Posts Tagged with lineart

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sprouts

In the kitchen, I stand with my hands in the sink, rinsing seeds, tending sprouts. There is a freshness that I love — a smell, a brightness, a burst of energy — a willingness to be transformed. I run a little more water over them, shake the jar to drain it, watch the tiny seeds slide down the sides of the glass, and place it back on the ledge where it soaks up the sun. The sprouts are at the little-tail-peeking-out-of-the-ball stage, babies really, so near the beginning of their new journey. With my hands still wet, I wonder if I’m so different from those little specks of green. Am I not also a bright ball of energy, soaking up nourishment, and bursting into the world in a brave new form?

— heidi kalyani, 2019 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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taking up space

 

Safety is knowing that I can breathe fully without the fear of taking up too much space. It’s knowing that your arms are open to me when I’m shining or when I’m a mess. It’s knowing that I can say no when I want to without suffocating under a mountain of guilt or shame. It’s being able to gently stretch into my full size with pride, finally seeing that someone else’s discomfort is their own challenge, not mine.

 

— heidi kalyani, 2019 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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no longer, not yet

I have arrived — ripe — with both feet dancing in this place of no longer and not yet. I am making friends with uncertainty. Listening deeply. Loving enormously. Wrapping myself in vulnerability and answering yes. I’m bathing in transformation — rediscovering how to be soft and wise, curious and strong. My eyes are shining and my breath is deep. With courage as my companion, I’m ready to celebrate my full being again. No more silence to protect another’s comfort zone. My heart is alive, and my voice is my own.

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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wildness

When I see her, she is a wild, unruly mess of skirts and scarves, hair and laughter, gesture and motion — with facial expressions so alive and fiery they could awaken the drowsiest of dragons. She is neither young nor old, though everyone tries to label her, judging her actions unsuitable regardless of what age they choose. Her words have a frenzy of meaning when they are spoken calmly, and a serenity of meaning when they are spoken fast. They are the kinds of words that sink mountains one letter at a time, free caged birds, bring flowers into full bloom, and are either celebrated or cursed depending on the state of the listener. Her feet are always dancing, her hips always swaying, her eyes always flashing. She has a weedy tenacity that grows in heat, cold, drought or swamp, and doubles in strength when no one is looking. She refuses cultivation (except when it happens to feel right), and only goes with the flow when it’s going the same way she is. She wonders loudly about the complacency of the world, dragging its feet through another pre-rehearsed day — and wants more than anything to shake things up, to expose the joy and wildness she suspects are there.

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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slippery threads

Sometimes the words slip away so fast, I start to doubt if they were there at all. I’m holding a handful of slippery, wiggly threads — the answer to all my challenges so nearly articulated, so close to spilling out complete and clear. And then I blink, or swallow, or cough. And the words are gone. Vaguer than a dream. More fleeting than lightening. And buried deeper in my heart.

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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vastness


When I sit with myself like this, in stillness and silence, I feel vast and impervious. I am a stone that gets wet and dries off. A stem that leans into the wind and straightens again. A curl that bounces back.

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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upside down

Sometimes I feel like grabbing my house and shaking it upside down until the dead bits that no longer serve me all fall out. But some kind of ancient fear keeps stopping me, whispering, taunting, trying to bury me — all under the guise of protection. THINGS are a lifeline that you might need to survive, it tells me. Don’t you want to survive? Piles and piles of protection. Cloth. Paper. Metal. Wood. A thousand ideas written in tiny letters on fading scraps. Instruction manuals for things I no longer remember. Broken glass and pottery from twenty year old accidents. Kitchen utensils someone gave me that I’ve hardly ever used. A stack of black t-shirts with necks so tight I feel like I’m choking. Keep it. Save it. You might need it. Winter could be hard. The war might go on forever. An ancestral desire to hang on to what might keep me alive, what might help me thrive. A childhood habit of collecting and saving for when I might have a someone to share it with. A cultural mantra that more is better. And yet, when I’m away from this place, with only a bag of clothes and books, I feel strong, not vulnerable. Empowered, not impoverished. Rich, not overwhelmed. So, little house, with your closets bursting, your basement overflowing, your flat surfaces all smothered with stuff, it’s time to let go!

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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burrowing

When the world is too much for me (or I’m too much for the world!), I burrow down, down, down into a place of warmth and darkness with stuffed bunnies and bears. I rub my hands over their soft fur, align myself with their namesakes winter patterning and retreat for awhile from a world that is too cold and harsh to feel liveable. In these moments of quiet conservation of energy, with the external noise of the day at a minimum, I can finally begin to hear myself — my body, my mind, my heart, my internal wisdom. And though not a full hibernation (neither rabbits nor bears actually hibernate either), I emerge from my warm burrow refreshed and refuelled enough to carry on.

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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waking up

In this shut-tight sealed-in half-asleep state in the first rays of light, my limbs ache from gripping, my brain aches from looping, my heart aches from lack of air. In the darkness that surrounds me, with the blankets pulled up high, I can believe anything — the world is on fire, I live in a house made of ice, my siblings are four-legged, my hair is olive green, no one is starving, we’re all starving. And what I believe (or don’t believe) becomes my reality. It etches itself into my still-impressionable being and colours how my day unfolds. Alone, in this cocoon of a bed, as I wrap myself in imaginings, in futuristic predictions, in half-digested memories, I enter into a powerful transition, an emerging from the other side, the swirling fog of a half opened/half closed mind, the daily practice of awakening.

— heidi kalyani, 2018 
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line

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cracker calm

I sat today, on the shady steps of a series of houses that were all for sale, with a five year old who was carefully spreading hummus on crackers with a miniature spoon, then stuffing the little savoury “cookies” into their mouth — whole — and chomping away with incredible focus and devotion as if nothing else mattered. In the middle of the adult-generated whirlwind of questions, decisions, timelines, facts, factors, finances… there was a centre of calm. Spoon. Cracker. Hummus. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

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