#167: Poetry as Meditation
Dear reader,
It’s been a tough Monday for me, so I’ll keep this short. Over the past few years, this newsletter has become a space for me to clear my head and process my thoughts and emotions. And I want to thank you for letting me spill out some of my headspace into your inbox.
For whomever may be reading this, I hope you feel some sort of occasional internal shift (or stirring at the very least) when you read a powerful poem here, or listen to a song from the Recommended Listening section, or read an article from the Links of the Week that lets your mind wander.
I found this amazing quote on James Clear’s newsletter a little while ago. It’s really helping me today, and I hope it helps you too.
"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same."
-Author and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda
Poetry Corner
After reading Cameron Awkward-Rich’s Meditations in an Emergency, I’ve been on the hunt for poems that are real and have a meditative quality to them, that take my mind places I need to be. These poems feel like essential reading today:
Meditation by Nayyirah Waheed
if
the ocean
can calm itself
so can you.
we
are both
salt water
mixed
with
airMeditation on Patience by Ariel Francisco
Of patience, I know only
what sea turtles have taught me:
how they are born on lightless
beaches so the moon can serve
as a beacon to lure them
into the water; how they spend
their whole lives trying to swim
towards it, enamored, obsessed;
how they flap their forelimbs,
a vague recollection of flying—
the right movement in the wrong
medium, as if they knew how
to reach the moon in a former life
but now only remember the useless
persistent motions; how if you cut
one’s heart out it would keep
beating in the pit of your palm,
recognizing the cold night air.Of Modern Poetry by Wallace Stevens
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and to meet
The women of the time. It has to think about war
And it has to find what will suffice. It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and
With meditation, speak words that in the ear,
In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,
Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound
Of which, an invisible audience listens,
Not to the play, but to itself, expressed
In an emotion as of two people, as of two
Emotions becoming one. The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly
Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,
Beyond which it has no will to rise.
It must
Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may
Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman
Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.Meditation by Charles Baudelaire
Translated from French by David YezziTake it easy, Sadness. Settle down.
You asked for evening. Now, it’s come. It’s here.
A choking fog has blanketed the town,
infecting some with calm, the rest with fear.
While the squalid throng of mortals feels the sting
of heartless pleasure swinging its barbed knout
and finds remorse in slavish partying,
take my hand, Sorrow. I will lead you out,
away from them. Look as the dead years lurch,
in tattered clothes, from heaven’s balconies.
From the depths, regret emerges with a grin.
The spent sun passes out beneath an arch,
and, shroudlike, stretched from the antipodes,
—hear it, O hear, love!—soft night marches in.Hokusai Says by Roger Keyes
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,
every one of us is ancient
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find
a way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive --
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn't matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn't matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn't matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
He says don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.
Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
Recommended Listening
Today, I only feel like recommending a single artist I’m utterly smitten by: non-binary Los Angeles-based artist Green-House (Olive Ardizoni), who wants us to know that “Cuteness can be therapeutic”.
I recommend you start with their EP Six Songs for Invisible Gardens and then move on to Music For Living Spaces for some winsome melodies. You should also listen to Morning Glory Waltz by them from the Adult Swim Singles 2021 compilation. Also this: Metro Art Presents Flora Urbana A Soundscape.
I ended up feeling so inspired listening to these albums that I started composing my own music after ages, and shot some videos for them as well. Here is my video+tune from a day at Sankey Tank last week, and another one from my last trip to Backyard Camp (you’re welcome, Bangaloreans).
Thank you for your music, Olive. So inspired and soothed.
Links of the Week
Participate in Taught Inktober, an art challenge for kids from October 17th to 23rd! Do check out these art tips I was commissioned to doodle for the participants.
Go With The Flow (A special Bustle issue exploring the unexpected joys of abandoning routines, rituals, and a general sense of rigidity.)
In love with Cinta Vidal's Upside Down World
Last week, I shared a GIF from the song Aline by Jarvis Cocker from The French Dispatch. Came across an article this week on how Javi Aznarez and friends created Wes Anderson’s debut music video.
68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice by Kevin Kelly (My favorite: If you are looking for something in your house, and you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.)
A Revolution in Creativity: On Slow Writing ("...if we recall the snail and follow the trail through the incredibly uncertain dark, we may celebrate a new concentration rising toward complex thought, all arising from the slow.")
"There will always be too much to do – and this realisation is liberating."
-from Oliver Burkeman's last column for The Guardian: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled lifeThe Art, Politics, and Craft of Piñatas (Curious about our Indian khoi bags after reading this!)
An interesting idea from Suleika Jaouad: Make an anti-aspirational bucket list. (Fill it with the things you’ve done, the places you’ve gone, the people you’ve loved, the moments that made your life feel full. Record whatever it is that makes you ache for more.)
An article I wrote recently
I had the chance to interview Chennai-based paper cut artist Keerthana Ramesh on her paper-cut pop-up book My Friends Are Missing, which features 30 critically endangered species from around the world.
“Every time I show someone the book, regardless of their age or level of art enthusiasm, they get excited to see the pop-ups come alive. There’s a spark of joy I see on people’s faces, which is worth all the effort. It’s also an educational opportunity because while these are cute and beautiful, the context that these are endangered species makes one sit up and take notice.”
-Keerthana Ramesh
Read the full piece about her process on Hyperallergic, and go follow her now on Instagram, if you don’t already.
I’ll end this newsletter with this beautiful reminder by Cleo Wade:
Take care of yourself, you masterpiece!
Sending love,
Rohini