Step closer, she said, if you want to hear my soul speak. It shares quietly now — through masks and mirrors and false self-doubt. It’s been startled, mis-heard and put down so many times that it no longer shares freely what it used to share so fiercely.
— heidi kalyani, 2018
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
for years, i was so afraid of being hurt, i hermitted and let only my drawings in — a collection of thin curving lines, my only companions.
heidi kalyani, 2017, from *project 139 (or less)*
Perched on the edge of the dock, the smallest amount of my flesh possible in contact with the wood, I try to appear casual, as if slipping into the water below is as routine and natural as drinking tea. A thing to do alone or with company. A commonplace activity we all learned to be comfortable with long ago. But it’s not. The tightness in my stomach tells me so. There are too many unknowns, suffocating memories, habitually reactivated fears. There is clearly a way to be with water that I haven’t discovered yet. An ease that exists, is present in those near me, but rushes into dark corners whenever I’m around. It’s not a thing to fake; “Look at me jumping, splashing, diving in!” Choking. Gasping. Drowning. Dead. Not a game of “breathe and push through it”, although I’ve played that one before and enjoyed the outcome. Sometimes fear is fear. The knot in my stomach tells me so. So I sit, chatting with the nearest soul, sunning myself, counting minutes off like elongated years, hoping no one will notice that I’m not yet wet.
— heidi kalyani, 2017
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
I finally know — really know with every cell of my body — that I’m okay, that I will be okay, that the pain of falling, crashing and being shattered will dissipate and fade, that I will learn to love myself again… fully… with my whole heart, instead of just the sliver I allowed myself before. I see now that I was defensive, quick to explain and justify, to compromise, to acquiesce… wanting to hide anything I thought you might not approve of. I wanted to be loved, to be included, to be invited, but I didn’t fully love, include, or invite myself. I wasn’t breathing deeply and my feet weren’t connected to the ground. Like a black cloth on a sunny day, I soaked up the fear and anger you projected. I was penetrable. Vulnerable. Unboundaried. I believed the fear and anger were mine, even though they were as foreign to me as a third and fourth arm. I believed that I had forgotten how to be with people, how to be whole, how to hold a friend in the light. And in that state of instability, I wanted your bravado, your energy, your seeming sureness to refresh me, to give me strength and encouragement to be how I wanted to be. I wanted your love to coat me in resolve, in knowledge, in grace. But it didn’t. It brought me down. Brought us both down. Because it wasn’t real. It was a mask you use to cover over your insecurities, a way of hiding from yourself, a way of shifting responsibility for your unhappiness onto others. Rupi Kaur says, “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” And so, I’m learning to love myself fully, unconditionally and with a soft gentleness that both rocks me to sleep and ignites the wildest fires!
— heidi kalyani, 2017
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
Let me take some of your pain ― I won’t ingest it, or digest it, or claim it as my own, but I will hold it long enough to see it and feel it and know it. Then, if you want, I’ll raise my arms and offer it to the wind, where it will swirl around us and depart, unable to re-enter us because we’re no longer porous when we stand together. So tell me what’s in the bottom of your heart ― in the hardest, darkest, most guarded layers of feeling. In the place where you pile all the things you think you can’t handle ― the hurts, the betrayals, the guilt, the perceived failures. I know those layers are still tender on the inside, even if they’ve scabbed over on the surface. I know it’s painful to dislodge them, and that it might feel like removing even one of them will rip your entire heart open. And, my lovely friend, it might. It might also sting like hell. And it might cause a spaciousness that is foreign and terrifying since you’ve grown so accustomed to how a heavy, damaged heart feels. You might grieve the loss of the solidity, the familiarity, the constancy of the pain you’ve been carrying for so long. And as you remove the rocks and walls of the fortress you’ve built to protect your innermost self, you might also discover a capacity for love, for healing, for lightness you didn’t know you had. You might wonder how you ever lifted your body through the day with so much weight attached to it. You might feel suddenly dizzy and free and wild with possibility. You might cry. Or laugh. Or sleep. You might scream for hours or sing from the highest hill you can climb. So, I invite you to dig out your doubts, your fears, your shame, your confusion. And together, we’ll hold them up, honour them, and offer them to the wind.
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” ― Albert Einstein
What’s happened to you that you wake up every morning believing you live in a hostile world? Who doubted you? Harassed you? Demeaned you? Took their anger out on you? Who didn’t watch your back or offer to help you when you fell down? Who silenced you when you asked questions that hit too close to home? Told you that your curiosity was dangerous and inappropriate? Was threatened by your energy and intellect, your unique way of digesting the world? Who shut you down?
It could have been anyone of us, or all of us. Our fears leak out all over the place. We’re afraid we’re not smart enough, not energetic enough, not beautiful enough, not fill-in-the-blank enough. We separate ourselves from each other, and sort ourselves into divisive binaries; “that side yucky, this side nice”. We compare. And compete. We create top-down power systems where most of us “lose”. And in the anger and frustration of our loss, we start believing that we live in a hostile world, because in our suffering, it feels like one to us. We are islands of unhappiness. Islands of powerlessness. And because we don’t know how to break the cycle of despair, we act out. As if for our survival, we kick, we scream, we push other people down.
But what if we start believing that we actually live in a friendly, benign world? That we are not separate from each other, or from the planet that sustains us. What if we believe that co-operation makes us stronger, connection makes us more resilient, love helps us envision and accomplish anything? What if we are gentle with ourselves, gentle with each other? What if we wake up each morning ready to embrace and support each other?
Could we change the world?
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
When I’m with you I see a being that is leaking out everywhere, trying to express itself, trying to resist the pressure of conforming to someone else’s comfort level or some artificially manufactured idea of happiness and beauty, trying to ignore the message that it’s somehow not good enough just the way it is, even though in the deepest reaches of your inside, you know you just want to be heard. I too have often been made small by a culture that is afraid of love, afraid of difference, afraid of colouring outside of the lines, afraid someone might speak a truth so simple and radical that their power-over dynasty would fall like a stack of wooden blocks. Like you, I’m tired of living in this limited reality, this old story, this one-way power game. As Rumi said, “There are lovers content with longing. I’m not one of them.” Let’s use our energy, our synergy, our whole beings, and create a new world!
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
I don’t see how you can break me — even though I feel like you’ve tried! I’m too soft and flexible and fluid to snap like a branch or an icicle beneath your heavy-handed words. That doesn’t mean your interactions don’t hurt me. I bruise sometimes — especially when I forget to raise my shields. But blood vessels, even those around my heart, have a way of healing themselves, of working together to soothe and erase the damage. So don’t worry that you’re coming apart at the seams, or that you don’t know how you really feel in this exact moment, or what you really want to do. I can handle the storm of your indecision, your unknowing, your fear. I will bend a little under the weight of it all, perhaps even hit the ground, but I will bounce back. So go ahead, unburden yourself. Tell me your fiercest secrets. Your unbearable observations. Your confusion. We’ll bend together for awhile, but no one will be broken.
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
Indian author and philosopher, Krishnamurti wrote, “You discover yourself not in isolation, not in withdrawal, but in relationship.” When I zoom out — and see myself in the larger context of a relationship, a group, a community, a culture, a planet — a richer picture develops. The act of discovering contrasts (as well as similarities) can help me clarify me own stories, feelings and needs. And the challenge of truly being in relationship with others awakens a multitude of heart-opening, ego-bursting, illusion-shattering realities that steer me firmly, if not gently, into a greater state of awareness. Yesterday, a friend said to me, “Love is the appreciation of difference”. I agree. And furthermore, I believe that stepping out of our own little orbits and really embracing people — for who and what they are without trying to change them — is an intensely radical act of courage, especially in a culture that has become so suspicious and fearful of “the other”.
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
There’s a monster in your heart — screaming out to me, flirting with me, shooting flares through your eyes when it thinks you’re not looking. But I see it. I feel it. I hear it. I know it’s there. It’s a large, agonizing mess of millions of long sticky black threads. There’s a thread of self-doubt, of self-loathing, of self-punishment. A thread for flesh wounds, for emotional wounds, for intellectual ones. There’s a thread for each of the harsh words someone has spoken to you. For all of the relationships that started so hopefully, but didn’t work out. One for each time you shut down instead of opening up. A long one for the times you thought you were “right” but “failed” anyway. A whole bundle dedicated to not feeling heard. Another created by feeling misunderstood. A whole sub-section devoted to fear. This sticky, black mass is sneaky and stealthful, trying to shame you, trying to convince you that it’s not normal, natural, or even necessary to have this kind of darkness inside you. But it is! It’s part of you! Embrace your darkness — just don’t let it take over. Ignore its hungry cries for more fuel. It only wants to make a bigger wall around your heart. Instead, cut away a few loose ends, trim back a few strings, untangle a whole unneeded section. Give yourself some breathing room and let your heart shine through!
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line