Hi! I am Parul. My ancestors are from South Asia, I was born on Turtle Island in Tkaronto, and I currently live on the island of Bali in Indonesia. 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 newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽
I am obsessed with food. At least 50% of what I do on the internet is look at recipes and food things. I dream about the meals I want to make. I have been watching the Food Channel since I was 9. I almost always have homemade snacks in my bag. Half my suitcase when being nomadic was (super)food related. I started a pop-up Indian restaurant called Thanks Auntie. I kiss my vegetables before I put them in the fridge. Food saved and changed my life when I fell sick with an autoimmune illness.
Food is medicine for the soul, for the heart, for the body.
(Many delicious threads to pull. So this will be a lil mini series of letters re: food.)
If we let things that are fragile break,
do we create space for more resilience?
What is resilience? Is it being adaptive? Is it being regenerative? Perhaps resilience is measured by bounce-back-ability. But I imagine when you bounce “back” it is often a different location than where you once were. If you bounce to a more optimal placement I would define that as post-traumatic growth. (Though I am not assuming that resilience, adaptive, regenerative moments are triggered by a traumatic event.) Mother Earth, nature, ecosystems they all have a bounce-back-ability, resilience, adaptive, regenerative way about themselves. You can see it in a way a forest conducts itself. We humans call it a Panarchy cycle.
Definition: Panarchy cycle is “…a conceptual model that describes the ways in which complex systems of people and nature are dynamically organized and structured across scales of space and time. A panarchy is a set of nested adaptive cycles…”. It offers a way to look at interconnected systems that operate at different scales.
Definition and image below from Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary
This concept is used to discuss ecological resilience. Now, imagine a forest (which is a complex system). It is lush, has many organisms symbiotically living amongst each other, like fungi and trees. [conservation state]. Then lightening strikes a tree in the forest and starts a forest fire [release state]. Finally the fire simmers with the rain from a thunderstorm, spreading out the debris, seeds and living organisms across the forest area allowing for unique interactions that weren’t present in the conservation state [reorganization state]. The forest is ultimately different after the fire, and some organisms are thriving whereas others may not be, even though they may have been dominate before. This disallows one species to dominate for an extended period of time [exploitation state]. (Adapted from Jennie Phillips work)
Thus keeping ecosystems in check and balance. This concept has become a popular design tool; taking lessons from nature’s regenerative tendencies. This is especially important when trying to reverse the significant impact humans have had on the behaviour of the natural world, also known as the Anthropocene era. The spiritual version of this concept could also be known the cycle of death and rebirth.
The human body is far from fragile. Like the forest, it is complex, regenerative and naturally self constructed system. Imagine each of your cells (like trees in a forest) are individual autonomous “beings” that collectively create your body. It is fucking brilliant. Our cells are interdependent and connected through our cellular cycles. Though we are still a giant porous sack of cells. Impacted by environmental factors: chemical, physical, emotional, and energetic. Similar to Mother Earth, toxic chemicals in one geo-region can and will impact geographies well beyond a catastrophe. We see this in the pollution of our soil through industrialization of the food industry. The most known pollutant guised as a pesticide called Monsanto aka round up has poisoned North American soil and leeched into our water systems. With the increase in toxicity of this pollutant we’ve seen a rise in many diseases such as leaky gut syndrome, gluten intolerance, autism, type 2 diabetes, and various autoimmune conditions. You can listen to more on this here, watch a documentary called Kiss the Ground and a Michael Pollen Netflix series called Cooked. Anyone that has had a health journey that is elusive to western medicine would have likely already done this kind of research. Because they have had to help their bodies heal and the explanation and resolution was not easily visible. They had to find their own resilience. I know this because I am one of those people. I “have” an autoimmune disease called alopecia. I don't resonate with this diagnosis because the premise of an autoimmune disease is that your body is attacking itself. Now, why would my smart body want to hurt itself? Like Mother Earth managing the disposal of pollutants caused by humans. My body is doing the same — managing the pollutants that humans before my time have left for my body to soak up. However, this health journey has provoked me to open my eyes to the macro reality: if the earth is sick, my body will be too. It has made me resilient. It has made me knowledgeable on how to care for my body. It has allowed my personal actions to be aligned with the Earth’s healing. Like understanding the immense value of supporting local farms, eating organic, and not supporting mass industry, businesses, farming techniques. Chronic illness creates people who are more resilient. (Akin to many Buddhist philosophies around suffering.) By allowing your body rest from the pollutants, your body can use its resilience to naturally bounce forward, instead of backwards. Our bodies are a great example of post-traumatic growth in this breaking and mending.
A Japanese pottery process called Kintsugi is the mending of broken pottery using gold lacquer. The idea is that breaking and mending is more beautiful than any whole “perfect” object. Creating a beauty so unique that it cannot be compared to any other. Similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which is an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.
Is that not the definition of people?
The collection of our trauma, scars and idiosyncrasies is what builds our character, our personality, our strengths. Our imperfections is what make us perfect.
The “old world” says that mistakes are shameful and are shunned. The old world being the embodiment of the American Dream, the post World War 2 mentality of perfection, gender roles, nuclear families. This is still seen in the instagram influencer posed lifestyle shots. Glamourizing the bliss of “perfect everything”. Leveraging the definition of perfect that is held together by ideals of success that white western society constructed, such as beauty standards, vacations and luxury goods. (Living in Bali I get to see the constructed identities of many popular influencers. Yay! 🙃)
The new world, the world of today and tomorrow, desires imperfection aka realness, authenticity, and the moments of life that are truly full of shit. What is in the way is the way.
Giving us permission to break and have real world examples of how to mend again. #mentalhealth
Liminal moments where everything is possible and impossible within ourselves.
What is liminal? Autumn is that liminal space between beauty and bleakness balancing the edges of unease as cool air approaches longing for the warmth of the sun
Transition moments give us energy.
in the layers autumn brings
tend to your harvest
the fruits of your labour are left for the summer
and autumn harvest brings forward heartiness
heart filled ness
an earthy density
born in the ground
feel your grounded-ness
Like the health of the Earth, we need to honour the soil and honour our bodies. I wish for you infinite growth in whatever direction you choose, in whatever trauma you face. Post traumatic growth, healthy coping mechanisms and care is before us if we ask and reach.
Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.
So too will we, and mother earth.
Much love 💙💛💚
Parul // @parulbee
Letter 012: Resilient bodies- bodies that break and mend 🌎🥺🪡🙏🏽