sohnikaur

[sohnikaur]

Toddler makes a full tabla set out of a bigger real drum (discarded) and a toy drum. Haha

[sohnikaur]

[sohnikaur]

[sohnikaur]

my mom says she’s not a hugger. but when i put my arms around her on a gloomy day or after bad news she’s the last to let go. my dad says he doesn’t want gifts on his birthday, but i see the way his face light up when i get him a card with a nice message and a box full of chocolate anyway. he’s just a kid inside, still. it makes him giddy. my brother never says i love you. but when i tell him “i just need to finish the dishes before i vacuum!” he wordlessly goes to vacuum the entire house before i can, and if he sees me struggle with a wrapper or a jar or a bottle he mutters ‘c’mere’ and opens it for me without even sparing me a glance. the thing is, people love you quietly, and you love them quietly, and the air is buzzing with tiny but grand gestures & once you look for them, you find them everywhere. i think that’s really beautiful.

[sohnikaur]

So I really love it when I have an epiphany. I’ve been going to a gurdwara called Dashmesh Darbar for a few years now. And I recently saw a song by Taren Kaur that refers to Guru Gobind Singh ji as “dasmesh”. Malaysia has the “dasmesh pipe band”. But it was Taren Kaur’s song title that woke me up. All of a sudden I realized, “das” meaning 10. So was mesh something?

I asked my good friend, and turns out it’s “dasam” which is 10th, eesh is guru/messenger. And then I was pleased for having figured out some of that myself!!

[sohnikaur]

Japji Sahib pauri 19. English deciphering!

[sohnikaur]

http://pnarang.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/5/6/14563640/vocab_f.pdf#page55

Good medical vocabulary!

[sohnikaur]

"Till a few decades ago, marriage - for women especially - meant security, social acceptability, a source of income, children, and a companion in old age, all of which were worth the effort. These days, however, women can very well have all of these while single. So what do they need the burden of a husband for?"

Exactly what I've been preaching. Precisely.

[sohnikaur]

THIS. So important.

Im just gonna place this right here .

[sohnikaur]

Art

“love poetry.

translation: the crows have searched my skeleton; they’ve eaten all my flesh. but please do not touch these eyes, for I hope to see my beloved. - bhagat fareed. .｡ ° ਕਾਗਾ ਕਰੰਗ ਢੰਢੋਲਿਆ ਸਗਲਾ ਖਾਇਆ ਮਾਸੁ ॥ Kāgā karang dẖandẖoliā saglā kẖāiā mās.

ਏ ਦੁਇ ਨੈਨਾ ਮਤਿ ਛੁਹਉ ਪਿਰ ਦੇਖਨ ਕੀ ਆਸ ॥੯੧॥ Ė ḏue nainā maṯ cẖẖuhao pir ḏekẖan kī ās. ||91|| ~ prints available through keerat-kaur.com. .• the crow is equated with time(kaal), the one entity that consumes everything. fareed pleads that his intellect(divine eyes) remain untouched by the affects of time so that he can experience the divine phenomenon of uniting his soul with the Universal energy (acrylics + oils on masonite)” ~ caption & beautiful art by @_keeratkaur 🙏🏽🙌🏽 https://ift.tt/2trYKdF

[sohnikaur]

**passionate**. That's the key.

[sohnikaur]

Intimacy vs lust.

Intimacy, is not LUST. Lust, to my mind, is pure evil. It’s basically like rape. DESIRE on the other hand, can be mutual. But here is some prose on it because this frustrates me…

Intimacy is when you ask your partner to braid your hair and you feel the gentle tug of the strands in their hands, which send shivers down your spine. It is not sex, and it is not lust.

Intimacy is when you go shopping together for curtains for your partner’s place, choosing colours that will fit with their couch. That is not sex, and it is not lust.

Intimacy is when you choose a pizza with artichoke hearts so your vegetarian friend who has mostly eaten Indian food can try something new. That’s not sexual, and it’s not lust.

Intimacy is when you drive 6 hours to rescue a stranded partner, re-arranging your life for them. You don’t do that because you want SEX from them, you do it because you CARE, deeply. That’s not sex. That’s not lust.

Intimacy is when, after your partner is seriously injured, you accompany them home, help them undress, and get them to bed…and then leave. That has nothing to do with sex and it is not lust.

Intimacy is also when in the emergency room, your parter suggests you go home & they can arrange a ride or taxi home, you refuse. Go home to do what? Sit and worry about what the outcome is? No, intimacy is staying with them, accompanying them in their pain. It’s not sexual and not lust.

Intimacy is when you have enough care to offer to be an emergency contact at the emergency room for your partner, but still suggest someone else in case you wouldn’t know enough about their beliefs to fully honour and respect them in life-or-death choices. It’s not sex and it’s not lust.

Intimacy is getting together at Tim Hortons for a creamy chocolate chill, on a hot day, and discussing stuff. In public. That’s not sex and it’s not lust!

Intimacy is also when your partner tries very hard to eat something you made for them despite not liking it. When you say “oh it’s ok you don’t have to like everything!”, they reply “no it’s not ok! You made it with love and I wanted to honour that!”. That has nothing to do with sex. Nothing to do with lust.

Intimacy is when your partner chooses a scarf for you based on it having your favourite colours in it, and gifts it to you for your birthday. That is not sex, and it is not lust.

Intimacy is when your partner holds your hand when you are feeling upset. It’s not sex and it’s not lust.

Intimacy is when your partner, who would normally not be seen head uncovered, chooses to answer the door while their hair is drying so you can spend time together. They could have ignored it, but instead allow you to come in and talk. Hold hands, and talk. That is not sex, and it is not lust.

Intimacy is when your partner brings you food they have cooked, or sometimes picked, out of love. This is not sexual and it is not lust.

Intimacy is when your partner feels faint when you get hurt. That’s a real connection. It’s not sex and it’s not lust.

Lastly…intimacy is when you are sore in a place you’ve never been injured and which has never hurt before…and you can’t figure out why. Then all of a sudden you round the corner, and see your partner…and it makes sense. That part of your body is where THEY got injured, when you felt faint, when you took them to hospital…it aches on you similarly to how it must ache on them…THAT is intimacy of a SOUL MATE, an anam cara, but it has nothing to do with lust nor with sex.

You can have intimacy with someone without ever having sex, though often if you’re this connected with someone that ultimately comes up. But having a good connection, two souls who belong together, is not lust.

[sohnikaur]

Slavery, piercings, sikhi, and turbans

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/feature6.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_piercing

Two links to read, as I discuss this.

This is something I have been thinking of in particular recently that kind of bothers me…

I’ve heard many Sikhs denounce piercing in part referring to how they could be associated with slavery. In actual fact, piercing goes back to times far far more ancient than modern day African American slavery, and has a very rich history. Even cave people pierced with bones and teeth.

And ironically, the turbans, colourful head wraps, and hair covering of African Americans WAS very heavily associated with slavery: they mostly had to cover in order to not be considered as attractive to their “masters”.

Now, that being said, I do respect that piercing, much like tattoos and cutting your hair, does fall in the realm of modifying what we were born with (so does dressing, in my opinion 😉), so I respect that if you’re Sikh and not cutting hair or beard, not getting tattoos, you probably won’t be getting piercings either. But I find to link it, negatively, to slavery, is rather misleading. 😬 kind of like “fear mongering” for the younger generation. And in terms of “body mods” if some teen Sikh decided to get a piercing, it’s a bit easier to remove (if it hasn’t been too many months often it just grows over) than a tattoo. More like growing your hair back if you cut it. ☺️🙏🏻

[sohnikaur]

Divorce vs female foeticide

I came to a realization the other day.

Divorce is not culturally acceptable (yet) in Punjabi culture, Sikhi, etc. It puts such a *stain* on a person still, that many times people will put up with a horrible marriage instead of divorcing. You hear all kinds of horror stories. People TRY to say that “Punjabi culture is not the same as Sikhi”, but in some instances the two bleed so much info each other that you honestly can’t see where one starts and another ends.

But here’s the thing. Sikhi says that women are equal to men. “Why call a woman bad? From her, kings are born.”

At the same time, there are also ample families where girl babies are killed, before they are even born. This is about the most drastic example I can give, since many other things are issues women could and should be taking a stance on. But this is a big one.

Until the day when women are willing to risk everything, put aside their fears, go out and risk being a single mom, risk pissing off their family, friends, neighbours, and culture *for the sake of their unborn daughters*, things will probably not change.

Does Sikhi say you should never get divorced? I don’t think it explicitly does, though there are hints about how your partner should be your soulmate for life. But it certainly doesn’t openly condone female foeticide.

As long as every woman out there gives the message to her husband that “even though you are asking me to have an abortion of our girl baby, I will stay with you and support you”, and stays with him, things will not change. We women have to be the first ones to stand up for future generations of women.

And there are more things we should be doing too: showing sons that they too can do dishes (& daughters that they too should go outside and learn how to do auto mechanics). Teaching little boys that it’s NOT ok to bully girls, that it’s not ok to be like their dad, uncle, grampa, and be mean to their women.

But I think honestly the revolution must start with the foeticide, because it has to be a *big enough* reason for a woman to leave her husband that people will start seeing her as the hero in a sense. Maybe not everyone will, but some will, enough to pass on her stories, and make her a legacy.

Will it be dangerous? Of course. Should women all always tell their husband they will leave if he pushes her to have an abortion? No. Some women will know that is too dangerous, and should plan in secret and just do it.

But at the end of the day, what is more important? Your daughter’s life? Or your neighbour’s nosiness over the fact that you left your husband? I hope, long term, women see that it is their future generations of women that are important.

[sohnikaur]

"Sometimes I've felt like people think there is a finite amount of love that you can give. That's to say they think that if you are seeing or sleeping with someone else, that means you love a primary partner less. I'm amazed that we're generally finding that non-monogamous people are doing a little better in relationships. These are small sects, so I'm not saying it's the way to go for everyone. But it's really kind of amazing given how much stress there is on any sort of non-traditional relationship: You've got stigma, you don't have a lot of norms to adhere to throughout the course of the relationship… [Non-monogamous people] are still doing well in these relationships, and they're happy. If anything, it's a sign of resilience among those communities."

[sohnikaur]

Finally. Someone ELSE is saying this. Power to the women!!