A Circle of Our Own — Fragments of the Whole

I move in a circular motion, 

Like time 

As does life and death itself

Energy passing from one space to another 

So is the idea of circumambulation across all faiths

A gesture profound to the feminine 

Signifying the never-ending loop of creation 

The continuation of 

The life-rhythm

The drumming skies and roaming dakinis
Dragons splitting the skies with a wondering speed
And behold, oozing fire crackling the path of light
Lending a silver lining to that darkest cloud
Oh, you the rider of the skies and the controller of three roots 
l watch you 

O Sky-conqueror, in awe, gripping the soul beneath my feet.
How gracefully you balance the stars, which left the palm of your hand.
I wait for the darkest night to watch you 

Like an eager doe with earnest eyes

1.

Into the realm of dreams and desires

There is no dream without a desire

There is no desire, which doesn’t create

Just like that sweeping deer on the starry moonless night

Swishing around on the twinkling stars

My dreams expand like the blooming lilac lotus

In the deep twinkling pond of still waters

Who is a yogini, you ask?

Jo na tha, aur na rahega

Magar ab hai

Vo to ek tilismat hai

Tu es main giraftar na ho.

 -Akhghar Muradabadi

Born of the mother goddess.

Of this earth.

Coordinated energies.

Constant renewal.

Meditation.

A constellation 

of concomitant goddesses. 

A mass of combinations 

of culmination.

Clusters of regeneration

on your milky way.

Bound together.

Forever.

2.

Born from Shakti,

the primordial goddess.

The yoginis, the collaborators,

Each with her own energy.

That, together they manifest Shakti.

Recalled through chanting.

The beej mantra.

Primal sound.

-Amritayasa Nabhayie

64 yoginis…

Or perhaps 81…

Or 40…

These are but a number

An auspicious figure 

Expanding, esoteric or exoteric.

Yogini, the collaborator, the energy 

Sparking creative movement and 

Orchestrating the affairs of this transient universe.

3.

At first was the birth.

The cosmos exploded into fiery fragments. 

Fierce flames lapped the skies. 

Intense heat melted worlds

Formed or forming new ones

Creating new universes.

Each spinning around paths they would be bound to 

Across infinity. 

Births are painful; powerful. 

Violence, defiance, is essential for any creation.

With blood and screams I come, but silently I shall depart

These primordial worlds radiate intense energy. 

Millions of years cooled, molten lavas 

Tempered hot winds  

Conceived oceans, rivers and lakes. 

And, still, time rolled on…on…on…

And then there were more births.

4.

In the deepest depths of the seas.

The highest arch of the skies.

In the widest expanse of land

Life was created. 

An amoeba in the sea.

A leaf that fought its way to the earth’s crust.

Exploding from a seed that creation had put its way.

Beejo ki taho mei Aghkar maine

Aage ke gulistan ko Kharama paya

 -Akhgar Muradabadi

Seeds became embryos.

Embryos seeded life. 

And so was born the primeval woman.

Aham Asmi Prathamja Ritasya

I am more ancient than 

The effulgence of Gods

For I am the first born of essences

I am the artery of immortality.

5.

Nurturer.

Birther.

Caregiver. 

Taker.

Protector. 

The source of life.

Life itself.

The beginning and the end.

The finite within infinite.

Death.

Death within life.

Life within death.

An endless, recurring, rejuvenating, cycle.

Over eons, across millennia.

The cycle of life.

The cycle of womankind.

Renewing a vow of tribe hood – 

Unquestionably the world’s most ancient

Motherhood, an art form of creative redemption 

is no different from the stars that shine in an ancient sky, 

the waters that lap the edges of the ocean, 

their leaves fluttering in a breeze 

that carries the embrace of love

maybe in a time when birds swam and fish flew.

And trees grew roots that stretched from one end of the world to the other.

6.

That, universal mother,

who is nature natural supernatural

much of the time.

At others, she is you and I. 

Five elements

The sand in the seas, 

The sea in the seashells.

The flap of a humming bird’s wing, 

The howl of the wind, 

The flame in the forests.

Bearers of the faith and those who created the faith, 

hence the creator of the gods too – is but Maya

maya – illusion.

But if all is illusion, what is real?

Am I real?

Are you real?

Is this place, this garden that surrounds us, that monument, the sky above it – is any of it real?

Is the illusion real?

Or, is reality an illusion?

Or are the multitudes of realities illusion?

7.

Am I a myth or reality?

Today’s reality is tomorrow’s myth…

Yesterdays reality is todays myth

I weave a web of illusion,

I entice, create desires…

Am I terrible?

a destroyer, a slayer?

Of all that entangles into my web.

Licking the root of their desires,

Vanquishing it,

Bestowing freedom to all who dare to play with me

I am maya

The fire within is without

I am the creator and the destroyer

Come,

Play with me

8.

What is Brahman? 

Divine consciousness or cosmos? 

The force that 

Binds 

Heals 

Keeps 

Abandons 

You and I

So Maya can play 

Her khel.  

Cosmic play.

And show us the way to faith.

Aika mai jagat vahayi, tin chale pardhan

Ek samsara ek Bhandari ek lai Dewan

O vaikhe o nadir na avai bahuta eho vadhan

Japji Sahib

Maya 

plays;

deludes;

reasons;
laughs;

hurts;

heals; 

mocks;

loves;

destroys;

dissolves;

Builds and rebuild.

Maya exists.

9.

My woman is that maya

She is composite, whole, complete. 

She is also a sum, a part, incomplete. 

Great, but not greater than the universe. 

She is a creature of myths, metaphors and autobiography.

Part real, part mythical. 

Part mortal, part immortal.

Part temporal, part celestial. 

So is nature, as are men and women. 

I eye this world, I pay it homage, I paint its story, 

Celebrate…
for all those women 

exploring

unearthing,
in the rhythm of their smiles 

and the laughter in their souls

Celebrate…
being a woman 

not only in the body but in the soul

I am maya.

Am I maya?

Maya am I?

10.

Yogini is neither thought nor sermon.

She is energy

The Maha Shakti, Mukti Pradyani 

Chinnamastika, Prachandika

Fiercely you walk alone

Swaying to the measured beat of your feet

the three gunas flow out through your gruesome severed head

as a fountain of blood

sattva, rajas and tamas

ida pingala and sushmana

woven together with love and consciousness

with the symbolic rati and kama under your pressing feet 

severing the ahankara 

quieting the mind

awakening kundalini

Propelling the movement of chakras

in a burst of volcanic erruption 

your unseen dakinies 

gulping down the rasas 

for the creation transmitting it as of energy

She is experimenting on herself through kriya and yoga 

Through which she enters our blood, veins, bones and our soul.

Stepping down to lower subliminal levels rejuvenating her own journey, 

her khel – her play with herself which takes us to discover what lies beyond the mists of new mystical heights

11.

Maya is:

The tree in the garden across my gate;

The bird in the nest hanging on the Madhumalti creeper peeping through my balcony;

The table on which I spread my paints

The shoes I wear to go for a run

Luna Tara who jerk me out in the early morning hours

Nimble Kiyoshi trying her luck gazing through the fishpond

The flower I pluck, tuck behind my ear

Or even the memories of those departed out of my life

She is the journey…defined – ordained. 

A response to my own actions.

When was time created?

Who created time?

Who created the energy that formed the world?

Time and energy held together as twins in the space

That undefined womb

12.

Who? Who? Who? Who? 

What exists?

What doesn’t?

Who? 

What?

Where?

When?

I believe that to explain the manifestation 

from one to many, 

of forms, names and a calendar of time 

within which each was created 

can be attributed to an evocation of these energies. 

Ardhanarishwar. 

Union of Shiva-Parvati 

Purush-Prakriti.

Parvati turns into Shakti when she disengages from Shiva. 

It could have led to pralay.

Annihilation.

13.

But Shakti chose to became a source for power, 

for goddesses, 

for forces of nature.

From Shakti arose the saptmatrikas.

From Shakti arose the astalakshmis.

From Shakti arose the navdurgas.

From Shakti arose the dasmahavidyas.

And time moved on.

Spinning the inexorable wheel – as it must.

And from Shakti’s manifestations,

From her saptmatrikas and astalakshmis, her navdurgas 

and dasmahavidyas, 

came the yoginis.

The Chausath – or sixty-four – Yoginis.

The Ekyasi – or eighty-one – Yoginis. 

The Chalis – or forty – Yoginis. 

Yoginis, Shakti or Energy

Manifestations.

14.

Yoginis evolve, diversify, recycle, reproduce, expand

Yoginis who regenerate themselves to provide balance to our world.

 Manifestations inspire me to attempt to analyse the world I see around me, 

Especially as a woman who must make sense, daily 

Of injustices in the world. 

To comprehend why we continue to look away when prejudice occurs, 

When sensitivities corrode, or when negative forces are invoked. 

I, therefore, look inwards 

To evoke the energy that is manifest in each one of us

To apply the healing salve of motherhood to a world that needs it. 

For that energy resides in each one of us 

Women and men 

Crossing all genders 

And it is that we must manifest.

I look within the womb to discover 

That which is outside. 

As day, so the night.

To the cold, the hot.

To song, through music.

As black, so white.

Spring and autumn.

Summer’s winter. 

The female’s male.

Male’s female

Childhood and adulthood.

As life, so death.

Birth, and re-birth.

15.

Jaise agne udhar main 

Taise bahar maya 

Maya agne sabh aku jaise 

Karte khel rachaya 

Ja tis bhana ta jamya 

Parivar bhala bhaya 

Livchurki lage trisna 

Maya amar vartaya

Anand Sahib

I also believe that the same agni or urja, that energy which is inside the womb, is pervading everything. I feel that and ‘energy or agni are One and all the universes are the sum product of that amalgamation.

You come from one single womb
Share the same single space 
How can you despair that

I ride the mind
Holding it reins by its hair
I am a celebration

16.

Yogini

Dakini

Matrika 

The mysterious energies who they say struck terror, 

venerated thus for their dangerous fecundity, their terrible wrath. 

Yet, were they not simply fulfilling their destinies? 

Being protective? 

Nurturing? 

In their zeal, they came to be represented for their darker powers, 

Venerated in temples as goddesses to be appeased, associated with gods either as their spouses, 

or as their forms of energy, 

female principles that have been ritualized, iconized, cherished, feared and filtered…

And so I undertake a journey.

18.

19.

20.

I am a yogini. 

A yogini through my art.

A yogini through my yoga.

A yogini through my kriya. 

A yogini in my khela.

Not a shaman.

Not a psychic.

But a spiritualist, yes.

A khoji.

On the path of discovering, unearthing 

Renewing 

Because the Yoginis connect with the basic sentiment or emotion of search

Trying to find ourselves

I am working at a human level 

The beings are just a transformation of maya

So naturally I am a woman

And I perceive all nature as one

Except each one has been given a different attire by Her to suit her pleasure…her desire to play….a krida without a specific motive….…creating no difference between different beings 

As somewhere in my works there is an amalgamation of every being-man, woman, nature, animals and the unseen souls too

21.

Ask me my identity

Because I am an extension of the feminine.

Mother.

Daughter.

Woman.

Painter.

Performer.

Storyteller.

Friend.

I shop.

Eat.

Walk.

I love dressing up.

I like dressing down.

Contrary.

Mercurial.

Easy to love.

Quick to anger.

Kind.

Compassionate.

Healer.

Destroyer

Keeper

22.

I spark of as breath 

Flow in your blood.

Through your veins.

In your soul.

I exist.

I am.

I am all around you.

I am within you. 

I connect with you

Wind and the sound of it

Water and the touch of it

I am venerable so I learn from you

The jackals, tigers, dogs, dragonflies and snakes

Splitting the Sahastra with a volcanic eruption 

Opening a thousand lotuses

Not only within me but in you too

I decapitate my analytical mind 

Allowing the flow of intuition to enter

You are the energy rendering, controlling 

the operating yogini.

23.

The feminine

Energy

That only can reveal your father (Consciousness) to you

I am the world.

Kya poochte ho, Rooh se kya chahati hai

Deedar khud ka, Bkhuda chahati hai

Bas Maazi ke ghunghat ko, Ulat de koi

Dulaha se Dulhan, Apne mila chahati hai

• Akhgar Muradabadi

You want to know who I am?

Fearsome, terrifying and soothing– creating harmony. 

A circle of renewal.
I am accord, concord, congruence, coherence. 

I am nature.

And nurturer. 

24.

Yet I am still

I am in Time

I am change.

I change with time.

I am constant.

Yet I am constantly different.

I am this.

And I am that. 

I am good.

And evil,

Light.

And dark.

Fearful.

And fearless.

Goddess.

And the Dakini

I am everywhere.

And nowhere.

25.

Did I say I am birth?

Then I am also death.

Did I say I am earth?

Then I am also water.

Did I say I am laughter?

Then I am also sorrow.

Did I say I am woman?

Then I am also man.

Did I say I am complete?

But I am just a fragment.

Did I say I am of this world?

But you know me as celestial.

Did you not know that I am moral?

But I can be immoral.

I am land.

And the sky.

26.

I am food.

And hunger.

I am gender.

And neuter.

I am fire.

And rain that quenches it.

I am blood.

Bloodied.

Bloodless.

Blood pumping your heart.

Blood leaving my vagina.

I am pain. 

I am pleasure.

I am Ecstasy.

I am desire.

I am music.

I am dance.

I am the wave of that ocean.

The breeze in your hair.

27.

I thrive in love.

I end in bitterness

I don’t want to be hate.

I inspire inclusion

I spread with compassion

I am karma.

Bound by my dharma.

I am the future.

Present

I am the past.

I am an endless cycle.

And you are me.

You are it

TatvamAsi

28.

29.

Oh, yogini!

I propitiate before you.

As I propitiate myself.

Worship myself.

Love myself.

Realize myself

Oh, yogini!

Where do I find you?

On my darkest night?

In the shine of the day?

In my hour of shame?

In my failure?

And my fame?

Oh, yogini!

I am you.

And you are me.

I see her in each one of you.

All yoginis before me.

Let me embrace you, each one of you.

Let me love you, each one of you.

You blur the boundaries of divine and human

30.

Oh, yogini!

Are you maya?

Illusion?

Am I maya?

Is all this a grand play illusion?

Or reality?

I am real.

But are you real?

Oh, yogini!

You are but part of a part.

A fragment.

Never complete.

Which is why I must seek you everywhere.

String you all together.

To make my garland whole.

Oh, yogini!

My path to Shakti.

Lighten my path.

Diligence.

Justice.

The boon of life experienced.

Not of life merely lived.

31.

Oh, yogini!

I am you.

You are me.

You are before me.

I am you.

You are me.

You move along with eternal steady beat of the heaving drums.
Churning out time from the hourglass sands
Stars roll out from your bare chested skies
Mesmerized by the synchronicity of my beating heart, 

yours ?
and of ecstasy of Shiva’s drums
Sowing the seeds of infinity