Author: kavi.bhansali@gmail.com

I have realized that our acts and events occurring at a particular time in life are related, even if they seem unrelated on the surface. The relation is experienced later as a physical connection between people and events. The energy we release is always returned back to us, positive for positive and negative for negative. This energy released in our act carries with it our intention, attitude and conviction hence the result depends on the quality of vibrations they carry. We know this incredible phenomenon in nature as the ’Karma and effect cycle’.

“The underlying connectedness manifests itself through meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect, therefore such synchronicities occur.  When a strong need arises in the psyche of an individual.” -Carl Jung

I sometimes feel we often fail to notice the subtle patterns hidden in the fabric of our life, patterns that defy our perceptions of logic, cause and effect, space and time. Perhaps an inner awareness and perception might enable us to see the world in a different way by providing us deeper insights to perceive the truth that unfolds in the atmosphere around us.

*The featured image is a part my evolving artistic research based practice ‘Safe Space for Transformation’ for my Masters Degree in Social Sculpture and Connective Practice, at Oxford.

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”
― Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching

My search for art as a way of transformation had brought me to this little village named Gorbhanga, in the borders of Bengal, India. This was a village of the ‘Bauls’ (Wandering Minstrels) who sing for the love of humanity. This was a pious place of knowledge amidst natural abundance where the folks encouraged inner growth.

They believe music enables major transformation in a human being. Their company made me recognize that everything in this universe is alive, even a kernel of rice is filled with great potential. The conversations and songs shared by the baul singers had a profound impact on me. One of the narrations shared a deep understanding of how ‘we human beings can heal wars by first getting rid of our own inner conflicts and misconducts, improve our attitudes and one of the ways of doing that could be thought art.’ These people were like Alchemists who revealed to me how every human being is an Alchemist in a continuous process of deciphering the great secret of life. I understood that by focusing on self, I could nurture empathy and love, which are major transformative agents. I live for myself as well as others and if I have the capacity to transform myself then I can do the same with others.

Credits: I sincerely thank Amitava Bhattacharya, founder and director of Banglanatak.com and his team for the support in my research.

I’ve always wondered about how one could find their calm center and remain consistently in that state without letting social forces influence the state of mind. This realm with a force field of inner energy seems like a state I would like to inhabit someday. Observing myself and more people that surround me, I realize that actually we humans pay very little attention towards our inner energy. We live our lives in acceptance of outer energy resources, as if given and our inner energy is taken for granted. We hardly question what is making this beautiful human body function. I wonder what makes this complicated mass made up of infinite networks and cells work in the first place.

“Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I fathom that our world is full of energy fields and we are a field ourselves within it. As we breathe, each inhale is energy gained and each exhale is energy spent. Our thoughts, emotions, drives, goals, they all require energy and that must be precisely why there are days when we sometimes feel super energetic and some days we feel drained. With the rising mental noise and tranquilizing ourselves with the over consumption of radiations from technological advances, fast paced social life and convenient comfort food choices we might be blocking our inner energy from surfacing. Perhaps such times make ‘Stillness’ a difficult state to inhabit. However, it might be possible to decipher ways through which we can lift our self and meet a higher version of our self by tapping into this magical reservoir of inner energy and allow transformations within self.

My reflections generate a force of questions, both personal and collective. Several images loaded with emotional quotient begin to emerge, which require entering and embracing them through empathy. Quoting Hegel, “the capacity to embrace, to enter into, to meet, encounter a place that is reflective, is the force of creativity. It is a space that connects, inhabits, it is empathy that makes it an open process and there is a potential to develop an aesthetic state. This process presents possibilities of seeing new things and trigger change.”

Each time I re-enter my questions, they transform into a passage, a channel, a carrier filled with fields of hope, longings, progressions, meanings, emotions and transformation. This pathway facilitates my travel to a place that breeds life forms which make all communications and interconnections possible. This place is the essential ‘Womb’, a space of transformation, it is ‘the universe’ and ‘I’ am but a speck in this space seeking answers.

Mother nature and a woman are both revered through civilizations as the ‘Womb’, the central source where creation of life and love are birthing. This sacred sanctuary and temple embraces and enfolds all life forms. It offers to nurture and protect us. Here the feminine essence of a woman has always been acknowledged and honored defying any possibility of abuse. I find myself trying to unearth ways of reconnecting with this womb to find answers or even unlearn what our existing world makes me believe.

“We have never arrived. We are in a constant state of becoming”. – Bob Dylan

‘Human nature’, the incoherent, diverged and unchangeable state of being is learning to change, evolving. We are more than our physical beings. The body is a vehicle constantly in the process of identifying with one’s soul, the higher self. Seeds of a new consciousness are being sown. The creative within wrestles with the lower nature, struggles to metamorphose the vigorous forces into service to the world. As a journey unfolds, shifts in consciousness are taking place.

Picture credits: Dr. Meera Gopi Kurian.

“The Stone symbolized something permanent that can never be lost or dissolved, something eternal that men have compared to the mystical experience of God within one’s soul”, says Carl Jung.

Doorway to heaven, place of healing, holy shrine, space of peace and power…had heard much more about it. I had to visit here to finally find out how I perceive Stonehenge.

These surviving megaliths have mystical powers, a story whispered in the landscape filling the air with a convincing field of energy, the slow walking under the renaissance sky in a circular trajectory seemed like a ritualistic dance and the structure is a timeless embodiment of sacred nature. I carry with me a magical experience which I would dwell in for years and the wonder and awe of this soundless yet vocal sensitivity.

‘Stop Dreaming, be more practical’ said everyone. Following the norms of the world would have meant accepting assumptions, prejudices and readymade patterns of everything that surrounds me. Stop believing that anything could be changed for better.

‘Round peg in a square hole’, was laughed at, yelled at and even severely punished for being different. ‘Try to fit in’ said everyone. My early life reinforced this idea where I had to alter myself to fit into an environment. However, as I grew older I began altering the environment to fit around my identity. I let honesty towards self direct me and my actions. Destined on transforming any situation that made me uncomfortable led me to believe in what is right for me and made me more authentic as a human being.
‘My Dream is a Seed whose reality is a blossoming Tree’.

A teacher once told me “Know Yourself”. Self-reflection has made me more aware of my views, thoughts, predispositions, objectives, and sensitivities. It has taught me to identify my talents and strengths keeping my limitations and weaknesses in mind. Knowing myself has allowed me to believe in my dreams. Dreaming has a quality of unfolding in an uninterrupted way, of allowing thoughts to safely brew within a private enclosed space. I am amazed how most of these thoughts have manifested into my reality. So ‘I Dream ON’ and encourage my young one to never stop dreaming. Plant a dream seed, nurture it and watch it transform into a reality from whose branches many more unknown realities surface.

I would like to think of 2016 as a long strand of connected dreams and sleepwalk into 2017 only to explore and manifest new positive realities.The picture taken by Richard Ried
Social Sculpture MA program, site specific intervention, Oxford

“Childhood is a Kingdom where nobody dies”
― Edna St. Vincent

My heart feels the magnetism of its own compass, guiding me in directions of unchartered territories this year. I am a vessel waiting to be filled by life’s new experiences, which I have only contemplated or imagined of.
This picture for me is filled with hope, innocence, without expectations, without worry, honest, pure and happy. There’s nothing to prove here, no land to conquer, perhaps a vision from my mind had been pulled out and projected on to this vast canvas of life. I’m forever grateful to life for allowing me to flashback at such meaningful and priceless moments, allowing me to live them through my memories every time I encounter just the opposite.

This inspires a few words from W.B Yeats

“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping
Than you can understand.”

*The image is from an ongoing site specific research in the interiors of West Bengal, India.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Spring is here, offering these beautiful blooms and altering the landscape of this atmosphere. This exquisite sunny walk along the radiance of these flowers has created its own inner weather in me, activating some internal reflections about the interrelation of us humans with this vast biosphere. Our relationship with the weather and what change it brings with it, is so intense. We are sensitized and transformed by the seasons and our surrounding climatic atmosphere.

While most of us can shut out our minds and keep enjoying the sudden uncanny rainfall, artificial clouds, forcibly fertilized produce, rising sea levels, we cannot shy away from the reality that all of this imbalances the flow of nature, resulting in floods, storms, extinction of plant, wild and marine life. This era of Anthropocene, posits a weighing question to all of us. How can we act more consciously towards answering the pressing questions of human dominance on this planet? Is it in our capacity to take responsibility for the destructions caused by our biological, chemical and geological practices on earth?
We are created of nature and that is precisely why we are so moved by its magnanimity. Nature is constantly changing and we are part of it. If nature hurts, we are hurt too. The power vested to act consciously and transform exists in both, nature and within us.

Wish you all a vibrant, joyful day! 

As I nibbled on the puffed rice I heard myself say ‘I know this place, I have been here before, I know these people, the smell and texture is familiar, I was having a Déjà vu’ moment 🙂

My intuitions shape my experiences of life. I have learnt to trust my Déjà vu’s and dreams that take me to places, which my mind never imagined. I am surprised by the incredible encounters and new findings, new language, new sounds and words that carry with it a long history of deep-rooted culture. Human society (of which I am an integral part of) seems complex, on one side there’s hope, freedom and passion for life yet contradictory to that is a power hungry greedy side that wants to possess and control everything. We humans feed the entities that empower this constant conflict between the demons and angels in our social system. We feed them with our thoughts, our emotions, and energy. Positive or negative these forces do make certain shifts within us and we can only do what ever is in our capacity to either sustain or erase them. Sometimes it also seems ok to let things be the way they are. This makes me wonder if I have chosen the right path? When in such self-doubt, I give it some time, allow things to unfold slowly, until I pick up the signs which encourage me to follow your heart, connect the dots and fear nothing, the journey may not be easy but with the right attitude nothing is impossible.