Creator

Photo: Lorna Sim

Today I mixed

earth, water, fire.

Tenderly, I attended my pot** —

made by rotation

and my gentle ferocity.

Some days my pot dismembers,

and hurls dirt in my eyes.

On those days I simply mix

earth, water, fire

and invoke anew.

On those days

I eat my vertebrae***

and legacies of chakras.

I pick my bones one by one.

Crooked^, I descend into sky.

I am Skyfarer^^.

In spinning emergence

I am free from Fate.

I relinquish horoscopes into

earth, water, fire.

My life is not lived.

I make it day by day

tenderly, dancing the attending

whirled in choreography of

earth, water, fire.

Padma Menon

In ancient Egyptian and Indian traditions, the word for potter is associated with creator.

**The pot is the archetypal invocation of ritual Body as well as Earth and the Creatrix.

***This verse is inspired by the Egyptian "Book of Two Ways", where the descent into afterlife is invoked.

^The Indian “crooked” Goddess form is the archetypal movement of self-absorption as the bent body curves to gaze at its own lower regions.

^^Skyfarers are ancient dancers. They traverse the skies of the underworld.