from the writing fragments vault #8
{C}
{C}
Every morning, every evening, say Rām, Rām
Every noon, every night, say Rām, Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Every second, every minute, say Rām, Rām
Every hour, every day, say Rām, Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Every week, every month, say Rām, Rām
Every year, every lifetime, say Rām, Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Liberation from rebirth, singing Rām, Rām
Liberation from rebirth, singing Rām, Rām
Singing Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Singing Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Sitting near the back in the women's area as I was, no one noticed when after about twelve minutes of this repetitive bhajan, droning, and drumming, swathed in billows of heavy nagchampa incense, I began to trance out. My body began to sway and I wasn't even aware of it when my sari pallu slipped off my shoulder (oh, the shame!). I remember opening my eyes-belatedly realizing that, while the others continued, I had ceased chanting some time ago-and focusing my attention on the poster of Goddess Lakshmi on the wall near me. I looked directly into her eyes and felt she wanted to tell me something. Then I felt she was inviting me to meditate on her image. With my gaze fixed on her, I slipped deeper into trance.
{C} {C}
She was borne on the petals of a pink and white lotus in full bloom, lifted over the waters. Lakshmi's lotus not only had a blissful floral fragrance, which I could now smell instead of the nagchampa incense, it was a flower of great meaning. The roots of a lotus are sunk in the slimy mud of a shallow pond, where plenty of sunlight shines through the water and allows algae to grow all through the soft, silty bottom mud. I felt intuitively how that was a place of moist decay and growth, where organic compounds are released from the bodies of formerly living biota and then recycled through the food chain to become the nutrients of more of the same biota. A messy scene. But the stem of the lotus grew straight and tall up through the slimy mud, through the clear water, to bear such a beautiful blossom out in the sunlight.
I thought of Lakshmi herself, scattering gold coins, Goddess of prosperity. As such, she was always worshiped by merchants. Her image adorned the packaging of countless commercial products on shop shelves as much as it did the wall above the cash register, where her picture was framed in gilt, with garlands draped around it and sticks of incense burning in front of it. But when the products' packaging is torn off and discarded, if the trash collection and street sweeping services in a place are below par, her sacred image is also seen everywhere trampled in the dirt in streets and gutters. This Goddess extends to all levels high and low of the cosmic axis with her help and compassion. Like us women.
{C} {C}
I realized that this very vision of the lotus growing up out of slime expressed the exact situation of women under patriarchy. How we have survived thousands of years and somehow never let our feminine wisdom and power be completely stripped from us. We have always kept our shared wisdom and power alive, receiving it from our foremothers and great-aunts, passing it along to our daughters and nieces, and to our granddaughters and grandneices. Now the Goddess was sending me this vision of powerful women all together, while she held me in her warm love and care.
{C} {C}
I remained floating in a rapture of Lakshmi bhakti all that evening, as the chanting and drumming ended, as community announcements were made, as sweet basmati-rice-and-milk kheer prasadam was ladled out to everyone in attendance. The sugary, milky kheer gave me the feeling of being nourished directly from the Goddess's breasts. On the way back to my ashram bunker bed, I seemed to hear her soft whispering in the warm night breezes. I felt her sweet presence to be the eternal presence of Devi, The Goddess, this time manifesting through the divine personality Lakshmi. The glow from this experience stayed with me for days afterward. Since then, I have felt Lakshmi to be a source of the strength and wisdom that women have shared through the ages, that allowed us to lift our beautiful heads and shoulders up high, above the muck of the world we were planted in, to shine in the sun.
I could see this beautiful vision of sacred femininity carrying me forward into a new future of activism. This vision strengthened me to eventually leave that male-dominated ashram and to found a women's home industry collective. In addition to helping women generate their own independent income, and coordinating their production and distribution, we sponsored lectures, workshops, and classes for women to gain valuable skills, general knowledge, and consciousness of their own power as women to effect real change in the world.
{C} {C}
We had a very large, beautiful image of Lakshmi and her pink and white lotus in the front hall of our offices, complete with garlands and incense. Our Muslim members got equal time and space, of course. On their side, complete with garlands and incense, they depicted a black cube and a green dome, with Arabic calligraphy all over. They told me it said "Yaa Faatima. Yaa Zahraa," which they interpreted to me as a Muslim prayer for women's power that worked for them as invoking Lakshmi did for us. But when we all joined hands together in a circle at the beginning and end of our work day, we recited a secular prayer or affirmation written by Noorjahan, one of our Muslim members:
We are sisters together
In foul or fair weather
Let Love be our token
Our circle unbroken
After which, instead of saying "Om shanti" or "Ameen," we all said in unison, "That's right, sister!"
{C}
Every morning, every evening, say Rām, Rām
Every noon, every night, say Rām, Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Every second, every minute, say Rām, Rām
Every hour, every day, say Rām, Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Every week, every month, say Rām, Rām
Every year, every lifetime, say Rām, Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Say Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Liberation from rebirth, singing Rām, Rām
Liberation from rebirth, singing Rām, Rām
Singing Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
Singing Rām Rām Rām Rām Rām, Hari Rām
{C} {C}
Sitting near the back in the women's area as I was, no one noticed when after about twelve minutes of this repetitive bhajan, droning, and drumming, swathed in billows of heavy nagchampa incense, I began to trance out. My body began to sway and I wasn't even aware of it when my sari pallu slipped off my shoulder (oh, the shame!). I remember opening my eyes-belatedly realizing that, while the others continued, I had ceased chanting some time ago-and focusing my attention on the poster of Goddess Lakshmi on the wall near me. I looked directly into her eyes and felt she wanted to tell me something. Then I felt she was inviting me to meditate on her image. With my gaze fixed on her, I slipped deeper into trance.
{C} {C}
She was borne on the petals of a pink and white lotus in full bloom, lifted over the waters. Lakshmi's lotus not only had a blissful floral fragrance, which I could now smell instead of the nagchampa incense, it was a flower of great meaning. The roots of a lotus are sunk in the slimy mud of a shallow pond, where plenty of sunlight shines through the water and allows algae to grow all through the soft, silty bottom mud. I felt intuitively how that was a place of moist decay and growth, where organic compounds are released from the bodies of formerly living biota and then recycled through the food chain to become the nutrients of more of the same biota. A messy scene. But the stem of the lotus grew straight and tall up through the slimy mud, through the clear water, to bear such a beautiful blossom out in the sunlight.
I thought of Lakshmi herself, scattering gold coins, Goddess of prosperity. As such, she was always worshiped by merchants. Her image adorned the packaging of countless commercial products on shop shelves as much as it did the wall above the cash register, where her picture was framed in gilt, with garlands draped around it and sticks of incense burning in front of it. But when the products' packaging is torn off and discarded, if the trash collection and street sweeping services in a place are below par, her sacred image is also seen everywhere trampled in the dirt in streets and gutters. This Goddess extends to all levels high and low of the cosmic axis with her help and compassion. Like us women.
{C} {C}
I realized that this very vision of the lotus growing up out of slime expressed the exact situation of women under patriarchy. How we have survived thousands of years and somehow never let our feminine wisdom and power be completely stripped from us. We have always kept our shared wisdom and power alive, receiving it from our foremothers and great-aunts, passing it along to our daughters and nieces, and to our granddaughters and grandneices. Now the Goddess was sending me this vision of powerful women all together, while she held me in her warm love and care.
{C} {C}
I remained floating in a rapture of Lakshmi bhakti all that evening, as the chanting and drumming ended, as community announcements were made, as sweet basmati-rice-and-milk kheer prasadam was ladled out to everyone in attendance. The sugary, milky kheer gave me the feeling of being nourished directly from the Goddess's breasts. On the way back to my ashram bunker bed, I seemed to hear her soft whispering in the warm night breezes. I felt her sweet presence to be the eternal presence of Devi, The Goddess, this time manifesting through the divine personality Lakshmi. The glow from this experience stayed with me for days afterward. Since then, I have felt Lakshmi to be a source of the strength and wisdom that women have shared through the ages, that allowed us to lift our beautiful heads and shoulders up high, above the muck of the world we were planted in, to shine in the sun.
I could see this beautiful vision of sacred femininity carrying me forward into a new future of activism. This vision strengthened me to eventually leave that male-dominated ashram and to found a women's home industry collective. In addition to helping women generate their own independent income, and coordinating their production and distribution, we sponsored lectures, workshops, and classes for women to gain valuable skills, general knowledge, and consciousness of their own power as women to effect real change in the world.
{C} {C}
We had a very large, beautiful image of Lakshmi and her pink and white lotus in the front hall of our offices, complete with garlands and incense. Our Muslim members got equal time and space, of course. On their side, complete with garlands and incense, they depicted a black cube and a green dome, with Arabic calligraphy all over. They told me it said "Yaa Faatima. Yaa Zahraa," which they interpreted to me as a Muslim prayer for women's power that worked for them as invoking Lakshmi did for us. But when we all joined hands together in a circle at the beginning and end of our work day, we recited a secular prayer or affirmation written by Noorjahan, one of our Muslim members:
We are sisters together
In foul or fair weather
Let Love be our token
Our circle unbroken
After which, instead of saying "Om shanti" or "Ameen," we all said in unison, "That's right, sister!"