shenizjanmohamed

Companions

I have no companion but Love, no beginning, no end, no dawn. Rumi To be alone is to be a companion to oneself. Here we are, collectively alone with the world, forced to honour the micro moments of life– to attend to the present. As always. To sink into the reality that nothing more isContinue reading “Companions”

One Day at a Time

We are living in strange times. For the first two weeks of quarantine, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. A friend & I commiserated over our lack of energy, motivation and sense of purpose. We compared notes and found we both spent more time staring into the distance (or a wall or ceiling).Continue reading “One Day at a Time”

Water is water

Yet past is remembered as past in the present moment, and future is expected as future in the present moment. Each moment carries all of time. Thus a moment has an aspect of timelessness, In this respect, “now” is eternal. Tanahashi, on Dogen’s Timelessness of a Moment Every year, I choose a word. A wordContinue reading “Water is water”

Building Fires

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t a poet, so I could feel less. To put out fires that catch my sleeve, where the heart is exhausted from burning. And here we are, another year on the brink of being over. For me, it felt like a decade. A thousand possibilities, some of which I wish hadContinue reading “Building Fires”

Full Circles

September is upon us. The humid days of summer are over, evenings are getting cooler, and the leaves are beginning to turn. While many mourn the end of summer, I look forward to the productive days of autumn. The blaze of colours, the busyness of the school season, the crunch of leaves underfoot. It signifiesContinue reading “Full Circles”

Poetry lives on

All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true poets must be truthful. -Wilfried Owen What a month it has been. We may dedicate one month to celebrating poets and poetry, but for poets, as Mary Oliver puts it, “poetry is a way of life.” What does it mean for poetry toContinue reading “Poetry lives on”

Cataloguing the Heart

There is nothing more magical than the dappled sunlight of a 50+ year old garden. When I visited Kenya in January, I catalogued the plants, flowers, trees and birds in the garden of my mother’s childhood home, and identified over 40 unique species and varieties. There is so much biodiversity in our little corner ofContinue reading “Cataloguing the Heart”

Another year, another journey

When I was in school, I was the kid all the teachers described as “bright, has potential, but doesn’t apply herself.” They looked at me in disbelief– they knew I was capable, but I chose to rebel, to fight, to resist, to choose NOT to do the work. I thought I had moved beyond thisContinue reading “Another year, another journey”

Recover

It’s very easy and sometimes preferred to pretend that we’re brave and fearless, especially in an instagrammable world that values perfect squares of perfect lives. There are no squares big enough to encompass this experience, this pain, this journey, this fear. I had the messy job of confronting my fear. Confront, not conquer. I had to show up *while* being afraid.

Forest Dreams: New Music Video!

Here’s a magical look at my mandala-making process, and some of the locales and landscapes that have inspired my work thus far. The original track, “Forest Dreams” was produced by me (Sheniz Janmohamed) as well. Enjoy!