Friday, 27 February 2015
AND A PHOTO OF AN ANCIENT ME
Okay, enough with the photographs already! This should be called the age of Narcism! I see myself as I look now and how I will be twenty years from now (if I'm lucky! Now here's a reason for liking looking older -- you have survived!)
HERE ARE PHOTOS OF A VERY SHLUMPY ME
It struck me that I was always sort of censoring my photos before posting -- don't look too old; don't look to shlumpy. But at least 70 % of the time I go around looking like this. It reminds me of the song, ALL OF ME, WHY NOT TAKE ALL OF ME?
A PHOTO OF A VIEW I DON'T ALWAYS HAVE
Our friend Tony Ramos, fabulous artist, great photographer, story-teller, system-bucker, visited us from the South of France over last weekend and I haven't enjoyed a house guest this much in a long time. He took this photo of Payson and me while we were out strolling downtown San Diego after we said our goodbyes to the MELVILLE, research vessel being retired. Payson had sailed to Antarctica in it.
Thursday, 26 February 2015
HOW METHOD CAN HELP YOU RELAX AND THE JOYS OF HAVING YOUR OWN BATHROOM
I’m
very proud of myself for figuring out a way to be in this wide swath of time
given to me after much struggle and busyness. I have been fearful that if I had
too much time on my hands – which I do now, having almost completed a very long
standing project, so long it has been a joke with my family and friends: MALINI
IN WHIRLWOOD -- I would go crazy. I feel easy in my mind around everything and take joy at the
prospect of my days in which I putter from thing to thing, following my method,
which includes, ‘now I’m going to take a break and play three games of
backgammon,’ or ‘now I’m going to lie down for ten minutes and simply be with
my breath,’ or ‘now I’m going to lure Payson out of his study and into the
brilliant sunshine so we can eat some vitamin D.’
Just
now I nurtured my body by microwaving some pure Shea butter in a fiesta ware
container allocated to it for all time, bringing it downstairs to my own
bathroom, turning on the heater (it is nippy at 55 degrees at 11:00 a.m.),
stripping down to nothing, sitting on my stool and greasing up my very dry
body, then clipping my toenails. Payson came in and I greased up his hair and
neck and face, too. He doesn’t let me do it often, but I love nurturing him
too.
Just
a word about my bathroom: some might consider it a luxury but a bathroom of
your own is essential. It is a place for downtime, for relaxation and
self-nurturing. I love my travertine sink that I hunted for in five shops when
the bathroom was modeled four years ago, I love the rug in it (not because it
is particularly beautiful or expensive) but because it gives me something soft
to stand on when I do my ablutions.
Next post, pictures of my bathroom.
IN PRAISE OF METHOD
I
love method and follow it from moment to moment. A simple thing like this gives
me joy:
I’m
going to put the kettle on, take a pee (shouldn’t it be ‘give’ a pee?), bring
down the mug from the cabinet, put a tea bag in it, clean the counter if the
water still hasn’t boiled, pour it, then go downstairs and turn on the
synthesizer.
A
definition of METHOD is illuminating. By the way, I use the American Heritage
Dictionary of The English Language, my favorite: the root means ‘to go,’ ‘to
go after,’ ‘pursuit;’ journey comes from the same root. ‘A means and manner of procedure,
a regular and systematic way of accomplishing anything,’ ‘Orderly and systematic
arrangement.’
In
my case right now the ‘accomplishing’ means getting through my day with sanity
and joy.
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
IT'S SO NARCISSISTIC, ISN'T IT, ALL THESE PHOTOS. BUT THERE IS A REASON OTHER THAN VANITY
I cannot post a picture of myself without seeing through the utter vanity of the act. This subject demands some exploring. Yes, it is vain but I am encouraged to do this by YOU. I see my photos get far more hits than my writing, so I pander to it; I need to keep you engaged because my publicist says I should. I also want to keep you engaged because I really want you to buy my book THE SINGING GURU when it is released on the 17th of March. Honestly, it has nothing to do with making money. I hardly make any money on my books. If my motive was money, I would have given up a long time ago! I am compelled to write and I recognize that if I am to be published (I have another eight projects in various states of readiness) again and again, the books must sell so the publisher will be motivated to continue publishing my books. So here I am, selling myself, and will possibly continue to do so till my dying breath. While I respect artists and writers who are content to work in isolation, I know myself enough to know that I am made of a different metal. It is important to know such things about yourself, to have clarity on who or what you are so you can proceed accordingly without too much conflict. I also know how important it is to not get caught up in your own press and to keep a distance between your image and you. The image is public, but I am quite, quite private when I need to be.
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
SOME PHOTOS OF MY MOTHER'S GARDEN THIS TIME LAST YEAR
Even at 94 my mother takes interest in her garden -- making sure annual winter/spring flowers are planted every year both in the front and back gardens. Though I am rarely with her at this time of the year and only catch some of the beauty when I arrive by April, these photos are thanks to Charanjit, who has kindly obliged.
THE BENEFITS OF KEEPING A JOURNAL
Days and weeks go by without my even thinking of blogging till a certain inner nagging gets me to sit here and say something, anything, mainly a sort of State of Soul address. It's really important to do this for oneself periodically, if not daily. Daily, of course, is much better than periodically, because doing so helps you navigate the days in a meaningful, aware way, which, after all, is THE purpose of our being here on this planet. The first step here is to acknowledge your feelings about where you are: I'm tired, confused, afraid, anxious, etc etc. I know I have been in all these places even though I am at rest this morning. The second step is to try to uncover the causes, which is not an easy thing to do. This is where the magic of journalling comes in. Even as I write the word 'journal' I am reminded of how it means 'a personal record of experiences and reflections,' day, daily, and the root of the word, deiw, is also the root of god, deity, divine, rich, 'fortunate, blessed, divine,' luminous, shining, deodar (my favorite tree), journey, sojourn, and also, demon.
I will go so far as to say that at its very basic, journalling has helped me to survive by curdling the chaos in my brain and heart into some sense. Lately, to give you an example, I have been through a cycle of very bad sleep, and all its consequent angst. I hadn't even thought about journalling through that demon storm, but no sooner did the thought come 'I must journal about this,' a lot of the anxiety was quelled. AND, in the process, I discovered what was happening deep down in my soul (I can't make total sense of it and often I just have to endure the journey as consciously as I can) and the steps I needed to take to get back on course.
But a word about demons: if you stop and face them, they give you a gift.
I will go so far as to say that at its very basic, journalling has helped me to survive by curdling the chaos in my brain and heart into some sense. Lately, to give you an example, I have been through a cycle of very bad sleep, and all its consequent angst. I hadn't even thought about journalling through that demon storm, but no sooner did the thought come 'I must journal about this,' a lot of the anxiety was quelled. AND, in the process, I discovered what was happening deep down in my soul (I can't make total sense of it and often I just have to endure the journey as consciously as I can) and the steps I needed to take to get back on course.
But a word about demons: if you stop and face them, they give you a gift.
Friday, 13 February 2015
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
POSTSCRIPT ON MOURNING MY YOUTH OR THE IMPORTANCE OF RITUALS
I have to tell you that after I wrote the post EFF DETACHMENT I AM MOURNING MY YOUTH,
I felt so much better. Most of us just go into old age unconsciously, catching glimpses of ourselves in mirrors, windows, photographs, and feeling lost, old, unhappy, powerless. My post was a ritual of sorts, a sort of a high moan, groan, whine after which I felt I could get on with my life as it is. And as it is is great. So very much to be grateful for!
I felt so much better. Most of us just go into old age unconsciously, catching glimpses of ourselves in mirrors, windows, photographs, and feeling lost, old, unhappy, powerless. My post was a ritual of sorts, a sort of a high moan, groan, whine after which I felt I could get on with my life as it is. And as it is is great. So very much to be grateful for!
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
TEXT OF AN INTERVIEW ON THE SINGING GURU
HERE IS THE LINK AND THE TEXT: PLEASE GO TO THE LINK AND LEAVE COMMENTS! THANKS!
http://elizagalesinterviews. com/2015/02/01/an-interview- with-author-kamla-k-kapur/
What is The Singing Guru about?
http://elizagalesinterviews.
What is The Singing Guru about?
It
is about an unhappy man’s journey from conflict to joy and peace. Mardana, who
was historically the rababi, or rabab player (a medieval stringed instrument
also called a rebec) of Guru Nanak,
(1469-1539) the founding father of Sikhism, traveled with the master on his
extensive journeys from India to other countries. Mardana’s odyssey, full of many
dangerous adventures, parallels his spiritual and psychic journey from the
animal end of the human spectrum to a man in the process of transformation and
liberation.
Mardana,
in the Punjabi folk tradition, is utterly human, like us. His ego and his many
appetites, for wealth, fame, sexual satisfaction, which he follows despite Guru
Nanak’s advice and his own better judgment, lead him into bondage. His lust
turns him into a goat in which incarnation he stays for much of the book. Tied
to a stake and awaiting death as a sacrifice to the sorceress Nur Shah, he
recounts to the other goats the many dangerous straits his five demons (that
Guru Nanak calls kaam, krodh, lobh, moh,
hankaar -- lust, anger, greed, attachment and pride) led him into.
Mardana
is a contrast to Guru Nanak. He begins at the point where almost all of us
begin – in an ignorance that is so arrogant it leaves no room for learning and
growth unless we recognize and acknowledge it honestly and fearlessly, as
Mardana does throughout and especially at the end of the book.
Guru Nanak’s wealth is the crystalline lens of the
awakened consciousness that is attained when we surrender ourselves to the
Limitless One. This lens, Guru Nanak sings repeatedly, is richer than all the
treasures of the world put together. When attained, all matter, all the
richness of the sensual world, all forms in nature, become luminous and
undying.
Mardana’s greatness lies
in having glimpses
of some other way of living, the way of surrender and faith, of trust in the
power that has made and that sustains him, the way of staying in the still
point of the turning world, above the down and up of existence; in his
realization that in his darkest hours he is guided by Guru Nanak’s words and
superior wisdom; that the name of the Beloved, insubstantial, invisible word made of
air, is the ship that rescues him when he is floundering and crashing on the
hard, jagged rocks of the fiery ocean of suffering that he casts himself into
from time to time.
This realization invites Guru Nanak’s intervention which plucks him out
of the clutches of Nur Shah, turns him back into a blessed man again, a man
given the rare gift of life in which he has the choice of placing himself on
the path that Guru Nanak has advocated
throughout the book, of becoming a man whose face is turned towards God
instead of his own ego. As he learns the values of humility, patience,
gratitude, praise, and surrender to the Cosmic Will, Mardana begins to grow
into his full potential as a true, conscious, humble human being, a Sikh.
2. What inspired you to
write it?
My
father always wanted me to write this book. I grew up in a fairly traditional
Sikh family. My mother is one of the many sixteenth generation descendants of Guru
Nanak and I heard a lot of the stories that are embedded in the larger
narrative arc of the book.
I
am eclectic about spiritual wisdom, and glean it from all sources. I have
written two books from the Hindu and Muslim traditions: Ganesha Goes to
Lunch (now reprinted in India as Classics from Mystic India) and Rumi’s
Tales from the Silk Road (published
in India as Pilgrimage to Paradise: Sufi Tales from Rumi). This
eclecticism and egalitarianism is an integral part of Sikhism. The Sri Guru
Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book, contains the songs of seven Sikh gurus,
including Guru Nanak, who composed and sang, and the songs of fifteen Hindu and
Sufi saints.
Guru
Nanak’s definition of a religious person is “one who looks on all as equal.”
Brotherhood and sisterhood of all on this planet is Sikhism’s basic tenet;
music is at its heart. What better subject to write about than one I resonate
with?
3. You have written several
plays, what is the primary difference between writing for the stage and writing
a novel?
I
write in all genres – plays, poetry, essays, fiction. The subjects, ideas,
feelings, characters that interest me, come with their own forms. The subjects
with the most psychic or social conflict come to me as plays. Conflict lends
itself well to dialogue because there are two or many more opposing points of
view. This is not to say that plays are only about disembodied opposing points
of view. Characters, embodying the conflict, are central to what happens on the
stage. Since plays progress through dialogue and action, and since their
performance has a communal interface, they are pared down to something that can
take place in a few hours. Plays are much more time-bound, dense, and compact.
Fiction,
on the other hand, can ramble, something I like to do. They can include
description, thoughts (which can also be expressed as soliloquies in plays),
meditations, cogitations, philosophizing in addition to dialogue and character.
Fiction is the most capacious of the genres and I love it for these reasons.
But of course, you have to be careful not to abuse its freedom to the point of
boring your readers. Art, above all, is the imposition of limits on nature, and
you have to be aware of this if a project is to succeed – by which I mean, find
its audience.
Matters
of the heart and soul are best suited for Poetry, which goes deeper into the
human spirit than the other genres. It is a soliloquy of the soul with itself.
Having
said this, though I have never had to debate about whether a particular subject
should be expressed in a play or fiction or poetry – like I said, they come
clothed in their forms – I use the strengths of each genre in the others as
well. Dialogue is an integral part of my fiction because dialogue, more than
any other technique, propels the story into the present, makes it come alive in
the Now. My last book of poems, As a
Fountain in a Garden, is one long monologue, comprised of smaller ones, and
is in the form of a dialogue between a woman and the ghost of her husband who
committed suicide.
4. What kind of educational
background do you have?
My
early education was mainly in what we in India call convent schools, run by
nuns. My father was in the army and we traveled all over India, and convent
schools were available in every station he was transferred to. For the last
four years of my high schooling I was in a private boarding school with a
British headmistress in Dehra Dun. I got my Bachelor’s from a Government
College in the town my parents settled in after retirement, Chandigarh, after
which I took my dowry money and got myself a Masters’ degree in English and
American Literature at Kent State University in Ohio. I was always a reluctant
academic and ended up not getting a Ph.D. after two years of course work.
Later, in the early nineties, I took some online classes from Iowa and USCD. They
were mainly to get a hike in my salary instead of to learn anything. What I
submitted for my course work in poetry and fiction were things I was already
working on.
5. What kind of research
did you do for The Singing Guru?
My
primary source was the electronic version of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the
Sikh holy text, specifically Guru Nanak’s 946 songs, called Bani, a holy utterance. Then, about five
years ago a cousin mentioned Max Arthur MacCauliffe’s six volumes called The Sikh Religion, Its Guru, Sacred Writing
and Authors. Macauliffe’s volumes have been the main source and
inspiration for this and the subsequent books I have planned to write, The Sikh
Saga series.
Though Macauliffe gives some details about the
lives of the Sikh gurus, which are the underpinning of my book, they were not
enough to bring alive the narrative. I read other books, but I had to rely
mainly on my imagination to create the narrative.
6. Who are some of your
literary influences?
I
have to admit I only read dead authors. My ego doesn’t get involved and I don’t
find myself getting intimidated by the success of live ones! I read a lot, but
since you ask only about my literary influences I have to mention Shakespeare
on the top of my list. I think I have learned the most from him. As far as poetry
goes, I have many favorites, Sappho, Yeats, Emily Dickenson, Hilda Dolittle
(HD), Walt Whitman, Blake. I can’t think of the others now since I haven’t been
reading poetry for many years.
7. What kinds of day jobs
have you had and how have they influenced you?
Being
an untraditional Indian woman who did not marry for security’s sake, I was
always very conscious of making a living on my own. I did not want anything
very demanding, and certainly not something that would consume all my time. I
have been writing since my teens and it has been my primary passion. A 9 to 5
was out of the question. The only thing I could do without destroying my soul
was teach. I taught on a fellowship at Kent State University, at Delhi
University, at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia, and many courses as a
part time, adjunct professor at various colleges in San Diego before I was
hired full time at Grossmont College in 1991, in which position I taught for 10
years full time and five years half time. I took an early retirement because my
soul was crying out for release from grading papers and would not be consoled.
Teaching
elicited my passion because I was very interested in the topics I taught: in addition to composition and grammar, I taught
literature, play-writing, creative writing in all genres, women’s literature,
mythology. It elicited my passion because I learnt so much from what I taught.
I was, in fact, a student of what I taught. Even from my least favorite topics,
composition and grammar, I learned enormously. In addition, a sabbatical
project for creative writing classes turned into a book of 32 essays on the
creative process, called The Writing
Warrior, which, when I have some time I will submit for publication. Once
again I am getting interested in writing essays and I am aided in this task by
techniques I found in text books and discovered for myself in the process of
teaching my students how to write essays. So, all in all, I would say my day
jobs influenced me enormously.
8. How did you and your
publisher find each other?
This
answer takes off from the previous one. When my soul was crying out against the
shackles of time and grading papers, I ignored it for many years. I was very
hesitant to quit a tenured position in which my salary was increasing each year.
For years I was in agonizing conflict over it. In retrospect it reminds me of
the Indian monkey metaphor for how one gets trapped in life. Monkey catchers in
India put out narrow mouthed jars with nuts or grains in them in areas that
monkeys visit. A monkey puts his empty hand in it, grabs a hand full, but when
he tries to pull his hand out, discovers that the mouth of the jar is not large
enough for his fist full of grain to come out. He is very reluctant to leave
the grain, and sits with his hand in the jar till the catcher comes and ties a
leash around his neck. This was my condition with my job.
But
I must admit it wasn’t just the money that kept me there. I wanted to quit in
order to write full time, but the demon Lack of Confidence had me in chains, too.
What makes you think you are good enough, he screamed silently in the depths of
my soul. If you quit, you won’t have money or success.
But
finally this monkey got away and the demon was routed, but only at the point
where I couldn’t take it anymore. The week I turned in my resignation, my
publisher, Raoul Goff, came through the door of our house and my husband,
Payson Stevens, who has always supported me as a writer, handed him the
proposal for Ganesha Goes to Lunch.
We
met Raoul through our masseuse, Kelly Thompson, who always brought us gifts of
beautiful books that his friend, Raoul, owner of Mandala Publishing, was
putting into the world. One day he just brought him over when he was in San
Diego, and my perceptive husband persuaded me to put together five of the
stories on Indian mythology that were previously published in Parabola.
Raoul
published my second book on Rumi, and now my third, The Singing Guru, and hopefully, the universe willing the sequels
of the book, which are in the making. The
Singing Guru is only Book 1 in the Sikh Saga series.
9. How do you make Indian
spirituality stories accessible to someone who did not grow up in
that culture?
You
will be surprised how much cross-cultural connection humans all over the planet
have. This is what amazes and reassures me about the consanguinity of all when
it comes to essential truths that we have all discovered, and sometimes, lost. Language
itself is an indicator of this. Though there is Babel, there is also coherence.
The fact that my books are bought and read in both India and the US is
indication that they make sense to these widely (?) separated audience. It is
because at the core we are similar. The mystical traditions of all religions –
Gnosticism to Christianity, Sufism to Islam, Vedantic tradition to popular
Hinduism – are all indications of this. That’s why I wrote the first two books,
to show how paths do converge. Differences are superficial, though serious
enough to cause wars.
Specifically,
I make the stories accessible by writing long introductions, and in the case of
Ganesha Goes to Lunch, my editor at
Mandala, Mariah Bear, suggested I write one page intros to the dramatis
personae of Indian mythology. I am told it is helpful to readers to get a
clearer understanding of Indian mythology.
10. What do you think people
misunderstand about Indian spirituality?
What
is misunderstood about Indian spirituality is what is misunderstood about
nearly all religious practices. The primary misunderstanding that mankind is
prone to is to take things too literally. In the case of Hinduism, for example,
both Indian and Westerners tend to think it is about ritual, about pilgrimages,
about a hundred thousand gods. In all religions there is some sensual
representation of the Godhood because people, creatures of the senses, need
solid representations of it. They need tangibles, statues, books, symbols and
signs. They need prophets to worship. They tend to forget that these are all
what Joseph Campbell calls the “masks of God,” not God himself or herself. This
forgetting has, and continues to have, very serious consequences in the world. People
kill and die for it.
But
specifically, a lot of people in the west think that yoga equals Indian
spirituality. Though yoga is definitely one of India’s gifts to mankind – I
myself swear by it; no matter how I’m feeling, it makes me feel better – it is
certainly not all of Indian spirituality. Also, Americans who tend towards
Hindu practices and rituals need to understand that any practice can have too
narrow a focus. Any practice that excludes or sets itself apart from others is
destructive to the emerging global community that the internet has set into
motion. It is high time that this world wide community becomes our conscious
goal.
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