I woke up today, with a dream. As a habit I stay a few seconds longer so that the dream becomes more than a whiff. And so I can receive its gift. The dream was actually a couple of mini dreams but the themes of door, was same.
In one, I am asked to inaugurate a fancy, really big tall green car. I have to open the big door and literally “climb in”. I can smell the new upholstery.
In the next one, I am in a crowded mall and with bags full of fruits, and getting out of the mall, and there is a big door. That someone then open for me.
In the third one I am in in a kind of large garden, it’s beautiful and I am alone with a tigress. She moves quietly with me as we move towards what I feel is a door but I can’t see it. But we both purposefully walk to it, and through it.
Dreams are important. They allow for integration. And I feel as if I am on a precipice of something. The dreams are saying, It’s time to move through, and I am not alone. It feels daunting, but it steadily moves from metal to ethereal. From material to nature.
Today, at this point in my life – this has deep resonance.
I suddenly find myself thinking of Doors. I have a thing for doors. That is to say, I like them open, All day if I can have my way. Something about closed doors feels suffocating for me. Perhaps it’s the time I spent with my grandma when the door opened and shut only once the whole day. And where ever I have lived, I have insisted in having an outside door, just so I can do this. Keep it open.
A couple of months ago, I even had a project of sticking small doors on large trees. So people can stop to look at the tree and maybe fall in love with it.
My mind wanders to Doors. A Door is quite symbolic.
The door is a universal symbol that implies transition, giving way from one domain to another. It is the place of passage between two completely different states, where the known becomes unknown, and vice versa.
The door is an opening that allows us to enter and exit. Going through a door is changing the level, the middle, the center, the life. It is going to another place.
Growing up we had a Jesus by the door picture on the Altar, and I would gaze at it for a long time and imagine all sorts of things.
I remember couple of years ago when I had gone to Lisbon, and gone to see different monuments and churches, I was fascinated but how the door was such an outstanding and standing out piece of Architecture. It was often The most beautiful and almost a center piece. They also had a thing about Door art. Every door was like a large canvas..
Our customs and traditions are also full of door symbols. On Auspicious days like Dussehra, or Diwali, we decorate the doorway with garlands, and rangoli. When a new bride enters she spills rice kept of the edge of the door, signifying then entry of Laxmi. During Passover, the doors that were marked were kept safe.
Yet we have never really thought about the significance, atleast I had not.
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus was the god of gates and doors.
According to some, he was the custodian of the universe but, to all Romans, he was the god of the beginnings and the ends, presiding over every entrance and departure, and because every door and passageway looks in two directions, Janus was seen as two-faced or Janus bifrons — the god who looked both ways.
He was the gatekeeper. He protected the start of all activities. He inaugurated the seasons.
Doorways always represent a choice, a decision; the choice to stay or to go; of one path or another. The Door therefore represents a “border” and, consequently, the act of crossing the threshold symbolizes entry into a space different from that from which it comes, perhaps unknown, mysterious or even sacred, depending on the place and time in which the door in question is placed.
Last one week has been quite intense for me. I guess many things happening at the same time. Travelling out of the city for the first time after the lockdown started, holding two, in person workshops, and coming and meeting in person so many people, being in a different city after so long. It’s kind of a distance that is throwing up some perspectives. Not all of them are comfortable.
And I am beginning to realise just how much I have changed. COVID has changed me in some very fundamental ways. Like many of us I am sure. We can only know how we are different when we are in a different environment. And who I am now feels like someone who is Ok not being OK. Earlier I would run to fix it in some way through distraction, but not now.
Sometimes it gets awkward when I have to explain or when I say something and others feel awkward. But it ok. I feel it time to say Enough!!
Just yesterday, a friend took me to a foot spa. There was just one lady sitting in the quiet dimly lit spa. I was tired and really looking forward to the 60 minutes of quiet pampering. And suddenly I heard some random dialogues, the woman was watching some video on her phone without earphones. My friend requested her not to, she said she has reduced the volume. But it was still audible. We asked her to politely put it off or wear earphone. She started to argue. Normally, I would have just let it slide. But Yesterday I was angry that some people could not understand and respect boundaries. I had to be more than firm with her. And she mutteringly put it off.
“Blessed are those brave enough to make things awkward, for they wake us up and move us forward.” – Glennon Doyle
I was cognizant how, we just let some behaviour, at home, work, streets, that is not OK continue, just so that it does not become awkward. Perhaps that is where we become part of the problem. When people don’t see or experience consequences of their behaviour, it continues. And It is not in anybody’s interest do that.
I have often been labelled as someone who speaks my mind out and calls out the stuff that is not ok. But last few years I had changed, had found myself, not sure of many of the things I held sacred and important. I fell into the trap of wanting to belong. Last year I got to know, I belonged. I did not have to fight for it or put up with things just for that. I belonged for the first time, to me, and me alone. Till that point I was sacred, but once I crossed the door, I was free.
Our fairy tales have also had the doors, whether it was Alice in wonderland or Chronicles of Narnia. Even as a child I remember, I had cut out, and put on my wall, the picture of Alice and the Door, as she become Big and Small, to enter different adventures. Today I wonder how that has been a theme in my life all along.
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves
I have been a Huge fan of The Doors, something about Jim Morrison’s poetry, just opened some deep hidden doors. To places I did not even know I had.
Some doors don’t always look like doors and so we miss them. Like in Harry potter, and the door on the 9 ¾ platform. Like him sometimes we have to go headlong with faith that the wall is actually a portal. And we won’t get hurt.
Maybe the Owl, Hedwig came to me few days ago to tell me that. To help me move through this door.
When I learnt and was fascinated by isometric drawings in college, I drew doors. And would always wonder, if it was opening inside or outside. Now I know it depends of which side of the door one is on.
This being human is often a journey from one door to another. Birth and Death are two doors for sure. The Buddhist have a ritual of “Bhiksha”, where they go door to door asking for food. The act of giving and receiving at the door changes people on both sides. Both become humble. The line that divides the giver and receiver is blurred.
How beautiful I feel. If only it was that easy, though. And yet the door must be walked through.
I do feel A Door tells a lot of the people who live inside.
Perhaps we underestimate the power of the hinges. Small as they are, they do have the strength to hold. In time so transition maybe we need to look at what are the hinges on which the door I am at hinged.
Mine as I sit and contemplate in the cold Bangalore air, are truth, love and freedom. If these re rusted the most beautiful of doors will creak.
Even as I am having conversations about Life after Covid, I feel we as humanity also, are on the threshold of a doorway. We keep looking back to see what we have left behind and what may be lying in front. And the tentativeness is real and felt. Almost 10 percent of people refused to come for the workshop because they would have to travel.
And yet, we must move. And open yet another door. And remember the many door which we have walked through and managed to get here. We are not alone. The wild spirit, like in my dreams walks besides us. Guiding, holding giving us her strength. We must cross the threshold in Faith.
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.I hope you dance… I hope you dance…
I Hope you Dance – Lee Womack
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