#258: In pursuit of empty days
Dear reader,
I’ve just returned from the most immersive weekend at the Agami Summit, and the theme of the inner-outer worlds we inhabit, or the akam-puram as it’s known in Sangam literature, are lingering on my mind. After three days of the most immersive storytelling by changemakers, I feel charged and rested.
Winter draws closer, and with the waning moon, I remind myself to rest. To be able to do more with my limited time and energy in the days and year ahead.
Right on cue, there are gentle poets like May Sarton who remind me to rest:
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”
-May Sarton (via Journal of a Solitude)
Poetry Corner
Poems that celebrate the state of rest and empty days.
1. Priceless Gifts by Anna Swir
An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.
I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.
2. The Work of Happiness by May Sarton
I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.
So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall—
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.
For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life's span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.
3. Between Coming And Going by Octavio Paz
Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
4. Grace by Alice Walker
Gives me a day
too beautiful
I had thought
to stay indoors
& yet
washing my dishes
straightening
my shelves
finally
throwing out
the wilted
onions
shrunken garlic
cloves
I discover
I am happy
to be inside
looking out.
This, I think,
is wealth.
Just this choosing
of how
a beautiful day
is spent.
5. Sheltering Times by Judith Heron
Our need is surely now for gentle news.
Lives, stilled by necessity, call out for calm,
a kind of deep attention monks have known.
My kneeling stool has become a friend.
The garden and my small abode are alight
with both loss and pleasure. Old songs spring
easily to an open heart. The call, to replenish
gratitude, knocks each day on my door.
Odd that I have perfected now, the recipe
for scones. Buttermilk with ginger, apricots,
free range eggs that turn them golden.
Tops brushed with milk, a dust of sugar.
Old friend, it is you I wish I could
bring them to – in a basket covered
with a cotton cloth – and walk again,
arm in arm, round that mountain lake.
I got interviewed by Storiculture World :)
I’m so delighted to share one of my all-time favorite interviews about my creative practice and The Alipore Post with the lovely Shreya Muley of Storiculture World.
Excerpt from our 2-hour-long meandering conversation:
For me, the newsletter is a personal archive, this personal journal which I'm okay to share with people because now, my narrative is not ‘I will hide behind the newsletter’ but ‘Hey, this is who I am, these are my struggles. I know you are also probably struggling, so let's be vulnerable together’.
There is this sense of universality; we are all going through that spectrum of emotions, struggles and the intensity might be different. Maybe there’s a tool, maybe there’s a quote, or website or music that might take you away from that narrative or the way you’re looking at yourself.
One Future Post Volume 6: The Internet changed. So did Humanity.
I also had the opportunity to write a newsletter for One Future Collective, where I explored what it means to navigate the Internet mindfully + wrote a manifesto for how to stay safe and sane online. Do read the full newsletter here.
An excerpt from the essay:
“To build a safe space online, for oneself and the community you nurture, is a massive responsibility. When someone shares their email address with you to receive a newsletter you carefully write and curate, with the inherent societal trust that you will not sell their personal data to big tech. Or when someone follows you on Instagram, willingly letting you enter their feed. What you share, what you say, what you don’t…you are influencing culture and mindsets.”
+ My personal manifesto for being online:
Memories on a Plate: Last few copies left
We’re down to the last 10 copies of Memories on a Plate, an anthology by The Alipore Post and Nivaala that brings together the joys of cooking and the nostalgia of food through personal anecdotes, memories, recipes, art, poetry and photo essays from Indian kitchens around the globe. 🙌🏼🤓📕
Recommended Listening
Portal Waiting by Abhi Tambe ^ (A futuristic world-building experiment and narrative by a dear friend, who brought this album to life in a theatrical headphones-only immersive experience. So proud, Abhi!)
Vikasacha Khul - Mahi & Rapboss (My first taste of Marathi rap. 🔥🔥)
Links I liked
Andrea Love is/was working on Feltopia, the world’s first felted video game!
Download: A gratitude zine by Austin Kleon
Are you an Energetic Alien? (I might be)
Cybergothic Human Typewriter: On Kenji Siratori’s Chronotopologies
Revisiting: My Year in Failures by Mari Andrew
Words to hold onto
This was too beautiful an essay to not share.
“The famous “sleep on it” when we have a dilemma we can’t solve is an indication of how important dream time is to human wellbeing. The night allows this dream time, and the heavier, thicker dark of winter gives us a chance to dream a little while we are awake – a kind of reverie or meditation, the constellation of slowness, silence and darkness that sits under the winter stars.
I live in a wood in deep country, so inevitably light and dark keep their natural, non-city qualities for me, and I find myself responding to the changes in the light, and adjusting my ways from outdoors to indoors. I read more in the winter, write more, think more, sleep more. I don't plan any of this – rather I don't resist the seductions of darkness.”
-from Why I adore the night, by Jeanette Winterson
Sending you warmth and beauty as we enter the long nights of winter.
Stay cozy, dear reader,
Rohini
I just loved this one. And I feel grateful for reading you this year. Big hugs!