Fellow Thespian

The connections
The struggle
The unity
The divinity

JLS inspired Seagull photographs taken recently

Death in Love

Love is The funeral pyre Where I have laid my living body. All the false notions of myself That once caused fear, pain, Have turned to ash As I neared God. What has risen From the tangled web of thought and sinew Now shines with jubilation Through the eyes of angels And screams from the guts of Infinite existence Itself. Love is the funeral pyre Where the heart must lay Its body." -Hafiz A new revelation to self is a recurring theme of funeral pyres. As I fall deep into it I am trying to understand that there is Death in Love. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Jungian psychologist) writes about this in Women Who Run with the Wolves (Ch Skeleton Woman) and so does Hafiz, the Sufi poet.

Belongingness

How do you belong? how do you fit in? 

What is your tolerance level of wanting to be like 'them'? 

When do you want to stop being yourself?

Where would you like to go?

Who do you think belongs with you?

Why do you stop being yourself?

Closing cases and letting go.

Acute psychiatry unit teaches you about letting go of the relationships. Sometimes you meet them only for 1 session, and you keep questioning the purpose of your existence as a 'therapist'. For better or worse, it is the way it is. In professional and personal life. You can't hold on to anything, Ever.

Also, I'm far away from home, i.e. India transitioning to another home Art Therapy (here in US),
"the other side"... 

life is changing

What are the odds of meeting you?

None.

Probably.

The story of God

I have been following this TV series The Story of God by Morgan Freeman. What struck me today was the statement

"Birds are flown and fishes are swum"...

any thoughts?

Finally!! I grabbed my copy and read it immediately... breathing a sigh of relief after having read it! It was strange about feeling that Part 4 was always there (or maybe I didn't remember where it ended before reading the new edition). Needs no justification or explanation. 

It's also feels complete now that i think back and realize that strangely i never kept JLS for myself. Always read it in a library and gifted it to friends. Time is a mysterious entity i guess ;)

JLS is a treasure... will always be... so close to my heart! :)

Afterall...

More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

PS: Thanks to Sito, else I would have totally missed out on this considering how lost I usually am from the real world. :D

Maa

Mixed Media: dry pastels, collage and dried branches on canvas

Do share your thoughts about the same!

Psychenaut

Sometimes photographs are more than pictures! sometimes friends and more than just people!

Self Portrait 2

Psychenaut-  Traveller within and without

(soft pastels and collage on canvas 16X20)

Inspired by a photograph of self, the love of travel, landscapes and places both external and internal to Self; and ethos of Romanticism.

*Dedicated to 2 friends, lost and found!

Bubble burst

There is no origin of thoughts in the mind. It is like a bubble. Arises and passes away.

How do you do it?

My sister made a passing comment "How do you do it?".
Whatever little that i have managed to understand of my tryst with Psychology so far and its professions is that the trick lies not in 'doing' but 'being'. There have been times i have felt tormented at not being able to 'do' anything at all, thus spiralling to a disease of guilt that we so often trap ourselves in.

Thanks to Sito today for reminding me to share the idiosyncratic and sometimes disturbing thoughts that linger in my mind. His recent post on Silence made me retrospect my own journey with silence so far which has changed in certain forms, for better or worse. I have realized that sometimes our fears  are so insignificant that we often irrationally evaluate it, as if, a life and death situation. I am at a stage right now where  I am struggling to move out of the 'student' mode and enter the 'adult' life learning to work and 'earn a living'. I remember a year back or so, my preoccupations with the fear of not EVER being able to earn a living was so intense that it made me feel inadequate and inept at anything that I knew/learnt or wanted to do/work. And now that I am managing to do so I wonder, till how long will I be able to sustain it (if that is meant to be at all)? The aphorism by Oscar Wilde for Dorian "The only horrible thing in the world is ennui" resonates with my state of being in the world. Boredom has often created a rage inside me. And that is not because i did not know what i wanted to do (or be) but because i dwelled too much over WHY i wanted to do what i wanted to do! The why questions are to be ignored in future in order to lead a healthy life :P!

One of the situations where I have felt the most inadequate or helpless even in terms of reaction is when someone shares the news of death of a loved one with me. Whether a friend, elder or a child. An eight year old boy lost his mother yesterday who passed away because of Blood Cancer. The boy (10 year old) who was left to take care of his younger brother had no idea how to make sense of life with his absentee mother. I don't know how many therapists, counselors or psychologists feel at ease in shedding tears with their clients, but yesterday when we both sat in silence together, it felt so natural in grieving together with the child... Gratitude and Love to the beautiful soul.

I am still struggling to Be, to Do, to give and receive.

paper boat

There's so much to share write paint draw because suddenly all of it is coming back, i wish i can do that soon (in dire need of a sabbatical)!

i wanted to paint Ouroboros quite sometime back when i discovered it personally because instantly I could connect to the meaning and symbology behind this cultural symbol. however circumstances were such that the painting got spoiled then.

nevertheless, after two years of living the symbol (the numen) academically and personally, i managed to muster up the courage to re-draw it with much more enhanced understanding of Self and Psyche!

"Kagazon ki kashtiyon ka kahin kinaara hota nahi, O maajhi re!
(paper boats don't have a river bank, O boatman!)

Love has no Reason. 

Therefore the question of "Why you love someone/something" is negated. 

[In my opinion, a late realization for Self xD]

Music

Heartrending music is food for the troubled soul!

Sharing Hindi and Assamese rendition of a Bhupen Hazarika song. While the Hindi one makes me feel the pain, the Assamese one is quite romantic. Enjoy.

Translation of Assamese version

source : http://datab.us/iPqeDYnPWWg#Tumar dekhun naam Patralekha - Bhupen Hazarika (Assamese Song)

Note to self

आज  एक  drug addict से  बात कर के तुम्हारी याद आई
ना . तुम्हें drug addict की उपाधि नहीं दे रही हूँ
पर कुछ था उसके बारे में
जो पल-छिन तुमसे बात कर के तुम्हारी आँखों  में दिखता था
काश के तुम्हें बता पाती आज !
वही...
        एक आईना सा...

I want to throw stones at his 'house'

For no particular reason.

I want to tear his curtains apart
So that he sees the light from this side.

I want to break his window sills
So that the breeze hits him hard on his face.

I want to discolour all his walls
So that he perceives what ugly is.

I want to freeze all his doors knobs
So that he knows what freedom is.


But I still want to throw stones at his house...

ye jo halka halka suroor hai

" मेरे बाद किसको सताओगे ?

मुझे किस तरह मिटाओगे ? 

कहाँ जा के तीर चलाओगे ? 

मेरी दोस्ती की बालाएं दो 

मुझे हाथ उठा कर दुआएं दो 

तुम्हे  एक क़ातिल बना दिया ! "