Hi! I am Parul. My ancestors are from South Asia, I was born on Turtle Island in Tkaronto, and I currently live 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! 👇🏽
pre-letter guide: This letter is a collection of poems, prose, and quotes. Each collection brings forward an energy, an intention. Non-linear by design, allowing space for all your intellects (emotional, intellectual, intuitive) to wander in the paths that serve you in this present moment.
tea blossoms at its own pace
healing is non linear
indigenous ways follow natural patterns
creativity is a path of tangents
non-linearity is the essence of life
what is society asking of us?
“One man tried going in a straight line many thousands of years ago and was called wamba (crazy) and punished by being thrown up into the sky.” — from the book Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
This is an old indigenous story from the lands of what we now call Australia. This story offers a warning of charging ahead simply because there is a predetermined (linear) direction. It urges one to think in free-ranging patterns. To allow for meandering, to follow tangents, to follow the spoken and unspoken words and sounds.
To be in organic flow.
Have you ever noticed the many shades of green that exist in a forest? It’s wondrous and at times unbelievable. To say the forest is green is a vast simplification that diminishes the beauty of nature, of the individual amidst the collective. It removes nuance for the sake of simplicity, which, in a way, degrades the actual truth of being.
A truth is we all really just want to be seen, heard, and cared for. We want to feel like we belong.
“Difference is more constructive when viewed as a by-product of solidarity.”
— by poet and philosopher Edouard Glissant
the idea of experiencing something
is part of a poetic mindset
it unlocks thinking
allowing for invisible connections
of complex matters
to come forward
giving space to conceive
beyond the scope of your experience
on ecological, environmental challenges ::
trying to understand them but also try to relate to them — connecting with your inner self — being aware of your energy and mindfulness because it connects back to this matter and the core ideas of this — relates back to a more tangible physical actions and behaviours.
— paraphrased from my interview with Andres Colmenares, IAM Internet
spiritual connection is that to nature
“A society that is closed in Bergson’s view has limited morals and Spirtual temperament. We might say that a fragmented worldview separates and alienates us from each other, and in this alienation we lose sight of the uniqueness of each and every encounter in a more ecological state of mind.”
— author unknown 😣 I cannot find the reference for it
we adorn the ocean, sky, sun and stars
liquid soil in the form of tea
drinking time
bringing forward
strength of a tree
rooting you to the core of the earth
each sip
cultivates life-force energy
connecting each chakra
placing together pieces of you
In such olden days, tea masters sometimes referred to tea as “Chang Shen Dan (長生丹),” or “Longevity Medicine,” and the men who used it to cure “Tea Doctors (茶醫),” both of which are names I wish could be resurrected, connecting tea and the men that have healed so many of my worst days to these ancient periods of natural, holistic medicine—when health wasn’t just an adjustment of the body alone, but a complete alignment of the body, mind, and spirit even onto and beyond the threshold of death, which wasn’t a “failure” of a machine that was improperly adjusted, but a natural and indispensable aspect of the Way we all journey.
— from the book The Way of Tea by Aaron Fisher
i //
joyful grief, i feel
playful attitudes
mixed with confused states
moment after moment passing
making the present state feel unaccompanied
like i am lost in the bliss
which makes it hard to be with
these non linear states
are confused right out of the gate
ii//
discomfort
i don’t want to be with
yet conformity
is the normality
“There’s something strangely sacred about discontent. The itch that pines for a soothing balm. The broken heart that mourns a lost love.
In discontent, we meet the intriguing premise that home could be different than it is at the moment, and that reality is not as resolute or as stable as it appears. We are confronted with a crack in the wall of the familiar, a longing with no traceable lineage, a homesickness with neither medicine nor map, a memory of a place we do not know how to name, a feeling that “god”is captivatingly close by.”
— by Nigerian poet, philosopher, psychologist Báyò Akómoláfé
“One of the exciting things about the English language is that it is a trade creole, so it changes shape wherever it goes. […] English inevitably places settler worldviews at the centre of every concept, obscuring true understanding. For example, explaining Aboriginal notions of time is an exercise in futility as you can only describe it as ‘non-linear’ in English, which immediately slams a big line right across your synapses. You don’t register the ‘non’—only the ‘linear’: that is the way you process that word, the shape it takes in your mind. Worst of all, it’s only describing the concept by saying what it is not, rather than what it is.”
— from the book Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
the essence of praying is poetry
a revolution starts from the art of words
Be swirly, stay swirly 🍥✨
Much love 💙💛💚
Parul // @parulbee
letter 009: the strength of a tree arises from it's meandering roots 🌳💪🌎