As we approach the end of March 2025, I realize I haven’t followed that yearly ritual, stepping outside to feel what’s actually happening in the natural world. Apart from a few winter walks, I've remained inside during these months, absorbed in my digital world, working toward a goal that’s important to me, but one that has kept me stuck on a computer screen and in my own mind.

Despite my lack of attention, spring has been coming on gradually. The season is shifting, as is the natural world, preparing for the explosion of rich, green life.

For most of human history, our existence has been intertwined with the outdoors, cognizant of nature’s cycles and rhythms, tracking the course of the sun and moon, watching dark skies and bright stars. We marked the seasons—not just the climate phases in our particular corners of the world, but also the passage of time and our lives.

We grounded into our bodies, feeling Earth around us, regaining our perspective and our touch with reality. We remembered that our human time happened within the context of cosmic time, and we ourselves were the bridge, the nexus, the joinder.

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I traveled to Tampa last week and was immediately accused by its citizens of bringing Indiana weather with me. Who would have expected 30 degree temps in Florida, even in January?

Well, I should have, because I actually looked at the weather report before I left. But some part of my brain rebelled and wouldn't believe that I needed to pack the same winter gear I was currently wearing. I threw in capris and sandals and tee shirts and of course regretted them all upon my arrival. In fact, I spent much of the weekend in my coat.

But one afternoon, seeing the sun shining brightly again, I stepped outside, my still rebellious brain still expecting warmth. No such luck.

As I shivered, as I felt the chill on my skin, it occurred to me how much I live within the confines of my own mind. Sitting inside the house, I write, I email, I research, I make calls, I check social media. Often, I have three active screens in front of me as I work, living my life in what's essentially a virtual world.

So, as I stood in that cold, I tried to tune into the good fortune of having a physical body that's able to feel, see, and enjoy what the physical world was offering me in the moment. I asked myself, why am I fighting this? This is what my world feels like right now. And it's okay to be cold. Really.

And then I went back inside. Though I'd accepted that it's okay to be cold, I also knew it was okay to warm up. So, on that brisk day in Tampa, I made myself a cup of tea, and it felt like the first cup of tea ever made. Sip by sip, it warmed me, inside and out.

I have always loved tea, particularly masala chai, because every time I drink it, I feel as though the earth is handing me gift after gift for my own health and healing and nourishment and, of course, pleasure—not only those black tea leaves, but also the spices, the seeds, the roots of the physical world, all being ingested by me, as a physical being.

As I drank, there were no screens, no spinning thoughts, no information crashing down and around me. I was just a human being having a tangible, visceral experience of the world.

I'd like to share a poem about that sheer pleasure, published a few years ago in Tweetspeak Poetry.

Ingesting Earth

In my mortar,

I broke cardamom,

released the piney

scent from its pods.

I crushed cloves

till they sliced the air

bitter-bright.

I ground peppercorns

for their quick kindle;

I snapped cinnamon

for its slow burn.

Into the mixture,

I crumbled fennel

to kiss me with

licorice sweetness.

I made this masala

from Earth’s bounty—

seed and root

bark and berry

herb and flower—

and swept it all

into water.

I grated ginger-heat

into the roil, then

swirled in tea leaves,

watched them unfurl,

watched their dance.

At last,I drank Earth down—

with no milk to obscure

Her clarity,

with no sugar to distract

from my whole tongue,

alight.

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In the meantime, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for listening, and see you in a few weeks!

-Dheepa

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Over the past few days I've been hearing messages in texts, emails, newsletters, and media: people stating what they remain committed to, even in the face of disappointment — what remains true for them no matter what changes outside of them.

I'd like to do the same — to dive down to that core of me and remember what lives there. I'd like to tell you what I still believe.

* I still believe in trying to model what I seek from others and from the world.

* I still believe in looking at the person in front of me and trying to understand the life story behind the words and actions. 

* I still believe in extending kind gestures and words. 

* I still believe in battling for our beautiful planet and every bit of sustenance it provides us.

* I still believe in honor, decency, trust, and the infinite power of love.

So, let's all get some rest. And then we'll continue to live toward the world we want. I'm holding you all in my heart. 

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I'm thinking about the power of music and song to anchor and even transform our moments. For me, listening to music while I'm in the car—if I'm honest, really loud music—turns everyday driving into such an experience of freedom. Listening to Latin dance music while I'm cooking changes that experience, too—okay, that's less of a pleasure, but it really helps with the tedium.

For most of his life, my grandfather struggled with asthma, and it often left him home-bound and bed-bound. But I have such powerful memories of him sitting in a chair in a particular corner of our family home, listening to recordings of the classical South Indian music he loved. He especially enjoyed the improvisational sections, and at those times, his breathing seemed to loosen, and he'd sing along with the artists, his voice carrying through the house until he had to catch his breath again. In those moments, instead of being weighed down by illness, he seemed buoyant, mobile, free—and I always imagined him surfing on waves of sound. 

This poem is entitled "Alaap," which refers to the improvisational portion of an Indian musical rendition. It was published in the literary journal, Wild Musette.

Alaap

At night, he chose one of his 1,732 cassette tapes

(we counted), each mixed by his trembling fingers 

on an 80s boombox, and he released the ancient melodies

from the tongues of modern singers, and he waited 

for the alaap,* when the artists surfed between word and melody.

When he could no longer resist, Grandfather launched

and followed them into those waves—but never for long

because his breath could not carry him across the barrel,  

and the air would leave him, mid-stanza, and his body 

would lurch, and we would wait—

does he need his inhaler?

—until he broke the surface, caught a rope of breath,

then moments later, launched again, paddled from his

nubby orange chair through the grand foyer, up through the

skylight, and into the swell, until, inevitably, he sank to the

Oriental rug and the tyranny of an aluminum walker.

They say Rebirth can bring justice, so surely, this time around,

he is sovereign of the air and monarch of the movements

that once eluded him, no mere starling, but a murmuration,

no mere minnow, but an entire school of fliers —  

surging, rippling, coiling like incense, leaping to light.

***

Thanks so much for listening today. I'll see you in a few weeks! 

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Once, during a graduate school interview, a dean asked whether I’d done anything unusual during the preceding summer. I shared that I’d trained for and presented a two-hour solo performance of Bharath Natyam. I’ll never forget his response, delivered with a frown: “Isn’t that just dancing for men?”

As the daughter of an immigrant family in the U.S. at that time, the distance between the dean’s perceptions and my own reality was a familiar one. Nevertheless, I sat stunned for a moment, thinking of my years spent mastering footwork, cultivating balance, and learning to convey emotions and expressions.

I thought of how honored I felt to have become a steward of thousand-year-old legends and philosophies. So, finding my voice, I explained this ancient storytelling tradition, as well as the athleticism, skill, and training it required. I described the sophistication of the concepts, and the layers of meaning it could convey—for example, the eternal cycles of creation and destruction, and the soul’s longing to merge with the divine.

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[Audio transcript] Hello, this is Dheepa Maturi, and welcome to Pieces of Light!

When I have a chance to walk in dense areas of trees, from wooded parks to national forests, I love how it evokes the feeling of connection to the natural world. Sometimes, I visualize threads—delicate, gossamer, almost invisible ones—joining everything together, me included. 

A few years ago, I wrote an ekphrastic poem—that is, a poem responding to a specific piece of art, in this case Edith Vonnegut’s painting entitled “Clear Cutting.” The painting shows the destruction of both trees and topsoil, which is the fragile, nutrient-rich layer nourishing every living being on Earth and allowing for the growth of food and the retention of water. 

While observing the painting, I visualized humanity unthinkingly cutting the threads I mentioned earlier—the threads connecting people and planet. 

I imagined being in conversation with one of those trees, having access to the ancient timeline to which it belonged—deep time, even cosmic time. The title of this poem is “A Thread,” and it was published in the anthology Leave Them Something.

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[Audio Transcript] Hello, this is Dheepa Maturi, and welcome to Pieces of Light!

In my last note, I mentioned re-reading a book from childhood in order to break through my writer's block. As I pored over the story again after so many years, I thought about the sheer pleasure of reading as a child, of just getting lost in a different setting, meeting characters that felt like my own friends, and feeling I was part of all the action. 

Of course, growing up, attending school, I learned the important skill of reading fiction more analytically—figuring out the messages an author was trying to get across, identifying larger themes, understanding tools like metaphor and symbolism and point of view. 

Many years later, when I wanted to write fiction, I had to learn to break stories down much further, into acts, arcs, scenes, beats, timelines, dialogue. And if I wasn't careful, I could lose the beauty of a book, what it means, its role and function in the world. I could lose its wholeness. 

I wrote this poem to remind myself not to lose that wholeness. In it, you'll hear the references to Richard Scarry's picture book character Lowly the Worm, as well as Madeleine L'Engle's Meg Murry from the young adult novel, A Wrinkle in Time. 

And you'll also hear about a professor I encountered in college, one who really wanted us to break writing down to the most elemental parts . . . with results that disturbed me.

This poem, entitled “Licking the Page,” was published a few years ago in the journal Defenestration. 

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This past Mother's Day I thought about the unseen labor that nurtures and powers the human race--labor that isn't counted in the world's productivity metrics. Often (though not always), mothers and grandmothers perform that labor. When I was a child, my grandmother always peeled oranges for me, and one day, I finally could see what I hadn't seen before--one beautiful act among a million beautiful acts.

This poem was first published in The Indianapolis Review: https://theindianapolisreview.com/fed/

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I want the definition of mothering to expand, widen, deepen, to encompass all of these acts of needful care, regardless of who performs them. I want to count the acts that acknowledge the inherent worth and value of other human beings, acts by which we include someone else within our sphere of existence.

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Happy Earth Day! Click here for a link to the essay, "Happy Earth Day, and Don't Miss the Trees for the Forest!" and the poem, "How to Love One Tree."

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