Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1.5 - #380
Guest Post by Swarnali Mukherjee (Berkana) + "Yes Sir, No Sir" by The Kinks - 05/05/22
Today we have a very special guest post from Swarnali Mukherjee all the way from Bangalore, India. She’s the writer of the Substack, Berkana, which I found during the SubstackGo program, specifically via this essay about the Baba Yaga and man’s disconnection from the ancient mother which came out on 2/20/22 and helped me understand some of the underlying issues behind war and the war in Ukraine.
Swarna and I have since struck up an old-fashioned pen-pal friendship, which I’ll describe more below, and I now read Swarna’s chronicling of all things absurd and borderline magical quite semi-religiously to much illumination and enjoyment.
Here’s a proper bio!
My name is Swarnali Mukherjee, and I am a consciousness researcher. I write culture-centric investigative essays. If prose and activism had a love child - I would be it. I write and speak about the zeitgeist - lives of women from different strata of class and cultures, underprivileged children, feminine sexuality and strength, criticism on wars and other crimes on humanity, economic and class disparity, and much more. I carefully observe obscure art forms, objects, and literature and try to map them back to the lives of people who created and used them to get by. I dabble in philosophy and psychology in multiple threads of passion projects.
Berkana, my brainchild, is a substack newsletter to investigate the critical intersection between history and culture. At Berkana, I prod into the conditioning of the collective social psyche through the lenses of scrutiny. The goal is to awaken dynamic social framework changes under the light of storytelling. Berkana gives you a chance to integrate the obscure yet valuable ideologies and find meaning through connection with the old.
If you care about marginalized inhabitants of our planet, then Berkana is the place for you. From the fringes of its unpopular existence, I bring many thought-provoking narratives of human conditions to the forefront of consciousness. I have many vices, but pretense is not one of them. I have baked Berkana in the same fire of authenticity that can cause the demise of cultural fallacy.
Berkana's community consists of individuals who are the modern vanguard of human empathy. These heroes are already changing the world with their power to steer conversions that create tolerance and equality. My goal is to keep creating ripples of revolutionary ideas to move the stubborn power structures of our society.
Yes!
This may be the fiercest bio/introduction I’ve ever hosted!!
Take it away Swarnali!!!
“The Waters” by Ajeet
I felt a bottomless distress rise in me. A voice rambled like a broken radio in my head. Sadness, disgust, anger - I felt it all at once. The inexplicable emotional discomfort shot through my spine as I sat upright on the bed. The hot summer afternoon was thick with the fuming stench of dust. The window next to my bed acted as a portal to a high pitch drilling noise from the neighbourhood construction site. My head spun with mental, emotional, and physical pain. After the dreaded machine was turned off, a deafening silence prevailed. The pause from the inharmonious torture sessions made me realize I was experiencing an episode of depression after being in the manic phase for months. ‘Pain’, I told myself, ‘is a necessary instrument of creativity’. But I know not if that was a fact or merely an excuse I devised for myself to deal with the constant desolation I felt. The surges of empty grief swashed from the inner shore of my being to the outer. It encapsulated me in a bubble of noiseless spasms. I felt as if I could dissolve into the void of meaninglessness. I shook myself to awaken my spirit that remained half suspended between reality and this Lovecraftian nightmare with no immediate success. The existential horror was slowly making itself more and more prominent. I started to cave in. I travelled from anger to grief, and then sifted involuntarily into the arms of fear. The remnant of all my residual feeling has converted into dreadful lingering fear. I was sweating profusely, hands extended to hold on to something tangible. My cold fingertips touched the phone lying next to the pillow. I unlocked it, and I knew that there is only one thing that can pull me out of this disturbing mental paralysis. My only remedy has always been and will always be - Music. I usually put on some music when nothing else makes sense. I knew I needed music right then.
I opened iTunes and sent an intention out there to the nameless God in its restful slumber, dreaming about the wonders and horrors of our world. And we are merely a fragment of imagination inside its dream obsidian.
Dear Universe,
If you have been planning to send me a sign this is the right time.
1.2.3…shuffle...
.. and I surrendered immediately to my spiritual compass
The Waters - Ajeet Kaur
Ajeet’s witchy voice washed over me like a wave of serene blue ocean, ready to transform my melancholy into a profound euphoria. She gleefully danced like a nymph from one tempo to another and asked provokingly,
“How many days has it been since you went to the waters?”
Lying down, I stared blankly into the ceiling trying to comprehend the sacredness of water - how it flows, and creates its path. Researchers say that water has memory which is directly associated with its healing properties. This alone makes it the most mystical and spiritual substance naturally occurring in the universe.
Before I could emerge out of the stream of my thoughts, Ajeet throws another question at me -
“How long has it been since you looked
Into the eyes of what you fear?”
Gasp.…
How does she…. know…
Tell me, my dear, do you know the sacred waters
They fell from deep within the ground
Tell me, my dear, what is life for if not to go within
And find what's real, find what's yours
Silence …
We are the stars that fall
Have we forgotten where we came from, who we are?
We are the stars that fall
Have we forgotten to listen for the call?
The call of spirit as she sings in the night
Close your eyes and listen
Close your eyes and listen
Close your eyes and listen
I could not believe that at that moment, I was having an epiphany, a dialogue with the universe, because I mustered the courage to ask for it.
The universe finds its way to answer our calls. Our endless prayers and restless longings are constantly being answered, if only we listen carefully to the rhythms of nature. In that moment of epiphany, I felt as if the invisible God far out of my human comprehension was talking to me through Ajeet. I listened without distraction till the music faded in the backdrop of my physical reality, and the ephemeral awe faded with it gradually. The next song started playing, but I didn’t care to listen to it. I played ‘The waters’ again, but the magic had already escaped its vessel and filled the atmosphere. It was as if someone had opened a bottle that trapped a thousand fireflies. The voice that spoke through Ajeet, the nymph, the fairy, the goddess - vanished like a cotton candy in a glass of still water, leaving behind its sweetness and rosy tint.
Although undefinable, the awe-inspiring moment of what I felt, I believed to be a way to experience the omnipotent nature of the Universe. Call it anything - God, serendipity, alignment, art, or synchronicity. The essence left behind by such encounters is the only reassurance necessary during a crisis. After I accidentally dropped the cotton candy in a glass of water, the translucent pink and sweet water sat innocently at my desk. It tells me to let go. It teaches me acceptance through surrender. It demonstrates the temporary nature of our world. It demands me to understand that everything that I experience is a part of me. Everything that emerges out of the blank spaces of existence blends into nothingness sooner or later, only to re-emerge in a completely different form. All our pains and sufferings, all our hopes and dreams, all our victories and fame, all our joys and euphoria - every single emotion and experience is impermanent.
I don’t believe in using spirituality to bypass problems of life that often present themselves as uncomfortable circumstances. Confrontations are the only way to resolve problems from their roots. However, confrontations are often extremely uneasy experiences. But whenever I realize that everything is temporary, I would encourage myself to brave the storm. And thus, when I present myself both as an observer and a researcher of the impenetrable mysteries of human existence, life becomes my friend. I have learned to achieve freedom through surrender. So the next time you feel stuck, listen to the rhythms of the universe, it has something to say. Hidden within synchronicities are the signs you have been looking for.
Awww, Swarnali!
I’m a ‘writer’ but my words can’t capture yet the gratitude I feel for you sharing this piece with me and the community.
And also for our fledgling cross-continental friendship.
I mentioned that we’ve become pen pals of sorts writing emails back and forth.
Often Swarna would write late at night LA time when I’m often up reading and enjoying the witching hours.
Swarna indeed wrote late at night to me on my birthday, 4/12…
Dear Dave,
I know that I keep coming back to you with empty hands on this never-ending thread. But I'll send you the promised piece, this week for sure. I'm working on it.
Life keeps getting in the way. Please remember me in your prayers, even if I keep breaking promises so often.
Much love,
Swarna
And I wrote back:
No worries whatsoever! You have relatively infinite time/deadline ;) Is there anything specific you would like me to pray for you?
She replied right back:
You are very kind, dear friend. Can you send out a thought to the universe that I reclaim the light of my inner creativity and can command focus to create in midst of chaos ?
I'm so grateful for your unconditional support and understanding.
The divine in me bows to the divine in you. Namaste!
And I wrote back right before the end of my birthday at 11:36 PM:
Providing this prayer for you has been healing for me. Thank you for entering my life path with your creativity and sensitivity. Your prayer is now in my prayer box. Much love and light, Dave
And included these photos:
What Swarnali didn’t know was that I was having an experience almost exactly like what she wrote above in the piece she would later deliver:
I started to cave in. I travelled from anger to grief, and then sifted involuntarily into the arms of fear.
This experience was happening for reasons that I’m still not ready to share here yet.
But, nevertheless, I can say that at that time music wasn’t working.
Or I can’t recall trying to shuffle to anything.
Or at least I don’t have a note of any synchronicities later in that day as this was happening to me.
But what I did have was this bid of affection and for connection from Swarnali.
Her ask of me to pray for her.
By engaging further and curiously asking what to pray for exactly…
I found that the process and power of pursuing this small act of service took me out of my own momentary misery and wretchedness.
And by her return email a few minutes later at 12:04 AM on April 13th I had passed through the worst of it for that day and returned to an equilibrium of sorts.
Here’s what she wrote:
The pictures brought tears to my eye. With this selfless act of kindness you reinforced my faith in both human empathy and the power of vulnerability.
My heart is full with gratitude and I only pray for your peace and happiness. Much love, Swarna
What’s not surprising perhaps is that Swarnali’s prayer for my peace and happiness is what I indeed felt then.
Not long after, Swarnali wrote again:
Your Prayers are taking roots in the conscious universe and helping me out of the writer's block that I am currently in.
As a first step towards progress, I have jotted down a small piece for your newsletter. The matter has manifested itself unfiltered straight out of the stream of my consciousness.
I hope that what I wrote aligns with the broader theme of Shuffle Synchronicities.
I feel honored to be an active part of your community. Let me know without hesitation if you find any portion of this piece that needs to be re-written or omitted.
Much love,
Swarna
The piece as you read above was perfect as is.
It aligned with the themes of the Shuffle quite synchronously.
And I had a thought that perhaps Swarna, with her intimations of mania and depression and finding succor in the connection between spirit and music above, may not just have the same DSM diagnosis but also perhaps the same Numerology as me.
And so we traded birthday info and, yes, indeed, she’s also a 29/11.
Which according to Numerologists has among its strengths:
Intuition, Revelation, Invention, Poetry, Art, Spirituality, Fire, Zeal.
Yet struggle with weaknesses like:
It is therefore wise to suggest that those with this number should concentrate initially on the lesson of number 2 which is merely a lower vibration of the number 11. Until you are able to master that lesson the number 11 Life Path will be far too difficult to handle and may even manifest itself physically with nervous tension or a nervous neurological condition.
I continue to believe that strictly medical labels like Bipolar Disorder aren’t the framework I want for whatever sensitivities and gifts I and we have.
Yesterday, ironically, I met with a new psychiatrist, who I am considering working with.
While the current relatively new one, who is Integrative and different from the one I had for many years, and who has been helpful in reducing medicine, specifically the anti-psychotic, Risperdal, without any ill effects (even despite the struggles I’ve alluded to last post and above, which are circumstantial, as I’ll explain in the future), I find myself not quite enjoying our work together as much as I have had with my psychotherapist and I realized recently that I have the power to choose the best possible fits for all aspects of traditional mental health care.
So I looked for a psychiatrist who is even more aligned with my beliefs yet still a very qualified medical doctor.
And I’ll tell you there didn’t seem to be that many, LOL.
But I did find one who, among many traditional qualifications (Stanford BA and Northwestern MD) has gone on to explore dreamwork, spirituality, yoga, meditation, bodywork, sexuality, nutrition, energy healing, shamanic healing, art, sacred medicines, and nature-based soul exploration, and is now working on an original/traditional framework of mental health in terms of water.
Which feels like quite the synchronicity today as I started to put together this piece.
As Ajeet sings in Swarnali’s song “The Waters”:
Have we forgotten to listen for the call?
The call of spirit as she sings in the night
I shuffle again now to see what the spirit sings tonight on this May night in LA.
And I get:
“Yes Sir, No Sir” by The Kinks
Which has lyrics of:
Yes Sir, no Sir?
Where do I go Sir?
What do I do Sir?
How do I behave?
Yes Sir, no Sir
Permission to speak Sir
Permission to breathe Sir
What do I say, how do I behave, what do I say?
Which feels quite a bit like what the DSM and mainstream psychiatric model of mental ‘illness’ seem to require of its ‘patients’.
Everything is in its place, authority must be maintained
This week I’ve also been reading the best-selling book, The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by the M.D. Bessel Van Der Kolk, and it starts with a chapter about his role in ushering in drugs like Prozac himself but then proceeds to describe the limitations of psychiatric medicine:
The drug revolution that started out with so much promise may in the end have done as much harm as good. The theory that mental illness is caused primarily by chemical imbalances in the brain that can be corrected by specific drugs has become broadly accepted, by the media and the public as well as by the medical profession. In many places drugs have displaced therapy and enabled patients to suppress their problems without addressing the underlying issues…
I do believe, still, today at least, that medication helped me during the most difficult early times as Van Der Kolk writes:
“…medications often can bring life-saving relief…”
But I also didn’t start seeing a psychotherapist until I was in my thirties.
I dealt with this:
“The brain-disease model takes control over people’s fate out of their own hands and puts doctors and insurance companies in charge of fixing their problems…"
By mostly barely participating in my own healing, just going to my psychiatrist to get the drugs that were supposedly keeping me stable.
Drugs such as:
“On November 4, 2013 Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay more than $2.2 billion in criminal and civil fines to settle accusations that it had improperly promoted the antipsychotic drug Risperdal…”
Yes, that’s the drug I’m going off of, LOL, here’s what else it does…
“These medications make [people] more manageable and less aggressive, but they also interfere with motivation, play and curiosity, which are indispensable for maturing into a well-functioning and contributing member of society.”
Yikes!
As The Kinks sang:
Yes, sir, No, sir
Right?!
“Because drugs have become so profitable, major medical journals rarely publish studies on nondrug treatments of mental health problems. Practitioners who explore treatments are typically marginalized as ‘alternative.’..the fact that we can actually change our own physiology and inner equilibrium by means other than drugs is rarely considered.”
As The Kinks sang:
Authority must be maintained
Right?!
In the process of researching ‘alternative’ practitioners, I was referred to a famous/infamous Pasadena psychiatrist who is retired and no longer sees patients beyond charity but consults widely and spoke with him for a half-hour last week.
He pointed out that at age 21 I should never have been diagnosed as Bipolar due to my use of substances the night of the beginning of mania, which immediately rules out that diagnosis, until after stabilization, and another ‘relapse’.
Something similar happened to a friend in my life when she used cannabis and had a psychotic episode. However, she was older and more of a hobbyist researcher, and so she and the psychiatrist she had afterward agreed to let her not take the psychiatric medicine indefinitely, which has since led to a complete recovery sans meds.
Kolk concludes this chapter with:
“The brain-disease model overlooks four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain through basic activities as breathing, moving and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive.
I’d be remiss not to mention that in our last email exchange Swarnali mentioned Vipassana Meditation as a method to alleviate symptoms.
And that the next day I happened to go back to Esalen again this past weekend for a workshop in Zen Meditation.
Which has helped reinforce my meditation habits so far this week/month.
I believe Swarnali’s reaching out to me and me responding back on my birthday helped heal the both of us during that day in April.
And now us sharing our experiences via language here may help others.
To thrive.
I urge you to consider reading and/or subscribing to Swarnali’s Substack.
What we consume affects who we are and who we become.
As The Kinks also sing in today’s song:
I think this life is affecting my brain
And I can’t think of many better forms of feeding your brain right now than Berkana.
Berkana
Vignettes of obscure stories from various cultures
Okay, that’s the three hundred and eightieth Shuffle Synchronicities.