Sunday, July 3, 2011

love-light and butterflight

often when people die we cry. we get sad. we mourn. we miss them. sometimes we think that death is random, or perhaps unfair, or maybe untimely, or unwanted, or cruel. but we can say all those things about life. life is bizarre. we know bio-logic-ally how people get pregnant, but really, that is some random magic we have accepted as logic. penis, vagina, sperm, swimming, egg, fertilization, conception, birth.

but really, why is it that way? we don't know. it could have been any one of a gazillion ways. and why does the baby come out of the vagina, or as my friend once described - what business does a watermelon have coming out of a lemon? it's puzzling. i'm about to become a maasi. coming-soon baby has the outsides shaped, and the insides are being carved. it is pretty close to fully developed now, having grown from a sunflower seed size to a mango. it could come out now, and it would be a lot easier and less painful for my sister, actually for mango baby too. but no, these paths are not meant to be. life is hard. we are always going to be watermelons trying to squeeze through lemons, not believing it to be possible, because of our large size (ego/ physical mind) and hard shell (physical body).

but actually, we underestimate ourselves. we are much more collapsible, deflatable, twistable, shrinkable, and adaptable than we imagined. we only know our bigness, the space we want to occupy. but we have forgotten our smallness, the space we come from, the space that remains intact inside us, the core seed. when life is hard, we are forced (or we learn) to shed our extra layers, to pass through the eye of the needle and still retain our essence. when we think we have nothing or nobody, we shrink. we go deep within, into the quiet dark magic that we came from, to access our godliness. life can be random, unfair, untimely, unwanted, or cruel. death can be perfect, and beautiful.

we are but butterflies, constantly in metamorphosis. and like every transformation that is radical and beautiful, it is painful.

i welcome the shapes that are emerging. and remember to cocoon yourself in love and light to get you through the pain meanwhile.

for neena goswamy and emil paddison.

1 comment:

  1. Nitika,

    I finally read this today and it is like drinking a fresh cold glass of water after such a hot long day. Today I found out my student's small sister passed away and tomorrow I will talk to him about death and the beauty of sisters. I have to teach him to "go deep within, into the quiet dark magic that we came from, to access our godliness". It's awful but I appreciate that even when you're not looking, you're holding me when I'm trembling...

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