I had met you on a day when red flowers
Stormed a hesitant sky. I couldn’t understand
then
The red saree, the red bindi and your red
bangles,
Abrasions scarring a river that I had never known
The red tram that took us to Park Street, broke
through
Your smile and small talk. Drinking tea of chipped
cups,
Your red lips, you knew I yearned to write of subterfuges and
shadows
In a rundown café closing the sun.
Whispers of a red flower on another sudden day.
The bindi (from the Sanskrit "bindu," meaning "point, drop, dot, or small particle") is the bright red dot of red applied to the center of the forehead close to the eyebrow worn in by Hindi women in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Bali, and Java. In meditation, the spot between the eyebrows (bhrumadhya) is where one focuses one's sight in order to assist concentration. It symbolizes the point at which creation begins and at which it may become unity, around which the mandala is created, representing the universe.The area between the eyebrows is the sixth chakra (a center of spiritual energy within the human body), or ajna, the seat of "concealed wisdom;" the bindi also represents the third eye and retains energy and strengthens concentration. The ajna chakra is symbolised by a sacred lotus with two petals and is located where the two side nadi, ida (yoga) and pingala, merge with the central channel, sushumna, signifying the end of duality (e.g. light and dark, or male and female). It balances the higher and lower selves and promotes trust in one's inner guidance, provides access to intuition. It is where the onner command is recieved to go higher in spiritual practice (sadhana) to the 'sahasraar,' the seventh and final chakra, which leads to self-realisation. Activating this chakra allows one to overcomes ahamkar (ego, sense of individuality), the last hurdle on the path of spirituality. The seed syllable for this chakra is the sacred syllable OM, and the presiding deity is Ardhanarishvara, who is a half-male, half-female Shiva/Shakti. The chakra is linked to the pineal gland, which produces melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep, and perhaps also dimethyltryptamine, the only hallucinogen endogenous to the human body. In Vedic times the bindi was used by both men and women as a means to worship one's intellect and ensure that one's thoughts, speech, actions, and habits were pure; red represents honor, love; and prosperity.
ReplyDeleteWell researched, Duane The symbolizing of Red was of the days when we were all involved in the Marxist Movement and overthrowing the government. Marx, Lenin and Che were showing the way then
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the poem....thank you for sharing....
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