Posts Tagged with nothing is black and white

Published

alone time

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I’m learning that when I feel “lonely”, I actually need to be alone. Really alone. No books. No crowds. No electronic devices. No animals. No distracting or absorbing tasks of any kind. I need to just *be*. For the “loneliness”, I’m realizing, is a result of being separated from myself. From my inner workings. My intuition. My senses. My heart. And when I’m separated from myself like this, I begin to look for what I need in other places, in other people. I search for an external “fix”. But no one, no matter how connected we are, knows me like I do. No one can soothe my aches or dispel my confusion like I can. No one has the energy or attention for me that I do. And so when I come back to myself (with respect and full commitment), my loneliness melts away and is slowly replaced with a familiar and deeply rooted confidence, a knowing that has no doubts, no fears, no shame, only a sense of vastness, and timelessness, and profound reassurance.

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

Published

outside the lines

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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

Published

speechless

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My breath, when it moves around your ear, is full of unmentionable desires. Unmentionable, because I have no words for what I’m actually feeling, not because I’m shy to share them with you. I want to share this version of me that is unmasked, that is naked and raw and open to all the dimensions of being that are possible on this planet. I have no need to keep anything hidden. My darkness and my light are both available to you, if you want them. As I run a single finger along the line of your jaw, then slide down to the little indent just below your throat, the sensation I feel also goes unmentioned, for I have no words for that either. It moves me in a way I’m unaccustomed to. I think… it turns me inside out.

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

Published

ancient wisdom

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My heart is a million years old. It has died and been birthed so many times, the sensation is like blinking, it happens whether anyone’s aware of it or not.

It has seen a lot, this heart of mine. Aggression. Hunger. Beauty. Love. Evolution. Extinction. My heart has been at the centre of it, on the periphery of it, has even caused it.

Sometimes it has arrived in a fragile body, with skin that is soft and semi-transparent, and eyes that are quiet and pale. Sometimes, the body is so resilient that my heart has used its muscle to make changes that have filtered down through the ages. Sometimes, the body only lives a few days. Sometimes longer — creaking and crumbling at the end, and resting more often between tasks.

My heart is a million years old, and has loved more times than there are ants in an oversized colony. It has loved every kind of person. Every gender, every culture, every disposition. All equally. Sometimes simultaneously. Always fully — with everything that is available to it. Over time, my heart has loved every creature, every plant, every subtle shadow or shift of light.

And yet, this heart is often ridiculed. Disbelieved. Discounted. Many people only trust what they can see, or perceive in measurable units. The intangibles, like my heart, are often swept aside — sometimes accidentally, but often out of fear as someone first starts to suspect its existence.

This sustainable heart is the ultimate in recycling. It never wears out and has its origins long before the phrase “planned obsolescence” was ever dreamed of. It gives and gives and gives and only asks our co-operation in return.

This ancient heart is the part of me that “just knows”. The instinct. The gut. The primal assurance. It’s the confidence in every breath. The unshakable knowing.

My heart is a million years old — which is why I learned, early on, to trust it.

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

 

Published

the necessity of hope

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Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without words / And never stops at all.” Hope is a beautiful and precious creature that I nurture and protect with all my strength. I am hopeful — about everything — even on the bleakest days (and at the risk of being called dreamy, idealistic, unrealistic, utopian). Without it, what would be the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

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

Published

letting go of spinning

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Today, I am waking up — literally. I’m taking a long slow breath that fills both my stomach and my chest to full capacity. And then I’m letting it go… all of it. The expectations, the doubts, the regrets… all the parts of myself that are whirling endlessly without actually going anywhere. The parts that echo a turntable stuck in the static after the music has ended. Or a tire that spins and spins on the ice, burning energy without moving the car forward. If I’m going to be dizzy, I’d like to at least enjoy the journey — by dancing, by exploring the body of a lover, or by learning something new at the speed of a hundred-foot waterfall! I’m tired of the ache in the pit of my stomach, the shallow breath that makes me feel fragile and barely alive, the clumsy unsteadiness that causes me to drop things or bang my hands into hard objects that seem to appear out of nowhere. I’m breathing in again, filling myself with oxygen, with the energy of the present moment, with the lightness of *now*. And breathing out all of the disquieting distractions of my pain (which is all in the past) and anxiety (which is all about the future). In *this* moment, I am fine. I’m better than fine. I’m strong and whole and my heart’s on fire! There is no past, no future. Only this perfectly imperfect moment.

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