the banana leaf

When we read myths and legends, we get reams of text about how awesome the gods are. How clever, how manly, how wise, and we get intricate details about all their deeds and accomplishments. But when it comes to the goddesses? Well, we know their names, and we know generally what their areas of concern were, but more often than not the way they're talked about is that they're just the girls of the pantheon. As if the gods all went out for an epic roarer of a boy's night, and the wives stayed at home waiting for them to come back.

My sister’s 18th birthday. 11/24/19. I was 19.

‘Navaratri’ means 9 nights and denotes the 9 power nights of the Goddess Durga. Navaratri signifies the magnificent triumph of the Supreme Goddess over demonic forces and symbolizes the victory of good over evil. After the nine nights, the victory is celebrated on the tenth day called Vijayadasami. During these 9 nights, Goddess Durga is worshipped in her 9 powerful forms called Nava Durga. It is also a custom to propitiate the Goddess Trinity – Durga on the first three days, Lakshmi on the next three days, and Saraswati on the final three days of Navaratri. Worshipping the divine feminine energy during Navaratri gives immense blessings, fulfills wishes, abundance, happiness, and protection.

Week Two

Reality is a subject, often emotional, many of us often avoid. World art has been attempting to interpret this since the beginning of recorded time. Merged with science one begins to understand the concept of reality we all share. The individual experience is singularly ours though for reasons of community, important in human art and science helping us express this complex notion. With the onset of the sciences of chemistry and physics in photography we begin to see an exquisite merge, a union of two distinct practices, Max Planck explained in his essay Planck's Law of Black Body Radiation that material suspended within gravity emit electrically charged particles when hit by light (Sandelin).

We are all aware of the mummies of Egypt, and we are always wondering how the Egyptians were so much progress with medical science. But there was a practice of self-mummification amongst the Buddhist monks till the 19th century until Japan made it illegal. The Sokushinbutsu process is as it sounds, no other hand is needed to mummify the dead body. The person who wants to undergo such a process brings on him a harsh routine and strict diet along with a drink of poisonous tea.

When you turn thirty-five your first thing to do is not usually decide you want to start over in life. You do not want to leave everything behind, hoping you can get out of your own personal hell with what you can carry in a suitcase and the clothes on your back. No money, no real contacts outside of the community you are leaving and an uneasy realization that you are likely going to spiritual hell because you can no longer live in the physical hell that you have been living.

There are many complexities in governing large groups of people, inspiring moral behavIour and understanding the necessity to assimilate thoughts in unison. It is very easy to place the blame on one part of an equation though as science has uncovered numerous times it is often many smaller factors that contribute to the shaping of a situation or civilization.

Before, I had laid my head down for slumber, the night was still and quiet, the heat was still on the rise, not feeling any relief from the fans that just moved hot air around in my room, as if I was lying in a hot oven… baking. While trying to sleep, a relaxing dream was interrupted by wind. Of late, I had been having dreams that caused me to rise from in terror, instead I was startled awake by the sound of the gust of wind that entered my room, in the middle of the night.

In the Garden Of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned. Thus, no consequence of their own. They were tricked into eating fruit denied them.

On the edge of town, in a dimly lit bar, the most powerful entity in the universe sat on his stool huddled over a glass of whiskey.