Hi! I am Parul. My ancestors are from South Asia and I was born on Turtle Island. I use poetry, prose, poetic frames to unravel entanglements of our thoughts, feelings and experiences. Call it an evolving decolonization practice that is liberating the many intelligences our existence contains.
☝🏽 I read you this letter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽
You use whole seeds to get the most out of the spice, out of life.
To get the healing and nutritious elements that spice does to food. We think of spice as a flavour profile. As adding texture to our food. This is tangled in our pursuit of pleasure and joy, which can be pursued rather thoughtlessly, not realizing that these emotions offer so many more cues of richness.
Pleasure and joy, in a non-hedonistic fashion, can offer a form of nutrition to us on a cellular level. Spices in this case are seeds, plants, whole foods that transform the digestion of certain foods.
Ancient medicines, like Chinese and Ayurvedic medicinal lineages, highlight how different flavours activate different receptors on your tongue and when a receptor is stimulated it provokes a neurological response that can lead to many outcomes like -- stimulating digestive enzymes, promoting emotional hormones, suppressing or invigorating organ productivity. These are not banal results.
These are not internal responses that you would notice in the immediate term. However, similar to achieving your goals, it takes many little steps to find yourself at a welcomed or unwelcomed result. In the case of health, many folks experience overt negative symptoms before they choose to respond, or even inquire. This is troublesome; imagine all the steps that led you to this uncomfortable or ill place that now need to be undone.
Too often silence is dismissed.
Silence between the notes is where music is made. Silence is where all the frequencies make a sound at the same time in balance, in harmony. It is not a void.
Chasing rainbows. Chasing waterfalls. Chasing joy.
There is a cellular response that happens, you know what I am talking about even if you don't know the science; when you are in nature, when you see something awe-striking. It takes your literal breath away. It releases happy endorphins. You feel f*ckin bliss.
Our cellular intelligence is strong.
It is real. It knows what you may not overtly know. That you hate tomatoes because you do, but really it is because your body has a low key intolerance/ allergy / discomfort when eating tomatoes. Then you look more broadly and you realize that tomatoes are part of a group of foods called nightshades and those foods are difficult to digest for certain people.
Our bodies are poetic. They truly are. There is no way around it.
A dear friend, Rhea, shared a perspective that I have held close to my heart. She said, paraphrasing here, that people who get sick, who suffer from chronic illness, or have a health scare that provokes them to investigate their bodies are building resilience. By learning about our bodies we are building resilience in the body.
Illness builds resilience.
As a person who has suffered from an autoimmune disorder. I feel this truth. I know how to care for my body. I am able to listen to the small queues my body gives me. I am sensitive and aware of its idiosyncrasies. Bless.
For anyone that thinks sickness, illness, chronic or acute health woes makes you weak. Perhaps you're missing a whole paradigm where that is untrue. It makes you strong. It makes you adaptable. It brings a brilliance to your resilience.
Similarly, compassion, emotional intelligence, spiritual awakenings, many people find depth in these paths of existence after experiencing trauma in their life. Their ability to understand, see and feel things is sensitive, acute, aware.
It has been the base of many discussions: How do you build compassion or emotional awareness? Do you always have to experience trauma and be on the path of recovery from it to find true depth? I hope that is not the case, but then again who hasn't experienced a form of trauma? Even the most entitled person has things they are fearful, shameful, or anxious about at times. If they dug into those emotions maybe I bet they’d find seeded trauma.
A friend was hosting a space called Trauma to Triumph. I scoffed at that name. It is so gimmicky, borderline cliche. Well f*ck, what I have learnt in my time of life exploration is that they are cliches for a goddamn reason. I can already feel my teenage self is rolling her eyes so hard right now.
Shall we review?
It's not you, it's me.
// Everyone is projecting their shit onto everyone else. When someone does something you like, or not, it is not usually because of you but the action is confirming an internal narrative that keeps honest their understanding of self.
I am scared shitless.
// Your colon is the emotional centre of your body. So when you are terrified a contraction in your colon would be a totally valid response, and that would squeeze poop out of your body! eep!
Time heals all wounds.
// Truly when I am hurt and broken I despise this statement. But when I am healed and feel more whole than I did before I was broken, I realize that the wound was a good thing and I needed time to heal and time to see that. More on post-traumatic growth in a later letter.
Health is wealth.
// Well ain’t that the truth. Even Steve Jobs and every bazillionaire has shared while experiencing intense illness or on their deathbed. Our health is multifold: emotional, spiritual, physical and mental. If we don’t care for it what do we truly have?
Cliches became cliches for a reason.
I am sure a wise person summarized their life learnings into what we now know as a cliche and shared it with a young person who was so far from the wisdom that they too scoffed at the statement.
To further this exploration here is a quote from Francis Weller, whose work I have become submerged in. His words are perhaps a reminder to not hold onto life so tightly, allowing us to age more gracefully.
"We become elders by accepting life on life’s terms, gradually relinquishing the fight to have it fit our expectations. .... They [elders] have made peace with the imperfections that are inherent in life. The wounds and losses they encounter, become the material with which to shape a life of meaning, humour, joy, depth and beauty. They do not push away suffering, nor wish to be exempt from the inevitable losses that come. They know the futility of such a wish. This acceptance, in turn, frees them to radically receive the stunning elegance of the world." - Francis Weller
I’ll let you ponder that. I know I am.
Here’s an exercise for you to explore yourself. A journal prompt if that’s your vibe:
What are the cliches that irritate you the most? Write them down. Sit with them. Write down scenarios where you experienced them. Maybe you will find a) patterns you do not like b) unresolved trauma. If so, ask these questions as a way to dig and unroot: When was the first time you felt this way? Can you bring compassion to that self?
Hot Shares:
Check out Rhea’s healing music. It is fire and will put your nervous system at ease.
Here is a cute recipe that I f*cked with for Diwali when I made a vegan kheer (Indian rice pudding).
letter 005: whole seeds 🌱🌈