Strength

Having experienced people with mental illness growing up, I now have the maturity and understanding to appreciate how difficult and frightening normal, every day life can be for those with an unstable grasp of sanity. It is very easy to victimise and feel pity for those people inflicted with mental illness, but this does not highlight the incredible courage and strength they exhibit every day of their lives. We feel a sense of connection and unity based on close people understanding us, so for mentally ill people, they feel an overwhelming grip of lonliness, seperation and despair. They are living in their own personal hell and their mind and imagination hold them in a place of illusion that is incredibly real for them. I was once told that it was like teetering around a great, dark abyss. This abyss pulls and threatens to swallow you up, but balancing around the edges takes great strength and stamina and sometimes they slip and fall in. Thus ensues a long, painful process back to the edges.


Lost and forgotten,
A speck on the horizon of life.

Digging at the dirt,
Foraging through the darkness.

Peering nose up against the window pane of others lives,
But limited by the inability to grasp the light in the dark.

Lily Basnet

Origami

My nana's biggest fear was being unable to look after herself and succumbing to pressure to leave her sheltered accommodation (where she was fairly independent) to move into a retirement home. She had all her mental faculties right up to the end and spent her days reading and educating herself. I witnessed her frustration and vulnerablity as her physical health started to deteriorate, up to the point where her small appartment became her whole world. Despite the indignity and pain of losing her mobility, she rarely complained and was graceful right to the end. I remember her as an intelligent, strong, generous and charitable woman who loved to help others worse off than herself and who had a thirst for knowledge and life. When asking her one day - what was the most difficult thing about ageing, she replied that the most difficult thing about growing old, was witnessing your closest family and friends passing on, one by one. Death becomes a normal part of life and she said it was important to be able to let go of all those attachments with a sense of love and maturity.

When pondering of my own older age, I wonder whether I will spend my time with my grandchildren and friends sipping tea and telling stories or whether I would travel the world commemorating my life into the words that I write and the pictures that I take. Maybe I would pass away on a mountain in some far flung place. Who knows what the future may hold? But the internet and all that is beholden gives older people today the option of communication and connection, and that is an invaluable tool to a quality of life beyond any physical limitation.


Origami

She sits in the corner
With gnarled, papery fingers,
Folding clean, crisp sheets into shapes.
On closer inspection, she works with consistent
fervour at her task.
Her back is crooked and folds forward,
As if she hasn't seen the stars in years;
But her hands are elegant and have the grace of
somebody half her age.
Perfect, blanched animals,
Winking in the sunlight.
Oblivious to their fate.
As the sun works its way round,
Her eyes half lidded from fatigue,
Hang heavy in their resting place.
She snoozes and time ticks on,
without purpose.
The paper creations swept uncaringly into the bin;
Another day passes.

Lily Basnet

Earth

 'apeiron' 
the indefinite - from which all things are created and to which all things return

Anaximander 610-546 BC

The ancient Greek philosophers gave birth to ideas that have evolved, but still form the basis of most philosophical thoughts of modern day. Heraclitus (535-475 BC) declared that beneath the surface, the world could be understood in terms of a continuous struggle between pairs of opposites day/night, life/death, hot/cold etc, and that change, impermanence and instability was a constant in life. And interestingly, Parmenides (515-450 BC) explored the concept between illusion and reality. If we can think or talk about something, then it must exist!

The story of the Earth is one of volatility and turbulence. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and scientists predict that the Earth will live for at least another 4.5 billion years.  Dinosaurs reigned for an astounding 158 million years and we have been around for about 4 million years. A modest amount of time when you consider the age of the Earth and reign of the dinosaurs. And as we take a look around at the world, we are looking at the transformation and metamorphisis of an ancient planet.


Gaia

The Earth is changing,
Can you feel it?
As though shaking off a dust,
covered cloak,
Still; for long enough.
The transformation works its way
from the core, to the surface,
to the soles of our feet.
We are, but the hosts to a
splendid design.
But with most grand designs,
there are subtle changes.
We are aghast at its repercussions.
But deep down we have a
knowing;
A conscious flowering,
Our contribution,
For the greater good.

Lily Basnet

Silver

I wrote the following poem based on the idea, that most asian people are blessed with youthful looks, vitality and energy well into old age. Maybe their diet and lifestyle have something to do with this phenomenon, but I have experienced this first hand with a friend I met in Hong Kong twelve years ago. After seeing her this year, I am stunned to find that she still doesn't look a day over eighteen years old! Ironically, she has trouble travelling through customs, as officials try to comprehend her biological age juxtaposed against her chronological age. I also work with a beautiful Japanese girl, who is ageless. As time goes by, she stays exactly the same (although she probably wouldn't agree with this statement!) apart from a perfect, silver streak to her hair.


Silver Streak

Time, harsh to most
Collects lines and wrinkles in the skin.
It plumps the mind and the body;
The soul no choice but to accept,
A primordial arrangment.
Ego wanes and appeases,
An unsubstantiated opponent, to its counterpart.
And to most, they suffer
the indignation of demise.
But for you,
Extraordinarily, a genuine
adversary of time.
Nothing changed-
But a single, silver streak to
your obsidian hair.


Lily Basnet

Seed

I am not an avid gardener, but having rented an appartment with a small balcony, I now have plants that I have to look after. Unfortunately the hot summer of last year killed off half the shrubs, which makes my gardening duty a little easier! But one thing that I have noticed in the last couple of weeks, is a series of singular, tiny green shoots accompanied by a purple flower, that have started their new life in the cracks of the cement! Although I have seen this before, I haven't really thought about how extraordinary it is.

The Lesson (an anti-pastoral)

The small schoolgirl
   On her way down
      grey Portugal Lane
        late for class
Who brushes a careless
    hand against
        the one green
            nettle that had to sprout
        from yards of concrete
can't believe
    there's no dock leaf
                   to cancel
                       it out.

Tracy Ryan


Seed

Some seeds find their way into
the most inhabitable cracks of
building and cement.
And thrive in adversity;
Their thirst for life greater than
any opposition.

Other seeds fall into an oasis of
paradise.
Nutrition, sunlight, space and
companionship in abundance;
They soak up prosperity and
bask in the glow.

But which seed has the greater
life?


Lily basnet


 

Eyes

It has been said that 'eyes are the window to the soul', so it is hardly surprising that people refer to eyes as having a spiritual nature. It is interesting to note that in Egypt and Western Occult traditions, the left eye represents a lunar trait (and a symbol of northern direction) and the right eye represents a solar trait (and a symbol of southern direction). As I stare deeply into my cats eyes, I imagine (should Eastern theory be true) that they are potentially the same energy as me but in a different, physical form. And maybe one day after several reincarnations, they will return as another animal or possibly even as a human being. 'Anna Akhmatova' touches on the idea of energy transformation in the following poem:

But Listen, I am Warning You

But listen, I am warning you
I'm living for the very last time.
Not as a swallow, nor a maple,
Not as a reed, nor as a star,
Not as spring water.
Nor as the toll of bells...
Will I return to trouble men
Nor will I vex their dreams again
With my insatiable moans.

Anna Akhmatova


Cats Eyes

I stare into eyes;
Deep, green seas.
Their depths are lost on me,
Incapable of infinity,
Or comprehension of such
expanse.
There is a moment;
One of knowing and childlike
curiosity.
That we are one of the same,
A star born from the same sky.
To look upon Earth,
For an eternity.


Lily Basnet

Space

I did a short workshop on 'fascia' at the weekend and was inspired to write a poem about the space that our cells take up in the body. Fascia is connective tissue and forms the so-called wetsuit around our bones. When it is tight, blocked or dysfunctional it creates pain, stiffness and injury in the body. It is a self healing or self righting mechanism and amazingly; 'muscles are slaves to the fascial architecture'. Fascia connects and divides, binds and bounces. It has a contractability independent of muscle, it is a sensing system, propioceptively of 'one's own oneness' and has a unique shape to each individual. In essence it is the membrane through which grace is channelled and 'holds space.' More space than we can possibly imagine!


This Space

Here I am
I fill this space
Occupy it fully
A human being
Of possibility and potential
My cells and atoms vibrating
Held together
By scientific laws
Moving through the air of the planet
Alone and together
Towards the great unknown


Lily Basnet