I just completed a course in Pahari Art Appreciation, under the guidance of a scholar who’s one of the best teachers of art history I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning from, and there was a painting in one of these sessions that deeply moved me.
A beautiful, beautiful scene that reminds us of how monsoons are meant for play, leisure, fun, romance and pleasure. In the Indian imagination and aesthetic realms, storms aren’t always dark, foreboding and fearsome. They’re exciting, invigorating.
They’re the Earth’s thirst finally being quenched. Rolling thunder, dark clouds, majestic downpours, they have always made us more alive than ever.
They set the scene for lovers, and for yearners. Monsoons are for love, and lovemaking.
In this royal setting, there is a felt reverence for play and pleasure, it is clearly a primary priority when a storm brews.
The royal lovers exchange a flirtatious, charged glance, a glance made even more exciting for the space that it has to traverse between the two terraces of the palace.
We see maidens, mothers, crones and children, all playing games, exchanging whispers and basking in the joys of a leisurely season, in one way or another.
There are so many pleasures of the senses being tended to, and offered. There is anticipation, of the rainshower as much as of the sweetest of pleasures.
After a scorching Indian summer, the monsoon marks the beginning of Dakshinayana - the feminine, moon-ruled, goddess-ruled second half of the Vedic year. A time that is cool, inward, nightly, jasmine scented and yin.
The feminine half of the year begins around Karaka Sankranti, which is the Vedic version of the start of Cancer Season. It ends in mid-January around Makar Sankranti, which marks the start of Capricorn season and the beginning of Uttarayana - the masculine, solar energy ruled first half of the year.
Of course it’s Cancer and Capricorn that act as gateway portals to this gorgeous cosmic polarity. There’s something about these two flavours coming together as a pair - the moonly, soft, nurturing, Cancerian mother energy, an ocean of love and feeling, and perfectly complemented by the grounded, strong, roots-in-Earth provider energy of Capricorn. Like the sea and the mountains found a way to make love. I feel so fuzzy when I see a Cancer-Capricorn couple. There’s something about this polarity pairing that is so sexy and just right. As a Cancer moon myself, Capricorn moon men have always had a special way of making me feel safe and cared for in the most perfect ways.
This is a lovely blog to learn more about Dakshinayana, Uttarayana, and the Vedic ways of wellness from.
Deep down, I’m all about the chemistry of the Taurus-Scorpio axis, but that’s a conversation for another day.
My monsoon has been interesting, because I feel more creative than ever. Every time it rains, I like to visualise that it is I who is being made wet and poured into again. This is after the longest, dryest season of my life from 2022 to present, a time where everything has been scorchingly hard and eczema-causing energy abounded.
In the Indian tradition, I highly doubt that we were meant to be “productive” (in the patriarchal-capitalism way) during the monsoon. This feels like a creative time. This is a time to be juicy, that’s it.
I’ve been talking a lot about The Juice, right from that one rainstorm this summer. This piece is all about roots, fractals and threads connecting sensuality and the juice of life with rain.
I’ve been doing water element yin practices and spells. Using my showers to imagine myself being cleansed, or as portals to enter a new energy and shift my frequency as many times a day as I need. I’ve been drinking more water than ever, thankfully. I’ve been thinking about hydration beyond just hydration - energetic, spiritual hydration.
I started an expansive, creative, productive new chapter of coming back to life and up-levelling to a new self, quite recently. I tend to shine quite bright during Leo season, and I love it. This week onwards, there’s at least 3-4 big, expansive, opening, unfurling and blooming things I’m starting, and it’ll continue to be like that every week.
The very first thing that came to me, as I was sitting and listing it all out last Sunday, is something from Mama Gena’s life-changing book called Pussy, the one book I never stop recommending.
The more demanding our lives are, the more rigorously we must attend to pleasure. - Regena Thomashauer
She wrote about an incredibly hard, busy week where she had to add 15 hours of writing time to work on her book on top of her already full week, and how setting an intention to book a weekly massage for this challenging time was how she kept her fires burning.
She calls it maintaining our radiance.
She wore only the clothes that she felt really hot in, to do her writing. She made sure she moved her body with dance, and anything else she finds enjoyable.
The more I put out, the more I had to put in.
I have never felt, related to and resonated with something more. When I wear hot clothes, look hot and feel hot, everything I pour into - and all of my business - thrives at 150% more.
But what I loved the most is how she labelled her massages, her pleasure as a “have to.”
If I have to do a lot of work this week, I have to be well massaged and I have to feel hot. I have to tend to my pleasure and leisure with as much discipline as I do to my work.
I was telling a dear friend only recently that even just booking a massage is such a shadow work playground for me.
We always save the nourishment, the pleasure, the good things, for later, right?
Just like we believe that pleasure and the erotic can only be saved for later, for dark, hidden corners and ‘stolen’ time. As Nairy puts it so beautifully: The erotic is meant to be lived. It is a lie that we must save it for stolen moments.
Doesn’t it come up like this for almost everyone?
A massage? I only deserve that when I’ve suffered enough, when I’m dragging along the floor, parched, starving, toiled, sweaty, bone-tired, burnt out, dried up from everything I had to do this week, a hole in my tshirt, chipped toenails and hair uncombed from the severity of my most sincere penance of hustle.
The guilt, the shame, the “Will people judge me for booking a massage for no reason? I should have an explanation ready of how long it has been or how much I have done in my life lately, when I happen to mention to someone that I’m booking a massage. Or, some bodily pain from all the workouts that I’ve been getting done to show for why I get massages.”
The exile of the feminine at large will tell us that we are superficial, silly for caring about how we look and feel and present visually while we work. I write a LOT about this - wearing pink, the shunning of the girly girl within us all and how healing/productive/amazing it is to be feminine again - in the post below, one of my most favourite pieces ever written.
Doing my full hair and make up, dressing well and having pretty nails, being committed to my salon maintenance appointments, there is no investment that keeps me as high vibrational and connected to the Goddess as that does. Maybe it’s just me. I believe in dressing beautifully to work from home, having a favourite pretty tea cup, and being quite invested in the way my bedsheets feel.
I made a gentle resolution this Leo szn, to list an equal amount of things that pour back in - in proportion to the big, expansive, outward pouring new actions that I’m taking up. One of them is getting a massage, every week. The audacity! ;) ;)
I’m going back to my Venusian daily practice this month - a healing tool I came up with for myself where I soften my relationship with luxury, abundance and pleasure, as a form of medicine for the inner feminine. My letter perfumed in kannauj roses and cardamom talks all about it.
I’ve also made a note to return to herbal body oiling as a night ritual at least 1-2 times a week, this practice is a beautiful gift to my nervous system, one that I learnt from being inside the circle at The Daily Rest. It’s literally just oiling your entire body in whatever oil you enjoy, from feet and upwards, and all the levels of energy that it makes shine.
I show up to my restorative yoga practice almost every day. I’m embracing that even just ten minutes on the yoga mat is beautiful and means a lot and CHANGES A LOT. Even just playing one three minute song to dance sexy to once a day, it completely transforms you, it already has rebuilt me and continues to do so. Even just a 5 minute timer on my phone to tidy my room as much as I can, it changes the way the rest of the day flows.
I eat quite healthy, but I know that I’m the kind of person who becomes sad if I keep myself on a strict diet with absolutely no something (sugar, alcohol, coffee, the usual Big Bad Wolves). I live for pleasure, beauty, enjoying my senses and having gourmet experiences. Delicious things keep me happy.
So I let myself be mostly healthy, 80-90% of the week. I don’t believe in extreme healthy eating and then binging out on absolute trash once a week. I’ll have one glass of wine with intention, instead of cutting it out entirely because that’s not what I need to do right now anyway. I’ll share a gorgeous dessert if I happen to be out with a friend, for the experience, but never bring white sugar into my home so it’s simply not there for me to turn to.
I love giving myself the luxury of a life where there is space to enjoy things, and there’s no beating myself into being absolutely perfect at nourishment. I do notice that when I completely cut out sugar for a month or more, my skin becomes the best it can ever be, however, and I’m still figuring out a way to play with that.
I’m embracing being quite disciplined about my pleasure, my leisure, my sensual and sensorial experiences, and my time to just do nothing. To be bored. To stare into space, or zone out into mundane activities. To do really boring cleaning and tidying. To not listen to yet another self development podcast, sometimes.
And it’s lovely how, everytime I look out and it’s raining, I am reminded of that painting. And I am reminded of how monsoons, especially, are for prioritising pleasure. All of the elements are out there, making love, and we are being invited to join them <3
These are some beautiful reads on the subject of how even tiny, gentle changes that seem not enough, matter a lot more than we realise. I am so grateful to be part of The Daily Rest for this, because this space and everything that Emmie does, shares and teaches has held me so deeply in understanding the way of life where even doing things gently, softly, kindly and imperfectly has a big impact.
In what ways would you like to be disciplined about your pleasure and your leisure, if you aren’t already? Drop your fantasies and recommendations.
Cute ways to support my writing: Just the fact that you’ve reached all the way till the end means a lot.
As an individual in India, it’s been quite difficulty-ridden for me to be able to get paid by Substack, and hence I can’t have paywalls anymore for my writing to be deeply supported. Your presence, attention, comments, shares or nothing at all but coming back for more next time, these are all cherished and valued <3
thank you!!!
I wouldn't deny i kind of had a totally different perspective to monsoon this time around because perhaps i heard you talking about it in it's early stages when it was still in Bombay. I mean i wasn't hating on it like i always have because how it makes everything so sticky, muddy, humid - but i actually witnessed its beauty. So thank you for such a beautiful monsoon 🌝