Mother in Arabic أَمَّاهُ – Nostalgic and Cinematic Versions | Songs created with Suno (my lyrics, my voice) 16 August 2026
Image credit: Magnific.com
## 🧠 ABOUT THE PROCESS
I transformed my original poem by adapting it into lyrics that were then used for a song generated using Suno, featuring my voice. Below you’ll find part of the original poem, the revised lyrics, and the musical version.
Written in 2010, Mother is a tribute to women whose love, courage and sacrifice endure despite illness, violence and war. Dedicated to the countless women whose strength too often remains unseen.
Loose translation of my lyrics into English: My beloved aunt, light of Afghanistan, You gave him life and raised him to be a man, Yet this is how time has treated you— leaving you no place to call your own.
You endured such pain and battled cancer, Your courage standing as a testament; He showed no regard neither for your loyalty nor the faith you held, and stripped all peace and comfort from your life.
My noble sister, silenced and trapped in Pakistan, He took you when your beauty was radiant; He struck you down and stole your sense of safety, leaving you now confined within a prison.
Mother, he took the years and vitality of your life, repaying your tenderness with hatred; He never once acknowledged the debt he owed you— To you, I present my greetings; to you, I present my offering.
Read the full original poem here: https://geethabalvannanathan.com/2010/01/16/%d8%a3%d9%85%d9%8e%d8%a7%d9%87/
Listen to how this poem transforms into music across different styles:
### 🎬 Cinematic version Dark Cinematic ambient with haunting female vocals, reverbed piano, plaintive cello, slow emotional build-up and immersive atmospheric soundscapes Mother أَمَّاهُ – Cinematic Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
### 🍂 Nostalgic version Nostalgic female vocals, oud, Arabic ney, slow emotional build-up and immersive atmospheric soundscapes Mother أَمَّاهُ – Nostalgic Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
## 🎼 ABOUT THESE VERSIONS
This piece has been interpreted across multiple musical styles using Suno, exploring how the same lyrics evolve through Nostalgic and Cinematic influences.
Where we dreamt once upon a Time – Cinematic, Gospel, Trip Hop Versions | Song created with Suno (my lyrics, my voice) 20 July 2026
Image credit: pinterest.com
## 🧠 ABOUT THE PROCESS
I transformed my original poem by adapting it into lyrics that were then used for a song generated using Suno, featuring my voice. Below you’ll find part of the original poem, the revised lyrics, and the musical version.
## 📜 ORIGINAL POEM
Where We Dreamt Once Upon a Time is a meditation on remembrance, unity and the fluid nature of consciousness. The poem invites the reader into a timeless landscape where the boundaries between self and soul dissolve and humanity rediscovers its shared origins. It celebrates the quiet transformation that begins when trust replaces separation, reminding us that the deepest journeys are not towards somewhere new, but towards a place our spirit has always known
Come to me with your weathered rhyme We will draw on waters of skies Washing away darkness of lies The cleaning rosemary and thyme
[Verse] Never discarded mind fickle See me in the slightest trickle I will relay the veins of lore Tales begotten for ever more
[Verse] Come to me with your weathered rhyme the cleaning rosemary and thyme We will draw on waters of skies washing away darkness of lies
[Chorus] Gathered by call tribe liquefies Soul in one to higher realms flies where we dreamt once upon a Time Amplified portals in Heart chime
[Verse] Count the prayers of peace in me My backbone beads of rosary My ribcage a cauldron of gust From deepest wells I summon trust
[Verse] The wells rungs of ladders gathered the children of Earth I mothered Raised to heavens they set me free Cells bearers of infinity
[Chorus] Gathered by call tribe liquefies Soul in one to higher realms flies where we dreamt once upon a Time Amplified portals in Heart chime
## 🎧 SUNO SONG
Listen to how this poem transforms into music across different styles:
### 🎬 Cinematic version Cinematic ambient with haunting female vocals, reverbed piano, plaintive cello, slow emotional build-up and immersive atmospheric soundscapes Where we dreamt once upon a Time – Cinematic Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
### 🙏 Gospel version Ethereal Gospel, contemplative spiritual vocals, gentle piano, warm organ, ambient strings, deeply reflective, inspiring and uplifting. Where we dreamt once upon a Time – Gospel Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
### 🌌 Trip-Hop version A hypnotic Trip-Hop interpretation blending haunting textures, introspective rhythms and atmospheric depth Where we dreamt once upon a Time – Trip-Hop Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
## 🎼 ABOUT THESE VERSIONS
This piece has been interpreted across multiple musical styles using Suno, exploring how the same lyrics evolve through Cinematic, Gospel and Trip-Hop influences.
The endless rivers – Noir Blues, Dark Folk, Noir Trip-Hop Versions | Song created with Suno (my lyrics, my voice) 30 May 2026
Image credit: Magnific.com
## 🧠 ABOUT THE PROCESS
I transformed my original poem by adapting it into lyrics that were then used for a song generated using Suno, featuring my voice. Below you’ll find part of the original poem, the revised lyrics, and the musical version.
## 📜 ORIGINAL POEM
Set between the sleeping world and the hidden currents of the inner self, this poem questions the idols, fears, and authorities that shape human thought. Through images of loss, creation, and spiritual longing, it searches for a deeper source beneath doctrine and division. At its heart lies a simple invitation: to breathe love, awaken consciousness, and rediscover the living river within.
Waking up To a sleeping world The words hurled Weak symbols Unmoved zombies barely stir Hearts lost in idols
[Verse] Waking up to a sleeping world Like weak symbols the words are hurled The unmoved zombies barely stir hearts lost in idols they prefer
[Verse] The mind whirled in between Twin Times their spaces give me compressed rhymes With shaking tongue, I ring bells fast lost their ghostly chimes, none to last
[Chorus] The endless waters mantelshelf Breathe the love says the inner self Its stillness like a warm river coursing through my veins that shiver
[Verse] Mothers weep, their withered breasts hang unto grounds where lost babies twang strive through caves of Netherworld’s riff to pick up vanished infants’ whiff
[Verse] Barren wombs replicate nothing The free mind always a wild thing Creation is in the thought mined the heart-felt seeing of the blind
[Verse] Fear the wrath, the priests shriek strident downfall of mortals their talent Breath stale from venom they inhale Emblem of love that they impale
[Chorus] The endless waters mantelshelf Breathe the love says the inner self Its stillness like a warm river coursing through my veins that shiver
## 🎧 SUNO SONG
Listen to how this poem transforms into music across different styles:
### 🎸 Noir Blues version Noir Blues, smoky late-night atmosphere, slow tempo, brushed drums, sparse electric guitar, weary female vocals, melancholic blues The endless waters –Noir Blues Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
### 🌾 Dark Folk version Dark and mournful female vocals, acoustic fingerpicked guitar, low drones, ritual atmosphere, haunting mood, minimal percussion The endless waters – Dark Folk Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
### 🌌 Noir Trip-Hop version A hypnotic Trip-Hop interpretation blending haunting textures, introspective rhythms and atmospheric depth The endless waters –Noir Trip-Hop Song | My Original Lyrics, My Voice (Suno)
## 🎼 ABOUT THESE VERSIONS
This piece has been interpreted across multiple musical styles using Suno, exploring how the same lyrics evolve through Noir Blues, Dark Folk and Noir Trip-Hop influences.
The little girl woke up with a feeling of dread. Her mind was still fuzzy and she did not remember the events of the day before but she knew that something was off. She sat up in her bed and as she took in her surroundings, the memories flooded her mind and she remembered how her mother had lain in a pool of blood and urine with her father attempting to bandage the wound in her head. She jumped out of bed and ran to the room next door to catch a glimpse at her mother through the square but there was nobody in there. She found out from the maid that her father had taken her mother to the hospital where she would stay a few days until she was healed.
The little girl turned her head towards where she sensed the Bogeyman was forming. As usual, none other than her could see the Bogeyman. She slipped her hand into his and tugged it in the direction of the lion’s den, her father’s favourite room in the house. They had called it the lion’s den because her father would bellow out of it for them to stay quiet when he was in there meditating and they were making a lot of noise. His bellowing strangely resembled the roar of a lion. Her father never bellowed against the whimpers or screams of her mother though. She wondered why. Did he not hear them or did he choose to ignore them? There was nobody in the lion’s den either.
The maid came out of the kitchen and chastised her for not listening. “Did you not hear when I told you that your father has taken your mother to the hospital?”, she said. “I thought it was already done before and that he was back”, the little girl said. The maid frowned, displeased, and went back to the kitchen to cook the first two meals of the day. She always cooked the first two together, breakfast and lunch, so she had time on her hands when she had to tend to the chores in the house. The dinner was always cooked fresh as her dad was back from his work and he did not like re-heated food. Normally, in their family tradition, the maids never cooked as it was always the lady of the house who had to cook and the maids only did the chores and especially the cleaning. It was considered very low class to allow the maid to cook for the family but they had no option as her mother was unwell and her father would not be able to cook as he worked.
Several days passed and her mother was back home. She seemed healthy and happy and the little girl was beyond herself with happiness as she had her mother back like she was before. Before she had claimed that her in-laws were poisoning her, that is, and she had been extremely ill, vomiting and feeling feverish. Her dad had given her mother pills to vomit and once her stomach was empty she seemed to feel better but she had never trusted the maid or her in-laws again, so much so that she became totally paranoid and would only use vegetables that she herself bought from the market. The little girl shook off those sad memories and clung to her mother with renewed happiness. Her little brother also joined in although the maid had been trying to keep him away from his mother since he came back from his time at his grandmother. The mother beamed at her two younger children and held them tight against her bosom and the little girl squeezed her younger brother’s hand. She was so happy he was back and that her mother was alright.
After a few days that her mother had been back home, her health started worsening and she had spells of vomiting as well as episodes of deep paranoia where she would clutch the maid by the shoulders and shout at her that she would kill her because she was poisoning her again. She mostly did this in the morning after the father had left but once she started screaming and punching the maid before the father had left. The maid was wailing and asking for help from the neighbours who had come down to see what was causing the ruckus. The father shut the door after asking the neighbours to let him settle the family problems on his own. He turned towards the mother and dragged her to the room where he had kept her before. She started screaming and trying to pull away from him but he kept his grip on her. He opened the door, pushed her in unceremoniously and locked the door behind her. The mother started pleading to be let out but her husband stayed inflexible. The maid gave her a wicked triumphant smile and went into the kitchen sniggering.
On his way out, the father gave the maid the key to the room stating that she should accompany his wife to the toilet whenever she needed to go there and that she must allow her to shower every morning and every evening if she needed to. It was so hot outside that the mother usually preferred to shower twice a day. The maid uttered a low hmpf in consent, not daring to say anything to the father even though she doubted her capacity to handle his wife on her own. She thought that she should ask the older girls to help her with their mother rather than handle things on her own. She went to them and told them they needed to help her with their mother as she was too strong and it would be risky for the maid to let her out on her own. The little girl stayed in her room, listening to everything that was being said.
Shortly after the father’s departure, the mother said she wanted to have a shower. The maid went fearfully to the room and called the older girls but only the eldest came together with the little girl. “Go get your older sister”, said the maid to the little girl who just blinked at her quietly. The maid yelled for the second sister but there was no response. The mother started yelling that she needed to go shower so the maid opened the door cautiously letting the mother out. As soon as she was out, the mother tried to catch the little girl who ran away as her mother’s eyes had turned ablaze. She was yelling at the maid but also at her daughters. She kept saying that the household had turned wicked and everyone had to run away or die. The little girl saw from the corner of her eyes her little brother crawling towards her mother. Before she could do anything, the mother had grabbed her brother and was holding him above her head in an attempt to throw him on the ground.
Suddenly the little girl felt the neighbours brush past her and swiftly retrieve her brother from her mother’s arms. The neighbours ran with the little boy upstairs while the mother turned her attention to the eldest girl and started dragging her outside the house, saying that they should all die. She attempted to clutch the little girl too but the second sister who had run in hearing all the shouting grabbed her younger sister and both of them ran towards the house of the neighbours on the other side of the street. None of the neighbours had, however, thought of retrieving the eldest girl from the clutches of her mother who was now dragging her towards the pond next to the railway station. The little girl looked back at her eldest sister who was squirming, screaming and trying to escape the clutches of her mother. She called to the Bogeyman and there he was, right next to her eldest sister, forcing her mother’s hand open and freeing her eldest sister. She looked on as the Bogeyman gave way to her father who seemed to walk through the Bogeyman and rescue his oldest daughter. Her eldest sister was sobbing in the arms of her father while the Bogeyman looked on seemingly undecided on what to do. The little girl called to the Bogeyman and he flew towards her. As he reached her, she raised her arms and embraced him. Slowly the Bogeyman returned her embrace before softly dissolving into her…
The little girl went to sleep shortly after the Bogeyman had led her to her bedroom and hovered above her as if he were tucking her in. She slept a solid 8 hours without waking up even as the voices outside her bedroom had increased in their pitch before becoming unintelligible murmurs. There were neither dreams nor nightmares to trouble her sleep. She woke up the next day much later than usual and it seemed like the subdued voices of the night before had really picked up a lot. She raced into the hall towards the next room to check the square from where she kissed her mother daily but her mother was nowhere to be seen.
As she approached the square, she could smell the stench of urine mingled with the sickening smell of blood that she would later identify as two types of smells of blood, one from menstruation and the other from cuts in the skin. She tried to look through the square but the maid grabbed her arm and pulled her away. Her mother was whimpering most of the time but would also emit from time to time a terrible wail. The little girl was struck with fear, not from her mother but about what had happened to her mother. She tried to run towards the square again but the maid pulled her harder, tightening her grip on her arm, which would later cause bruises that the maid did not own up to.
The little girl’s heart began to hammer in her ribs and she felt like wailing together with her mother. She wanted to know what had happened and could not understand why those horrible smells emanated from her mother’s room. Her dad usually unlocked the door and accompanied her mother to the bathroom whenever she needed to so she could not understand why there was so much urine in the room. She could feel the Bogeyman forming next to her but she was too distraught to talk to him. She tugged again trying to free herself from the maid’s grip and felt her relax her hold on her. She rushed to the square and peeked through. On the ground, her mother lay whimpering and wailing, blood running from a gash in her head. There was blood all over her mother’s thighs and all the bloods mingled with urine that lay in a puddle in the middle of the room.
The little girl’s heart beat so much faster she felt like it was in her mouth about to come out with the vomit leaving her lips that had turned white. In one corner of the room she had seen her dad who seemed to be opening a box of band aids to put on her mother’s head wound. He also had big wads of cotton and she was not sure whether that was for her mother’s wound as well. On the side of one wall, where the windows were, she could see streaks of blood and bloodied footsteps. It was as if her mother had climbed trying to escape out of the window. Her dad was yelling to the maid that she should not have let her climb and throw herself from the window onto the floor. He seemed cross that the maid did not realise what was happening and had not heard all the ruckus as she was the one who slept closest to the mother’s room. The little girl wondered why her mother had tried to throw herself from the window onto the floor. It made no sense. Why was she doing that?
The Bogeyman turned towards the little girl, slipped his hand into hers and embraced her with the other hand. She felt the cold that had befell her grow stronger. A tight knot was forming in the pit of her stomach and the chill she felt seemed to occupy her whole back, making her shoulderblades stiff and painful.
- Why?, she said. - Your mother is very ill, said the Bogeyman. - I don’t want her to die - She probably won’t - Daddy said that if she causes problems he will take her away - Your daddy will not take her away. He does not know where to leave her - I don’t want mommy to go away. I don’t want mommy to die - This time she has not died but she will do this again. You don’t remember but the same thing happened when you were younger. You might not remember it now but some day you will remember. Your mother wants to die. She does not like being here. She hates the maid and she hates how she is not free to do as she pleases. She hates it here. She might keep doing this until she finally dies.
The little girl started wailing again and her mother echoed with her own wails. The Bogeyman stared from one to the other then wiped the little girl’s tears.
- I will make sure your mommy does not do this again, he offered trying to appease the little girl. - Please don’t let mommy die, the little girl said half whimpering half wailing - I promise you I will watch over both you and your mother - I want to go to bed, I don’t want to see mommy bleeding anymore - I will tuck you in and then watch over mommy. Don’t worry
The Bogeyman took the little girl to her bedroom and watched over her as she slept. He knew what had happened. He had been expecting this to happen again. Everybody else had forgotten but he had been waiting in the shadows for things to worsen and this to happen again. The Bogeyman had always known…
“Mom,” the little girl yelled plaintively. “It’s the evil bogeyman who’s come again to take me far away from you.”
“Don’t worry, go to sleep!” came the reply, articulated by a sweet voice from the next room. “You’ll see he can’t do anything to you. Besides, if you look at him closely, you’ll see he’s quite transparent and harmless. He’s our family bogeyman, and he’s not very bad.”
“I want to sleep with you, I don’t want him near me anymore,” the plaintive voice continued. The little girl risked a sideways glance, and indeed, he did look very pale and unlikely to harm anyone. That said, something in the cold stare he cast—the only thing quite visible in his entire being—froze her.
“You know perfectly well that’s impossible. Sleep now and you can come see me tomorrow,” the sweet voice continued, slightly tense from having to contain itself in the darkness of the night. It then started a chant that would have filled the heart of the happiest with the deepest melancholy, but which, through force of habit, had a profoundly calming effect on the little girl. The quintessence of melancholy was now the only possible representation of peace and gentleness in the little girl’s mind.
“You’re a mean bogeyman, but you don’t scare me because Mommy will take care of you if you bother me,” the plaintive voice continued with a hint of defiance. With that, the little girl brought her little puppet closer to her pillow and fell asleep, absentmindedly twisting its hand while the bogeyman looked at her, contrite and pained. He too, seemed under the very powerful influence of nostalgia from the chant sung by a voice that sought to blend into the night.
The next day, the little girl walked past the next room and, standing on tiptoe, placed a kiss on her mother's cheek through the square that made her accessible. She watched her again as the nanny, with her tentacled hands, braided her and put on her daily school uniform while preparing her takeaway lunch, pausing only to button her top and smooth the wrinkles in her uniform skirt. The uniform was so heavy that she felt like she was wearing armour.
Her mother watched her leave through the square until she was out on the street and out of sight with her sisters. As the door opened, a gust of rain carried by the wind rushed into the cramped hallway, and her mother shivered. She called out to the nanny to lower the screen that separated the entrance from the street. It was a kind of foresail and did a good job of keeping the rain out, but the nanny deliberately didn't use it properly, knowing that the mother couldn't get to the front door to do it herself. This procession of small misfortunes she inflicted on the mother seemed to satisfy her petty spirit, seeking revenge against the life that had made her a servant to families more fortunate than her own.
The little girl had often observed this battle between the two women with a mixture of pity, anger, and helplessness. The nanny knew full well that the price of her defiance would be paid later when the father returned, provided the mother dared to complain, but she probably told herself that just being able to delay the outcome of the punishment was enough to give her the petty satisfaction of being able to have the upper hand, at least for the day. Outside, the trash was piling up in front of Mom's window, another petty act that gave boundless satisfaction to the nanny, who knew Mom was incapable of getting them out from under her window without her help. On monsoon days, all this created a vile cesspool which odours ended up bothering everyone, including the nanny. After the first attempts, which she personally suffered, she had lost her composure and had made sure to ensure regular trash collection during the monsoon.
The daily departure to the Good Shepherd School of the eponymous character, the greatest of shepherds, the saviour of our human sheep souls, or in other words Christ, took place in the early morning hours to avoid the rush that could have contaminated the path that separated the four girls' school from the parking lot, which was quite far from the building, with sweat and foul language. They returned home in the late afternoon, always as early as possible after school for the same reasons.
Everything was proceeding in the same daily routine that offered few, if any, variations on the same theme until that fateful evening. The little girl, after her daily routine with her mother and the bogeyman—who, oddly enough, was developing more defined contours each night except for the non-existent legs—had fallen asleep as usual when she was awakened by a dull thud. She slipped out of bed and found the household in a state of supreme excitement. It seemed that her mother, fed up with the garbage under her window, had thrown all her food and the utensils it was in out the window. This was to create enough anger in the neighbourhood about the garbage left there and the general state of the street. Phrases flew in all directions, and the little girl saw her mother yelling through the door at the nanny who was trying as best she could to justify the whole garbage business.
The little girl slowly slipped back behind the wall to escape all the noise made by these adults, which was causing her intense pain in her head and ears. She felt the bogeyman's presence beside her and saw that his body had now become completely visible except for his legs, so much so that he seemed to be floating. He was no longer just a cloud of water droplets giving the impression of a face like before. He was now a real person with a body that stopped at his hips and a well-defined face. She reached out to him with her hand and he gently took it in his own, which seemed immense. The touch of his skin was cold. Without a word, she followed him out of the room to her bedroom. She turned her face towards him and said in a soft voice, "I'm not afraid of you anymore. You're not that bad, and it's not your fault that I'm afraid anyway." The bogeyman said nothing but simply walked beside her with unsteady steps, the slowness of which tried to match the little girl's short stride. He looked at her with his large, unfathomable black eyes, but she was truly no longer afraid.
"What is your name?" the little girl asked.
"I have several names," several voices emanating from the bogeyman answered her. "My name is Deck Aurum," one replied. "My name is Dess Peration," a second replied. "My name is Disilu Shan Men," a third replied. She lost the rest of the names in the ensuing racket, but suddenly the voices fell silent and from the silence emerged the following exclamation: "My name is Gro Wing Up," echoed by several voices emanating from the bogeyman.
"That's strange," the girl retorted. When Grandma died, they put a fire epita on her stone that said Grandma, Mom, Aunt, and everything, and at the end, Rajambal. For you, that's going to be too many names. There won't be enough room on one stone.
"It's called an epitaph," said the bogeyman in a gentle voice, “but it doesn't matter because, you see, I'll never die and I'll never need one.”
And it was as she followed the bogeyman that evening that the little girl felt how futile it had been to try to make him leave before. That evening, something in her chest had made a strange noise in her head. She had felt, just below the satin band that her mother usually tied for her on holidays in a beautiful, bright white bow, on the left side, a kind of quivering like a bird trying to escape. The pain was very brief but tangible yet it would never equal in intensity what she would feel the next day with the events that took place there and which made her give a permanent presence as well as legs to the bogeyman.
For the longest time ever, I have felt I have no kinship with Earth and it felt like a foreign land. Even in my childhood, I would look up at the stars and know in my heart that my true home was out there and I was the proverbial “million miles from home”. As a young child I did not have many friends and tended to always sit on my own when there were breaks at the school I was going to. It was called the Good Shepherd Convent and was, as you could guess, a school for female students only. My parents were of opposing religions and from countries that did not see eye to eye with each other. He was a Tamilian black Indian Hindu and she was a white Tunisian Muslim. They couldn’t have been further apart and their life together was a story in itself but I might talk about that later.
As a teenager, I still had that yearning feeling to go back home but I was able to mask it better and was sociable enough to make friends although I could count them on one hand. The friends I made, I was very loyal to and shared a deep connection with. Later on, as a young woman in a University in Nabeul this was still the case. At University, I tended to embrace what others called lost causes and one of them consisted of a direct clash with a special group of Muslim brotherhood called “Ekhwan Al Jihad” or the brothers of the Jihad (holy war). These people, whose shortened name was “Khwanjia” for all of us Tunisians resisting their backward rules and oppression, had gained a disproportionate level of power and Bourguiba, the President at that time, did not seem able to easily get rid of the hold they had – something that Ben Ali had been able to do after he orchestrated a coup against Bourguiba several years later.
Meanwhile, one of the higher level recruits of this brotherhood who lived on the same campus, had gotten besotted with me and decided I was to become his wife. He was very surprised at my resistance and later on, he joined those who would stop us from going to the University in our western attire and threw the large and heavy lid of a dustbin at me in one of his hate-fuelled acts against me. We were all wearing just jeans and normal sweatshirts or shirts that were buttoned to the top but they could not bear the sight of us, refusing to cover our heads and wear long dresses or skirts instead of what they perceived as “figure-hugging, male-enticing jeans from hell”.
There were other happenings where this madman tried to hurt me but I evaded most of the time his hateful attacks. I then changed University to go to ENSI in Tunis, a University for IT engineers but decided to leave after two years because the level of power and hate-fuelled acts of the Khwanjia had gotten too much to bear. With my very Hindu name of Geetha which related to the Bhagavat Gita, one of the holiest books in Hinduism, I stood a lot to lose if the Khwanjia were to seek me out and do God knows what to me. My path had always been one of peaceful resistance but that did not stop them from beating us, attempting to tear our hair out of our heads or throwing stones and other large objects at us.
I finally left for Geneva rather than Paris because I felt I could not handle Paris after being in such a small place as Tunis. Geneva was a lovely quiet town which I enjoyed living in a lot even though the immigration rules were quite tough in order to get there. Throughout the time in Tunis as a young woman, it had always been about resistance and avoiding getting into trouble with the Khwanjia so I had not thought much about my ultimate goals but as the quiet of Geneva seeped into me, my previous levels of extraneity took over and I started to feel homesick again, wanting to be out there in the stars.
Life took over while I still stayed firmly entrenched in my dreams of going to sleep and waking up in a planet I could call home again. I went through two marriages and had children from my second marriage whom I loved more than myself to the point of concentrating all my energy on them and almost feeling at home on Earth. Things had gone awry with my first husband because the values we lived by were at odds and he had issues he had never disclosed to me before our marriage. Things went awry with my second marriage as well leaving me in a situation where I was taking care of my children almost single-handedly and our expenses as well as the tax situation were making our financial situation stretched and our relationship as tense as it could ever be.
A break came in the form of a posting I was given in Dubai in 2007, where I was told there were no taxes on income and it seemed like a good idea to go there and at least ease the financial burden on us. Initially, my ex-husband was supposed to come and see if this could change things and he did come to visit in September 2007 but he did not want to lose his position as a Partner in the law firm he was working at so he decided not to join us, after which I decided to file for divorce in the fall of 2008.
In Dubai, I gained more financial freedom initially and was able to start reading again, not having to clean up everything and have to always cook like I was doing during my time with my second husband. I had a cook and a maid taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of. It was lovely to be able to keep my mind occupied with more than just my work and the children’s needs and I started even envisaging to write again. Suddenly things got out of hand in 2010 and I then created a blog to report most of what was happening, share literary produce such as poems and short stories I wrote or share my artwork. What happened from that fated date of August 12, 2010 (note that my birthday is August 12) is mostly laid out in my blog so I will not reiterate what I already wrote. This break in my life, though deeply disturbing and painful, brought out the spiritual side of me again and all that I had been thinking about during my teenage years and as a young woman began to take shape again.
After 2010 I became involved in several charitable endeavours and worked towards trying to make the Earth a better place, one person at a time, changing the sides of myself I felt did not sit well with the person I wanted to be. So many things happened, the culmination of which pushed me to the path of healing which I embraced wholeheartedly starting first with the study of Pranic healing after having experienced healing people with just the healing touch – later on, I became a Reiki Master and worked with Bach flowers remedies. The more I healed people, the more I felt myself being drawn into what I perceived as myself roaming the Earth in sleep, healing others in my dreams. At one point in Dubai, while I was doing a distance healing I felt inclined to create an energy pattern that was all around me. This became a daily work and I was given to know that I was building a Merkabah using Indian mudras.
Several months later, the Merkabah was apparently ready and I experienced in my dreams what I later understood were astral travels. I did not remember much of those travels which I relegated to the dream world so as to keep my drive to work and take care of my children during the daytime. As the years passed by, I started having the conviction that I had to build more points of energy in the Merkabah so that it could work for much longer distances. This was achieved in January 2017 and I experienced a great deal of light entering my body after which my astral travels became clearer. After a few days, around end January, however, I realised that the Merkabah had been ruined and I could not get back to weaving it.
The points of energetic alignment using mudras were no longer leading anywhere as if my mind could not make them properly anymore. My Merkabah had truly been broken beyond repair and I could do nothing about it as my correct weaving of mudras had been damaged. The years 2017 to 2019 dragged on until the passing of my mother in summer of 2019. Somehow, her demise triggered something that made my pattern of mudras able to align correctly to create the Merkabah again. I am still weaving slowly but surely and I know the Merkabah should be fully ready at least by 2026, perhaps for my birthday in that year to be a day of fulfilled hope again. I had fallen but I may just be able to go home and bask in blue again.
I decided to draw a picture of my mother after some grief work I had been doing in relation with the fact that I had not been much present at her side when she was alive. I had done some grief work earlier, closer to when she had passed, but that was in relation to my sorrow of losing her. What had not been achieved earlier, as I had not yet come to terms with it, was overcoming the grief that when she had been ill, I had not been present as I was busy raising my three children alone and had to overcome several hurdles, both financial and time-based. That special grief that had its roots in guilt, was much more complicated to overcome.
When I was doing this latest grief work, I had a very sharp sense of my mother talking to me, using my pet name, and felt her presence very vividly to the extent that I could feel her around me. It was just like how she would hug us when we were children or teenagers and I could feel her tangible presence around me like during those times. I remember now with nostalgia those moments and am irked by the fact that I would just tell her to stop squeezing me and would wriggle out of her tight hug then. As a teenager, I did, however, adore my mother and would always run to the shops to purchase what she asked me to and do all kinds of other errands for her.
My mother was my hero and throughout my life, even when I was not by her side, it was always her example that would lead me to make important decisions in my life. I never stopped working whether pregnant or taking care of my children while juggling a part-time then full-time job together with my higher studies. She always told us to never give up our jobs, to never give our partners control over our stipend and to always privilege the children over the partner because it was the children who needed protection.
She was a nurse and a wonderful one at that. Whenever I went to the hospital where she worked, countless patients would tell me what a great nurse she was. At some point she was taking care of burn victims and I wondered how she could stomach day after day all the difficult images she had to see and the wounds she had to tend to. She was a beautiful person both outside and inside. I hope this portrait gives just an inkling of how beautiful she was.
And as always, mixing the visual, sometimes the spoken but always an audio of the moment, I give you a song which I was listening to when I got the inspiration to draw the portrait.
Prayers of the days, struggle of illusions 19 February 2025
Courtesy freepik.com
Translation of a poem in Arabic that I wrote on 15 May 2011 and that I had never translated before. I am providing below the English translation the original poem with a small correction. There are probably other small grammatical errors that I would not have noticed.The previous poem was published here دعاء الأيام، كفاح ألأوهام | Geetha Balvannanathan's Blog - Isis Tratum
If only I were a scream to flirt with your lips as I rise from them springing free, forgetting silence
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If only I were a rock to roll between your hands as I oppose your ways against happiness resilient, bound, committed to stillness
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If only I were a chick to hide between your wings as I look out from them satisfied and calm, yours until I die
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If only I were pride to support the pulse between your ribs as I help you store the air a loyal owner, extracting sorrows
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Today, from your rib I am renewed, a sorceress, Eve and from my rib, none can remove you neither past grudges nor annihilation
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I am the scream of the steadfast rock so forget, Sisyphus, that I should roll I am the pride of the chick for its mother my days' tears flowed like rivers
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I am every mother who called in the dark the stones were shattered by my screams I am what escaped the death of dreams the wells filled with the blood of my veins
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Look to the oncoming spring for it bears the seed of my flowers Put on the garment of the regretful autumn for it is too late to oppress me
دعاء الأيام، كفاح الأوهام 2011-05-15
ليتني صرخة كي أغازل شفتيك و أنا أرتفع منهما منطلقة حرَة ناسية السُكوت
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ليتني صخرة كي أتكركب بين يديك و أنا أعارض طرقك ضدَ الهناء صامدة مقيَدة ملتزمة بالسُكون
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ليتني فرخ كي أتخبَأ بين جناحيك و أنا أطلُ منها راضية هادئة، لك إلى أن أموت
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ليتني فخر أساند النَبض بين ضلعيك وأنا أساعدك على تخزين الهواء مالكة وافية منتزعة للشجون
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أنا اليوم من ضلعك تجدَدت ساحرة حوَاء و من ضلعي ما أمكن نزعك لا الحقد الماضي و لا الفناء
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أنا صرخة الصخرة الصَامدة فإنس يا سيزيف أن أستدار أنا فخر الفرخ للأم الوالدة سال دمع أيامي سيل الأنهار
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أنا كل أم نادت في الظلام تحطمت بصرختي الأحجار أنا ما نجى من موت الأحلام إمتلأت بدم عروقي الآبار
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أنظر إلى الربيع القادم فهو يحمل زرع زهري إرتد ثوب الخريف النادم فقد فات الأوان عن قهري
Reading of the translation in English of the original Arabic poem:
Reading of the original Arabic poem (most likely with some grammar mistakes)
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