Posts Tagged with fire

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breathing

“and i said to my body. softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.’” ― Nayyirah Waheed

I have been waiting my whole life for a breath deep enough to melt the fear of being too much of everything. Too energetic. Too intelligent. Too fast. Beautiful. Capable. Reverent. Loving… For years, (decades maybe) I hardly breathed at all, trying to make myself small, unthreatening, invisible. I wore shapeless clothes, spoke in whispers, shifted my eyes, smiled only when caught off guard, pretended I didn’t know. I tried to hide myself away, dull my shiny bits, keep my impact on others to a minimum. But one day, when the pain of being bound in such a tiny box finally became more than I could bear, I broke down and sobbed. I sobbed for hours. For days. For weeks. Until the force of my sobbing (and the long desperate breaths that came with it) burst the restrictive bars that kept me small. Then for a long time, I lay there, stunned by the spaciousness ― delighting in each breath. Inhaling vastness. Exhaling pain. Inhaling wonder. Exhaling fear. Until I was huge and other people’s words didn’t hurt anymore. Until I could feel my feet connecting to the earth. Until I was on fire… wild and energizing and lighting up the whole sky!

— heidi kalyani, 2017 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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strings of words

 

For me, writing is love. And when I’m in love, everything tingles! I am awake to more sensations, more feelings, more energy, and more insights. I’m existing in a juicy “in between place” — a place between the known and the unknown, a place of both intention and surrender, a place where the extraordinary and the ordinary co-exist, a place that is so raw and beautiful and eternal that it hurts in that delicious way that being in love hurts, because it’s breaking me open, it’s pushing at my walls and limits, and vibrating so intensely that all I can do is sing… or dance… or string words together in long, unfurling sentences.

— heidi kalyani, 2017 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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your light

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” — Hafiz

Your radiance is sometimes fierce, fiery, abundant, sometimes fragile and flickering. One day it’s a golden Garuda, with a full set of glowing wings and talons bigger than our combined hands, or an all-consuming bonfire that purifies and illuminates everything within reach of its smoke, heat and light. Another day it’s the gentle glint off a bread knife at the breakfast table, the mellow glow of a nearly submerged candle, the sun peeking out from behind heavy clouds. But your radiance is always with you, always available to you, even when it’s feeling quiet or shy, when it’s been nearly stamped out by someone else’s unresolved anger or fear, or when it’s so buried within you that you can’t see a way forward anymore. It doesn’t burn out, or expire, or abandon people who are tired and hurting. It just slips into energy-saving mode from time to time to regenerate, to find fresh fuel, to borrow from the sun. But I know (and Hafiz knew all those years ago) that the light of your being is still astonishing, even if you’re overwhelmed by a wave of seemingly unending darkness or a loneliness that stings so much it’s only bearable when you close your eyes.

— heidi kalyani, 2017 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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self-love

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

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cold dusk

Sometimes in the stark loneliness of cold winter dusk, I reach under my wool shawl and rest my hand on the tender place between my ribs and my hip bone, wishing it was your hand there instead. I like the feel of you, the warmth and weight, the subtlety of pressure that wants, offers, and waits to be wanted before offering more. I like the wide-eyed way you look at me, as if there is a wild story written on my body, as if while blinking you’re afraid I’ll disappear. I like the resonance of your laughter, the ease with which it sinks into my skin, slips into my veins and swirls around inside me, nourishing, healing, sparking all kinds of happenings I’ve only dreamed of before. I like imagining you at a window, staring into the grey and pink streaked sky, waiting for the kettle to boil, and feeling my presence so strongly that you make two cups of tea instead of one.

— heidi kalyani, 2017 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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woodsmoke

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As I press my face into your shoulder, I can still smell the woodsmoke in your hair. If I close my eyes, the warm light of the fire on your face reappears, shifting, hiding, illuminating, teaching me about sides of you I didn’t know before. I see pains that had been invisible, disappointments and rejections that ride in your heart and reveal themselves in your eyes. I see a simmering confidence, steady, quiet, patient, just waiting for enough heat to burst out of its usual state of reserve. I see a reverence for beauty, for silence, for *being* rather than *doing* that matches my own. I see a human I’d like to escape into the woods with more often!

— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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my heart

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My heart is a ball of fire. It engulfs. Ignites. Illuminates. Sparks populate the night sky, dance over water, melt frozen masks and reveal vulnerable inner truths ― mine and others.

My head is a cool ocean ― turbulent on the surface but calm and eternal underneath. The water shifts ideas, rearranges them, recycles them, sometimes crashes them into rocks on the shore.

My soul is the wind, ever present but made visible only by what it moves.

— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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bigger and bigger

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The container you’re trying to put me in is not even big enough for my baby finger. For I am not just this body, but I stretch way beyond the edges of the known universe. I am sound. I am light. I am energy. I am the vastness of everything conceivable. I am all of us. Our pain. Our wisdom. Our needs. Our desires. Our collective ability to be courageous and heal, and after we’ve healed, to grow, to create and embody the kind of future we truly want for ourselves. I am that huge, because I am not alone, not separate, not in competition. So, you see, I am too big to be stuffed into the little bag you would have me inhabit, too multi-limbed, too connected, too free. But you have a choice, you know. You can strain yourself, draining your life-force trying to push me down so you feel bigger, or you can let go and allow the universe to fill you, the way it has filled me… And then you can be big too.

— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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breaking open

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Today I am a volcano. I am spewing energy, like lava, all over everything. I already set my house on fire. Now I’m making my way through the woods, sparking powerful jolts of flame with every footfall. I leave burn marks on the road. I evaporate puddles from last night’s rain. I overheat the air, causing insects to rise higher to escape me. I am heading for the water, where I hope to temporarily contain my eruptions by throwing myself in. I need a pause in the intensity and speed of these sensations, these revelations. Like this, I’m burning a millennium of fuel every microsecond. Khalil Gibran wrote, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” My shell is broken. And understanding is beginning to illuminate everything.

— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

 

 

Published

fire

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I can’t explain what fire is, or why things burn from a scientific angle, but I know fire — on an emotional level, a spiritual level, a physical level… I know what fire feels like. I respect it and connect with it. And I know how to light it! “Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.” — Rumi

— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line