warrior arts ps

this morning i woke up with a strong dream about two powerful energies annihilating each other. with that dream there was an urgent sense that i had messed up. i had started by focusing on those words i remembered yesterday as if they related to outer wars and outer peace. but while writing the  the inner level had slipped in resulting in an unclear, badly thought through post.

writing allows me to clarify and sort things through. so yesterday when suddenly those words spoken so long ago came to me i began writing. i wrote and tinkered and though i remained dissatisfied with the writing feeling like it was not really going anywhere and not knowing where it was supposed to go. - i chose to post my unedited musings

so this morning i felt a horrible panic.  My critic and product mind demanded 'why did you publish a post that was unfinished and confusing?' my first impulse was to revert that post to draft and prevent more people from reading it. but as i lay in bed and stilled myself, the panic settled and i decided to leave it here.

two questions remain
- writing is process, but mostly what we read is product - so should i too only post finished products? why?

- i am intrigued why i did not apply the words 'i am a warrior and like any warrior i live my life preparing for peace in war times and for war in peace times' to my inner life. many of my most important wars have been fought within myself.

no answers today

warrior arts?

few years ago when i was quite lost trying to find my identity and my way in this new land someone asked me to describe myself and what i do in one minute.

i surprised myself by saying, 'i am a warrior and like any warrior i live my life preparing for peace in war times and for war in peace times.' it just spilled out and i was shocked. did i read that somewhere? is that how warriors/samurai lived their lives? and what did it really mean for me to say that about myself?

that statement describes the image of a samurai sitting peacefully at the end of a day of battle brushing calligraphy on rice paper, stilling her mind and keeping culture and art alive within herself. It evokes a samurai practising her war skills everyday in times of peace - even when she knows that there are no more battles left to fight.

but, its not the samurai warrior i identify with, for samurai fought battles for their overlords. yes, to maintain stability and peace but they also kept oppressive hierarchies in place and helped expand the vast territories of their overlords.

the essence of being a warrior for me is being a protector of the marginalised and of peace itself.

peace though is a hard word to define. it includes equality, freedom, social justice besides a lack of physical violence. through history warriors fought battles and killed for peace. at one time i thought that this was the way of the warrior. at one time i thought that the ends justified the means and that 'just' wars were needed. but as i delved more into conflict and peace the idea of violence to achieve peace no longer made sense. the way is the goal and to achieve peace the way also needs to be non-violent. soldiers, not warriors, kill for peace.

warriors meditate, mediate, do inner work, dance with their opponents and create harmony.

later the meaning of a warrior expanded from simply being a peace maker or even peace keeper to being a peace builder.  learning and practicing conflict facilitation and the art of relationship internally and externally was my way of being a peace builder, a warrior. in india i had ample opportunities, within myself and with socio-political processes, to practice these everyday.

but coming to singapore threw off my balance. i had no battles to fight and found myself in a time of relative peace. i lost my warrior edge then and sadly i did not train everyday in my arts of war - conflict clarification and relationship building skills.

and when i was suddenly faced with a conflict i resorted to using the force of authority rather than the art of relationship. the conflict intensified. it became a time of 'war' and luckily my long practice kicked in. and eventually it was the art of relationship and not force that resolved the issue.

the  arts of war and the arts of peace are perhaps the same for a warrior?

goddesses

today i found an old journal entry. written about two years ago. parts still feel relevant today and i think its from these musings my current need to re-write hindu myths has sprung. i feel both the same and different today but yes, the dream of wanting  a different india to emerge is stronger than ever...

Just how many parts of myself have I left out there?

Demeter, the mother.  Hera, the wife. Persephone the maiden.

Yes, the vulnerable goddesses. I didn’t bother with them. They hold within them the qualities of women that the patriarchy favors.

Me, a young strong independent woman growing up in independent India!!

Why would I need these traditional qualities?

At least Hera, Demeter, Persephone are still easily found on the internet and my word processor recognizes the names. Laxmi and Saraswati on the other hand are harder to find and the word processor does not know them either, it tells me I am using a word not in its dictionary. So, will Indian women eventually have only have the Greek goddesses to find mirrors of themselves in?

Saraswati when I finally found her on the Internet surprised me. She is independent, willful, has a temper and is not interested in either parental authority or pleasing any male gods. Not qualities that men want in their wives or daughters. Is this the reason the poor goddess has no official days of worship? She eventually displeases her husband Brahma so much that he disowns her and gets another more compliant wife. Is it a subtle warning to girls to not be like Saraswati? Or does it give men the mandate to throw out wives they don’t like and marry again?

Laxmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity is depicted as fickle and attracted by power and victory. Even though she is Vishnu’s wife she follows her fickle attractions and goes off with any of gods or heroes that she finds attractive. I am amused by this and like her a bit more. But Lamxi eventually becomes an obedient and good wife.  Her husband Vishnu on the other hand particularly in his avatar of Krishna is loved as a charming philanderer who has no qualms about carrying off maidens he finds attractive. 

The strength of independent women is needed in independent India is it not? So why are these goddesses reduced to a caricature of themselves? or idealized to a form that is so unattractive to any strong woman? Saraswati is not seen in temples but is relegated to traditional gurukuls and places where music and arts are taught. Laxmi only appears with her husband in temples. She has one day of worship dedicated just to her and then she is wooed most carefully seduced so she will stay all year round. Laxmi mind, chasing after wealth and prosperity forgetting Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and arts. No balance in the collective psyche of India. Will it shift if I find the balance within myself or do I have to rewrite the myths as Joseph Campbell suggests?

Growing up it was impossible to embrace the traditional values of femininity carried in these watered down copies of the original. So I rejected them too. But Identifying with the traditional values of femininity or rejecting them are both the same process. In both I lose out of knowing how to know myself. In the process of trying to decolonize myself I reject more parts that could be me because they are parts I identify with the colonizer.  So really how many parts of me are floating around out there? How do I find them? I reach out, I grasp. Then I retreat, I don’t know which ones to collect. I am confused.

It’s hard for any person to know who they are and I wonder is ‘is it harder for a person from a once colonized culture?’ is it harder for a woman? Gandhi would disagree. He said that both the colonized and the colonizer are stuck in the relationship and both need to be freed to be themselves fully. I see the truth in that. How does a white man, my oppressor know who he really is free of the all the stereotypes that frame him?

Patriarchy, colonization, I needed to understand these terms on this journey towards freedom, towards peeling away the layers but now I need to also peel away these terms and just stand naked, vulnerable w/o any familiar language and just find who I am. Often I used to find who I might be by first knowing who I was not but now I seek a different process of discovery.

In writing I still hope to discover my wholeness and maybe a way in which I can help the dream of my India to emerge. 

scattered notes to myself

when i am confused i often go back to basics. i am confused at the irritation i feel when i read people's posts and poems around the delhi gang rape. they like me are now searching for ways in which they can be involved in change. but even the best written ones feel shallow. examining the surface or focusing on one part of the roots of the problem. its hard to see the whole sometimes.

violence exists in a continuum. violence against women is not just sexual and to focus on just that is insufficient. women are discriminated against in every possible way and to change the rape culture without really pulling apart the other prejudicial structures is meaningless. yet its impossible sometimes to change the whole without beginning work on some of the parts.

everybody knows all this. but still the whole is more than just the sum of parts. i need to find a way to see whole pictures today - or at least more parts in one frame.

so i turn to peace and conflict theory.

conflict - a contradiction, an incompatibility of goals. conflict also a call for transformation.
the contradiction is on many levels on some levels its more like a war - a war on women. but simply described the contradiction comes from men/patriarchy wanting to retain control of the public domain and keep women locked up inside their homes.

conflict  ---->  polarisation, dehumanisation  ---->   violence
the level of violence against women we are witnessing implies dehumanisation, degradation, objectification (of women) has already occurred and is deep seated.

conflict + attitudes ----> behaviour (seen violence)
direct/physical violence is the tip of the iceberg, the visible part
violent structures and violent cultures underneath make up the rest. the violence triangle.

to change behaviour is not enough - attitudes that come from prevalent structures and culture need to change.
but changing behaviour is sometimes easier - and sometimes changing behaviour would lead to attitudinal changes but this needs testing. how?

violent structures resist change. those benefitting from those structures resist it the most.
the structures are deeply entrenched in law and order. which is corrupted and needs detoxification.

cultural violence - religion, myths and stories. the core of many things.

the picture is emerging - need to keep adding details and depth
better done perhaps on a large blank sheet

guests and hosts

i have been trying to feel myself over the last 24 hours. i feel like i am floating into a vapour state again and i panic. stop. i need to stay solid. but the mind is floating away, getting diffuse and moving away from itself. no more concentration, no more focus. and a lot of fear.

i tell myself it will shift back. let go, be fluid. but i resist it. 

having guests in the home changes things for me. even as i lie in bed i am aware of their presences in my space. their holiday-selves, busy and on the go. the space i carefully prepared and fertilised for deep contemplation feels like its being run over by a pack of wild elephants. it is more difficult for me because i work partially from home and rely on having a space which allows me to sink deeply into things - my thoughts, my feelings, my novel. and having that disrupted is a deep, scary boiling.

guests and hosts. i am not a very good host i think. i show my guests where things are and then leave them to tell me what they need. i may be a better guest but only my hosts can really tell me. many years ago in 2001 i spent 3 months travelling, living constantly in other people's homes. somebody described me as a temporary monk. but i felt more like a turtle, or maybe i just connected to my inner-turtle strongly at that time.

a turtle carries its home on its back. a space where it can retreat into in any environment and feel safe. anywhere it goes the feeling of home is with it. for me home meant not a physical space but knowing who i was and feeling grounded in it as i lived and drifted through changing environments. getting in touch with my turtle-self was priceless.

the even more precious learning from that time for me was experimenting with shifting between the roles of host and guest and ultimately slipping fluidly between them. being like schrodinger's cat my friend said. What if when you are a guest you treat the space you are in as your own home? and what if hosts behave like they are guests in their own home? how would things be different and would this then make it easier to share space?

my second host that summer was an amazing woman who was going through her own churning transformation that year. after a few days of being together suddenly it all felt wrong. my host felt it difficult to have a guest in her space for 7 weeks and i felt hopelessly homeless in a country where it would have been impossible for me to spend money on a hotel for that long. But just when it all felt impossible my friend came up with the most incredible solution.

i remember that day so clearly. the heavy walking around and the silent breaking tears. even a warm home-cooked meal by another friend failed to bring any joy and calm. i was drifting like a vapour in my  own dense fog.

i remember walking back to the apartment that evening and finding my host beaming at me. 'i got it,' she said, 'i don't want a guest in my home for 7 weeks but i don't mind being a guest in your mountain retreat.' bewildered i listened - 'simple, we switch roles.' at first i couldn't see how. at first i didn't believe it could work. but i tried it on. i stepped into the hosts shoes and made the apartment my own. and the magic began.

that magic grew as i travelled on living in people's homes sometimes putting on the host hat and sometimes the guest. that summer i felt i owned homes in portland, LA, taos and eventually corsica. that memory brings me back into my body now, writing about it allows me to feel solid again. perhaps i can allow myself to let my guests find their own host hats and more importantly reflect on how being a guest in their 'home' would be just the right thing for me today?

satya

i finally finished 'satya', a counterpart to the hindu myth of savitri - it's posted on the radical dreamers tales blog.

savitri is a tale  that is a bit less repugnant to many than sita's story in the ramayana. on first glance it can pass off as a soft and charming love story. a woman so deeply in love with her partner that she brings him back from the dead.  also a woman whose wit can trick yama - rather cool.

what harm can this myth do?

but another glance will reveal how its been appropriated and used by the patriarchy to define a repressive role for women...

any intelligent person i think might see many different paths that this myth might have taken in hindu culture. it might have served as a reminder of the power of love or of the power of intelligent women. it might have even been used to tell men that if they were really lucky they might find such a woman who would love them even after death. it might have led to a ritual of young men praying to find spouses like savitri.

instead its been used to show yet another version of the the ideal, virtuous hindu woman. its led to rituals that force a young girl to fast for her future husband, pray for his life, serve him and his family like a slave and finally, in the most perverted form, sit on his funeral pyre and burn. for once he is gone what use is she?

a conversation with my daughter led us to talk about how there are no such lessons for men in hindu myths.

i don't really like the idea that roles be reversed and little boys be made to fast for their future wives. or that men be pushed into a subservient role to women. but what if instead of savitri we had a satya myth? and it was interpreted to suggest that boys pray daily for and later die with their wives? would we be a different land now?

what if both these stories were told together and analysed together? could we learn something from them that might help us change our culture? and how can we re-write the stories and our culture?

hate statements - raping with words?

according to the statements made by indian politicians, scientists, gurus and finally the lawyer defending those accused in the delhi gang rape it is increasingly clear that india has descended into an anarchy where men are allowed to punish women who are 'not respectable' by raping them and shoving objects into their vaginas.

beware women of india and beware women visiting india. you will be judged by these moral police on the street and if found 'not respectable' you will be dealt the fate you deserve.

for those who might want details of the statements made here is a list -
http://www.carbonated.tv/blogs/top-10-controversial-rape-statements-by-indians-blaming-women-west-short-skirts-for-rape

no - i think i got it wrong. i think what i am missing out here is that india has some new laws about women. let me strip apart the accused lawyers statement.

'The lawyer representing three of the men charged with the gang rape and murder of a medical student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi has blamed the victims for the assault, saying he has never heard of a “respected lady” being raped in India.' 
Manohar Lal Sharma

ok, so when i  carefully analyse his statement i see that  he is not denying that the woman was raped and murdered by those men. simply saying that she was 'not respectable' so in this holy land that is india fit to be raped and murdered.

india surely must have these new laws that most of us women have not yet been told of. he is a lawyer right? he would be making statements based on legal knowledge?

he is also saying very clearly that all women raped in india are 'not respectable'. takes putting the raped victim on trial to a different level, eh?

i think he is also saying that all men who rape then are just doing society a favour by policing the immoral women of this sacred land. wow! don't we have the most moral and respectable men in our country? after all spare the 'rod' and spoil the woman!

but, contrary to what some say, these indian men are not unique, rather i believe that they are just saying aloud and very crudely what many men all over the world filter into themselves through the collective atmosphere. 
here is another list - http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/republican-rape-advisory-chart  

but 
i am shell shocked. something has been thrust into me and ripped out my intestines too. these men are raping all of us women with these statements. some part of me is dissolving into an internal anarchic state, destroyed and brutalised. this post has emerged from that damaged part of me, a part in deep pain. maybe sanity will return and another post more thoughtful will emerge. this is my process and this is where i am today.

gathering and perhaps sprouting

i think i am in the gathering phase. reading endless articles gathering myriad viewpoints. my mind is organising it. ya, these two articles go together and these ten are adding to each other, this one says something different. categorising. it is a logical and detached process.

and that is also confusing as all the material is so emotive. drawing out endless feelings. feelings are harder to sort out sometimes so i remain with thoughts? emotions are at the edges, tugging and calling but i dont want to yet give them centre stage. afraid of being submerged.

four hours of sleep and i wake to inner whisperings. there are stories to write. there is work to be done. not yet - there is still matter to gather. write as you gather it whispers.

but i am still sorting out what the inner urges are directing me to. sometimes it becomes very clear. in a lucid moment i might say - yes i need stories to transform the old myths and i might also add - hmm, these stories will probably fall into three categories
(1) stories that illuminate how an ancient tale is the source of harmful behaviour and consequences in the present.
(2) stories in which gender roles are reversed so when seen together suddenly the repressive roles assigned to women is evident.
(3) stories that use the same names and same context but totally change the relationships and dynamics so the world i want to see - an egalitarian world begins to manifest.

but all these stories need to be brought to life in a way in which they make the reader wonder. hmm... was that real or is this real? what if both were? or neither?

and in this clear moment i might also know that the myths i want to start rewriting are bigger than me. they need a collective to rewrite them. i would also know that i want to use the short story form and not give them too much of my time. yes, i did a lot of work to escape the shape the myths wanted to give me. so now i can give them so much and no more.

the real story i want to write is the one i wrote of my own life - lived in the midst of those currents from the past and the pressures from my patriarchal joint family, the dominating masculine india of my childhood and the little safe space of my all girls high school, where the strong feminine sprouted. my novel emerges from there.

but i don't really know all this clearly yet. i am just writing what i might know it if i would have some long lucid moments.

and right now i am wondering. who reads these words? do people visit this blog more than once? what wisdom would they want to share with me? 

roller coaster

3:37 am on a friday night i pace restlessly as layer upon layer of conflicting emotion flows turbulently through. 'put them down on paper. get them out of your head.' the owl advices. the night is his.

nauseous. i feel incredibly nauseous hearing that even as protests were happening in delhi around the brutal rape and murder  - more rapes were being reported in the city. i feel as if these men don't give a damn and feel that despite all the protests nothing would change and that they would get away with anything. 

then hopeful to see the few reports coming in of men, including politicians, being arrested for rape and policemen for mishandling rape cases. praying hard that this lasts long and goes deep because normally justice takes so long and people slip through the corrupt systems so easily.

furiously angry when i hear that one of the accused, the seventeen year old, is likely to be tried in a juvenile court, and could possibly get out in 2 or 3 years. this alpha male will surely gain a following and do this again i think. he ripped out the intestines of the young woman it said. i wanted to rip out his.

grateful reading about petitions started by people in other countries that have pressed their country people to keep the pressure on the indian govt to change laws, fast track justice and offer more protection to women. the world needs to act as one.

disgusted by articles i read by other countries that said 'oh, that's india, we are not like that'. then thankful for the articles i read that have  examined the appalling statistics of  rape and low conviction in their own countries. from everything i am reading it seems this problem exists everywhere. sexualised violence against women is normalised, tuned out and not taken seriously  in more places than i thought possible. ghastly and terrifying - i feel like the world is slipping into a dark age.

constantly in a burning rage thinking of the many sexist holy books, myths and folk/fairy tales that have defined the structures of indian and so many other cultures. what kind of  higher authority would say that a man was superior to a woman? when will the shift to an egalitarian world happen?

incredibly proud that indians are willing to examine our culture and spell out the gender fault lines clearer than before. we fight, we argue, push our opinion forward aggressively, listen to others, find some common ground. also pleased how when ministers or other idiots make sexist and nonsensical statements - they are challenged with such intelligent wit.

...and the last news i read today makes me descend into despair again. the young man also traumatised by the men has finally spoken about his experience. and his description makes me want to vomit.

how do i  hold all these contradictory impressions and emotions and not feel like a rubber ball flattened by a tank? but now they are here and perhaps a restless sleep will claim me.

new beginnings

new beginnings require so much mental energy, focus and belief in the self. today even though the will is strong and there is a sense of knowing where to go there is also a resistance, something is making me slow and lethargic. a voice says, 'easy there, you can always begin tomorrow.'

that voice is not laziness, it is uncertainty and fear. i have a 89,000 word first draft and i keep getting lost on the pages. the words swim around in ever-changing shapes. i want the most important words to suddenly hightlight themselves and form the pattern i need for the re-write. i also want to shove them aside, press delete and begin anew. 

why? because once i finished the story i was writing i had the sense of a whole new story. and because of the rape of the delhi student, the subsequent uprising in india and the horror of the continuing stories of rape i feel a need to include the intensity of those feelings and don't quite know how yet. what was a personal story of exploring the skewed balance between the feminine and masculine in an imaginary world wants to change into a story of women's oppression? 

no not quite. i suddenly know that the story i was writing was the one i need to keep writing and the new feelings will find their way in.

but as a first time fiction writer the re-write is scarier than the first draft. the first draft almost felt channelled as it gushed out of me. ideas i didn't really have arranged themselves in delightful words on my computer screen. but the re-write now confounds me. do i have the skills to write this i ask myself? 

yesterday as i searched for the invisible entrance into the maze of this re-write i began writing my  'savitri' story. initially i had the same resistance i am feeling today, but surprisingly in an hour i had sketched out the outline and got the first draft ready. probably in a few sessions of polishing the story will be ready to be read by others. 

i feel good about that. yet i drag myself as i try to follow the stronger desire to get back to the novel re-write. it feels like a fog is settling into my head, making visibility and movement difficult. i cannot sense or negotiate my own thoughts. but as i write this blog post i feel the panic gripping my chest clearing up and i breathe in relief. i see the gateway appearing.

an inner critic says 'tsk, tsk, why are you wasting your time writing? there is important work to be done on gender violence.' but my fathers voice reminds me, 'don't be afraid to waste your life.' and i grin and continue clicking on my keyboard.