Velvet Evenings: A Poetry Collection

You can now get "Velvet Evenings" on Amazon.com. 

"This collection explores what we uncover when we get in touch with the dark and light aspects of the feminine, love and chaos. Delve into dark emotions, inspiration and stillness and probe into the mystery of experience with eventual acceptance. I invite you to take this journey with me full of passion, despair and yet Joy.

Goddess Durga (Boundaries, Strength) - Painter Hrana Janto

Durga is my everything, the Shakti that guides my life. She sheds my tears and helps me make the castle I work hard to build. Shiva is my Eye; without Him I have no Vision.

Durga/Shiva together transform every moment. I judge no moment as good or bad but only as a step on the journey towards Light. If I see darkness along the way, I sit with my attention on it until part of it dissolves. Light dissolves everything that is not Light.

I carry Arrows when I have to fight. If I tread on blades that threaten me, my feet hardly ever notice them.

Sat Nam ~

Kali

Go ahead and snide. Laugh. Smirk. You sicken yourselves. You deaden. Decay. I empower.

Goddess Kali (Fear, Destroys Evil) - Painter Hrana Janto

....in passionate duende that riddles me to tears and ennui.... in this all-consuming, grief-ridden, unexplainable, undefinable, torturous, ecstatic, black funnel of eternal....

If you let God speak through your Heart, what must be done, will be done.

He will give you the Strategy.

~ In Peace ~

So I woke up this morning and made my cochin masala chai (for those of you who aren't drinking this, you're really missing out), and thought about how incredibly content I am with this moment in life. I opened my cabinet and found an unopened bottle of olive oil and looked at my few pots and pans with gratitude. I ate some walnuts, perused my continually evolving living room and put lotion on my face. I looked at the brilliant sunshine outside and was excited to manifest the many possibilities that exist out there in my life with the ethers above. Through all the wars, battles, inner highs and lows, the only regret I have is that I didn't smile more. And now that I'm starting a new life, I know exactly what I'm going to do.

~ Love and Peace

Shiva's Palace

If you ever come knocking at the front gates of my Court to finally 

tell me the Truth in your Heart,

You will have to understand that this is Lord Shiva’s Palace.

I am a conduit of the Transformer.

I am a vehicle of His Destruction and His Rebirth.

You will enter only as a guest.

You are a nomad who lost his way among the harsh breezes of an 

egoic desert.

If I sense any deceit, ANY deception – 

If you utter even one lie within these 

Majestic Corridors of Nataraja’s Towers – 

It will be Off with your head.

Sphinx

Goddess Sphinx (Challenge) - Painter Hrana Janto

My Heart is as Still as Clear, cool waters. 

It holds Spaces of Clarity that

Reflect back to you what you are.

So You choose what you are and 

You choose what you want me to be.

I Am the Master of my Ancient, Brilliant, Chariot

I've come a long way and in fact, I'm at the top of the mountain. I climbed it the whole way and I'm taking in the View. I have finally become the Master of my Chariot, my Ancient, Brilliant Chariot.

What a magnificent view it is from here. I wish you all could be here with me seeing it. I cannot describe it's unimaginable beauty.