Of dreams and of those broken

Recently, while exploring Roslindale, a quaint Boston neighborhood, I stumbled upon, albeit quite aptly, a Frida Kahlo mural and felt instantly drawn to her. 

I used to steer clear from Frida Kahlo’s art to evade the raw pain that it flaunted. I just wanted to be swept away into dreamland with Monet’s water lillies, Van Gogh’s starry skies or Renoir’s Dance in the city and all his landscapes. 

Yes, there’s the beautiful world of dreams where one would like to spend eternity. 

And then, there’s the world where dreams are broken. The world of pain and sadness. There’s a quiet beauty to this world, too. And an innate authenticity. For there’s an unmaking and a making that happens here. A letting go of the unnecessary. A humbling of the self, a strengthening of the heart, a forging of the Soul. 

I remember at the Musée de L’Orangerie in Paris, I was mezmerized by Monet's nymphéas, those simple yet exquisite dreams that he unveiled to us through the changing moods of those days in the Giverny gardens, through those sunrises and sunsets. The sun-rays that filtered in through the museum’s skylight also played with his muses, adding an even more ethereal quality to his palette. It was as if he was allowing us to experience the fleeting and eternal at the same time, capturing the very Essence of the Present moment. 

It was the same feeling I had during my first sighting of a giraffe roaming so gracefully and freely in the Serengeti, or the up-close-and-personal experience of the majestic red macaw among the Mayan ruins of Copàn, Honduras, or even when I simply saw my first cell under the microscope in high school biology lab. Or whenever I was in the arms of the Himalayas or the Rockies, or simply listening to the waves crash against the shores of the Atlantic. This feeling of being expansive and humbled at the same time. 

Back in the L’Orangerie, a haven Monet had created to offer Parisiennes a respite from their daily lives, I was brought out of my reverie when we were ushered to a temporary exhibit in the dark basement of the museum.

There, Frida Kahlo’s pain was on exhibition, in the underworld. 

What a contrast. 

Light versus darkness. In this our world of duality, both play their parts.

Now I realize how important Frida Kahlo’s work was. She depicts a very relevant aspect of the human condition: the passage through that shadow world of pain. Her coexistent fortitude and vulnerability, and courage to bare these to the world, inspire us to navigate and traverse our our own dark inner worlds. 

Like Psyche had to undergo trials and journey to the underworld before being reunited with her Divine Love, Cupid, and only then could she, a human, attain a place in the heavens and become immortal after drinking the ambrosia and nectar of the Gods. 

It’s the pain that turned erudite scholar Rumi into a poet when he lost his Shams Tabrizii. His poems now live in the hearts of so many in all corners of the world. 

It’s the pain that inspires the best songs and ghazals and art and music. These artists were true Alchemists. Transforming their pain into beauty that can touch so many lives in the Universality of our human experience. The Universe, after all, means, “One Verse”. 

In all our worldly stories that span across time and various civilizations, every mythical hero journeys through his darkness, his underworld, battles his dragons, to emerge victorious on the other side. Whether it was Krishna, Arjuna, Buddha, Hercules, Arthur, Osiris, Luke Skywalker, Neo, Frodo, the archetypal Bollywood Hero, you, or me.

As Joseph Campbell very well articulated, these are not just mythical stories, they’re our stories. They tell of our struggles and strifes. Our journeys, our battles. Our possibilities. Our abilities. To break through the barriers of our self-imposed limitations, and realize our full potentials. Transform into truer versions of ourselves, becoming like the lotuses that blossom in murky waters, upon which preside the greatest of enlightened beings. 

Pain often comes when something is taken away from us. But the greatest pain comes bearing the greatest gifts. If something is leaving, what new is being born? What is that which is being given to us, what is that which is calling to us, to become our fuller, more rich, more authentic selves? In this dance of Shiva, how do we become Alchemists of our own pain? Can we rise like the Phoenix from the ashes? 

Perhaps painting her pain also allowed Frida Kahlo to gain some distance from that Hade’s abode. I notice the same when I write about my pain- in observing the fluctuations of this human drama and emotions, there is then, a separation. I begin to sense behind it all the One that just is, the unchanging, that is witnessing the world of illusions, of pain and suffering. Rather than becoming the pain and suffering or resisting it, you let it through, and ride the waves. As Shakespeare said, life is but a stage; and as another saying goes, it’s about “being in this world, but not of this world”. 

Then you can start living with the paradoxes. The unchanging and changing. The peaceful and tumultuous. The real and unreal. The unburdened and the burdened. The lightness and the darkness. All of these co-existing within you, creating this your human experience, your suffering, your joy, your life. Your unfolding, your unveiling.