –

Scared, feeling unloved and even blamed
for the conflicts at home that she felt had to be sorted
and feeling confused why among adults no words were exchanged.

The silence seemed so threatening to her back then;

Eroding the sense of security that only family can bring
She dared not confront the grown-ups why they weren't talking ,
Yet she desperately searched for words for her to cling.
Clear loud words that would tell her she's not to be blamed
That the love and security she needn't ever doubt
Or even whispered words behind closed doors
that would give clues of conversations, of fights sorted out.
Of course those words never came - loud nor soft.
The wounds of that time partly healed, partly festering
It was then that I began to fully grasp for the first time
why with loved ones, I find silence so unsettling.

So I sat besides this child – still feeling abandoned and lost

and broke the silence to tell her that her grief I shared
I held her with my strength, my love, my wisdom
as I talked to her so she knows that i cared.

I spoke of how conversations needn't be only outside;

Of how within me there was this rich inner world
That held enough words of love, of support and safety
both for me the grown woman, and for the little girl.

Slowly the child within me felt understood,

And on the outside - me the woman - hopeful and light
Knowing that there would be many more such conversations
For now the silence, the aloneness seemed alright.

 

Back from Hampi

I am finding myself wanting more and more to look at creative ways of self expression and one of them has been poetry. Encouraged by a friend to do more of it, here's what emerged after a three day lovely break @ Hampi with family & friends.

Stories from Hampi

If only these rocks could speak

What stories would they choose to tell?

Of the many events they bore silent witness to
Events that even history has dispelled

Would they choose to talk of brothers

Vali and Sughriva locked in a fight for life
Or of the devoted Laxmana following Rama
As he crossed these lands in search of his wife

Or perhaps the tale would be of sisters

Who for insulting these very lands,
Were cursed to become the Akka – Tangi Betta
Frozen in eternal rest, they now stand!

Maybe the folklore of the chieftains Hukka and Bukka

Is what the rocks might want to share
Who made this very land their kingdom
On sighting the hound being chased by the hare.

Or maybe history would take precedence over myths

Stories of Krishnadevaraya, the King
His bravery, his religious tolerance , love for poetry
Songs in his praise the rocks would sing!

Would they, then,  swell up with pride

As they begin to share the many forms
Of prosperity that radiated in this kingdom
In its bazaars, its streets, its religious icons

And then would they start to mourn

The fall of this prosperous, mighty empire
Ruthlessly plundered by the Sultanate’s men
Then left to burn for months in the fire.

Ah! Those tales of religious intolerance,

Of greed, that these rocks could tell -
Even in today’s times, several centuries later
Those stories would still ring a bell

But the rocks know that history repeats

That man from his mistakes learns less and less
So these rocks withhold their stories, their wisdom
And continue to stand in mute witness.