Wu Wei- Doing nothing
This past week was all about my break from my job as an educator and during this break, I finally got some time to come back home and be with my parents and to write and read more which I had been missing for quite some time. On a personal note, my health has been not keeping too well. Some bone/joint issues popping up now and then which mostly kept me a bit gloomy and gave me a lot of time to think about my health priorities and my diet as well—at the same time, reading an article one day. I happened to stumble upon the concept of Wu Wei, which resonated with me a lot.
Wu Wei means – in Chinese – non-doing or 'doing nothing'. It sounds like a pleasant invitation to relax or worse, fall into laziness or apathy. Yet this concept is key to the noblest kind of action according to the philosophy of Daoism – and is at the heart of what it means to follow Dao or The Way.
Some examples of wu wei include:
Engaging in unstructured activities
Letting your mind wander
Observing the world without analyzing
Letting thoughts come and go
Sitting quietly
Taking a stroll
Lying down on a grassy field
Watching the clouds
Sharing a few insightful arrays of links to watch anytime at your convenience. One link = one day, maybe?:)
Links of the week-
When your self-worth depends on what you achieve
When you stop trying it happens
Watch some cute animation- The turning point a short movie
Poetry Corner- For poetry I have included a few writer’s works in this column to bring some freshness and a different voice than the rest.
Viza Arlington
Portrait of a Lady (Ankit Raj Ojha)
Last night I came across a photograph of my grandma
in an old smartphone—a picture of a photograph,
twice removed from reality.
I touched to scroll and my thumb didn’t lift.
Despite seventy kilos of my prime, I was
arrested by a dead woman’s glare.
I tried looking away yet looked hard at the creased maze
with its twin portals beaming into my history,
and ghosts of days gone by were alive,
flooding my throat like bile crawling up an abused stomach,
gagging me with memories of my treachery.
The weary twists and turns of her yellowed broken skin
seemed worthier and farther than the road to the office.
I gazed, and all I had conquered was vain.
One-point-five millimetres of tempered glass was an ocean.
Inheritance
(For Baba; after Gabriel García Márquez)
Gabo taught me that the ones who pass
are never gone but leave themselves
to someone in the family—his Aurelianos
and José Arcadios testifying for him
over one hundred years. I could never fathom
how life mirrors art until I find myself
a fanatic for Zimbabwe against Australia.
My grandpa was religious enough
never to have missed a game whether or not
India played.
I myself have barely watched
cricket in a decade, until today, more than
a year since Baba passed.
Ankit Raj Ojha is the winner of the 2023 Briefly Think Essay Prize, finalist in the Sundress 2023 Broadside Contest, and editor at The Hooghly Review. His writings have appeared in Poetry Wales, Poetry Scotland, The Honest Ulsterman, Indian Literature, Routledge, Johns Hopkins University Press, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pinpricks: poems (2022) and editor of Wives: poems (2023). Ankit has a PhD in English from IIT Roorkee and is currently an assistant professor with the Department of Higher Education, Haryana. X: @ankit_raj01 || Instagram: @ankitrajojha1
Amrita Sher Gill
Hope Is Translucent (Gargi Sirdana)
Hope-
A concave rectangular mass; with the strings attached to hear the lullaby of peace.
Thin phrases written on the crest of the device.
Like a water plunged from a great height to communicate charismatic music.
Music that is heard far from the distant realm.
In the realm, hope beckons the bones;
(the robust bunch of glass shrewd enough not to touch the body).
Hope, a rainbow coveted in the carpet of
Sliver dreams, Germanium desires, and naked truth.
Falcon hopping on the zenith of the earth,
Yearning for a bunch of requited human touch;
It craves for the tender comfort (soothing like a breeze).
Hope, droplets of blood left on charred lips.
A purple maze of exaggerated dilemmas created by us.
Envy snores of half-human's mind draped in the lamb.
Seeking shelter in the arms of trust and profoundly dozing in the pasteurized love.
Hope, an oblong desire to breathe for the nation, chasing a wide spectrum of prolonged trust.
Gargi Sirdana-From the land of traditions, culture, and religion( India), Gargi is a voracious reader and a writer. She had curated short prose, poems, and articles for various magazines. Her poems were accepted by Spillword, Aether Avenue, Teesta Review, Papercranes literary Journal, Mocking Owl roost publication, Gypsophilla, Vellichor Magazine etc. She finds solace in her writings. She is available on Instagram @gargisidana
Also, I was reminded of times when I would list various journaling prompts and would like to work on them myself. And, I am thinking of maintaining a short journal just to answer these questions-
Some other short poems-
Eating Alone (Tanka by Yi Yولو (Yu Lu), China)
Lamp wick sighs, Oil runs low, casting long shadows. One chopstick beats a bowl. A lone moon through the paper window, My only companion tonight.
This tanka uses a spare style to capture the loneliness of eating alone, with the moon as the only companion.
Matinee- Andrea Cohen
Today the part
of love will be played
by regret. Memory
will be played
by what if, tragedy
by the saxophonist.
Silence will be played
by silence. There will
be no intermission.
My newsletter is 4 now and I take pride in it as I started writing this during lockdown to spread positivity around. I am thinking of conducting a small online poetry reading in the future, if I am all fit and my bones support me.
Until then, please stay hydrated and take care of your dear ones!
Love
Devika