Renewal 2022

I just changed the header image, something I don’t easily. It’s stability marks the stability of my life and its engagements and it remains stable for years. I do not recall when I changed it last but if I go back into the previous posts on this blog perhaps it would become clearer.

The image I currently uploaded was taken a few days ago in my garden. I took it with my mobile phone.

This is an accidental click because it is not feasible to capture a ray of sun this way, at least not for me. I was trying from a peculiar location to get as many flowers in one frame as it would capture.

This picture can be interpreted in several ways, least of all it is a picture of renewal- mine, the earth’s, and my home, including my decision to not give it up yet, even though time and again I want to give up this house and move into a much smaller one whose maintenance is not so challenging. This is the way the garden looked about a week ago. Even at present a majority of these are growing outside though the weather has radically changed in the last week. The spell of coolness is over and summer is already upon us, fans are on, sweat is appearing.

Interestingly in my garden some flowers come on their own in a cyclical fashion, year after year from seeds the plant disperses on its own- poppy and nasturtiums are the topmost variety for that. This picture also includes three other ways of propagation- we have planted some plants here from the seed stage by making them into seedlings and then growing them in a much smaller pot before repotting into the earth directly. Some have arrived as saplings about three inch tall in a bundle together. And the third is plants which come in packets as ready to repot smaller plants but they are mature plants already. So the methods of propagation are diverse and spread over the months of July, August, September, October and November, and thereafter the nurturing begins.

In the final days of the past month I managed to keep my commitment to my editorial team at Routledge and submitted the final version of the book manuscript as per commitment. After the little time of keeping with them, a month at most, they will send it to their corresponding team in UK where the final editorial and copy-editing will happen. It was a year long process for me to find the publisher and then finish the work, and took 16 months in all after my Ph.D. from start to finish to get the book off my chest- my PhD work in psychosis/recovery. Once published the global edition will publish first and go to all around the world and then comes the South Asian edition, two or three months onward. It seems I may get one copy in November at the earliest and the rest will be able to get their copies only around January or February 2023. Phew! What a tiresome process.

Renewal is when we return to the base and plant new seeds or when we have risen from the ground and rebuilt ourselves. In this spring a lot has happened, a lot which is definitive, meaningful and affirmative. I found a mentor I was looking for to get my work off the ground, a lady who is a very experienced person in the disability sector, well respected, deeply compassionate and extremely supportive. It is a blessing to have a person like her to mentor my work at this juncture- the work of institution creating. She has an organization of her own which recently celebrated its 37th year though she is now more diversified and plays other roles than running it on a day-to-day basis. Being with someone who has been there, done that makes a lot of sense now. And what better than a woman.

Two sides of the upcoming institute are already functioning- the music school and the counseling center and this is the year to consolidate both, take them wider and start creating the next work of the research centers. Naturally enough I have to let go of the music school personally but that can only occur if we have enough students and I can then engage someone else for the teaching who is at least as learned about it as the best can be. I am keeping my fingers crossed for that.

This truly is the time of renewal and putting the past to bed, planting new seeds or digging up the earth to bolster existing saplings, water, hoeing and removing the weeds around them. The garden of my soul is beginning to show color and Mother Nature is generous enough to echo my labours back to me. Birds are singing outside from all direction- life is just beginning as The Hansadhwani Institute starts taking shape on the ground, having remained in a cryogenic state for years and then in a smaller incubator for a few years, at least from 2017 onward. Now the baby is standing on its baby feet and legs. Onward from here…