Creation

Birth, beginning, inhale, womb, seed, air, Brahma (supreme creative energy of matter) and Sarasvati (goddess of knowledge).


It seems fitting that this an unfinished piece with floating pieces, while I grow my own plumage as a transnational migratory bird. Included are feathers of female peacocks roaming where I meditated, and portions of airmail envelopes sent by my mother in the US to my grandmother in India. As I was growing up, my mother would give me a section of the back of these letters to fill with drawings before sending them to my grandmother, who cherished these bits of our distant realities. The letters outline the challenges of my mother's immigration and one even details my mother’s experience of the “miracle” of my birth as her first child. They trace my first shapes and marks that over time transformed into letters and language. It is a blessed treasure to explore these through the eyes of an adult art therapist, returning to the roots of my own expression.


I also had the honor of observing Kartik Poornima (in October of 2009) at Pushkar Lake and visiting one of the very few Brahma temples that exist in the world.

Destruction

Death, disintegration, exhale, ending, fire, Shiva and Kali (both forces of destruction and change).


The broken glass and mirror parallel the disassembled state of inner being that one experiences in ending cycles and patterns. A purging of the darkness I witnessed in everyday life filled with humble and routine sacrifice. Oddly enough, I found very small eggs emerging from the red surface of the handmade Nepali paper, just as I finished re-reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis. A synchronistic (and slightly horrifying) reminder of the rebirth that follows soon after destruction occurs.


I felt this phase strongly while traveling through Calcutta and Sikkim, during which time my grandmother also passed away.