Enter Chakravarti
Chakravarti
Aspects of Thunderbird, Raven and Phoenix
A Plague, Borrowed Time, The Tower of Gears, Consecrated Ash, A Living Letter,
Feathers, Altar Flowers, Glass Beads, a Wish, and Acrylic on Wood Panel
36” x 36”
Although I may not live to meet you
May never hear you laugh or cry
I want you to know I love you
For you are next in time
Within you lives a story
The most important story in the world
Only you can tell it
Only you can make it unfold
Within you lives a place
Where everything moves and is still
It is a place all your own
Connected to everything, everywhere, everywhen
Within you lives a person
Beyond the manic material world
Money lights thirst to turn you green
But the real gold is your joy
You could die from this today
This today could very well kill you
Your choice isn’t whether to die but this:
Will you bring forth the gifts within you?
Within you lives a story
Within you lives a place
Within you lives worlds and stars
Universes and planes
Within you lives a person
No matter what, that person is still
They fall and fly and laugh and cry
Yet they always are: Always you are still
And though I may not live to meet you
May never hear you laugh or cry
I want you to know I love you
And you are next in this rhyme
Over the pandemic, I was one of the few people at the hospital where I work who was
not sent home. Part of it was a choice: I went in every day to do whatever I could to
keep the people I love safe and alive.
Whoever they were, whatever they were, wherever they were.
But part of it was also believing the stories the world outside had told me over the years:
You are less than. You do not matter.
You are expendable.
As I drove mostly alone on the roads to and from work during those bleak dark days, I
wondered what I ought to do, whether anything I could do would make a difference. Is
this the way the world ends? Do I even matter? (No, you don’t.) Why bother?
Because love, part of me answered.
Do what you love for who you love every day for as long as you can—it's the only thing
that matters.
There is a place I go within myself at times. I call it the Tower of Gears. I imagine all
physics, all time, all possibilities turning out from this place like cogs. Material turns to
material, anxiety to anxiety. I sit upon the precursors of atoms of thin air, close my eyes
and watch. In the stillness, I feel everything move. I am still. Alone, I feel connected to
everyone, everything. Fear, anxiety—even pain—still exist. But I understand, they are
not me. They are not us.
We are Chakravarti.
Each day after work, I would come home, find my center, and commune with this one.
They are the part of me beneath the drowning, the burning, the suffering—the part of
me that is one with the Universe and understands the beauty in the breakdown, the
purpose behind all things, the World behind the world.
They are us.
This is the part of me that loves.
And that part of me is also a part of you.
Everyone, everywhere, everywhen.
For every brushstroke, every day I got to work on this one, I was grateful; because it
meant I was alive.
I know it sounds odd but...I have a feeling if you're here—if you are alive—you
understand.
You ARE alive.
Today isn't the way the world ends.
There is a Universe behind the universe, a World behind the world of which
everything—especially you—are a part.
And whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are, you matter.
And whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are, I love you.
Because you are what comes next.