amaryllis (/ˌæməˈrɪlɪs/[1]) – bears the name of the shepherdess in virgil's pastoral eclogues. it stems from the greek ἀμαρύσσω (amarysso), meaning "to sparkle", and it is rooted in "amarella" for the bitterness of the bulb. the common name, "naked lady", comes from the plant's pattern of flowering that blooms when the foliage dies. in the victorian language of flowers, it means "radiant beauty".
in the depths of betrayal,
do not, under any circumstance,
seal your heart.
for years, you intricately
pushed yourself to unglue it.
to forfeit that effort
is to lose the rawness of God
tasting herself in you
as both the flutter in your womb
and as the pain in your left lung.
to seal my heart
is to deprive myself of God.
in this life,
there is much i have allowed.
but this,
this, i will not allow.
______________
~ note to myself. 🖤
your call is the cinder
your mouth is the fire
burning the tips of my fingers,
weaving my thoughts in gold wire.
my tears are the milk,
my oblations are the flowers
gliding onto the blest thāli,
pouring into fire that devours.
your curls are the waves,
your teeth are the moons
cooling the ārti of my heart ,
more precious than kingly boons.
my love is the oath,
my longing is the path
jostling me to you,
enough to endure the world’s wrath.
monsoon one, tell me
when my yearning reaches the skies
are you the sunlight
bathing my eyes?
Glossary
thāli – metal plate used in rituals of worship, on which offerings of fire and water are laid.
ārti – Sanskrit for ‘affliction’ or ‘distress’, as well as an alternative modern spelling for āratī, a ritual in which the light of a burning flame is offered to deities.
.❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。 my creative contribution to the Florilegium Anthology .❀。• *₊°。 ❀°
🖤🥀🌼 FLORILEGIUM 🥀🌼🖤 is an anthology of fiction & non-fiction literature compiled by the 2022 cohort of the Warwick Writing Programme, birthed out of love for writing and out of commitment to expression and self-discovery through the art of writing. Florilegium features 21 emerging writers and it holds short stories, flash fiction & poetry. it was a pure delight to work on this collection with my very talented colleagues and it is a joy to see it out in print! the Florilegium launch was held in february in London 🖤 photos from the launch below!
i had thought
that i was just a girl
who wanted to plant lemon trees
but my hot blood scorched
the vine trailing on the windowsill.
Keśava,
you are pulling me to you by my teeth
and i follow happily.
i followed you into the seven seas
and i followed you into the circle of mountains
i have been calling you with folded hands
and now i will dance to you
with my mouth open
and with flowers woven into my skin tissue.
monsoon one,
did you know
that the crevices of my heart
can hold you whole?
did you know
that the fire in my belly
can swallow the three worlds?
i know you did,
Hari.
i know you did.
happy Mahāśivarātri! 🙏 reflecting today on the need to destroy within that which is familiar to be reborn as new. a poem inspired by the homam witnessed at the Chidambaram Temple (pictured):
Agni
is starved
mantra pours into the fire
ghee pours into the fire
milk pours into the fire
curd pours into the fire
sugar pours into the fire
silk pours into the fire
fear pours into the fire
past pours into the fire
doubt pours into the fire
attachment pours into the fire
woe pours into the fire
ire pours into the fire
Agni
licks his lips
quenching the homam within,
i wear the embers on my eyelids
with each blink
i regenerate.
Har Har Mahādeva!
🔱 further context: scholar Richard K. Payne explores homa as symbiosis between fire, the deity invoked in and concomitantly identified with the fire, and with the practitioner, who themselves becomes ‘ritually identified with both the deity and the fire’. in this, the offerings immolated in the fire are connoted with ‘spiritual obstacles that impede the practitioner from full awakening’. most significantly, ‘the practitioner’s own inherent wisdom is identified with the fire, and just as the offerings are transformed and purified, the practitioner’s own spiritual obstacles are, as well’. (2017)
Payne interestingly identifies two strains of interpretation of the ritual: first, ‘the yogic interiorization of ritual found in post-Vedic Indian religion, more as a form of esoteric physiology than as a psychologized understanding of visualization’; second, ‘the sexual symbolism’ ‘attached to all aspects of fire rituals’. (2017)
my Lord,
melt me on the betelnut leaf
show me that i am rough on the surface
but soft all the way through
my delusions of mass
my convictions of being,
my frights of flow
in the melding of haldi
and sanctified water,
apaḥ sips my contractions
pours of holy water,
my fissures dissolve into You
fingertips adorned in yellow hue
and moist eyes of velvet,
i throw my head back and gasp
𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒
photos: the ecstatic Caturāvṛtti Tarpaṇam, completed in forty-one days with my saṅgha of Śabda Yoginīs.
“Tarpaṇam is ritual libation in which the gross flows into the subtle, the lower into the higher, the rigid into the flexible, the known into knowing and the knowing into the knower.
Gaṇapati rules over the gaṇas in the Mūlādhāra cakra. It is here at the Mūlādhāra that solidity becomes our way of life. As soon as I think or say, “this is how I am,” my being has solidified exactly into that way of being. All other possibilities are eliminated. What was previously flowing (from the Sva-adhiṣṭhāna) has now become fixed, definitive, and stubborn.
When we invoke Mahāgaṇapati, he dissolves these self-imposed chains, allowing them to flow out of restrictions toward expansiveness. Unless this solidity melts, there is no growth or expansion.
In November 2022, Śabda Yoginīs across the world took the saṅkalpa of completing the Caturāvṛtti Tarpaṇam for forty-one days. Every day, we prepared a turmeric pyramid representing Mahāgaṇapati that dissolved with 444 offerings of mantra-infused water. The collective experience of this ritual resulted in exponential expansion, groundedness and miraculous transformation and transmutation of the gross to the subtle…
Deep gratitude to our Guru Maṇḍala for guiding us, leading us, and dissolving us.” 
read the rest on Śabda Institute, where you can also find many gorgeous photos from the collective Tarpaṇam experience. 
in the depths of my being, She dances me to her call:
“come to me. I want all of you, my child. no part of you is too dark, too gritty, too cruel for me. I claim all of you.”
Māiyā! your waves carry your call and roll it against my chest. i seek you with my breath, eyes, hands, and knees. my lungs seek you like they seek air.
Ya Devī! soothing her tears,
Kṛṣṇa told Pāñcālī
that just as you, Śrī Gaṅgā, hold and wash all pollutions yet are ever-pristine,
so does the fallen empress remain untainted by her shame.
aches bathed in your luster,
i plead:
take all of me, Devī.
leave nothing of me behind.
establish me in knowing
that despite my wrongs, fears and corruptions, i, too,
your fragment in the microcosm,
remain unmarred.
may the holy flow of your untamed waters
sweeten the harshness i bear towards myself and the world
soften the rigid corners straining my being
loosen the knots hindering you from coursing within me.
Śrī Mātre Namaḥ. 🙏
photos: before & after bathing in the waters of Śrī Gaṅgā in the auspicious Gangotri. Śabda Yātra. 🙏 the blessing of blessings. 💙
for how many lifetimes
have you been calling me to you, Devī?
for how many lifetimes
have i cowered?
for how many lifetimes
have i been lost, Devī?
for how many lifetimes
have you watched me stumble?
i have been through many wombs
to rest my head at your feet today.
yet here i am,
my Devī.
would it be
greedy of me
to plead with you
one more time?
will you
grace me?
will you
wash away
my good, my ugly?
my irreverences, my pride?
my agonies, my beauty?
will you
cleanse this heart
until i am nothing but flow
rushing forth to meet your shores
like the water running between your locks
🤍 what came to me upon seeing the magnificence of Gaṅgā Devī for the very first time. pictures: Gangotri. Gomukh, Her Source. they fail to encompass Her beauty.
you elude me,
my Beloved.
your nectarous call
trickles in my ears
and i run to you,
maddened.
i run to you,
enamoured,
clothed by longing
and with tears as jewels.
i run to you,
bare,
silk dress in shreds,
ripped slippers.
i’ve been running to you
since before i was born.
i am tired, Hari.
my dignity and pride
are long forgotten.
my toenails are cracked,
the skin peels off my feet.
my hair is rumpled,
my breasts are bruised;
your wayward bride.
whenever i get close
to throwing myself at your feet
my mind entangles me.
my wrongs push against my bones
and i fall on my face.
my blood smears the ground
and i grovel. i cry. i howl.
when your nectarous call
trickles in my ears,
i jolt forwards.
and i run to you,
maddened.
~ poem to Madhav, published in Śabda Magazine, volume II. my offering of longing as we approach the auspicious day of Vijayadaśamī! may we be victorious in our quest to merge with the Divine Beloved.
Praise be to The Empress of Kings
seated on the throne of five corpses in the palace of ruby.
Her blinking eyes birth and collapse the cosmos,
and her crown is the lunar half-moon.
She whose reddened eyes roll ecstatically,
She is Mahātripurasundarī,
The Great Beauty of the Triads.
Praise be to Parā Aṃbikā,
of allure so exquisite that, enchanted,
Śiva grew his third eye just to worship her beauty.
Her body is anointed with sandalwood,
and her fragrance bathes and deludes the three worlds.
She is Śrīmātā,
The Auspicious Mother.
Praise be to Lalitā Aṃbikā,
The One Who Plays,
whose girdle of tinkling bells stirs creation into being.
She who gifts the sun his effulgence,
Her toenail holds the universes,
and Her auspicious thighs are known only by the fortunate Kāmeśvara.
She is Kāmākṣī,
She whose eyes are desire.
Bhavānī,
you are the nectar of the ocean of compassion:
grace this songstress to only sing of your praises.
🌺 “Hymn to the Empress of Kings”, one of my poems offered to Devī at the magnificent Siri Jyoti Pūjā in Seattle. inspired by the verses of the Lalitāsahasranāma which extoll Lalitā’s rapturous beauty. Śrī Mātre Namaḥ. Happy Navarātra! 🙏
📸: SJP, Seattle, September 2022.
blissful Śabdopāya Retreat, Seattle.
continuously reborn in your presence. śrī gurubhyo namaḥ.
i’ve been quiet,
as shy as the fawn
you,
you are teaching me to roar
i’ve been compliant
i’ve stumbled through life
with two left feet
you,
you are teaching me to stand
i’ve been fearful, small
i’ve moved reluctantly
you,
you are teaching me to dance
rapturously
i’ve been ashamed,
my heart’s been shrunken
you,
you are teaching me
to burst into the light
clumsily,
i have shied before your love,
enchained by what i thought was darkness
etched in my reflection.
with wonder, i continuously discover
that my flaws do not faze you
and you,
you remain steady in your love.
i have allowed myself to be tamed,
but for you,
beloved teacher,
i can learn to be unbound.
~ a poem for Guru Pūrṇimā ♥️. celebrating today the love of the Guru, a love so unconditional that it rewires every inch of the being who opens to it. Śrī Gurubhyo Namah! 🙏
amaryllis 