portraits

When I was 16, I was sexually assaulted. As is common with many healing from sexual assault, my body became a battle ground. Unable to speak my reality, disgust and shame dominated my world for years.

My mother never experienced violation in this way— she was neither raped nor hurt. She was protected by her father and then, her husband, who refused to leave her side. She is a strength in me, a guide in the darkness. My parents’ partnership— feminist and collaborative— is core to who I am.

There is a way through trauma— hope in the darkness. My way of healing is mindfulness, yoga, art— finding all the lost ones and holding us. I am grateful to the Buddhist teachers in my 20s, who taught me titration on a subtle level— mindfulness of the painful places — offering softness and welcoming rather than judgment or harshness. Finding the safe spaces in the body mind— beauty and gentleness that nourishes, anchoring in love.

Knowing my Self, I sometimes create portraits. To see the beauty in this one. I never liked her that much—

I am blessed to have a mother that always loved her. No matter what.

love, dipti