#143: The Leafy Edition
Hello, my gentle reader,
If you have opened this newsletter, it is probably because you're seeking respite from the news about politics, COVID-19 and everything else that is wrong out there.
I read a stranger’s tweet yesterday that felt like a much-needed important reminder in these trying times:
We need more healthy warriors around, and that means being healthy emotionally, physically and mentally. The pandemic isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so instead of panicking, I have started to focus on building resilience and finding ways to help myself before I can help others.
One of the most comforting ways I have started doing this is by practising patta painting (patta means leaf in Hindi), as my four-year-old niece calls it. I collect a bunch of fallen leaves (no plucking, that's part of the deal), take out my Posca pens, and go crazy making dots and lines on the leaves. I first came across this concept through The New Yorker's Art Director Rina Kushnir's leafy experiments as @_leafiness_.
Here's one of my favorite leaves I've worked on, held by Jintan, the monkey that my mother often practises her ventriloquist act on
I urge you to give leaf painting a try. It's such a therapeutic process and the end results are always a delight. I'd love to see your colourful leaves, if you do decide to try it. :)
In honour of leaves, I have put together some of my favorite leafy poems and links for you to savour and be inspired by:
1. Ponder by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old?
No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
2. Crown Shyness by Rohini Kejriwal
I am learning to live
without your touch
the way many species of trees
demonstrating crown shyness do.
I look up
at the leaves that talk
almost touching,
but not quite.
I stare, awestruck
at nature’s jigsaw puzzle
the perfect distance
maintained between the pieces.
I wonder when I shall touch you again.
perhaps a gentle breeze
will sway me towards you,
the canopy shall come alive,
for two forlorn lovers to touch,
momentarily.
3. What Else by Carolyn Locke
The way the trees empty themselves of leaves,
let drop their ponderous fruit,
the way the turtle abandons the sun-warmed log,
the way even the late-blooming aster
succumbs to the power of frost—
this is not a new story.
Still, on this morning, the hollowness
of the season startles, filling
the rooms of your house, filling the world
with impossible light, improbable hope.
And so, what else can you do
but let yourself be broken
and emptied? What else is there
but waiting in the autumn sun?
4. I Am Like A Leaf by Yone Noguchi
The silence is broken: into the nature
My soul sails out,
Carrying the song of life on his brow,
To meet the flowers and birds.
When my heart returns in the solitude,
She is very sad,
Looking back on the dead passions
Lying on Love’s ruin.
I am like a leaf
Hanging over hope and despair,
Which trembles and joins
The world’s imagination and ghost.
5. The Little Leaf by Annette Wynne
And so, the little leaf flew far—O far,
Out to the place where the blue hills are.
It took the wind's hand, and on it went;
All was so new—it was quite content
To go far away from the mother tree
And find where the little brook found the sea.
Recommended Listening:
100 Great Poems - Classic Poets & Beatnik Freaks (Poets recite their poems. Been hearing these all weekend!)
Barilla's playlists based on how long it takes to cook different kinds of pasta
LP Records From India (Really funky vinyl set by My Analog Journal)
Links of the Week:
1. Meet Gwen Millward's Leafy, an adorable autumn character
2. Leaf Movie by Alexey Alexeev
3. Rina Kushnir's delightful leaf paintings
4. Botanic Embroideries Embellish the Dried Leaf Sculptures of Hillary Waters Fayle
5. Shadow Portraits in Nature
6. The Last Leaf by O. Henry
7. Stick Match, a stop-motion animation
8. The carved beauty of Lito leaf art
The Kindness Newsletter | One Future Collective
I recently put together a newsletter on Kindness for One Future Collective, which is hosting a free-for-all festival from 23rd to 25th April. Tickets here. It felt so nice to reflect on kindness, read poems about it, and create a kindness playlist.
Read an excerpt from the newsletter that I wrote below + the full version here:
“Kindness starts from within, and when that wholesome feeling of being washed with kindness and compassion is realised, it has the power to have the most wonderful kind of chain reaction.
I remember watching the film Pay It Forward as a young child, and the profound impact it had on me. How one good deed branches out into three good deeds and so and on and so forth. On days when the world feels bleak, I return to the film to remind myself of individual and collective kindness. Life is going to keep throwing resistance, hopelessness and despair at us. But kindness will prevail, and if we use it carefully, kindness can become a powerful tool to bring about systemic, revolutionary and meaningful change.
Amelia Earhart describes this beautifully: “A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.” I like to imagine the world as a forest of kindness. How beautiful that would be!”
This is my newsletter: Tiyasha Chaudhury
“Is seeing enough? Or am I doing it right? Am I thinking a lot or was I meant to be in a state like this where thinking a lot seems normal? The art of looking through is, as I would like to say, existing with what one is looking through and in that, I discovered myself in oneness, in being.”
- Tiyasha Chaudhury
Read Tiyasha’s lovely newsletter full of art + book, film and music recommendations here.
New on the website:
Poetry:
2 poems by Aamiya Dhillon
How I was taught to be a girl by Namratha Rao
Prose:
The Altruist by Dincy Mariyam
I’d like to end with a quote by Brene Brown in her book Braving the Wilderness:
“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
I came across these words on the Reflect & Reset journaling course I've been doing. I've ordered a copy of the book for myself + enjoyed this talk by Brené on the subject.
Here's hoping you find comfort in these words, and start truly belonging to yourself.
Love and leafiness,
Rohini
If you'd like to support me on my journey with this newsletter, do consider contributing to Patreon / via UPI at thealiporepost@okhdfcbank.