Varanasi | Liz Thompson

Varanasi

untitled
untitled
untitled
untitled
untitled
untitled
untitled
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitlled.

Flow through my thighs, your gentle face, your dying eyes, each moment I draw breath you die to me. I run from you , I run across the world, this earth we burn. I run across the plains of fire, burn me to ashes. Half crazed, half mad with sorrow, something is dying in me, something of me dies. Kali destroy me that I may rise.
Untitlted.

She took me to the heart of the matter and it was without stars.
Untitlled.

I am not moderate, I am not half a love, my love is violent, it is deep, it is enraged. I am enraged with love for this earth, these souls that walk upon it. I am enraged at the injustice and cruelty. I am enraged by the devastation of the trees and water and air. I am enraged by greed and pursuit of life with neither heart nor soul. Here, devotion shines and fuels me.
Untitlted.

The other half of my heart, he is here in the vermillion and the steps and the marigolds and the incantations.

He is here in the death and the dying and the sole of the Sadhu's foot touched with sandlewood

alive with the song of the Gods.

He is here as I turn , as I think, as I reach, to fly away , to run, to free myself.

He is here, binding ever deeper, ever closer, ever thicker in my blood of ages past, in my blood he is here.

Fear of dying rose wild in me with the pitch of bells and butter ghee melted in tiny golden spoons like half a moon.
Untitlted.
Untitlled.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.

She took me to the heart of the matter and it was without stars.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.

Wrapped into a dark night, pressed against the inky black face of despair. Now i emerge as if from a crucible, is it as a phoenix?

What form does the rising take, if nothing other than knowing there is little left to burn, only ashes to scatter.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Spinning
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Untitlted.
Untitlted.
Untitled.
Untitlted
Untitled.
Untitlted
Temple flowers.
Untitlted.
Starving for the Ganga.

Baba NagNath Yogeshwar , born in Varanasi , is 48 years old and tells me he has been on a hunger strike for 251 days. " I am on a hunger strike to save the nature, to save humanity, to save the Ganga." A dam has already been built on the Ganga and there are plans Paras Nath Pandey, who translates for us, tells me, to use the water to generate electricity.
Starving for the Ganga.

" Tantra is the pistol and Mantra is the bullet."
Untitled.

I am in this place of death for a reason, to relinquish, to watch the body burn to bone and understand all is transient

there is nothing to be grasped, there is nothing to be grasped

nothing to be held nor owned, nothing to be lost

can it be so?
Untitled.
Murangen.

Murangen . Banks of the Ganga. Varanasi.
Murangen.