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)
Mother sensed her questions and Mama Jain wondered why she bothered keeping things to herself as Mother would anyway always know what it was that she was thinking about. Mother told her that the segmentation was required because the Goddess dwelt more in the metaphysical world and required hiding from the world portions of her that would cause too much damage to human beings if exposed in the physical. After the initial segmentation into six portions, there was in 2020 another series of fragmentation that brought the total for the Goddess to 9 segments of mind together with what was Mama Jain’s own mind which remained the independent 10th mind. All the minds could communicate together while remaining totally independent from each other. Mama Jain could not access the other 9 portions if the Goddess deemed it undesirable for her.
The fragmentation of Mama Jain’s mind had been a lengthy and painful process for the mind itself although Mama Jain’s consciousness had not felt anything. This was not because consciousness did not feel anything but more because Mama Jain’s consciousness had left her body, leaving only the mind to respond to external stimuli in an automated way. The mind’s solitary automated way was however stilted and sometimes bizarre as there remained a partial connection with the consciousness making what the mind interpreted rather warped and erratic. Therefore, while Mama Jain’s consciousness was away experiencing something totally different and difficult to understand for her mind, the body was responding with a mind that could only rely on a bunch of memories both lived and heard of without the possibility of distinguishing one from the other making her reactions weird for others.
Given that Mother was now explaining, Mama Jain asked her why precisely 9 fragments and Mother explained that this was due to the tertiary system that was the only valid one to allow one to remain out of the world of duality. Indeed, upon entering Mama Jain’s body, the Goddess would somehow be sucked into portions of duality and the way this could interact with the Goddess’ heavenly presence had never been tested before. Therefore, to avoid any harm to the host, the main parts of the Goddess would be put as consciousness split among the 9 minds as nine was the square of 3. From an arithmetical point of view, 9 was equal to 7 plus 2 so represented the value of heavenly abode sitting side by side with duality and not being integrated into it. Mama Jain found these mathematical descriptions bizarre but decided that she was not one to be able to counter Mother’s explanations with any valid arguments so made a mental note of what she was saying.
Mother mentioned to Mama Jain that Gaia had begun the journey of 30 years that was leading to the final evolution into Nova Gaia in 2016 but had had to reset owing to some conflicting nodes of information. She had now resumed her journey towards Nova Gaia which would now see the light of day in 2050. During her consciousness journey, Gaia would gravitate towards new realms making it possible for mankind to see previously unseen planets and stars. While humanity would think that these were new elements in the cosmos, it would actually only be because of Gaia’s metaphysical journey with the evolution of her consciousness which would entail the evolution of human consciousness and be at the same time dependent upon it. The evolution of human consciousness would then lead to humanity discovering what was already there but not visible before given Gaia’s alternate consciousness. In short, humanity saw what Gaia had unfolded because Gaia “saw” by reaching a new realm of consciousness something that had always been there. Mama Jain had already known that the journey had begun but she had not fathomed that this would be connected with a recalculation of the 30 years making the treaty on Mars now only possible by 2050. As Mother had left by now, she sat back in her chair and rocked herself to the music, feeling the soothing music engulf her…
Months had gone by since she passed away yet the memory of her wane face was still imprinted in my mind. I was in Egypt when she died and my brother and I were by coincidence in the same neighbourhood in Cairo when we got the news. We both tried desperately to get back to her to be in time for the funeral but I was only able to catch the evening flight the day after she had passed away. Our family members had delayed the funeral so that we could attend. I arrived almost the morning of her funeral, weary and still in shock. I was still unable to face the reality of her demise. Later in the morning, I sat by her side still numb with the shock of the news of her death. She looked so frail wrapped in her light green and white saree that she used to like. The lady who tended to her had wrapped her in it and it was tightly secured in a few knots over her head.
I asked my aunt if we could unwrap the top as I wanted to kiss her goodbye and my aunt unsecured the knots uncovering her face. It was pale, thin and drawn. I kneeled and put my lips to her forehead and the moment I did so it felt like a dam had opened up in my heart and the pain seared through. The tears flowed down my cheeks uncontrollably as I kissed her forehead and held her. After a while I regained composure and sat beside her as other members of the family moved around arranging everything for the funeral. People came and went offering their condolences and asking me if I remembered them but I recognised none, my mind blank to any memory of their faces. I don’t recall much in the days that followed, except for the aching sense of grief that would not leave. I could not believe that she was gone and I would see her no more.
She was an ordinary yet extraordinary woman. She had lived a difficult life after she had married my father and joined him when he had wanted to return to his home country. Ostracised, unable to speak the language and to adapt to the surroundings she was not used to, she had concentrated all of her attention on us, her children. Later, when she had returned to her home country, it was always visible that the experiences she had lived during that period away from her home had significantly marked her. She remained despite all the hostility she had faced a woman with a positive heart and a desire to always help. I remembered warmly now – although it would drive us crazy when she used to do it while we were young, how she used to gather all the stray cats that had been tortured by some awful kids in the neighbourhood and slowly nurse them back to a healthy state.
She was a beautiful woman, not just outside but also inside and her thoughts were always about how one should be a better person and make the world a better world. She believed in the virtues of kindness, respect, caring, independence and equanimity. She lived her vocation in all aspects of her life. A nurse by profession, tending alternately to children with severe diseases or to third degree burn victims, I remember how the patients would talk of her with praise and gratitude. It was not that she was a soft woman as she could be really tough on us sometimes, having spent several years taking care of us on her own. It was that she truly cared about others and was a nurturing human being. It was not by accident that she had become a nurse, she had always wanted to help others hence her choice of the medical field.
I returned to my daily routine but felt listless as if something had been broken. I realised that it was because with the death of my mother a whole aspect of my life was disappearing. When we lose our mother, it is almost as if the last link to our childhood is broken. Mothers are so emblematic of those times of innocence when we could huddle up closer to them and feel comforted and safe. I had spent many a night tucked underneath her arm when I was raving with fever and waking up tightly held by her had always given me the feeling that everything would always be alright. Somehow, the fact that she was no longer there made me feel like I had lost the possibility of feeling that comfort again. There is something unique about the comfort a mother can bestow and that nothing else can replace.
One day, I was feeling particularly destitute and thinking about my mother. It pained me to think that a woman like her who had cared so much for others had died all alone. Indeed, by a rare coincidence, my sister-in-law had not returned before her carer left and in the thirty minutes or so between the leaving of the carer and the return of my sister-in-law, my mother had breathed her last. I was thinking about how I had been planning for my children to visit their grandmother again that summer and how this would no longer be possible. My thoughts were focused on my mother and I could feel the grief well inside me again. I had stopped writing as I could not bring myself to pen anything and the weeks were turning into months.
As I walked, cloaked in my grief, a shrill call from above caught my attention. There, just a few meters above my head, a seagull flew with its arms alternating between stretching and flapping. It seemed to fly in a criss-cross pattern, right above my head, all the while calling shrilly. I stopped and looked at it and it stopped on the rooftop to the right of my head. I moved onward and the seagull called out and flew over my head again. From the entrance to the compound where I lived until the building where my apartment was, it continued to follow me calling shrilly all the while flying above my head in that curious criss-cross pattern. As I reached my building and looked up at it again, it turned its head one way and the other almost as if it were sizing me up. I felt as if it were a messenger from above as it called again shrilly. I thought of my mother again and as I smiled up at it, I could feel a weight lift off my heart. I looked around me and noticed the intense purple of the lavender in the pot and the bright yellow of the fallen leaves. That sense of comfort would always be there. Her body may have disappeared but she was still there, in every bird that flew, in every leaf that fluttered, in every beautiful thing that shone on in this world around me. I smiled up again and the seagull flew.
Mother (in Arabic) and Woman (in English) both dedicated to my mother – Geetha Balvannanathan
Alternate Realities – Chapter Six : The path of the Goddess
10 June 2019
Courtesy alphacoders.com
She held out her hand and the dragons came closer, sniffing carefully at her hands before they huddled closer around her and rubbed their cheeks and foreheads against her palms. Their skin had not developed the hard scales yet and it felt smooth and silky. She was fascinated by how sweet and loving they seemed. Not at all the scary beasts that stories would have them be. Perhaps this was a feature of being in their infancy.
– How long does it take for a dragon to mature, she asked
– It depends
– How can it depend ?
– It depends if it is a real dragon or an imaginary replica
– What do you mean an imaginary replica ?
– Some of these dragons were born in the way that they usually are, through the interaction between a God and a human. Some of them are not born, they are imagined based on either the memory of that interaction or the vision of the interaction to come
– How can humans and Gods have a physical relationship ?
– It only happens in this Universe and is only possible with human beings
– How are the others imagined ? How do they actually get life out of imagination
– Well in this universe a lot is based on what is perceived. Not much really exists out of the sphere of the human imagination. Everything is merely energy. It is the perception of how that energy evolves that makes it evolve into various concrete forms. When a human woman remembers or foresees an interaction with a God, her womb accumulates the energy of a planned birth but as the spark is not transferred into her, the energy does not materialise into an actual dragon but is just an imaginary replica.
– You said they were neither flesh nor spirit but a combination of both. What does that mean ?
– They are not made with an actual sperm, unlike when the interaction is between humans but are made with the spark that is transferred by the God into the woman. That spark then evolves into a dragon in the womb of the woman
– Does it not kill her when it comes out of her ? She was thinking back to the various alien movies
– It does not, because it just dematerialises out of her womb and rematerialises outside. As I said, they are a combination of flesh and spirit and can be either one or the other depending upon the circumstances.
– Can all women be impregnated by Gods ?
– Not all. Only some and not all are able to give birth to dragons. Some just give forth immaterial beings because they are not able to imagine the dragon into the world.
– This is quite confusing. I never thought it would be like this. Why were some of the dragons cuddling up to me.
– That is because you are their mother
– What ? Her head was spinning again like when she had first realised who he was.
– You are their mother, he repeated softly
– With whom ?
– I think you already know that by now
– It can’t be. I thought it was all part of my imagination
– It is
– I’m so sorry.
– It does not matter
– How can we use them in the battle then ?
– They get their power from their father and it helps provide the energy required to counter the Gods of the dark and their armies. When you house the Mother, it will all become clear.
– House the Mother? What do you mean ?
– I think you know that too. You must remember that you have already housed her before
– Housed her ? When ?
– Not so long ago. Unfortunately it did not work out exactly as planned and it is just as well as the children of the world in between were not ready yet.
She vaguely remembered the great light that had come like a torch of fire and gone into her eyes. It had seemed like a bird of flames and she had not been able to run away or close her eyes. That light had penetrated her through the eyes and had filled her being. She looked back at him
– Yes, he said before she voiced her question
– That was the Mother ? Why did she leave then ?
– Well there was a lot of meddling that happened. Instead of her being manifested into you naturally, there were some people who tried to accelerate the process, spoiling it
– Too many cooks…, she said wryly.
– If they had not meddled with the process the integration would have been complete. Unfortunately they wanted to control the process apparently to ensure they could use it to their benefit I imagine.
– But how can I house her now ? Should she not be within the body of a young and physically fit woman ?
– That is not what is most important. Besides, once the Mother dwells within you and the integration is complete you will be transformed
– Why me ?
– The Mother does not choose mere beauty. She can create it out of nothing, even in this world if she were to wish so. She wanted someone who would not follow religious dogma but would be a seeker of spirituality. Someone who had just enough balance between the right brain and the left brain to be able to keep their imagination alive while being well versed in mathematics and with an interest in science. A woman with courage, endurance and balance. Someone whose skin she would feel comfortable in, a lover of art and the spoken word.
– I do love words, she said with a smile
– Do you know that words, spoken in a certain way and with the right intention allow the manifestation of thoughts ? The ancient people of this world knew that and were able to create things through the use of carefully selected words
– You mean magic spells ?
– Yes, if you wish to call it that. It is merely the manifestation of focused intention.
– How do you know someone meddled with the process of the integration, she asked, curious about that episode that had seemed so hazy now.
– The Mother and I are not absolutely sure if they wanted to accelerate the process or stall it. What we know is that they gave you a drug a few days before the Mother was about to transfer a part of her consciousness into you. That drug interfered with your chemical balance and made the transfer of the Mother into you unstable. If it had not been for that, the integration would have been complete.
– Why does the Mother need to integrate with me.
– She needs to be within this world to transform it from the inside out. That is the best way to conquer it back. If she comes as the Mother, she will not be able to interact with all human beings alike. She needs a human envelope to enable that interaction. She does not come here to be worshipped but to change the state of things in this world, beginning with the condition of women.
– Why women ?
– Simply because they nurture and when their lives are better, there will be less fear in the world. As you know, a world without fear is a world that will belong to us again. Then humanity can enter the Golden Age.
She looked at Horus and looked back at the dragons. She wondered how they would be contributing their energy. Would they know about their father ? Would they not want to fight alongside him instead of with the Mother, Horus and her ?
– Dragons are more loyal to their mother than to their father, he said. He seemed to be reading her mind again
– How do you know that ?
– I know that because the ones we had together chose you over me
– The ones we had together ? Her head was reeling now
– I know this is all a lot to digest but when Settesh realised that the dragons birthed would not follow him, he stopped making them with you. The Mother knew we needed more dragons so asked me to make more with you.
– And I did not have a say in all of this of course, she said slightly bitterly
– It is done now. It had to be done. You barely realised the difference
She looked again at the dragons and felt something strange between fascination, motherly pride and love. They looked so cute, she could not believe that they would become huge and powerful beyond her wildest dreams. Horus was now communicating silently to her that soon the mother would be back and she must be ready for her. The children must also evolve so they could play their part. All she had to do was think of them evolving, perceive it happening and it would happen. She looked back at the dragons and imagined them growing. The more she imagined, the more she felt they were actually growing.
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