Posted on January 7, 2024 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
I have been wanting to write this blog post since the end of December and yet, I was not able to physically and mentally. Well, 2023 was a better year for sure but overwhelming nonetheless. Good Overwhelming I think or that’s what I might want to believe. Well, my long-term dream of traveling came true! The dreams that were dreamt while writing 100s of people’s air tickets, planning holidays and vacations in Bangkok and Singapore for some big big bigshots, and dreaming that one day, I will also be traveling on a Seat in Coach basis wearing sunglasses and looking around the wonders of the world. The longest daydream ever probably 15-16 years ago. Who was that girl? I am trying to look back and visualize myself writing those Buddha Air or Jet Airways or Thai Airways tickets by my hand in the most beautiful handwriting as a travel agent! A travel agent who had so many dreams, too many to keep track of. Always dreaming, always wanting, always trying to imagine a happy place to be.
To feel Shanti~ peace
To feel happiness & abundance
Peace. That’s the word for 2024!
2023 was a different challenge. A mental health challenge that I had not felt before. It did teach me so much about myself and made me search for questions about life, friends, family, food, health, and well-being. You name it! This has been a year where my long-term travel and research dreams have finally been realized. What did I want more from me and myself and fate? Exactly! Hence, 2023 was a year of realization! Something that I hadn’t done before ~ reflecting on where I am now and unraveling all those boxes and boxes of memories good and bad, right and wrong, happy and sad. All those boxes intersected creating a sort of a map that I had traveled through, pushed through, and made it where I am today! It was a tough year! Well, I fixed my tooth too! Perhaps 10 dental visits and more!
Oh did I mention that I also finished writing my book! This is my first book! Another dream of a ten-year-old girl was to write a book one day! So, 2024 should be exciting!
I am choosing peace & abundance for the year 2024 and taking a big step back! This step back is to be strategic and peaceful. To be minimalistic? Well, I can try at least!
Posted on January 1, 2023 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
What a year 2022 was! I have lost the words to describe the intensity that this year presented to me. The last one like this was in 2012. I had survived 2012 (not alone) and I survived 2022 not alone either. I had chosen the word Hope for my year 2022 but I think at the end of this year, life has opened up all the possible pandora boxes and left me with only hope ~ hope that the next year will be less intense, less uncertain, less painful. Again, what a whirlwind 2022 was! Not everything was negative, there were some positives too! There was a bigger leap in life towards settling down with love and building our nest together for sunshine, rain, and snow in the heart of nature surrounded by ancient trees, deer, and lots of sunshine. Every morning I feel healed by the sunrise so beautiful that it nourishes my inner being. This has become an everyday routine ~ waiting for a sunrise that makes you forget everything. Every morning despite anything ~ the sun still rises~
A beautiful Sunrise scenery from our balcony over the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia! And, the hanging ceramic bells from an artisan in Bhaktapur, Nepal.
Well, COVID finally hit me making it difficult to move physically and think of anything with a lot of brain fog and restlessness and tiredness. I am thankful for the vaccine and even though it did hit me pretty hard. I am not leaving my mask again! It was scary to have slept days and nights for so many days and lost the sense of taste and the brain fog that didn’t let me think or work and function well. Yet, I survived because I was lucky enough! It is very difficult to think and fathom that we have lost so many lives to COVID.
Who knew, 2022 will see a WAR! After the world survived a global pandemic, the world witnessed a WAR and nothing could be done to stop it – I can’t believe nearly a year after the Russia-Ukraine war is still ongoing – taking thousands of lives, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and creating such an upheaval in the globe. Who would have thought that this was in planning and that in this era and time and moment where the world is already wounded, we will suffer due to the actions of fellow human beings? It was crazy to see air strikes, drones, bombed cities, and just seeing people being uprooted. Yet, people are surviving (those who can survive amid this crisis).
Pinda ~ an offering made to our beloved family member on the 13th day of their (swargabas) passing away!
2022 was also a year of loss and grief. As we very much unwillingly and sadly with deep sorrow and pain bid goodbye to our beloved family member who was a matriarch and a pillar for so many of us. To experience loss, to see them lifeless, and to see them burn into ashes ~ I couldn’t believe that this pain this much, this hurt this much. The loss and grief of losing someone and yet to have to perform rituals that slowly try to heal amid the obligation, pain, and suffering. Nothing of this was imagined! But this showed how uncertain life is and how strong one has to be and go deep down to our internal resources to help us survive. And, yet we survived. We all needed to.
As life was challenged with so many uncertainties by 2022. I want the next year to be of strength. It would be nice to be able to get stronger to navigate the uncertainties in life. I know I should have called when I remembered them, I should have listened to their voice one more time, I should have told them that I loved them and thanked them for all they have done to me for helping me by giving me love, care, and affection. I know I should have taken them to do their favorite activity and should have invited them to the US which they wanted to visit so badly. should have…could have…now it is never going to happen like that.
I would like to honor them. Honor them for teaching me many life skills, teaching me to give, teaching me to have fun, teaching me self-care and beauty, teaching me skills that I needed to navigate, teaching me to laugh and sharing their jokes with me and sharing how they navigated the difficulties of patriarchal traditions. We will always love and remember you!
To strength
Yearning to be one with the sea…Puerto Rico, 2022
I am leaving a year of challenges behind. Last year, I wrote that I wanted to do more self-care in 2022 – I am not sure if I did that. But I hope I can do that in 2023 and also gain the strength to navigate whatever uncertainties that 2023 has to bring – good and bad.
Posted on January 1, 2022 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
To Hope…(Shenandoah National Park, November 2021)
How did a whole year pass by amid covid and chaos? Seconds by seconds and minutes by minutes ~ time passed at its own pace~ unstoppable as it is ~ neither slow nor fast but at its own pace. However, it does feel like a whole year passed in a blink as we all lived through COVID-19 – grieving, thriving, and masking up ourselves and doing the best we could to survive when surviving has been challenged. And, by calling surviving a challenge, it definitely has been a challenge ~ to some a lot and to some very less. While we were lucky to get vaccinated and boosted, there are many in the world who haven’t and some of them include our relatives and close ones. And, how long this will last as the world continues to suffer through this pandemic?
Negative Covid Test 12.31.2021
Well, who knew we will reach nearly half a million positive cases this week here in the USA! What a scary thought? And, we are heading towards another year of uncertainty with this disease. Currently, I am in America where I cannot find a COVID test that is available even though I have symptoms that are similar to COVID-19 which were terrible but now I am improving. The systems are yet again overwhelmed and so are we. However, I could get an “At home” test that tested negative~ what a privilege to have. What a privilege it is to feel negative for COVID-19 while I cannot move out of the couch as I do not have any energy (except for typing, I guess) due to the FLU like symptoms. From reading COVID-19 symptoms over and over again to testing the fever with a thermometer every 30 minutes ~ this is giving me paranoia ~ of course.
To Hope~~ and to the flow
However, there are a few things that I am looking forward to in 2022 and I am grateful that I am alive. And, I hope that everyone has something to look forward to. Like I told to my girlfriends ~ 2022 is my year! This is my year of choosing self-care and self-love. And, I am looking forward to so much self-care and self-love and whatever that might look like.
Taleju Bhawani’s Necklace on Display at the Art Institute of Chicago. Pic: Dr. Abhilasha Shresthat. 12.10.2021
At the moment, it is 10:30 PM in Chicago. I have just returned back to my hotel after watching a baseball game. I am tired but I can’t sleep. I am in shock and surprise and my heart is just going back to the Art Institute in Chicago where I found something stolen from my country, from my Goddess – openly displayed in pride to thousands of visitors. I found Taleju Bhawani’s necklace supposedly gifted by King Pratapmalla (r 1641-74) somewhere around the 17th century here in Chicago. This necklace which belongs to my Goddess Taleju Bhawani, which was supposed to be in Nepal– was here – in Chicago-in an open display to thousands of visitors who have no idea of the religious and spiritual value to me and many other folks like me.
Yesterday, after coming to Chicago after a two hours drive, we went directly to the Art Institute of Chicago. We had planned specifically to come here and specifically to see Taleju Bhawani’s lost/stolen necklace. As I entered the “Indian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan Art” section which was titled “Alsdrof Galleries”- my heart started throbbing and I started to tremble. Many tourists who were visiting were taking selfies with our Gods openly displayed. As I entered, a big statue of Lord Gautam Buddha was there, staying silent as the visitors took selfies. As I roamed around, my memories went back to Kathmandu~ my hometown ~ the city of temples ~where every street has Gods and Goddesses and temples. But this was not a temple, there was no holiness about this space, it was a museum and not a sacred space where our Gods and Goddesses reside and/or are kept with the highest belief and value.
I wanted to see the necklace. I found the necklace carefully curated inside a glass box. When I first took a glance at the necklace, I started to cry, my body started to tremble, and I was overpowered with emotions. I joined my hands together and kept on bowing down to my dearest Goddess Taleju Bhawani crying. I couldn’t see her necklace being displayed like this and started to bow down and pray. I don’t know if I was supposed to do this while there were a lot of onlookers but I couldn’t help myself. She is the Goddess of our Kathmandu valley. The marks of century-long vermillion powder were still there, signifying that this piece was worshipped as a part of Taleju Bhawani and probably worn by the Goddess herself or as noted in the description also by the then King Pratapmalla. There was a strange piece of information: “the gift of Alsdrof foundation” which made me google the foundation which doesn’t yield substantial information. How did they find this? From whom did they purchase this? Why did they decide to donate? How long did they keep this necklace hidden and why? All those questions came to my mind.
The major question in my mind however was still: Why is Taleju Bhawani’s necklace here? What is this necklace doing here? How did this necklace end up here?
Taleju Bhawani Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. Pic: Dr. Abhilasha Shrestha
While being overwhelmed with emotions, anger, confusion, I contemplated the Temple of Taleju Bhawani (picture above) which opens only once a year for the public. Every year on the day of Navami, I would go to Taleju Bhawani mandir to worship her, to feel her power, and to get a transcendental experience. However, one can never see the idol of the Goddess (at least I never saw one). I was told that only the essence of the Goddess is brought on display in the form of a Kalash. Taleju Bhawani herself resides at the Dashain Ghar which isn’t open to the public and she lives in the human form as the Kumari – the living Goddess of Nepal.
In my other interaction with respected Priest Uddhavman, I had asked him “since you are the major pujari, please tell me how does the Goddess looks, how is she like, what form is she in” and he had replied, “the Goddess is a Bindu, a point and here I give you this point in the form of tika from my hands that have touched the Goddess.” This sentence has never left my life. Though Pujari Ji might not remember my name, he changed my perception of religion that day. The Goddess is within me always, all the time. Hence, since then I have always felt a spiritual connection with the Goddess but this sentence reaffirmed it.
Yesterday, to see the necklace of the Goddess, her property, her gift – stolen, ripped off from her, sold, and then “gifted” to a museum and displayed to thousands of onlookers – broke my heart. I felt helpless as I remembered Uddhavman Pujari Ji’s words as I shed my tears. While my question was answered, I was seeing her necklace to be exposed and to be viewed by everyone who may not have a spiritual connection like I do, who may not have the same beliefs that I do, and who may or may not care that stolen pieces should never be in public display – and it should be returned.
Yesterday, Taleju Bhawani invited me to tell the world that her stolen piece is here. I, my phone, technology, the internet all of us in combination, we became a medium to communicate to many people back home that it is the time that the Art Institute in Chicago should return this piece.
Taleju Bhawani wants her stolen property, her gift, her necklace back. The Goddess wants to go back.
I appeal to the Art Institute of Chicago, to help our Goddess return her property home. Help return a stolen necklace to our Goddess.
Updated:
On December 10, 2021, I visited the Art Institute of Chicago Again and I found that even after raising our voice six months ago, the necklace was still there. It wasn’t a surprise but even with raising our voice against it, we were unheard. After my tweet, there was so much discussion about how it should be returned. Even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had tweeted that they sent a request to the US Embassy and the concerned department. However, the necklace was still there. Hence, I would like to do another appeal of returning the necklace to Nepal.
Return Taleju Bhawani’s Necklace. Picture by Dr. Abhilasha Shrestha. 12/10/2021 at the Art Institute of Chicago
Posted on October 1, 2021 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
I want to write today ~ but not my academic paper that needs to be written but about horses, sheep and hills ~ they call those mountains here. I share my solace with these animals here in Blacksburg.
I just heard a ding from pomodoro timer but I am ignoring it. I have no reason specific for that but I am just loving how I am listening to music and arranging the pictures of these horses. I never get tired of these horses and I hope I will never do so.
Blake is the white horse in this picture and she is the horse with whom I am most connected to. For me she is Taleju Bhawani’s Bahan ~ straight from heaven. She is heavenly because she transcends the boundaries of material world and connects me with the Divine Devi ~ the Goddess. On Tuesday, I hugged her and cleaned her stall and she allowed me to do so. She didn’t complain, she just let me be and welcomed me in her stall. I secretly used to feed her carrots but I don’t do that anymore. I also fed her delicious grasses. She makes me forget the world and all the worries. I never had any such connections with any animals before I met Blake. I also share this passion with my other horse loving friend who has inspired me to take horse riding classes.
In Blake’s world, there are many of her horse friends, siblings, foals, and other pregnant mares. Horses have varied personalities. Some are so kind like Willie, Del Fino, Story, even Dragonfly. Some are a little angry, demanding, but inherently they are so lovely. The barn life is another fish bowl for me, and I am just an outsider but I am loving every moment that I can have in Blake’s horse.
Pictures: All pictures are taken by me and are under my copyright etc. Use of this picture without my permission isn’t allowed.
Posted on August 9, 2021 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
It has been 13 years and over a decade that I have established this space for me and for myself. Back in 2008, I didn’t know that the world in general and my small world in particular will change this much. What an ordeal we have faced together, oh dear Blog! Looking back at an imaginative twenty year old me, created this space and named it “The Coffee House Revival.” This was and has been a room of my own, a space of my own, and something that I can say my own ~ my blog. It has allowed me to share, grow, and create a path for my PhD. Thank you, WordPress for existing and allowing women like me to excavate freedom. It still feels like a dream on what I have become today and how this blog created a path for me. I have grown with this blog and I know I owe to many people who read me, liked my blogposts, and encouraged me to write more. I wish I had done more, I wish I had kept on writing. But then life took many turns in this one decade and more. I decided to move through many jobs including getting a PhD. It feels very different to think of myself as Dr. Sweta Baniya who is now an academic, a researcher and has locked her poetic, imaginative, and dreamy self away. I wish to get back to it. I noticed that the last post I made on the blog’s birthday was three years ago, it felt like I had stopped celebrating the existence of this space in my life. I feel I have forgotten how much this space meant to me back then, and for many many years.
Picture of Tulips from Floral Library in DC
I do believe on this space and the path it created for me. I know I don’t post much or the posts are small enough, forgettable, and I barely write. Trust me when writing is a whole job, I feel like getting a break from it. Though in my head I do have so many things I want to write, share, and tell to the people and I know I have space to do so but I don’t know what stops me to do so. I guess I don’t have time is the most cliched excuse but I think to be honest, I think I have forgotten myself, my love for writing, expressing, and my desire to do so. The pain for that loss is unbearable to me but this pain comes as flashback on various moments. I do think, I want to go back and revive this space somehow and go back to various moments and memories in my life to make them alive. But I don’t want to make promise that I can’t keep. Once the semester starts then the pace of life changes quite a bit. That has been happening with me for past five years as I started my PhD journey and finished one and to start another again as a Professor now. It seems like past five years were a dream that I dreamt for long time. Well, don’t we dream and imagine good things more than bad things? But what is the value of good if there were no bad. In this mixed bag of life, the balance of good and bad things we face, suffer through, and finally emerge from maybe creates who we are.
Picture of lily leaves at Lily Pond in Chicago ~ sadly there were no lilies
The WordPress itself has changed quite a bit and the technology that continues to change around us. I feel privileged to have been engaged with technology for past decade and more and it has shown me so much. However, I agree that the fast pace of life, the importance and addiction to emails, the addiction to phones and this desire to know and be part of the whole has never been so stressful as before. Amid this, I still try to find myself, who am I, my voice through various expressions, research, writing, and maybe photographs that I took all the time on my phone. I think the allowances provided by various media to be able to share and express, and to be able to get a quick feedback and thumbs up, and replies are the ones that made the presence of the blog less endearing. But I remember how much I loved when people read and commented on my blogpost, it gave me great joy in my life, it made me feel seen, heard, and appreciated. Then I put that part on hold for many years. As you can see, I haven’t written for many many years or I have written very few posts that don’t really tell my story, experiences, and my voice that much.
For past year, we have lived in a global pandemic. We have lost so many many of friends, families, and loved ones. The way it started and the way it is now is completely different. Amid all this I think survival is the most important, safety is most important, and keeping all of the lost ones in our memories alive is most important. They didn’t deserve this~ no one deserved to die from this virus. I hope and wish so much that this will pass soon. And, it will pass soon!
Finally, I don’t know if I will be able to commit so much time to write~ but I really wish I will write more and keep on using this space for something good.
Posted on December 29, 2018 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
My Ama said: You seem to have lost all your confidence~ you were very different when you were young~
I think this sentence at the end of this year, is changing my whole perspective on life. Screw new me, thin me, better me, I want myself back, the old me, the courageous dreamy ambitious energetic and happy and confident me.
Often times, I have been so much busy judging my past life and experiences as well as struggles and trying to focus on the present in the hope of a good future that I think, I have stopped listening to inner-most self and my own inner voice that led me to become who I am today.
When Ama told me that, I tried becoming defensive and told her- all graduate students are like this, we are depressed and we have imposter syndrome. Years back, I didn’t have that or if I had, it was very less. I am someone who battled my way into some really awesome work in Nepal, among toxic people, toxic environment, and moreover really difficult personal life.
But, wasn’t Grad school above everything for me? It was something for which I left my decade-long career, my identity, lifestyle, everything behind~ it was and is still my passion. But why did it cost me my confidence? Why my well-being?
I think this is because I don’t know how to do Grad-school. This is because my research on grad-school and imaginary things presented on the fancy websites and happy faces of the students weren’t enough. This is because I am a first-gen Graduate student in my family of four and my mentors back home had overconfidence in me I think things would be easier for me.
Grad school can be fun! And, I think these two and half years have been the best phase of my life in terms of the things I always wanted to do: study and write and teach.
Years back during my teenage days, Ama and I would talk and dream of a life full of books, writing, and teaching. And, right now, I am living our dream and she is so true, I might have lost some of the confidence because I believe in others more than myself. I have been harsh to myself, I have been pressurizing myself like crazy as my BFF says and thus, I have suppressed who I am to become the idealized me and it has cost me to lose my confidence.
So, screw that idealized me! I want myself to be back~
Posted on July 25, 2018 by Sweta Gyanu Baniya, Ph.D.
Lost? Maybe?
I had promised her that I will write her an email and I haven’t even started that email. It has been nearly two years. I want to tell her everything. But I took many steps back. Stopped writing – blog, poem, letters, sending cards, pictures, text, chat!
Resettling could be hard~ could be worse~ could be fun~ could be anything and mostly could be something that you are unable to communicate. Maybe because you are still waiting to find that inner compass that led you somewhere initially. And, now it is lost? Maybe?
How could I tell, I have been losing and finding, finding and losing the inner compass?
I think I haven’t completely lost it but have been doing this back and forth, on and off. But there are so many things to keep track of ~ and the inner compass gets buried deep down in dark and eventually, you forget where it is.
I couldn’t write an email to her! Couldn’t share that I have been trying to find something that is lost inside me and searching elsewhere and everywhere outside me.
One thought in my head says: maybe she could have helped, maybe she could have suggested, maybe she could have guided as she always does. But, I had decided not to talk to anyone including myself.
Silence!
There was an urge to have this silence. I couldn’t even go back to the meditation days, where I could put myself down into hours of meditation and then heal myself.
This time~ healing was far far away because I was letting myself suffer – don’t know if it was the pain, irritation or a complete apathetic moment for me ~ I wasn’t healing because I didn’t want to heal. Just like I didn’t want to email her.
But, now I think it is that moment~ to find ~ to search ~ to achieve the inner compass again! And, gear up on writing her with the truth of how lost I was…and how eager I am to find my inner compass
The Coffee House Revival (Excavating Freedom) 