throwback: thoughts on navarathri 2014

Stumbled upon an online mag I published in 2014. It's the only one I ever made.. It was about Navarathri and the Kanya Puja which believed that children are the purest manifestations of Devi.
I have never witnessed something like this in my culture so this was a very beautiful sacred thing to experience.

Here's the link to the issue:
http://issuu.com/dreamtaym/docs/navarathri_rev?e=1144767/9601165

Didn't even realize that it was Poornima today. Big Devi living mandala waxing and waning before our very eyes every month.

temple visit

My friend desperately needed to whisper into Nandi's ear so we went to the one near my house at Serangoon.  It was a matter of urgency. I arrived early and soaked this scene in. From all that modernity outside and seeing something so structurally ancient brings me into a time warp all the time. 

I sat down across the altars where Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman were and got transfixed there. I had no prayers but I drew them.  It was just Ramnavami Celebrations last Friday so I think I am just nicely catching up with them... 

It all started with a lotus...

I was called to make a lotus fall.. a few lotuses.. opening to the sound of water-like drops, falling as blessings from the sky, the Guru, the light that showed the way. It was a busy time for me but somehow it was something I needed to go through. It was something I just felt I needed to say yes to. And so I did.  The journey was magical and I couldn't really believe what just happened after it was over. Somehow things weren't the same. It made me listen to mantras first thing when I woke up. It made me wake up early. It made me want to go back to eating well and taking care of myself and others. 

It brought me back to a temple I visited 2 years ago. It was the first time I managed to draw a piece of architecture and it also got published in a book about Little India. This temple which I only related to Lord Krishna was a temple I went to during Christmas time when I had to stay in Singapore and experience it away from my family because a friend was in town and I had to wait for her and meet her before I went home for the holidays. On that day,  4-5 years ago, I went to this temple and felt like painting Krishna in oil, a day before Christmas. 

my orange weekend..

I am no stranger to the orange world. I work with Nickelodeon, a kids' channel. It is an orange world, with slime! So plugging into a different kind of orange last weekend was a deeper dive into the color and what else it can stand for. It is arresting and comforting at the same time. Temples are filled with oranges and yellows, mustards and golds. Spiritually this is the inner pot of gold. 

An endless oasis for learning, in its simplicity. 

Teacher. Student. Openness.

As Luisah Teish says:
"The first prerequisite for education is a willingness to sacrifice your prejudice on the altar of your spiritual growth. "

As it comes to an end, I had to pinch myself to say, yes it happened. And it was an amazing journey which is probably just beginning, ushering growth to become a better soul, a better human with lessons coming from a wider circle and its center can be anywhere.

True North is where you stand on. Begin there. Begin now. 

May the blessings be. 

resonance

Why do we meet people and at the exact times and places we meet them? Why do people, their legacies and the people they have come in contact with eventually ripple on to our lives? I always think there's a part of ourselves that others are here to give light to so that we can grow and learn a little bit more about the world, others and ourselves.

The familiarity of the culture and the music and the way it honours the sacred is the rabbit hole that i have been probably listening to and following all these years. The GURUs are plenty and yet they appear as one, and exactly the one that needs to touch you at this point. They belong to a collective spirit and essence of guides and masters who lead the way.  They're great Artists. They illustrate, they illumine, they shed some light to make darkness beautiful and part of the cosmic pattern altogether. They all belong to the same light, isn't it? So we can bask and eventually join in too...

Train rides!

I love sketching on trains because there are loads of people ready to be drawn! 

However there's only one thing they're doing...: it's a good practice to sketch hands holding mobile phones!