Sacred Spaces

And a two-year anniversary

Dear Reader,

It’s the early hours of Sunday morning and I am sitting at my writing desk. It’s a good-sized desk, both broad and sturdy. It is made, probably, of distressed oak, has metal legs, and, below, it has two deep, open shelves on each side. I bought the desk about 10 years ago with money I made from a writing project.

I’ve covered the center of the desk with a hand-embroidered, patchwork tapestry that we bought in a tiny dimly-lit store in a small town in Southern India. The salesman, after showing us some of his collection of embroidered textiles, said he had more select ones upstairs, but those, he continued with a speculative look, were for people who could fall in love with color and cloth. Of course, we followed him upstairs and behind the carpet partition where I promptly fell in love with this old-looking, large (5ft x 4ft) tapestry in many faded shades of pink, peach, and blue. The colors reminded me of evening skies in spring, the ones I watched from the kitchen window and the kids were still home. Different pieces of cloth are joined together to create the larger whole, and each part is heavily embroidered. When I run my hands over the uneven surface, I imagine women sitting in circles, their heads bent over the sewing, and feel some deep pull of connection. It’s been a few years since we brought it back and the colors have gotten softer and, if possible, even better.

On the tapestry, and the rest of the top of the desk, I’ve arranged framed art, photos, and quotes. There’s an art print of the outside of a bookstore. A printout of the words to a classical South Indian song that my niece sang one evening, and it felt like the Goddess had arrived. Part of an indigo-colored cloth because I’m convinced indigo holds some secret and if only I can stare at it long enough, I’ll know what life is really about. A photo of a warmly-lit cafe in Paris, taken on a grey wintry day. There are favorite objects- a bowl showing the changing phases of the moon and a kaleidoscope from Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India.

The four shelves on the bottom part of the desk are crammed with my favorite books. Lots of books on psychology. Books on myths. Symbols. Planets. Writing. Fairy tales. Poetry. Art. Jane Austen. The Brontë sisters. Eric Carle. Interior Design. One or two I Spy books.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.”
― Joseph Campbell

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Dear Reader, reading, writing, and the contents of this desk have saved my life repeatedly, and I keep them close, for when my life might need saving again.

Tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of Ten Thousand Journeys. Every year, my connection to writing deepens, and the joy it brings me multiplies. It’s two years since I started publishing a newsletter on Substack, but I’ve been writing for myself for nearly four decades. The funny thing is it’s only in the last few years that I’ve really identified that I am a writer. You know when you like someone, but you don’t really pay attention to your feelings for them. You just never really think about it. You’re busy and life always seems to be happening out there, elsewhere. And then one day, you realize that they are the love of your life. You smack your forehead with your hand and wonder how you could’ve missed it. It’s like some new awareness has blossomed inside of you and now, the knowledge is so inescapable and you can’t understand how you never saw it. That’s what writing means to me and I am thrilled to have your company for this journey.

I hope you will share in the comments the things that have saved your life.

Best,

Priya

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