a thought on resistance

resistance of breaking out of a patternof doing something new of holding yourself tenderly it is not unsafe, it is just unfamiliar

beyond the fears calcified within there is wonder a beautiful place beyond the layers of painof desires to escape

breathe deepas I tell you a story of me, and of you

you are of ancient origin a craton of the earth stabilityis your birthrightit is found deep within the crust of the earththe essence of your body

stability is not a stateit is a knowingsurviving cycles of merging and rifting of continents of self

meridians of energy in the bodyholographic to the energy of mother earth like a vast musical instrument we must harmonize the frequencythat is out of tuneout of balance

there is a discomfort perhaps you feel it that unmistakable stain

a subtle anxiety of a new terrain the rawness of disbelief in the happenings around us in the existence and fullness of our reality

the evident gaps in oneself is a mirror of the fracturesin our cities in our systems

in the untethered feeling of separationthe creeping of loneliness piercesour worthiness

oscillating between self acceptance and self resentmentdarling, i know you may be tired

tired of breaking and mending

it may feel endlessi assure you these are simply chapters

know that you are held in love through this journeyfor the love of the sun who will never leave your sideas long as you open your eyesthe love of the earthwhose moist surface is ready to hold all of what you unearth for the love of the moon and starswho reflect the expanding universe

it is but in a place of lossthat we recall the very nature of impermanencethe hidden beauty of luminosity in lossis blindingat times we look away yet the light has come to wash away

the loose layers of selfthe facade of beingthat cracks at this brightness giving space for lightto recede the borders of our armour

this memory is braided into youthis feeling is sunken in and forever you shall walk different

imagine healing oneselfalso heals and holds the other this is not a fallacy

imagine the boldness of your being at full essence orchestrates healingfor the sounds of our thoughtsour dreamhopesdisillusions are the sounds that make all realities

gently rock the feelings of resistance for they want to unravel at your tender touch

the lightest touch gives the greatest gifts and the magic belowit wants to flow

like a river along the mountainside a redwood treeso deeply rooted in thee intertwining yourself like the mycelium of the earth the treasure that we can see the brightness that you can beas magical as we can see

Much love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

In my last letter I wrote about gentle, deep healing. How ancient practices of Ayurveda offer detoxing tools that soothe and reset all your bodies — spiritual, mental, physical, emotional. They had thousands of years to fine tune these practices and develop an ingenious method that sits alongside the nervous system, the centrefold of your beingness.

Somehow old wisdom has been pushed aside because science > ancient knowledge

I know I did not embrace Ayurveda as a kid. I rejected “home remedies” my mom offered me because they were not scientifically backed. Weird things like:

* Put your first morning spit on the stye of your eyelid. | This works omg.

* Add kala namak (black salt that is infused with sulphur and smells eggy) on your fruit, especially on hot days. | This mineralized salt supports water absorption aka electrolytes on a hot day. Necessary.

* Eat 10 almonds soaked overnight before you go to school. | Soaking nuts releases more of its nutritional value.

I was questioning this wisdom. Wisdom curated over 1000s of years.

TBH it came from a place of rejection of my culture. I know it. It was when being Indian wasn’t cool, and assimilation was in style. It was before the woke era and pre-social media. As much as social media causes terror on our mental health. It is also a place where individuality, culture and ancient knowledge are now being celebrated and shared.

Fast forward two decades. In the process of exploring ancestral history for Our Ancestral Futures, a project where I am collecting Vedic indigenous wisdom and sharing it back in the form of poetry, I was offered this nugget from one of the ancient Vedic bodies of knowledge:

“Even if people have been doing it for thousands of years, if there is no logical reason it should be abandoned.” — Mahabharata, 12th book, 257 chapter

F**k yes.

Take that people telling me what to do for the sake of tradition. Don’t tell me to do it because everyone else before me has.

Side story: I was the ‘but why’ kid growing up. I would ask you a question like why is the sky blue, and follow up to your answer with why… at least 5 times. My parents and old people around little me were not fans of this line of questioning. Maybe I was a reminder of the fact they may have been following something with little understanding?

Little did I know asking why several times is a great tool for developing your idea or finding the root cause. It is actually a technique called the five whys.

Coming back to the quote. It makes so much sense. It is natural. It is organic. It is human nature. Questioning things from a place of genuine curiosity is not a quality that is rewarded in school or in some parenting styles. But it is a quality that supports the evolution of the human spirit and demonstrates a desire for deeper knowledge.

In my previous questioning I was coming from a place of rejection, a place of wanting to belong. This is where intention matters. Coming from an emotional basis of curiosity vs. rejection creates different ripples, different openness, and different results.

Rewind for a hot sec to 3500 years ago. lol

The Vedic era in South Asian history was a fruitful one. It took place during 1500BCE - 600BCE.

BCE stands for Before Common Era or Before Christ, time as we know is a colonial measurement, more on this later.

It was the birth period of Ayurveda, of most major spiritual texts that India is known for such as the Bhagavadgita, Upanishads, and Rigvedas. It is known as the “mantra period”, and was the era when the Vedas were composed and orally transmitted. These are just a few cute highlights.

This era is essentially the foundation of Hinduism and Buddhism. Two spiritual philosophies that are mistaken for religion.

Behind the concept of religion there is spirituality. Spirtual practices help us understand who we are and give space for our purpose to reveal itself.

Enter the ‘but why’ line of thinking. Also known as jijñāsā ( जिज्ञासा ) in Sanskrit, which means an inquisitiveness that goes beyond questioning, a deep desire to know.

Perhaps this is why many people, including myself, feel spiritual, but not religious. Religion is more constructed and binary, whereas spirituality has movement and flexibility.

No disrespect to religion. Many people in my life are deeply religious.

In my early 20s I felt confused about the relationship between spirituality and religion. I grew up in a religious and spiritual household, and we had many religious figures moving through our home. I asked them all the same question:

What is the relationship between spirituality and religion?

I got a variety of responses, even some who scoffed at my ‘ignorant question”. The best answer I got is from my now spiritual advisor. He shared:

“Spirituality has many vehicles. Religion is simply one of them.”

That was close 12 years ago. The answer still echos in my body, especially when I feel religion being pressed upon me via tradition I don’t fully resonate with.

The philosophy of Vedanta:

“We work in harmony with everything that is here.”

It is not praying at the dinner table for ourselves, rather it is praying from the beginning of the entire cycle of food. Everything is envisioned as part of an ecosystem.

In Vedanta:

everything is youyou are everything seed nourished by the sunis the plant that feeds your bellythe sun lives through you

so are you the sunradiantly alive

composed of star dust cosmic connector grounded into this earthtoes rolling in soilas it grazes grasseyes caught in the light of a candlefire of your soulflickering in the wind finding rest on the horizon the ocean embodies your bodystrong and fierce gentle and calm

you are everythingeverything is you

and, or

in the words engraved on Harry Potter’s snitch in book 7: I open at the close

love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

A conversation I find myself having often is around Ayurveda, specifically of cleansing and detoxing. Perhaps it is because in Indonesia they put sugar in literally everything. They also fry a lot of foods in low quality oils. I am not judging, but I am noticing the havoc its wreaking on my digestive systems. #weirdpoops

There are a lot of reasons for people to cook this way. I don’t think they are intentionally desiring to be unhealthy. Frying foods may be a way better to preserve food in a humid climate. Sugar is a fast energy. It is a simple carb that your body processes really quickly. Adding sugar to foods is a way to fuel up when you don’t have a lot of money. There are always broader climate-socio-economic reasons to eating the way you do, whether you realize it or not.

It is easy to be quick in judging the cooking methods, or someone’s knowledge of health. You do not have to be explicit to unconsciously create a superiority complex because you may know better.

When doing affordable housing advocacy work in Toronto I noticed judgement and negative stigma on some peoples’ housing situation. Like an immigrant family living in a 2 bedroom apartment was seen as insufficient when it may just be the way they know. They do not need to graduate to more or bigger. Or a person living in a rooming house (a very cheap room rental supportive for those straddling the poverty line) is seen lesser then to a nomad living in a co-live space (which is also just a kitchenless room you rent in a building).

These conversations and suggested changes create a lot of space for shame and judgement. This is complex and has many layers associated to the reason for these differences in living and our pattern to judge. It could be a cultural difference of eastern or western living, systemic oppression and access to wealth accumulation, or perhaps a reflection of shame and judgement that we hold for ourselves being projected outwards.

treat every person like they are preciousbecause they are treat every person like it’s not the first or the last time you’ve metbecause it’s unlikely we’ve lived lifetimes to meet in this moment

Late last year I did an Ayurvedic cleanse. It is called a Panchakarma. It is one of the deepest detox, healing protocols one can do in Ayurveda.

Definition: Ayurveda is an ancient Indian healing system that dates back to the Vedic era 1500 BC-600 BC. This practice considers the whole body as an integrated system and uses natural/plant centred remedies.

I joked that it is called Panchakarma because it punches your karma. Feels like a metaphor for the socialized understanding of the western experience of detox and cleansing as a rigorous, painful, challenging, laborious experience; a true testament of will. TBH this sounds akin to productivity and the qualities of a “successful” person in a capitalistic society.

This Ayurvedic cleanse was different and unexpected. The protocol starts with a diet, where you eat kitcheri (rice and lentil dish cooked in Indian spices) for all your meals and only drink warm/hot liquids for 10 days prior to any treatment. This food brings softness and warmth to your digestive organs. Imagine the feeling of hugging your insides, or being under a warm-cozy blanket when you are cold. That’s what eating easily digestible, warm food does for your body, offers a tender nurturing.

I noticed how much I protested this diet. Worried about the soft foods turning my body soft lol. And it probably did, but deep healing may require that. Soften, reshape, build with a deeper foundation; finding a different strength.

the gentlest tugunwinds the ball of woolif done righta pull in a directionshifting the course of life seeking places where energy grows revealing in the marvel of unseen currents provoking a flowof unknown satisfying mysterious longings unraveling the human experiencewith a gentle tug

With a softened digestive system and a warm body I entered into my 5 day Panchakarma.

Every day I received a 4-handed massage called Abhyanga, then warm oil was poured in a continuous stream on my forehead called Shirodhara, and finally a steam to soak in all the oils nutrition. The oil was blended specifically for my body’s composition to bring balance. With balance I experienced more groundedness in my nervous system and I noticed my emotional and mental bodies quiet.

I didn’t know one could experience such depth through gentleness.

This was hardly what I imagined a cleanse to feel like. It offered me so much loving attention to give my frazzled nervous system a chance to bend back into itself.

It was a soulful unwrapping. It was like all the parts of me that felt fragmented or separated from one another finally had a place to reconnect. I felt whole.

“I believed I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I just wanted to be a poem.” — Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma

I was simply being and noticing throughout my Panchakarma. Offline for a week. It was a reminder of how simply being is healing in itself. I noticed how doing this cleanse and the being began to blend, but being > doing.

Though the world doesn’t really value being. There is always a doing that needs to follow. This creates tension in the beingness. Then I came across Francis Weller’s work…

“What was learned was not meant for us alone, but was meant to be tossed like seed into a fertile mind, a waiting community, a hungry culture.”

… and his work shares how culture is created by trauma. We can create new culture with more whole versions of ourselves. That our relationship to food, housing, and cleansing is part of one giant circle of being, and in the openness to plural ways of being we find healing.

This experience inspired me to slowly allow the waters of life to shift my currents. I think this newsletter is a way to bring others into my waters, so we can share, rejoice and cry in one another’s beingness.

i feel potent enough for life to find me my essence is thick my being is proud of all it’s becomingsscattered broken pieces still lie awakethough they do not occupy as much space

Much love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

culture of meis the culture of youi ferment the old and the new creating an abundant form of the futuremelded together giving space for the third mefor you— homemade yogurt

In my last few letters I have been writing about the dynamics of food and our relationship to it. Below, like a good biology graduate, I have summarized key points in equation like statements:

food < > culture food creates culture culture creates food culture = sense of belonging food = sense of belonging sense of belonging = home 🔥 therefore: culture = food = home = belonging food = our body = health our body = our bodies = mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, astral bodies = koshas food = ecosystem, Mother Earth, the environment therefore: ecosystem = food = our bodies = health food = our mental health

In my last letter I wrote:

Food is more than food. It includes all of the stories and structures that bring people to a specific moment in time.

Growing up in North America in the 90s our relationship to food was unbecoming. Microwaveable dinners, pizza pops, pop tarts, ego waffles, snack packs — the era of packaged food felt like it was at an all time high. Deliciously addictive, nutritionally depleted, insulin spikes that look like a heart attack.

I remembering begging my mom to buy me Michelina’s microwaveable fettuccine Alfredo for lunch. I wanted to be like the other kids. I didn’t want the nutritionally abundant home cooked food that she was lovingly making for me and my siblings every day. (😥 sorry mom!) Yet somehow cereal slide by as a healthy breakfast option. And TBH I don’t think Kellogg’s made cereal from anything but corn starch and sugar.

Wild times. And a total disconnection to food. 🙁

This is the exact opposite of now. As I sip organic, sustainably sourced pu’er tea made with water from a spring close to an active volcano in Bali.

Yes that sounds ridiculously specific, or so hipster it hurts. I have no idea. But what is true for me now is I am obsessed with the quality of everything that I put into my body.

Food is more than food. It includes all of the stories and structures that bring people to a specific moment in time.

The underlying tone of this statement can be translated in many ways, including a person’s mental health.

The connection between severe cases of mental health and food was made to look cool in the 90s. For example, child friendly TV shows showing body dis-morphia like bulimia or anorexia, usually portrayed by a popular girl throwing up in the school bathroom, or eating just vegetable sticks for lunch. I don’t recall any help or solutions being presented on these TV shows. However I did receive the underlying message: to be cool means you have to be beautiful, skinny and with perfect (white) skin.

And we wonder why young girls and women struggle with feeling worthy, enough and demonstrate type A personality traits.

Emotional influence.

if I had no fear, what would I do? if I extinguished the should if I allowed myself to not be held by the container of my identity if I totally unraveled and felt into every version of existence, whether I aligned with it or not. to see a fuller scope of my reality to celebrate every way of living, of life to actually be judgement free indulging in the darkness indulging in every form of reality that feels too far from me what would I be? how could I be? why can I not see from this seat of existence? because I am choked, on my identity of who I believe I am to be without really thinking of me. so who shall I be?

At a very young age the socialization and demands from the female body were nudged into a particular direction that fed the male gaze and western beauty standards. 😡

The notion of nudging has been studied in linguistics. It is the use of certain language patterns, whether intentional or not, to provoke certain behavioural responses. Naturally, corporate America and the forces of marketing used ‘the nudge’ to encourage capitalistic agendas that were/are parallel to the American dream aka to being the popular girl in that show.

This demonstrates the sub-conscious narratives playing in our heads without us even knowing. It is not far fetched to say that we do not know what some of our own thoughts are.

Of course this feeds into our relationship to our body. Body positivity has been one of the most healing journeys I’ve ever been on.

When I lost most of my hair due to alopecia. I hated my body. I was so mad at her. I didn’t trust her anymore. It is the worst feeling to not like the skin you are in. It factors into every element of existence. It was unbearable; and no external solution, no one else’s voice could penetrate this shield of body negativity.

Scaffolding is moving slow. Building a foundation that doesn’t look like the game jenga.

I wrote love letters to different parts of my body every day for a year.

Words are powerful influences on our emotional body through our intellectual body.

Words also confuse our cellular intelligence.

In Ayurveda they talk about how the body knows what it needs to heal, all you have to do is listen. If it needs rest it will ask. If it needs food it will ask.

This subtle listening has become very confused due to our unclear relationship to food. Does my body need a cinnamon bun, or is it just addicted to sugar? Or perhaps it is craving sugar, but truly the signal is confused and my body needs fast fuel because it is protein depleted and needs energy. Likely the second statement is more accurate.

Our DNA tells our cells our desires. If you have a mild allergy to food, our body’s response will tell us we do not like that food. It is a brilliantly intelligent design.

But the question is, whose voices are talking to you?

Secretly telling you that you are fat, which is pushing you into a cycle of sad. Then the hormones released (or not released) due to your sadness crave a pick me up like alcohol or sugar. Then a furious cycle begins. 😓

Or, telling you that you are not worthy and this feeling suppresses your desire to connect with yourself and your body. In the act of suppression you loose your appetite and do not eat. But what you are really doing is telling your body and yourself you do not matter. So you don’t give it any attention through food or any other kind of noticing.

It is a psychological disaster, and our physical bodies carry the burden.

Food is also powerful, it influences our emotional body through our physical body.

Food has the ability to power you up, slow you down, bring you joy, make you feel irritated, etc. If you have ever paid attention to how you feel after you eat or drink something you will notice a change in how you feel, most commonly in your level of tired. This kind of noticing brings you body awareness.

Food causes a reaction in the body. This reaction can impact your hormonal balance, your neurological response, your blood pressure, and a million other parts of your body. Foods cause inflammation in the body, which has been linked to chronic illness and mental health issues.

Our bodies are smart AF. A reaction in one part creates a ripple effect for the rest of the body to adjust. A by-product of that ripple effect is an emotional response, even a subtle one. Being aware of food feelings is one step into living a life for your body, rather than for society.

Body awareness is your conscious observation of how different activities make you feel both physically and emotionally. Awareness and noticing is always the first step to healing, to being, and to seeing who you truly are.

Your body is on your team, and your noticing is a gift you can give yourself.

there are pieces of you grieving pieces that you didn’t know you were holding fragments of pains that do not ache so consciously for they sit in the crevices of our being for those pieces serve you as a magnifying glass bringing your attention your gaze to a place that needs your tenderness your touch your softness your breathe breathe deep

acknowledgement: this letter was inspired by the beautiful souls in my life, or adjacent to me, that suffer from mental health woes and/or body dysmorphia, and their supporters/caretakers. i have so much love and awe for the courage you hold amidst the suffering endured. this is not an isolated journey. you are so loved, exactly how you are. 😘

Much love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

I love cinnamon buns.

Markville mall, a mall close to where I grew up smelt like cinnamon buns. Sometimes after school we would get a lucky surprise from my mom and gorge on cinnamon buns. Bliss.

I moved home after gradating from university, and I decided to run a marathon. I would run around the cinnamon bun mall every Wednesday for my 10k run. So I ate a cinnamon bun every week. It tasted better than my dreams, each and every time.

A few weeks ago, I found gluten free, vegan cinnamon buns here in Uluwatu, where I live. Sold at a place called Salad Lab, which makes it even better. It brings me so much joy and nostalgia.

I have a long history of bun life.

i am on the road to my perfection i don’t need correctionplease don’t try to chance me i’ve been so patient baby every now and then i smell fire burning

i am coming alive

[adapted from the song Coming Alive by Two Together]

Then, a few weeks ago, crazed with finding gf buns, I ate 4 of them in one week. It was a delicious adventure before the compound tremors of sugars shook my body.

Aftermath: Visible noticing of low energy levels, weird dreams, moody irritable attitudes and sugar cravings magnify a million fold. An incredulous reminder of how food and mental health are so tangibly connected.

Example interlude: Someone I love cut dairy out of their diet, and it changed the landscape of their mental health so significantly they were able to come off of medication. It changed their lives. Their body was able to bounce back to its natural equilibrium state, self-healing.

As beautiful as this is, it is also not surprising and is absolutely horrifying when considering the mass production of milk and “fortification”/ manufacturing of milk that brands boast. (Link to previous article.)

Food is a continuum of physical growth and nurturing the bodies. In yoga, Ayurveda and spiritual sciences of India it is known that there are 5 bodies called koshas:

* annamaya kosha (physical body)

* pranamaya kosha (life force/ breathe body)

* manomaya kosha (mental body)

* vijnanamaya kosha (astral body/wisdom)

* anandamaya kosha (bliss body)

This ancient knowledge weaves together our spiritual and mental continuum in a way that is so complex it is simple. We are intertwined beings where a nudge in one place ripples through all systems.

We can see how we are all connected:ecosystem’s health = our physical health = our mental health

our questions invariably shape our answers

What is our truth when it comes to food?

I mean our ability to grasp our own truth is a journey of self discovery. Even upon “arrival” to this self-knowing it is likely that our truth is usually accessible on the best of days, where sight with your eyes, ears and heart is at its utmost clarity.

Many of us dilute our truth. Our truth in relation to food is not always straightforward.

In the moment before an edible experience I usually ask myself:

* Do I really want this?

* What purpose is this serving?

* Is this serving the best version of me?

* Is there something else, aside from hunger, that is provoking this choice?

When eating that 4th cinnamon bun, I asked myself these questions and in retrospect I was 1000% justifying a psychological desire of fulfillment, rather than a biological readiness for more sugar.

This cinnamon bun binge is also a classic modern experience. We have normalized binging, especially Netflix. (My current Netflix binge is Peaky Blinders.) Where we have a crazed need to consume all of a show, or eat all the things, until we feel sick or restless. It plays right into the hands of consumerism and materialism.

This crazed need for more is akin to the 7 cardinal sins that scaffold the confession aspect of Christianity. But more on this in a later letter.

I was mentally pacifying an emotion through food. A normalized emotional tactic. Where I denied my bodies to share its cellular intelligence with me by overriding my truth.

Food is more than food. It includes all of the stories and structures that bring people to a specific moment in time.

Food is remembering. Food is nostalgic.Food is home.

And tbh I was eating my feelings of home.

What feelings, if at all, have you been eating lately?

“If you intensify and complete your subjective emotions, visions, you see their relation to others’ emotions. It is not a question of choosing between them, one at the cost of another, but a matter of completion, of inclusion, an encompassing, unifying, and integrating which makes maturity.” — Anaïs Nins

Much love 💙💛💚Parul Auntie // @parulbee

what doesn’t seem obvious upfrontis a journey full of risks ripples through your life in unknown patterns intersecting with you at the most obscure and most obvious moments

I started a pop-up Indian restaurant in a small beach town at the height of the pandemic with my friend Marlon because we so missed Indian food.

It was the longest I hadn’t seem my family. It was the longest I had gone without Indian food. It was the quietest, weirdest time in the world.

Riddled with uncertainty, there in the darkness lies possibility.

It was called Thanks Auntie.Established June 2021 in Nosara, Costa Rica.

I/ Only Indian food can fill my belly… I am my dad

Living in small towns in Costa Rica, Indian food was far from abundant. Six months later, I could feel ancestral urges for Indian food and spices in a way that I have never experienced before. Probably the same feeling my parents have when they /need/ Indian food literally 2 days into a vacation. #IYKYK

When I was 11 (circa 1997) I went on a Euro-bus-trip with my family and my Bua’s family (Dad’s sister). My dad and Bua found an Indian restaurant in Paris that was literally closing and convinced the owner of their desi need for “good” food, food that filled their bellies and their hearts.

This desire for Indian food was at first one for my tastebuds, but it grew to be more than that…

It helped me heal my relationship to my culture and upbringing. Bringing forward sweet memories of my mom’s food and Ayurvedic wisdom that was common tongue in many Indian households. Like drinking warm haldi dood (translation: turmeric milk/ appropriated name: golden milk) before bed, especially when you’re not feeling well.

Another memory. Park picnics. Where a causal 40 Indian people gathered (essentially 5-6 families) and the aunties would bring a dish each creating a delicious, huge buffet of food. Feeding all of us, with space for second and third servings, plus we always ended up sharing with other park patrons, who were super excited and grateful for it.

In so many ways this desire for Indian food helped heal some of internalized racism that I, and we as third culture people, naturally embodied due to the pressure too assimilate, whilst living in North America.

This was a bittersweet remembering. Because my mom’s food was thousands of kilometres away, and tbh I didn’t really know how to cook Indian food. Yet I missed it so so much.

Then two things happened:

* A new found friendship with Marlon, the only other South Asian person I encountered living in Costa Rica, who also happens to be from Toronto. So much sharedness.

* I found a pack of garam masala in a grocery store.

Critical ingredients for a surprising upcoming (ad)venture.

all you need is a little momentuma nudge of outside encouragement, in any form for an idea to turn into a seed for that seed to sprout into a plant an unknown fruit tree

II/ Spice for our life please!

Six weeks into my friendship with Marlon, I proposed that we cook Indian food for each other with a singular pack of very expensive garam masala. Naturally this leap frogged to let’s cook for our friends, to let’s cook for everybody*! Ridiculous proposal for 2 non-chef people digital nomads. Within 24 hours this little idea got real when (1) a friend’s friend (Sonia!) was coming from NYC to Costa Rica and offered to bring us spices and (2) we were invited to host weekly dinners at a very popular vegan supper club. So we took this sign from the universe and planted the seed. Marlon and I moved into together, and started a self-directed 4-week ancestral, culinary, artist residency. As we explored cooking healthy (vegan, paleo-ish) Indian food for our community and our hearts. And so began our exploration into Auntiehood and spice life. (*Everybody = for the people in the small surf town we live in called Nosara that has just over 1000 person population.)

There is so much that happened in our Thanks Auntie journey. Like good millennials, we documented this for the internet archive that is our lives.

listen

watch

our journey

in summary 30 days 4 dinners hosted 4 unique menus 4 locations 130+ people fed over sold all events cooked in commercial kitchens in jungle kitchens in our tiny little home kitchen at a hotel at a supper club at two different restaurants broke records broke hearts revived the spice in life #auntiepower #thanksauntie

III/ Auntiehood is an act of care.

We called our restaurant experience Thanks Auntie. Because aunties represent care in so many cultures, including parts of South Asia. In my experience growing up in Punjabi culture — auntie is any woman that is older than you / closer to your mom’s age. So aunties held the maternal space in a home and community, usually the embodiment of a generous and knowledgeable spirit. Auntie’s represent care. The universal currency of care is food. Food is medicine, according to Ayurveda. Care is soul filling. So it is totally normal for an auntie to try to feed you, and usually overfeed you! But auntie wants you to know you are cared for. Auntiehood is the linchpin of families and communities. (See picnic story in earlier section as an example!) It is care for the whole, like an ecosystem based approach: If I'm caring for my community, I can't neglect the plants or the animals. I can't neglect the children or the elderly. Auntie's hold it down. They loop in our ancestors and our future through food, remedies and rituals. So many of us have benefited from that unspoken care of women, who's work is mostly thankless and silent. Thanks Auntie was paying homage to all the care we received from the maternal figures in our lives. We wanted to embody that generous spirit to offer to our community and each other. It seemed that being away from home it wasn’t just food that was missed, but the maternal care that feels unconditional. In our journey a few things became clear. Auntiehood is a form of care from the belly to the heart. Auntiehood is not a gendered experience. Auntiehood is a movement. A movement of care. It seems we are stronger and more gentle than we let on. We need more care in our lives. More care for ourselves, for each other and for Mother Earth. Now more than ever. Thanks Auntie! 🙏

“Care is everything that is done to maintain, continue, and re-pair ‘the world’ so that all can live in it as well as possible. That world includes… all that we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web.” — quote by Joan Tronto in Matters of Care by María Puig de la Bellacasa

Much love 💙💛💚Parul Auntie // @parulbee

☝🏽 I read you this newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

I am obsessed with food. At least 50% of what I do on the internet is look at recipes and food things. I dream about the meals I want to make. I have been watching the Food Channel since I was 9. I almost always have homemade snacks in my bag. Half my suitcase when being nomadic was (super)food related. I started a pop-up Indian restaurant called Thanks Auntie. I kiss my vegetables before I put them in the fridge. Food saved and changed my life when I fell sick with an autoimmune illness.

Food is medicine for the soul, for the heart, for the body.

(Many delicious threads to pull. So this will be a lil mini series of letters re: food.)

If we let things that are fragile break,do we create space for more resilience?

What is resilience? Is it being adaptive? Is it being regenerative? Perhaps resilience is measured by bounce-back-ability. But I imagine when you bounce “back” it is often a different location than where you once were. If you bounce to a more optimal placement I would define that as post-traumatic growth. (Though I am not assuming that resilience, adaptive, regenerative moments are triggered by a traumatic event.) Mother Earth, nature, ecosystems they all have a bounce-back-ability, resilience, adaptive, regenerative way about themselves. You can see it in a way a forest conducts itself. We humans call it a Panarchy cycle.

Definition: Panarchy cycle is “…a conceptual model that describes the ways in which complex systems of people and nature are dynamically organized and structured across scales of space and time. A panarchy is a set of nested adaptive cycles…”. It offers a way to look at interconnected systems that operate at different scales.

Definition and image below from Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary

This concept is used to discuss ecological resilience. Now, imagine a forest (which is a complex system). It is lush, has many organisms symbiotically living amongst each other, like fungi and trees. [conservation state]. Then lightening strikes a tree in the forest and starts a forest fire [release state]. Finally the fire simmers with the rain from a thunderstorm, spreading out the debris, seeds and living organisms across the forest area allowing for unique interactions that weren’t present in the conservation state [reorganization state]. The forest is ultimately different after the fire, and some organisms are thriving whereas others may not be, even though they may have been dominate before. This disallows one species to dominate for an extended period of time [exploitation state]. (Adapted from Jennie Phillips work)

Thus keeping ecosystems in check and balance. This concept has become a popular design tool; taking lessons from nature’s regenerative tendencies. This is especially important when trying to reverse the significant impact humans have had on the behaviour of the natural world, also known as the Anthropocene era. The spiritual version of this concept could also be known the cycle of death and rebirth.

The human body is far from fragile. Like the forest, it is complex, regenerative and naturally self constructed system. Imagine each of your cells (like trees in a forest) are individual autonomous “beings” that collectively create your body. It is f*****g brilliant. Our cells are interdependent and connected through our cellular cycles. Though we are still a giant porous sack of cells. Impacted by environmental factors: chemical, physical, emotional, and energetic. Similar to Mother Earth, toxic chemicals in one geo-region can and will impact geographies well beyond a catastrophe. We see this in the pollution of our soil through industrialization of the food industry. The most known pollutant guised as a pesticide called Monsanto aka round up has poisoned North American soil and leeched into our water systems. With the increase in toxicity of this pollutant we’ve seen a rise in many diseases such as leaky gut syndrome, gluten intolerance, autism, type 2 diabetes, and various autoimmune conditions. You can listen to more on this here, watch a documentary called Kiss the Ground and a Michael Pollen Netflix series called Cooked. Anyone that has had a health journey that is elusive to western medicine would have likely already done this kind of research. Because they have had to help their bodies heal and the explanation and resolution was not easily visible. They had to find their own resilience. I know this because I am one of those people. I “have” an autoimmune disease called alopecia. I don't resonate with this diagnosis because the premise of an autoimmune disease is that your body is attacking itself. Now, why would my smart body want to hurt itself? Like Mother Earth managing the disposal of pollutants caused by humans. My body is doing the same — managing the pollutants that humans before my time have left for my body to soak up. However, this health journey has provoked me to open my eyes to the macro reality: if the earth is sick, my body will be too. It has made me resilient. It has made me knowledgeable on how to care for my body. It has allowed my personal actions to be aligned with the Earth’s healing. Like understanding the immense value of supporting local farms, eating organic, and not supporting mass industry, businesses, farming techniques. Chronic illness creates people who are more resilient. (Akin to many Buddhist philosophies around suffering.) By allowing your body rest from the pollutants, your body can use its resilience to naturally bounce forward, instead of backwards. Our bodies are a great example of post-traumatic growth in this breaking and mending.

A Japanese pottery process called Kintsugi is the mending of broken pottery using gold lacquer. The idea is that breaking and mending is more beautiful than any whole “perfect” object. Creating a beauty so unique that it cannot be compared to any other. Similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which is an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.

Is that not the definition of people?

The collection of our trauma, scars and idiosyncrasies is what builds our character, our personality, our strengths. Our imperfections is what make us perfect.

The “old world” says that mistakes are shameful and are shunned. The old world being the embodiment of the American Dream, the post World War 2 mentality of perfection, gender roles, nuclear families. This is still seen in the instagram influencer posed lifestyle shots. Glamourizing the bliss of “perfect everything”. Leveraging the definition of perfect that is held together by ideals of success that white western society constructed, such as beauty standards, vacations and luxury goods. (Living in Bali I get to see the constructed identities of many popular influencers. Yay! 🙃)

The new world, the world of today and tomorrow, desires imperfection aka realness, authenticity, and the moments of life that are truly full of s**t. What is in the way is the way.

Giving us permission to break and have real world examples of how to mend again. #mentalhealth

Liminal moments where everything is possible and impossible within ourselves.

What is liminal? Autumn is that liminal space between beauty and bleakness balancing the edges of unease as cool air approaches longing for the warmth of the sun

Transition moments give us energy.

in the layers autumn bringstend to your harvestthe fruits of your labour are left for the summerand autumn harvest brings forward heartinessheart filled nessan earthy densityborn in the ground feel your grounded-ness

Like the health of the Earth, we need to honour the soil and honour our bodies. I wish for you infinite growth in whatever direction you choose, in whatever trauma you face. Post traumatic growth, healthy coping mechanisms and care is before us if we ask and reach.

Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.

So too will we, and mother earth.

Much love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

☝🏽 I read you this newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

stars are raining on the roofclouding the sky and we are still herewondering why we are the only living beingsin the galaxythe audacity to believe that to be truethat just because you can’t see doesn’t mean there isn’t more 

just the way a flower growsbees visionfluorescent patterns targeting where nectar grows for honey makers visions of their need 

so you see we see differently no matter where we goor who we are me and you will never find truthsince your view of reality is made of lessons and feelings a perspective that grew shaped by time even when i think your mine and i know all there is to knowwell i am not youi believe with my mindmake stories of the truthand here we are a reality of realities invisible visibleof the many beings Coexisting we aren’t alonewe never areyet there is only one youand you are alone in your truth 

song in the audio is Zucht 2 by Machinefabriek

thanks for reading!find me on the internet and say hi 🙂💛

☝🏽 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.

the complexity lies in the intricacy

where one moments startsthe other endsheld together by trustthat all of this lifeis truly meant to beas you area tapestry weaved so delicately

Many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape. — Bell Hooks

it’s hard to rememberin a city so big it is difficult to surrenderdrowning in street lightsendless flow of noise and light transmuted to different stories in different bodies

no central focusno beating hearteach pocket, each neighbourhood an amoeba with mildly porous boundaries firmer boundaries in the minds eye that east and west separated by a river of concrete, the 405 and all its car heatdivisions we create are illusions we meet

the connection that we seekis in the peak of the isolation that we meet an inner begging to be seen when everything feels torrential tormenting terrifying glacial epidermis horizons dimmed but then you get to seethe light within

Made for societySomething I don’t want to be, you’ll seeOnce I’m free

I was raised to be a womanI was raised to please a manI don’t understand why I have to sacrifice everything that I am

— from the song “Balance Doubt” by hapi & Cellar Door

it is hard not to fall to your knees when thinking through all the moments you’ve survived

Everything is waiting for you by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the dramaas if you were alone. As if lifewere a progressive and cunning crimewith no witness to the tiny hiddentransgressions. To feel abandoned is to denythe intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,even you, at times, have felt the grand array;the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowdingout your solo voice. You must notethe way the soap dish enables you,or the window latch grants you freedom.Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.The stairs are your mentor of thingsto come, the doors have always been thereto frighten you and invite you,and the tiny speaker in the phoneis your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into theconversation. The kettle is singingeven as it pours you a drink, the cooking potshave left their arrogant aloofness andseen the good in you at last. All the birdsand creatures of the world are unutterablythemselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The uprise in awareness of emotional health allows us to believe that we are not delusional or “crazy” for feeling deep grief and sadness when we feel disconnected from others.

It is called primal panic.

This is when you need to be connected to people in order to survive. You find safety in emotional connection. And you experience danger or threat in emotional disconnection.

Society values people who are independent and self sufficient. But really — who the f**k is independent?

There are no islands of people. Your plate of fruits, vegetables, proteins is international. It is likely not from your backyard (but if it is that is so, that is beautiful), it is unlikely all grown within 100km of your home.

You’re out of season orange. The apple you crave in the tropics. Is from all geographies.

Self sufficiency is a fallacy.

It is propagated by capitalism. Since individualism is a highly lucrative business. When everyone needs their own everything.

Your emotions are your power. Your feelings are valid. Our need for connectedness is real.Interconnected is simply a fact.

It is felt the ground we share.The planet we live on

Do everything for your nervous system.

(I do.)Your nervous is where your groundedness lives.It is your internal home.It is your compass to now.

what does your nervous system do when you come into a familiar spacea place you know where everything goes

does staleness arise?or uniformitybanin sentiments is this a feeling you despise? where does one repairwhen there is no home to be thereholding you the container of your existence outside the skin you need some resistance from the external flow of things a safe place to recollectto piece together versions of you that need mending and rest as the tides of the world ripplechaotic waves in your bodythere is a need to protect to find a safe cornera Homesafety in familiar

to manage all that lingersnewness uncertainty where your heart can heal your nervous system can mendfrom the ruptures of the worldbecause it feels like there is no end

Home has been a fluid space.

how do you be tall when the earth below your toes keeps moving and rolling, over and over. how do you be tall when inside your energy feels small? how do you be tall when all you want to do is crawl up in a ball?

with courage from the sun. holding from the moon. gazing to the stars. you realize you are brighter than you think you are.

With the heat of the day. Caressing your face. Life force energy washing you, bathing you with the light of life. How can you not acknowledge the wonder of life. When the sun turns seeds into trees. Photosynthesis.

to be in a place for long enoughto sit still for awhileto find that inner earth to ground into the now

Much love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

☝🏽 I read you this newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

So I signed a 1 year lease in Bali…

It has been a long while since I actively chose to commit to a place and space for a duration longer than a few months.

A definition of commitment issues is feeling the suffocation of freedom when making a long(er) term decision. Commitment issues is often a misdiagnosis when following non-traditional living patterns. From outside my body, and in the eyes of others, my migration patterns may look sporadic, spontaneous, or even jagged.

Despite me growing up in the same home for 25 years, the nomadic characteristics I embody has no visible catalyst. Though the inquiry of what is home and what does belonging mean has been the core thesis underpinning the work I do and art I create.

A little summary of my living patterns:

* I haven’t lived in one place longer than 1.5 years since I left for university.

* I have not resided in Canada longer than 10 months since I was 16, with the exception of 2013 & 2018 (personal implosion years) and 2020 (global pandemic).

* I have been known to take mini-retirements. This is when I work intensely for 1-2 years and travel/live elsewhere for 3-7months. I have done this several times.

In 2020 I decided I wanted to live in Asia. Tired of the monotony of western living, I desired to live in a place that embodied qualities of community, culture and care, and chaos. The lack of distinct, visible organization of space allows for more possibility. Chaos and creativity are inextricably linked.

So, I got rid of my place. I packed all my belongings.Preparing myself to fly April 2020 to Bali. Readying to depart Canada for an unknown period of time.

However, the universe had other plans, for all of us.

Cancelled flights.No place to live. Global pandemic, an uncertainty of a different kind.

So I decided to be nomadic in the city I grew up in, Toronto. Hopping sublet to sublet. Living with a beautiful variety of friends. I lived at 7 different intersections over the course of 10 months, until finally I decided to hop countries.

List of intersections I lived at: King + John // Montrose + Dundas // College + Dovercourt // My Parent’s House // Lansdowne + Dupont // Queen E + Broadview // Danforth + Pape // Costa Rica

Each move refined and decreased the amount of items I brought with me. Slowly defining what I need to feel at home.

* Kitchen: my spices, superfoods, tea strainer, measuring spoons, vitamix blender, instant pot, my breville tea kettle, a few mason jars

* Bedroom: fabric to decorate my space, crystals, incense, candles, little notes to self, a few key books, floor cushions / yoga mat, clothes

(I am really getting into the details here, but I feel like the details offer insight and avoid abstraction.)

As the amount of things I could travel with became smaller and smaller, my definition of home became looser and more specific simultaneously. I found more versatile ways to feel a sense of home, which is a beautiful, spacious knowing to have of oneself.

Home for me is my room to cocoon inHome for me is running 🏃‍♀️Home for me is cooking and sharing meals 🍳Home for me is the smell of incense, a hot cup of tea, a comfy place to sit and read/write. 📓Home for me is sitting in a cafe sipping coffee or wine writing, lost in thought. ☕Home for me is when I am hidden under my hood with a scarf tucked around my neck whilst in my emotional space. (Very cat like 😽)Home for me is sitting next to a crackling fire, feeling all toasty and warm. 🔥Home for me is when my nervous system finds ease, wherever that may be.

As you may, or may not, know, I have worked in the city / real estate sector for over a decade. Thinking about city dynamics and housing rights is engrained in me.

Housing is a basic need for human life. Shelter is foundational to everyones physical, mental and emotional health. Yet the commodification of housing has created a very fucked up dynamic (to say in short). Denying people basic rights to live. Movements in Canada, and cities across the globe have been activated pushing forward housing as a human right. Check out the work of former United Nation’s Special Rapporteur of Right to Housing Leilani Farha and a film she is in called Push.

i don’t know wtf moving somewhere means i mean i just live here, for now.living is just living what does moving mean?i guess bringing a big ass pile of stuff?maybe it’s bringing all your stuff?i guess we all just assume that we have lots of stuffenough to be like m-o-v-i—n-g a f*****g ordeal a pain in the ass if you would.

but what if you had less stuff?is that when we say we are travelling?to some, there is a clear line between moving and travellingbut increasingly the line is blurring. the housing and hospitality industry are converging,the pretext of co-live spaces, or airbnb for that matteris that you can live anywhere, everywhere, anytime.the sticky part is you begin to feel like a commoditybeing extracted for rent — the smallest amount of square footage to feel comfortable enough while they suckle your monies.Wait, isn’t that parallel to what long term renting feels like?

however long term renting feels more precarioussince the person renting has an aversion to moving desiring a sense of permanency, a static state of living. here gives a space for insecurity housing insecurity

ownership evokes this sense of minea truer notion of permanence a sense of safety and security that cannot be revoked*. (arrow down to paragraph)

perhaps we desire stillness and permanence in our external world in hopes to bring quiet and peace in our internal world.a home for all our stuffall our hobbiesall our fashion all the things we would need during different seasons, different emotional states, different life stagesi get it

*Revokedon Turtle Islanda place we now call North America the city you reside in is born on stolen land so even your purchased land is not really yourshow can it be? when it was never meant to be sold promises broken, treaties unfulfilled, dismissing, dismantling Indigenous peoplesfor the sake of your sense of safety and security

(arrow to here)oh yah, and wealth accumulation we want and need monies to livesomehow (more complicated story) we have tied home and moneyintertwined in a knot so tighthome is where the heart is and we’ve sold our heart falling to the guise of safety and security our hearts vision is impairedobscuring our true needs. uncertainty is the only certainty.

Thinking about home is not a simple life task.If you feel its importance to yourself and your familystretch that out to history and society. Find where you sit on the spectrum of privilege and feel gratitude.Share support to those who need more care.Be mindful where you reside.

Much love 💙💛💚Parul // @parulbee

☝🏽 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 lifewhat 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 mindsetit unlocks thinking allowing for invisible connections of complex mattersto 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 teadrinking timebringing 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 attitudesmixed with confused states moment after moment passingmaking the present state feel unaccompanied like i am lost in the blisswhich makes it hard to be with these non linear statesare confused right out of the gate

ii//discomfort i don’t want to be withyet conformityis 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

☝🏽 I read you this newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

I dyed my hair silver. My new do has racer stripes, and is the edgiest, funkiest hair cut my imagination could wander to. I think it looks dope AF. 🔥

I never thought I could ever be good at surfing. I tried to surf in different places in the world in different moments of my life and loved it. I currently live in a surf town called Uluwatu on the island of Bali in Indonesia, and make attempts to surf regularly. Every time I get in the water I feel equally terrified and exhilarated. 🙃

Why the f*** am I sharing these two seemingly random life facts with you? Well, they both have something in common:

Both of these ideas and now actions were so far fetched from my world view that a past version of myself didn’t even make them an aspiration, a goal, a dream. Basically, I didn’t even know these things were a possibility for me.

Now that I am doing both of these things, and love them. I realize that I have wanted to do them for a long time. I just never admitted it to myself.

And obviously the natural next question is, why did I believe that they were not possible for me?

TBH I never saw anyone who liked like me with wild hair or surfing when I was growing up. Sure people on TV, but like they weren’t real to me. Taking it a step further having a unique hairstyle was un-welcomed and not allowed in my upbringing. And surfing was a terrifying act since my family didn’t venture to far into the ocean.

When taking a mini survey of other brown folks I realized there is a shared experience:

* Brown folks are scared of the ocean, of water, and so many don’t know how to swim. Nature is a wild place and we don’t adventure there.

* Wild hair is the antithesis of Asian beauty standards.

* I guess surfing is also the antithesis of Asian beauty standards — tanned skin is not aligned with the archaic belief that only fair skin is beautiful.

This was further validated by:

—> finding IG accounts like @browngirloutdoorworld (28K followers too 🤯)

—> campaigns highlighting the internalized colourism that asians are subjected to by others in their culture and as a result subjected themselves too.

—> then my own hair journey of #reclaimingbald and how challenging and interesting that was.

Now take this thought and extrapolate it to your whole life. WTF else are you not even allowing yourself to be, or dream of?

Are you making space for little cracks of different to pierce into your life?

Are you finding little (new) courageous things to do each week?

Do you live within the bounds of your comfort, or have you found some of your edges? If you have found some of your edges, what are you doing with them?

These questions are practical, but if you are so far from removed from exploring outside your norm they may seem philosophical or even esoteric. I lean into the beautiful writing of Francis Weller to share his thoughts on the human experience:

“Every one of us will be taken to the edge, pulled by the gravity of soul to engage the rigors of ripening us into something substantial. No one is exempt. Imagine if we could see the circumstances of our lives as the raw material necessary for the movement across the threshold into our adult lives. This could free us in radical ways. From a mythic perspective, these are the conditions that can cook the soul and bring us closer to the mystery of our own singular incarnation.” — Francis Weller, In the Absence of the Ordinary

Taken to the edge.

Each decision you make you have a choice to be taken to the edge or stay within your zone of comfort. This new hair do and surfing are a by-product of so, so, so many mini decisions to push my personal boundaries of my identity, therefore my actions, and inevitability where I dream and spend my energy.

Taken to the edge

Have we become passive at pursuing the edges of our existence? There are some who still pursue the edges, generally those who have nothing to lose. Or perhaps life’s seat is feeling very comfortable, and when you find edges they are quickly classified as feeling anxious or anxiety.

Taken to the edge

What would it mean to dig beyond the realms of socially acceptable dreams, and to imagine a life beyond the path laid before you?

To carve a new path, to pioneer or forge a new existence, which isn’t necessarily required, but generally experienced by each person within themselves in large or small ways.

Walking the line of fear, discomfort and possibility.

I offer you a poema reminder to feed your heartyour dreamsyour soul

dream plants

do you really need to water them all the time?i don’t know think somaybe it’s like a succulent needs exposure to the sun and beingness blink your eyes and it sprouts

instructions : plant the seedforget about it aka don’t obsess over it remember it from time to time subconsciously if you really believe it you will oh ya and when you plant the seedgive it lots of kisses and attentionyour whole heart has got to desire itbecause it grows out of love and other things too tbh I cannot dismiss privilege, access, safety sidebar emotions are your powerthey are the true planters of your seedand belief digs the holeburying it deep enough to be lovingly nourished the sprout comes with faithand letting go of the howlike planting a tomato planttell me you know the physiology of its growth patterns bless the science students out there for most of yah, you have no f*****g clue and that’s okayno needyou trust with time and nurtureit too shall unfold the how is contained in the mystery of life and the fruits, or vegetables, of your loving attention is revealeddid you wish it to existence? Or manifest it? or let it be the beingness persists

grateful for your presence, your attention and your energy much love ❤️ 🤎Parul

p.s. please do leave a comment. I would love to know how this resonates. 😘

☝🏽 I read you this newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

The process of turning tea leaves into dried tea is time full and laborious. Picking, shaking, steaming, rolling, withering, drying, roasting, fermenting are some of the techniques used in traditional tea processing. The processing method changes the shape of the tea, long strands, rolled balls, tea cakes, etc.

When steeping tea, especially rolled tea, it takes times for the tea leaves to unfurl in the hot water. Each steep adding new layers of complexity to the cup.

Tea rarely tastes best in its first steep. Time is a critical ingredient in any tea leaf’s life.

(I prefer the second or third steep. This may sound bizarre if you have not experienced traditionally processed and brewed teas. I was shocked at how richly coloured high quality tea turned within seconds of being steeped in hot water.)

i unfold faster than you think slower than you desire — rolled tea

Can we not say the same for life? for a lover? for knowledge? for success?

the warm touch of tea to my skin, to my heartchannel of soily earth reaching my corefragrance of ancient unveils piecesonly the patient sun gives space for

Despite the ease that classification offers in our shared language and understanding things. It is important to also acknowledge that classifications create imaginary boundaries. It creates preconceptions and a cause for argument. If held tightly, classifications can limit an experience and world view(s).

The classifications of tea lives primarily on a spectrum of processing methods and location where the tea was grown (the temperament of the land). With ever changing elements and the climate crisis, how can one say the micro climates of geography hold true to grow the type of tea this land once held?

In holding classification of tea lightly, it offers so much wisdom:

* It gives space for multiple versions of knowledge to exist (not just scientific or intellectual knowledge), but also intuitive knowings

* Non attachment to identity, allowing space for plurality and acceptance of a more whole version of self

* Tea embodies the practice of giving itself unconditionally in ways that are innate to its existence. To simply be and to give to yourself.

Tea is a daily practice of self cultivation and awareness.

You need three things to brew tea:Tea (leaves)WaterCompassion

What is compassion?It is reverence for life It is living in alignment with your heart It is being in harmony, with nature, with yourself It is true love

Tea becomes part of you.Tea becomes our gift.

So… what does steeping yourself look like?

Stay safe and healthy out there.Much love ❤️ 🤎Parul@parulbee

☝🏽 I read you this newsletter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

i am collectingin process ofdrinking the elixir of ancient timestea

I recently completed Tea School. Yes, tea school, where I drank tea for hours discussing its history, ways of preparation, qualities, its beauty and of course the diversity amongst the tea plant Camelia Senensis.

(I learnt that tea is only considered tea when it comes from this plant, herbal teas are not really tea, rather flowers steeped in hot water. A rude awakening for me tbh.)

My love for tea and tea ware is strongly connected to my spiritual, emotional and physical practices. I feel most at home and safe when I am with a glass of, or in bath full of hot water. Little did I know that there is a whole life of tea waiting to be uncovered. I found poetry, meditation, stillness, joy, community and life lessons in tea.

the warm touch of tea to my skinto my heartsips of liquid soil reaching my coreunveils pieces only the patient sun gives space for

There is depth in layers. Complexity is a state of balance. Where each element finds its own space and sense of worth, blossoming and unraveling with time. Like tea. To be over steeped is to overcompensate, or under steep in fear of being too much.

between cups as tea meets waterspace between the leaves expands allowing space for the taste of water to be filledas the tea breathesdancing in her spaciousness blossoming

In my experience, tea can sit at the base of your heart. Giving you space to open folds within you.

The history of tea is full of lots of contradictions. The leaves and practice of tea is rich with complexity and care. Like many ancient practices, the history and knowledge around tea holds plurality. Where books are not absolute. Love and intuition are your guides. Certainty of knowledge comes from the ego.

Studying tea increases appreciation of uncertainty, patience and trust within ones own intuition. It offers no clear cut answers like modern practices emphasize and increasingly value.

The history of tea dates back to the Han Dynasty in China 602 BC-220 AD. It’s history presents the question: How can you know the truth?

There are many stories about the origin of tea. My favourite (so far) is:

Shen Nong 2237 BC

Credited with discovery of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, permaculture, and tea. He was clearly a receptive person. They say he had a mirror in his stomache since he was able to see the properties of plants in his body.

Can one person do all of this in a lifetime? Can one person be the sole discoverer of tea? Unlikely. But the story reflects some lessons and ideas:

* Harmony with nature : he was in harmony with nature, tea is in harmony with nature

* Self awareness : his mirror stomach reflects his presence to the acute moment

* No person is an island : we are part of an ecosystem larger than our selves

The stories of tea are rooted in many things, including nature. It is a practice I have found deep comfort and grounding in. Drinking leaves from trees that are 500-600 years old elicits a feeling for me, whether it is a placebo, or the energetics of something so old, so loved, so cared, offered in one single cup.

tealetting your soul tether to the earthgrounding

More tea thought to come. The knowledge and practice is still stepping within. 😌🖤

Stay safe and healthy out there.Much love ❤️ 🤎Parul@parulbee

☝🏽 I read you this poetic meditation, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

i open at the close

a few words that embody deep imaginings, as riddles do.

i open at the close

imagining the acceptance of the inevitable, death. 

i open at the close

a heart closed by accident. trauma, grief, hurtful experiences. separation of self. as you evict yourself to place of painful retreat. this pain feels controllable, manageable. because you are the decision maker, and unpredictable harm from others cannot enter. 

i open at the close

by closing, you see yourself clearly. water settling. even though anxieties are flailing. you be with the moments of you. the external distractions quiet. a tender chance to find a deeper truth of self. to open yourself to a whole new way of feeling, being, seeing.

i open at the close

the brilliant bloom of a flower starts, pre-blossom, closed. as she collects her nutrition. awaiting the right moment to reveal. allowing space for wonder and delight to linger. the glorious blossom, more precious when pre-bloom was seen.

i open at the close

this feels like a meditation

i open at the close

tears streaming. releasing internalized crystallized emotions held so tenderly in your nervous system. emotions that may be ancestral, genetically passed on. from a time when howling at the moon felt so appropriate, i mean it still does. to release alongside mother nature’s rhythms. 

i open at the close

can you feel your cells? the cellular trembling. the rumble that gives your whole body an electric feeling.

maybe you’re following me. maybe you’re not. in the abstraction lies pieces of your truth. dormant. waiting for a moment to be with you. the abstract layer creates space between you and your identity. where you hold so close who you are. dampening the sounds of your whole “kinky” self. until this abstract moment where you give space, breathe, beingness to the plural versions of you. that crumble when boxed. suffocate in titles. disabled by your self constructed identity.

breathe

find what wants to open at the close

non linearity

i believe

☝🏽 I read you this letter, or you can read it yourself! 👇🏽

You use whole seeds to get the most out of the spice, out of life.

To get the healing and nutritious elements that spice does to food. We think of spice as a flavour profile. As adding texture to our food. This is tangled in our pursuit of pleasure and joy, which can be pursued rather thoughtlessly, not realizing that these emotions offer so many more cues of richness.

Pleasure and joy, in a non-hedonistic fashion, can offer a form of nutrition to us on a cellular level. Spices in this case are seeds, plants, whole foods that transform the digestion of certain foods. 

Ancient medicines, like Chinese and Ayurvedic medicinal lineages, highlight how different flavours activate different receptors on your tongue and when a receptor is stimulated it provokes a neurological response that can lead to many outcomes like -- stimulating digestive enzymes, promoting emotional hormones, suppressing or invigorating organ productivity. These are not banal results. 

These are not internal responses that you would notice in the immediate term. However, similar to achieving your goals, it takes many little steps to find yourself at a welcomed or unwelcomed result. In the case of health, many folks experience overt negative symptoms before they choose to respond, or even inquire. This is troublesome; imagine all the steps that led you to this uncomfortable or ill place that now need to be undone.

Too often silence is dismissed.

Silence between the notes is where music is made. Silence is where all the frequencies make a sound at the same time in balance, in harmony. It is not a void. 

Chasing rainbows. Chasing waterfalls. Chasing joy.

There is a cellular response that happens, you know what I am talking about even if you don't know the science; when you are in nature, when you see something awe-striking. It takes your literal breath away. It releases happy endorphins. You feel f*ckin bliss. 

Our cellular intelligence is strong.

It is real. It knows what you may not overtly know. That you hate tomatoes because you do, but really it is because your body has a low key intolerance/ allergy / discomfort when eating tomatoes. Then you look more broadly and you realize that tomatoes are part of a group of foods called nightshades and those foods are difficult to digest for certain people.

Our bodies are poetic. They truly are. There is no way around it.

A dear friend, Rhea, shared a perspective that I have held close to my heart. She said, paraphrasing here, that people who get sick, who suffer from chronic illness, or have a health scare that provokes them to investigate their bodies are building resilience.  By learning about our bodies we are building resilience in the body.

Illness builds resilience.

As a person who has suffered from an autoimmune disorder. I feel this truth. I know how to care for my body. I am able to listen to the small queues my body gives me. I am sensitive and aware of its idiosyncrasies. Bless. 

For anyone that thinks sickness, illness, chronic or acute health woes makes you weak. Perhaps you're missing a whole paradigm where that is untrue. It makes you strong. It makes you adaptable. It brings a brilliance to your resilience. 

Similarly, compassion, emotional intelligence, spiritual awakenings, many people find depth in these paths of existence after experiencing trauma in their life. Their ability to understand, see and feel things is sensitive, acute, aware. 

It has been the base of many discussions: How do you build compassion or emotional awareness? Do you always have to experience trauma and be on the path of recovery from it to find true depth? I hope that is not the case, but then again who hasn't experienced a form of trauma? Even the most entitled person has things they are fearful, shameful, or anxious about at times. If they dug into those emotions maybe I bet they’d find seeded trauma.

A friend was hosting a space called Trauma to Triumph. I scoffed at that name. It is so gimmicky, borderline cliche. Well f*ck, what I have learnt in my time of life exploration is that they are cliches for a goddamn reason. I can already feel my teenage self is rolling her eyes so hard right now. 

Shall we review?

It's not you, it's me. 

// Everyone is projecting their s**t onto everyone else. When someone does something you like, or not, it is not usually because of you but  the action is confirming an internal narrative that keeps honest their understanding of self.

I am scared shitless.

// Your colon is the emotional centre of your body. So when you are terrified a contraction in your colon would be a totally valid response, and that would squeeze poop out of your body! eep!

Time heals all wounds.

// Truly when I am hurt and broken I despise this statement. But when I am healed and feel more whole than I did before I was broken, I realize that the wound was a good thing and I needed time to heal and time to see that. More on post-traumatic growth in a later letter.

Health is wealth. 

// Well ain’t that the truth. Even Steve Jobs and every bazillionaire has shared while experiencing intense illness or on their deathbed. Our health is multifold: emotional, spiritual, physical and mental. If we don’t care for it what do we truly have?

Cliches became cliches for a reason.

I am sure a wise person summarized their life learnings into what we now know as a cliche and shared it with a young person who was so far from the wisdom that they too scoffed at the statement.

To further this exploration here is a quote from Francis Weller, whose work I have become submerged in. His words are perhaps a reminder to not hold onto life so tightly, allowing us to age more gracefully. 

"We become elders by accepting life on life’s terms, gradually relinquishing the fight to have it fit our expectations. .... They [elders] have made peace with the imperfections that are inherent in life. The wounds and losses they encounter, become the material with which to shape a life of meaning, humour, joy, depth and beauty. They do not push away suffering, nor wish to be exempt from the inevitable losses that come. They know the futility of such a wish. This acceptance, in turn, frees them to radically receive the stunning elegance of the world." - Francis Weller 

I’ll let you ponder that. I know I am.   

Here’s an exercise for you to explore yourself. A journal prompt if that’s your vibe:

What are the cliches that irritate you the most? Write them down. Sit with them. Write down scenarios where you experienced them. Maybe you will find a) patterns you do not like b) unresolved trauma. If so, ask these questions as a way to dig and unroot: When was the first time you felt this way? Can you bring compassion to that self?

Hot Shares:

Check out Rhea’s healing music. It is fire and will put your nervous system at ease.

Here is a cute recipe that I f*cked with for Diwali when I made a vegan kheer (Indian rice pudding).

Stay safe and healthy out there. Much love ❤️ Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

even your existence. Taking no action, or remaining neutral is political. Art is political. Art is also a container to capture the politics of our time.

We are so tangled. We are so enmeshed in one another. That it feels wild to understand when my thoughts end and yours start.

How do we untangle? How do we untangle me from you? How do we untangle capitalism and colonialism? Isn’t one a means to another? Where your health is now my health? Where conquering and colonizing was a form to derive wealth and amass power — the foundation of the capitalism we know today.

This entanglement is likely by design. The haiku of our existence. We are all composed of similar forms without even realizing that it is part of our base programming. Let’s call it assimilation.

interlude

short version : Let’s call it assimilation.

long version : Let’s call it assimilation. Because assimilation creates a monoculture and a monoculture is more profitable

longer version : Let’s call it assimilation. Because assimilation creates a monoculture and a monoculture is more profitable. When everyone wants and needs the same things, it is much easier for companies to profit off it. The desires of capitalism are deeply linked to our desires and decision making. So colonization is very profitable in the short term and even more profitable in the long term.

conquereda statement of superiorityignorant powerfull of ego

like how British conquered Indiaextracting India’s culture, precious stones and spicethe outcomewas butter chicken and chai lattesa wasted effortand generations of Indiansimpacted

for to conquer is to occupy a space,because you can and you want tothen to discard it just it as if it were nothing

thiscreates a fracture in humanity

it collapsesone’s sense of worthto the weightof external pressuresthat is what we callassimilation

our behavioursour thoughtsmolded by this facade

disabling our spiritour essencesuppressedoppressedour identities are being compressed

let’s not assume the west is besttheir rulestheir regulationsremove humanityfrom the equation

Wealth transmuted to social good creates nobles.

We observe how some of the world’s most powerful, wealthy people have donated absorbent amounts of money. Creating charitable funds, directing the movement of that money to charitable causes they see worthy and calling it philanthropy. Through their philanthropic work they become thought leaders in (1) giving, (2) the sector they choose to donate their money, (3) the cause that they are so far removed from.

We begin to see these (wealthy) people as noble because the act of giving is noble.

But it is truly fucked up. Rich, mainly white folks so deeply removed from social issues are steering social change with their money.

Thankfully over the last few years, especially over this COVID year, we have cracked this facade. Seeing systems and people more clearly. Seeing wealth hoarding, despite mass struggle. Seeing how government and corporations disable systems that would empower the individual (e.g. tax evasion, disbanding workers union, unpaid sick days, etc.).

Yet at the individual level we still carry this sense of giving as being noble. It is baked into our haiku, our base programming.

Giving = good, blessed, saved by godGiving a lot = power, authority, positive visibilityGiving a lot when you too are in need, depending on scale = stupid, bad politics, devastating

Anand Giridharadas’ book Winner Takes All digs into the concept giving; expressing how the system is designed for the highest performers in capitalism to win. How there are many layers of socializing (aka brainwashing) that continue to reinforce the idea that wealthy people can help through philanthropy, rather than distribution of wealth, or real actions that would enable more ladders to equality.

Note: Do not read capitalism as money. When I use the word capitalism I am describing the modalities in which money and wealth are created — on the back of other human beings. The insatiable hoarding of wealth and blatant dismissal of human life and Mother Earth. It is truly terrifying.

to get a vaccinated, or not to vaccinated?

Is not the question.

Whether you believe in the vaccine or not. How the vaccine intellectual property has been handled by rich countries is a reflection of fucked up values and capitalisms priorities. This is deeply disturbing.

Facts:October 2020 — India and South Africa wrote a letter to the World Trade Organization asking for the vaccine patents to be negotiated so the global south (poorer countries) could locally produce a generic version to serve their population.

This was denied by USA and other rich Western European countries. This has limited supply production and blocked affordable access to the vaccine for 100+ countries. Somehow the decision to share critical knowledge was contentious. It was only approved on Wednesday, May 5 after a much delayed and heated debate led by the United State and other rich countries.

Wild.

Wild that rich, western countries did not want to share intel to save billions of lives.

Wild that there was no moral imperative of sharing the intellectual property of the vaccine.

I guess not so wild? A continual demonstration of the tremendous irrationality of global capitalism.

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. — Audre Lorde

I won’t draw lines here because life ain’t linear.

Complex systems have many inputs that create a series of outputs. It hard to relate one thing to another. It is not a linear correlation necessarily.

But s**t is going down in India. On, May 5, India reported another record daily COVID-19 death toll today — 3,980 lives. According to the World Health Organization: India has accounted for nearly half of all reported global COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, many non-Indian folks make their primary source of income from ancient Indian technologies (e.g. yoga culture). Telling people to breathe in their yoga and breathework classes. Well guess what :

India cannot breathe. Literally cannot breathe. They do not have enough oxygen tanks, supplies, or vaccines.

Yah I heard. That sucks.

Right, so why do you care?

Oh, you don’t?

So… cultural appropriation or cultural sharing?Guess we got our answer. It’s appropriation.

Cultural sharing requires an exchange to happen.

Appropriation demonstrates a lack of individual integrity and lack of embodiment of the practice you preach and prescribe.

Facts:

* India houses the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India.

* India is the largest pharma supplier to many countries in Africa. Selling generic drugs to African countries at one quarter the price (e.g. HIV/AIDS treatments)

Translation : India is the pharmacy of the world. The cascading effects of the COVID crisis in India will effect many African countries where they rely heavily on Indian medical supplies, expertise, and infrastructure.

We are a web of connections.

Yet, there is a disconnect.

Our systems are broken. And tbh so many of us feel broken.

conformity?

conformity provokes separationof oneselfof the othersegregationfracturing our beingsfractured beingsfracture beingsas they seek to find the lightin a place that feels dark

trappedin a dimensiona time warpa futurethat’s not yoursand not mine

so let’s uniteand rewriteall the scriptsfor all coloursof humanity

How can we be so disassociated from making humane decisions?

Going back to a previous newsletter — our definitions of success are so crooked. Ideas of individualism has polluted our thoughts thanks to the propaganda of capitalism and ideologies of colonialism that are still embedded in our systems today.

We, coloured and white bodies, assimilate ourselves to the idea of unattainable perfection (wealth, beauty, power). Separating us further from ourselves and each other. Leaving us broken as individuals and as a collective.

Reminder : coming back to our true selves is part of collective healing; lifting the veil beyond the shoulds of our existence is part of collective healing.

Want to help India?

Well you can, by donating money to help them buy supplies. Here are some organizations doing good work:

* https://www.kbfcanada.ca/en/projects/india-covid-19-relief-fund/ (Canadians you will receive a tax receipt)

* www.giveindia.org

* https://hemkuntfoundation.com/donate-now/

* Crowdfunding India - Best Crowdfunding Platform & Website - Ketto

Stay safe and healthy out there.Much love ❤️ 🤎Parul@parulbee

To be honest, it’s getting very emotional here. Been rolling deep in the COVID feels — the isolation, the SADs : it went so deep, to the edges of the heart. Turmoiled in and out of emotional chaos. It feels almost impossible to feel warmth, aka care and love. It feels difficult to share at these times. Like feeling frozen. 😔

Alas : Time unthaws. Seasons are cycles. Sometimes, it’s about surviving, not thriving — as my sister lovingly shared with me. 

The winter season demonstrates that vividly; when observing nature mammals are hibernating, reserving bodily energy. We are not meant to grow exponentially, thrive and produce fruits of labour all year around like capitalism demands of us. 

I’ve noticed how difficult it is to draw lines between reflection and grief. The waves of existence and contrast of hard and soft feelings have provoked a different version of aliveness. One that has marked all of us. 

this memory is braided into youthis feeling is sunken in and forever you shall walk different

hallowing out space for love, compassion empathy to plant their seeds

Maybe you too feel the windchills of social isolation? If we all shared pieces of our love perhaps we would be cozier? I don’t doubt the power of the collective. 

:: walking different :: It’s been about a year since the world went into pandemic mode.

And this pandemic anniversary marks a new year of a new, not normal, version of life. I can hardly make sense of the year. The longest feeling year with the least amount of moments to punctuate the time, brings forward a weird feeling. A weird relationship to time. Therefore a weird relationship to self when so much of our capitalistic existence is centred around time (more on a later letter). 

It seems that we are closer to the end of social separation than we are to the beginning of it. The end marked by a vaccinated populations. If you are so lucky to live in a rich, developed country that could be true. 

Does the supposed end mark a beginning to a new wave of social anxiety?

I’m feeling it tbh.

:: lines between reflection and grief :: Making space to reflect can allow a person to recollect their relationship to time and memories. Offering windows of gratitude for movements through despair, joy and sadness. 

Back in March 2020, myself and other artists of UKAI, created an emotional geo-map. A sandbox for our feelings to live. A place where people from around the world can share how they are feeling about our collective experience of the pandemic. The spectrum of our emotions is real. The spectrum is broad. As we too are diverse. We can speak different languages, but as humans we share the ability to feel.

Through the emotional flaying and physical isolation that COVID ensued upon us, we have been forced to submit to it, to retreat into the depths of our existence. Reminder / note to self : you are not alone. 

you’re never alone with the sun and the moonas they’ve watched you growbeen by your sidein dark and in lightnourishing you with vitality : vitamin Dand reminding you of all you can be humbling you with their vastnessbut knowing your brightnessis never too small for their light finds you whispering to youyou are worthy in all your darkness and in your light

:: power of the collective ::Damn, we have seen what happens when individuals come together as a collective: #Gamestop #BLM #FarmersProtest 

Individuals coalescing into collectives. Standing strong for democracy, equity and access. Uprooting the destructiveness of neoliberalism and white supremacy that tbh we have internalized for far long time. To the point where so many of us have been gaslight to believe something is wrong with us, rather than something is wrong with society. Grateful that we are awakening to this false truth.

There is a lot that we have collectively internalized, including hierarchy of  relationships and their structures. In order of relational priority:

Romantic (monogamous, hetro) partnership Blood related familyFriends Co-workers 

Relational hierarchy does not stop at the story we tell ourselves. It is institutionalized. There is substantial weight and benefit to being married, which in itself is an institution. It is reflected in governmental structures such as citizenship, in financial structures such as mortgages, taxes and that’s just scratching the surface. 

It’s fucked. 

The social constructs given to us are not supportive. Here are some reasons why:

* One person to live happily ever after / be our ultimate life support

* A shrinking group of close friends as age progresses 

* A deep longing for community, but no f*****g clue how to navigate that thought because we were given zero tools in being a human aka being part of a community or even modelling healthy relationships

I wonder why we have such a (large) radii of deviation between our partner and close friends. Perhaps it is sometimes not intentional, rather practical? Either way it generally exists. 

A thought experiment : If you lived in a house with your closest friends, and your partner lived in a separate household. What would relational hierarchy look like? 

Due to spatial closeness there may be lower barriers of communication, energy exchange, etc. with your housemates. Perhaps this allows you to foster a family like connection with more persons than just your partner? 

Would this not be the ideal format? To have multiple people in your life that you can hold close like family, irrespective of bloodline, kinship. Is it geographical, scheduling, permission that prevents this idealized version of closeness? Or maybe the ideologies of western culture? Where we have tangled individualism to success. Where our focus is to slowly remit the needs for community to partake in a need-filled way in your life. 

There is sense of groundedness that is achieved through the human connection. The pandemic has highlighted this a million times over. Highlighting that connectedness and community is a deep desire for so many of us. 

I think a lot about co-housing, co-habitation, co-ownership, co-everything in the realm of housing. I feel grateful to work in the housing sector building solutions that enable access to housing; and I am seeking out innovation that is democratizing access to housing. Home is belonging, and belonging feels like the core of so much poetry, of a poetic life, of living bliss.

Some of my favourite humans co-purchased a property with another couple and moved in last week! It was hours of effort, but each moment spent created a deeper bond between friends who are bridging the relational, social and economic gaps to create family. 

A lot of people are talking to me about this lately — drop a note in the comments if you’d like to chat more about this topic. <3

Real quick, let’s track switch. It is important.

All that love you pour outwards. All that care you give to people around you. Do you offer that same level of care to yourself?

In early days of the pandemic, self-organizing caregiving groups formed with a degree of robustness and thoughtfulness that dropped me to tears. However, lines between kindness and constructive forms of escapism were blurry. Escaping from our individual realities. Reincarnating our self care into care for others, others in need, others whom are vulnerable. Constructive till the point. 

Where is the line you must draw for yourself. Do you wait for your body, mind, spirit to break before you find it? To those who are deep givers, space holders, service centred the answer I hear most often is yes. 

Awaiting our breaking before we notice ourselves…

push away pull in closetoo much too close i am much more  than you’ll ever seewithin the wire framevisions paraphrasednot by your sightby the mind it plays trickscarrying weightin places that contradicts 

Facts: Your potency is real.

You know acting and saying the same things in the same way. Not really knowing how to break out of a loop because we don’t even know we are in one.

“Hey, how are you?”“Fine.“

But really though are you fine? Or are you FINE! We all know fine is code for 🤦🏽‍♀️  :

* I don’t want to tell you anything about me

* My insides are burning down and I am about to explode into tears.

* I am dead inside, what are feelings?

There are so many examples of us living out our robotic lifestyles.

The biggest one I can think of is the American dream formula that I referenced in the last letter:

Step 1: Go to school and get good grades ++ don’t get distracted by drugs or love (tbh they are the same)

Step 2: Find a good job, but we are only going to tell you about four possible job options (doctor, lawyer, accountant, engineer) even though there are a million options

Step 3: As soon as you are financially secure, magically find the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with

Step 4: Buy a house in the suburbs

Step 5: Have babies.

This is not me throwing shade. Trust me, I adore you.

I am just asking, are we actively choosing what we want? 

Meaning, are we awake and consciously choosing what makes us happy. Or, is this what we do because this is what we know to do; that these are known patterns of our society, family and culture.

We are a by-product of patterns.

Disrupting our domestication, our learnt patterns, is required to uncover our personal truth. Transformation is breaking the loop of our thoughts and their associated scripts. You may already know that we recycle 90+% of our thoughts.

Do you dare place a limit on how much life you contain?

to limit your thoughts is to limit your aliveness.

codes that encode us :dark or lightgood or evil all or nothing1 or 0 

Binary patterns form judgements. Separating us, from ourselves and each other. Our worthiness is dependent on the the output of whatever binary formula we are using to measuring ourselves too. Are you measuring yourself in binaries? I know I do. Here is a common (painful) example, that I feel regularly and is amplified by social and cultural pressures:

I am only worthy, if I am successful.

Successful = Lots of money or failure Lots of power or failureLots of influence or failure

There are many flaws with the binaries that formulate the western definition of success. These equations don’t leave space for nuance:

* What does a lot mean?

* Do you have to have a lot from each category? Or can you have a little from each?

There are so many permutations of what success means, yet many of us don’t stop to consider them. Instead we find ourselves in a never ending chase. In the rat race of success. In the monotony of the American dream.

These binary formulas are also inserted into the creation of technologies — the 1s and 0s of code integrating the biases and judgements that technologists embed into technologies DNA.  Simple example:  facial recognition tools struggle to recognize people of colour and female faces.

This is not new.

This is another form of settler superiority, and a reflection of our subconscious colonized mindsets. (e.g. white men building tech tools for the masses, and not considering other genders or races).

Colonialism is invasive and extractive, it is also unimaginative since it has been in tact for ~500 years. Our mindsets creates a binary of the past and future.  Mark Gonzales reflects this in a conversation about cities, where he translates past and future thinking and their respective dangers :

* Future focused: Accelerate to the future and discard everything we’ve held and used to survive till this point. To move fast and perhaps break things and people as we rush into the 21st century.

* Past focused: Nostalgic and freezing the past, where the past needs to be preserved at all costs, and it needs to be static. The preservation referenced here is the 16th century model, which is the rise of western civilization and economic systems.

Binary in nature. Is not our nature. We are NOT robots.

Our vitality is our choice. Our choice is our freedom. Our freedom is our ability to express our whole damn self. All of you, all of me, is so welcomed.

There is an active choosing to disallow the conditioning, the domestication of colonization, from dominating our thoughts. Quite literally, training yourself to think differently.

A lot of times these are learnt or experienced patterns from our childhood. This programming likely served you or protected you when you were younger, but when it is no longer relevant for a healthy existence we feel that friction within us.

Friction could be anxieties, indecision, retaliating to yourself by falling into destructive behaviour patterns. These are signs that your being is trying to tell you something.

Escape or desperation, two paths of emotional burials. Yet always there is another option. There is always a magical third.

if you see more of what you don’t want, know, that is a gift of clarity

There is space to imagine the futures we want to live in. Do no limit yourself with expectations that aren’t even yours to begin with.

Practice your thoughts.Rewrite your scripts.Create new patterns.

“If you take responsibility for your creation, you can create anything you want in your life. You can rewrite your story; you can re-create your dream.” — The Fifth Agreement by don Miguel Ruiz,  don Jose Ruiz

How can we reach back to go forward?

it’s our unravelling that will lead us to our remembering, to our truth

Finding our truth is not straightforward. Self honesty requires a peeling of layers. Beyond our own experiences, history and our ancestry plays a role in our unravelling as well. We are tangled a bit, as colonization has blended with cultures like coffee + water — perhaps impossible to fully separate.

Poetry is a way to break the loop. It is a tool, a form of technology that allows us to disrupt cycles of thought and feeling patterns. Because it does not follow the cadence of our normal language patterns. With poetry we can restrict the flow or open it so wide that our imagination cannot help but enter. 

Super basic poetic forms  :

* structured :: a container to hold what is flowing out of you

* abrupt :: a distortion and abstraction from your reality; shedding your norms to see other vantage points 

* freestyle :: bypassing the trained conscious mind; allowing space for your imagination

Poetry allows for different ways of seeing. It allows for alternative models of thinking. Capturing various forms of truth. Know that the truth of you can have many different versions – some fearful, some free.

“The indirect transmission of truth uses paradox or poetry. If you know how to listen to poetry, then you are always close to truth. Poetry is a metaphor for the wordless. It dances along the banks of silence, teasing you to enter.” — Richard Rudd

Be gentle with yourself. This is a lot.

Self healing

I asked the wind what secrets she wanted to tell me :

your divine taskis to find a place of inner stillness, presence so you can continue to day dreamand manifest to see your desires fully

What can you do to ease the pathway of manifesting your future?

breathawareness choice

++ free writing : A writing technique to by-pass your conscious “monkey” mind. Simply put your pen on the page and do not stop writing till you fill 3-4 pages. Repeat. Over the next 7 days watch as patterns and thoughts emerge.

we donot hear whatwhen we say our truths

words slipunconscious hold our truth not tongue

This poem is written in by me or another woman in a Sunday poetry group. As women from across the world holding deep diversity within and among us, we find ourselves blending and holding one another in poetic phrases. This style of poetry is called Deekaz. More to come on this in later letters to you.

Meditation Flow [CHANGE]

Instead of meeting daily to meditate. We will virtually meet on Friday mornings only.

~20 minute silent or poetic meditation~20 minutes of journaling with a prompt~10 minutes of collective sharing

Friday’s from 8am to 8:50 am EST on zoom.

Your time is precious. You can choose to come to the poetic meditation only from 8:00-8:20 am.

It is only love waiting for you over here.

If you noticed I did a little name switcheroo — this letter is now called poetic technology 💙 — as I evolve my understanding and sit in my depth. Changing the name of my newsletters feels better. As I feel the restrictions of written text as static objects, and desiring a need for it to evolve with me. I feel aligned with practices of oral information sharing; where the content is fluid and evolves as per needed, again more of that in later letters.

p.s. please do leave a comment. I would love to know how this resonates. 😘

There are 51.5 million #poetry on instagram! Everyone seems to be a poet. It’s cute and all, till you have to scroll through more or less not great poetry written in the classic typewriter typography with monotone backgrounds hashtagging good vibes only... okay I am going to stop myself before I go on a rant.

This is important.

Everyone IS a poet.

why is “instagram-able” poetry important?

Because poetry is a way of seeing the world.

It is clear we are collectively seeking new frames to see the world through in this uptake in poetry writing and sharing. It is a hope to change our reality; since the world we live in is not nourishing our soul in the ways we desire.

We are caught in this insatiable feeling of wanting, doing or being more. This feeling is plaguing us. Simultaneously there is a growing monoculture, a shortage of imagination and a crisis of diminishing critical thought. This is pulling us further away from our emotions and pushing us further into our collective suffering.

Poetry offers us solace for our feelings. A place for our original thoughts to live. For our individuality to thrive and be shared on the internet, allowing us to feel seen in our authentic expression. The essence of this idea is truly beautiful.

and damn we all just want to belong, I know I do…

If you are suffering, you forgot that you belong.

This newsletter was born out of a desire to belong, not just fit in, but to genuinely feel a small place in the world was made for each of us. To feel seen in our individual and shared emotional spectrums.

What does belonging mean? This is the question that I strive to answer and its at the core of all my work.

Belonging is fascinating because it feels like such an external force; of needing to belong to a community, a place, a mission. However, the first rejection happens within ourselves. As so many of us choose to dissociate from ourselves, I know I do at times.

I mean it is so easy to do. It is too easy. So many nudges to take us away from ourselves. Here are some cliche statements that are examples of us diminishing our ourselves.

Time is money : No, no, time is life. Money is money. Sleep when you’re dead : Yet our bodies need sleep to feel our aliveness. Ideas are a dime a dozen : False. Ideas are choices, invoking wonder and possibilities.

This newsletter, which you so graciously subscribed to, will ponder many things; focusing on poetic translations of rational thoughts.

Here we will explore across silos and beyond norms:

* how poetry is an ancient technology : a tool for healing, for growth, for being

* the ancient practice of meditation : offering meditative journeys

* how technology can be poetic : a way to elevate humanity

* the future(s) of connection : holding space for a poetic life

* a place for thoughtful non-conformist thoughts

Poetry, meditation, technology are all tools for optimization of self.

Through this letter, I will be sharing poems, audio journeys, healing tools, and technologies.

I hope for this newsletter to be as multi-sensory as possible. I hope to bring sentiments of intimacy to the internet as I read you the newsletter each week. Striving for the feeling of inviting you over for tea, and just short of mailing you a package of poetic goods. I’ll leave you a voice note <3

a little about me

I’m Parul!

pronounced pah-rul || pronouns she / her

I started writing short stories in early elementary school, and embarked on writing a fiction novel in grade 5, low key ambitions there. I came to poetry in grade 7, when I first learnt about a brother who passed away when he was a baby and I was a toddler. It spiralled me deep into my feelings and poetry was the place I found that could hold the full container of my grief. In grade 9, my beloved grandfather passed pushing me deeper into my poetic, feeling world.

My relationship to poetry and my feelings were soon forgotten as I neared the end of high school. An amnesia took grip of me as I was domesticated and subscribed to an iteration of the American dream that I jokingly call the Punjabi dream. Which is to follow the path that every Indian immigrants’ kid followed — get good grades, so I can go to post-secondary school, so I could find a job that can afford me a family.

Basically, as a third culture kid, my upbringing was confusing + contrarian at best. And through that confusion I slowly disconnected from myself. I later learned that this is a common experience amongst the North American Indian diaspora.

if you see me linearit meansyou cannot see me at alla world wherenothing is straightnothing is binaryfluidityin who we are

means we get to be more

Over the past 7 years I picked up the pen again and have been writing (and performing poetry). So here I am, full circle.

Poetry is once again my solace. It is the lens in which I see the world.

uncovering emotional landscapes is centred in my practice

If you want to learn more about, you can check out my always in edit-mode “website”.

Find more poetry here: IG @poetictechnology

this week’s meditation

It is a meditation that I shared it on Friday’s guided meditation session. A way to bring you back to presence by remembering your body, which lives in the here and now.

It is a 18 minute meditation. Inspired by a lot of different body scan meditations that I have done, but more specifically week 1 of Joe Dispenza’s 4-week program to building the human and habits you desire to hold within yourself.

Every weekday I host a space for us to gather and meditate. Silent meditations Monday to Thursday from 8:00-8:20 am (EST) on zoom.Here’s the protocol, the ritual —Show up: muted or not (as long as it’s quiet): video on or off: no talking, no hellos or good byes

On Friday’s from 8:00-8:20 am (EST) on zoom — I lead a 8-12 min guided meditation wrapped in silence: a few minutes at the end of the meditation for weekly reflection

build a self practice together ~ a self-healing ecosystem

For details and to add it to your calendar : click here

p.p.s. this first edition was longer than normal because I had so much to share and tell you as I welcomed you in. I was always a chatter box. My inner child cries out — love me for it!! <3