Open Access
Published: December 2024
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA-4.0
Issue: Vol.19, No.2
Word count: 398
About the author
Declaration of love
Jaya Narayan
Can you hear me?
This schedule is subject to change.
A hierarchy of knowledge
Like an echo chamber
Cards, stacked up
left with undried pain(t)
a glimpse of life yet to come
arguing with Plato
I lie down
The ground of it is what it is
something about trust
Horizontal is decolonising.
Of dignity, beyond freedom
Presence by absence
I've been a little distracted.
This is not accusatory.
I am
Your story is mine, too.
trusting beyond your life
In your humanness
fierce vulnerability
heart wide open
You speak not only for yourself but for me
That sounds amazing
Love in these challenging times.
You are part of!
Your willingness to share
To actually feel that feeling.
seeds of self-doubt
Can change the world.
Emotions bubbling away
tactile experience of words,
Such an unfamiliar terrain
my body softening
Dolphins with scars
Caring for myself
Awareness of all the voices
I wish there was
Resting
As with all things
Take a break
to the imaginary vision
turned out very different
Asking a lot more of us
there is a space
Cite this creative contributionNarayan, J. (2024). Declaration of love. JoCAT, 19(2). https://www.jocat-online.org/c-24-narayan
Figure 1. Jaya Narayan, surrendering to found words, 2024, mixed media collage, 100 × 150mm
Creative arts therapist statement
Through this poetic piece, I explore what, how, and where I attune and whose voice(s) matter to me. I inquire into what is dominating my thinking and forming my worldview. Allowing myself to reflect, I accumulate words and phrases I find in the world – daily gatherings of what I read, hear, and listen to. It becomes a sacred practice. I store them gently like precious pebbles.
When I return to them after a few days, I notice that all the expressions have softened, carrying vibrational qualities. The words guide me on how they want to be moved and which ones they want to be next to. I continually move, shift and arrange the phrases several times, configuring and organising – a puzzle that continues, and even now feels unformed. I notice feeling unsure and become curious about how I respond, feel, and judge. I breathe, set aside the need to assign meaning, and focus on deconstructing my assumptions and biases about what I consider vital and how placement can impact the flow and rhythm.
As a reader, what feels vital as you encounter these words? How might you reconstruct them and add your own found words?
Author
Jaya Narayan
Adv Dip Expressive Art Therapy, ABP, AThR
Jaya is an expressive arts therapist, psychodramatist, somatic practionner and group process facilitator. She has worked therapeutically for over a decade with at-risk youth and adults in Australia and India. Currently, she has a private practice and is a sessional academic at MIECAT in Naarm Melbourne. She is passionate about resourcing clients experiencing complex, relational and developmental trauma with ways of relating and sensing that are body-led. Jaya is interested in deepening embodied practices, and reclaiming cultural wisdom of inquiring into self.