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! 👇🏽
A conversation I find myself having often is around Ayurveda, specifically of cleansing and detoxing. Perhaps it is because in Indonesia they put sugar in literally everything. They also fry a lot of foods in low quality oils. I am not judging, but I am noticing the havoc its wreaking on my digestive systems. #weirdpoops
There are a lot of reasons for people to cook this way. I don’t think they are intentionally desiring to be unhealthy. Frying foods may be a way better to preserve food in a humid climate. Sugar is a fast energy. It is a simple carb that your body processes really quickly. Adding sugar to foods is a way to fuel up when you don’t have a lot of money. There are always broader climate-socio-economic reasons to eating the way you do, whether you realize it or not.
It is easy to be quick in judging the cooking methods, or someone’s knowledge of health. You do not have to be explicit to unconsciously create a superiority complex because you may know better.
When doing affordable housing advocacy work in Toronto I noticed judgement and negative stigma on some peoples’ housing situation. Like an immigrant family living in a 2 bedroom apartment was seen as insufficient when it may just be the way they know. They do not need to graduate to more or bigger. Or a person living in a rooming house (a very cheap room rental supportive for those straddling the poverty line) is seen lesser then to a nomad living in a co-live space (which is also just a kitchenless room you rent in a building).
These conversations and suggested changes create a lot of space for shame and judgement. This is complex and has many layers associated to the reason for these differences in living and our pattern to judge. It could be a cultural difference of eastern or western living, systemic oppression and access to wealth accumulation, or perhaps a reflection of shame and judgement that we hold for ourselves being projected outwards.
treat every person like they are precious
because they are
treat every person like it’s not the first
or the last time you’ve met
because it’s unlikely
we’ve lived lifetimes to meet in this moment
Late last year I did an Ayurvedic cleanse. It is called a Panchakarma. It is one of the deepest detox, healing protocols one can do in Ayurveda.
Definition: Ayurveda is an ancient Indian healing system that dates back to the Vedic era 1500 BC-600 BC. This practice considers the whole body as an integrated system and uses natural/plant centred remedies.
I joked that it is called Panchakarma because it punches your karma. Feels like a metaphor for the socialized understanding of the western experience of detox and cleansing as a rigorous, painful, challenging, laborious experience; a true testament of will. TBH this sounds akin to productivity and the qualities of a “successful” person in a capitalistic society.
This Ayurvedic cleanse was different and unexpected. The protocol starts with a diet, where you eat kitcheri (rice and lentil dish cooked in Indian spices) for all your meals and only drink warm/hot liquids for 10 days prior to any treatment. This food brings softness and warmth to your digestive organs. Imagine the feeling of hugging your insides, or being under a warm-cozy blanket when you are cold. That’s what eating easily digestible, warm food does for your body, offers a tender nurturing.
I noticed how much I protested this diet. Worried about the soft foods turning my body soft lol. And it probably did, but deep healing may require that. Soften, reshape, build with a deeper foundation; finding a different strength.
the gentlest tug
unwinds the ball of wool
if done right
a pull in a direction
shifting the course of life
seeking places where
energy grows
revealing in the marvel
of unseen currents
provoking a flow
of unknown
satisfying mysterious longings
unraveling the human experience
with a gentle tug
With a softened digestive system and a warm body I entered into my 5 day Panchakarma.
Every day I received a 4-handed massage called Abhyanga, then warm oil was poured in a continuous stream on my forehead called Shirodhara, and finally a steam to soak in all the oils nutrition. The oil was blended specifically for my body’s composition to bring balance. With balance I experienced more groundedness in my nervous system and I noticed my emotional and mental bodies quiet.
I didn’t know one could experience such depth through gentleness.
This was hardly what I imagined a cleanse to feel like. It offered me so much loving attention to give my frazzled nervous system a chance to bend back into itself.
It was a soulful unwrapping. It was like all the parts of me that felt fragmented or separated from one another finally had a place to reconnect. I felt whole.
“I believed I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I just wanted to be a poem.” — Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma
I was simply being and noticing throughout my Panchakarma. Offline for a week. It was a reminder of how simply being is healing in itself. I noticed how doing this cleanse and the being began to blend, but being > doing.
Though the world doesn’t really value being. There is always a doing that needs to follow. This creates tension in the beingness. Then I came across Francis Weller’s work…
“What was learned was not meant for us alone, but was meant to be tossed like seed into a fertile mind, a waiting community, a hungry culture.”
… and his work shares how culture is created by trauma. We can create new culture with more whole versions of ourselves. That our relationship to food, housing, and cleansing is part of one giant circle of being, and in the openness to plural ways of being we find healing.
This experience inspired me to slowly allow the waters of life to shift my currents. I think this newsletter is a way to bring others into my waters, so we can share, rejoice and cry in one another’s beingness.
i feel potent enough for life to find me
my essence is thick
my being is proud of all it’s becomings
scattered broken pieces still lie awake
though they do not occupy as much space
Much love 💙💛💚
Parul // @parulbee
letter 016: a soulful unwrapping 🎁❤️🔥