Stars in the Soup and other poems

By Shraddhavan

A delightful selection of poems created by a long time resident of Auroville, Shraddhavan. Written in an open, free-flowing style, Shraddhavan embraces the world around her, particularly the natural world, as it whispers to her the story of her own evolving spirituality. If we listen quietly, she whispers to us as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shraddhavan
• Release date: Jun 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310365041

Shraddhavan

“Shraddhavan” is the Sanskrit name given by the Mother in June 1972 to a young Englishwoman who had left her country, after completing studies in English Language and Literature as well as Library Science, to join the upcoming project of Auroville. Since August 1999 she has been the Project Coordinator of Savitri Bhavan, a centre of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother Studies which is a unit of SAIIER (Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Educational Research). She edits the Bhavan’s journal, Invocation: study notes on Savitri and leads study courses on Savitri and The Life Divine.

Book preview

Preface

Since my teens, I have always thought of myself primarily as a poet – ridiculous really. I started enthusiastically reading poetry when I was nine or ten. When I was thirteen, a friend of my parents gifted me The Faber Book of Modern Verse. I read it from cover to cover immediately, and it stimulated me to write myself. My first poem was published in the school magazine, probably in 1956. Everything I wrote between then and coming to Auroville in 1970 has been irretrievably lost – and no great loss for sure.

The best of what has been written since is gathered, along with that first poem, in this collection.

As I have become more and more involved with the superb poetry of Sri Aurobindo, I have become more and more aware of the insignificance of my own gifts. But now, approaching my 70th birthday, I do feel that perhaps some of my friends and family might be interested – in the future, if not now – to dip into what I consider an important part of my life; and so I am offering this volume, which I hope before to long to match with a second one of stories.

Most of these literary efforts have been published, either in the ashram journal Mother India: a monthly review of culture, or in Heritage magazine at the time when Manoj Das was its editor.

Thanks are due to those who have encouraged me: my beloved mentor Amal Kiran, and my partner Helmut who was the first to suggest that I should prepare and share this volume.

Shraddhavan

February 2012

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Table of Contents

Preface

Stars in the Soup

Garden Fragments

Early Ones

Journeys

A New Line in Hats

Postscripts

About the Author

Stars in the Soup

Hoysala Sculpture

This timeless dancer

Decked only in jewels

Leans across eight centuries

To bless us with her rhythms of perfection.

Who now could carve

With such precise conviction

The apsara’s lovely stillness?

The master-hand

That shaped this grace

Carves our lives too:

A jewel-garden full of fire

With facets