The thesis has never been exile.

With the force of capitalism behind Halloween, you might miss the other occasion being celebrating by the 1.2 billion Hindus around the world today: Diwali. It’s a joyous celebration of light, redemption and abundance. This evening we will light lamps around our home and honour the cosmic force of abundance and generosity - embodied in Hinduism by the godddess Lakshmi. And tomorrow evening (because I miscalculated the new moon) we will host a feast in our home with my parents and dear friends. I started my morning with ghughra, a spectacularly delicious sweet treat that we only get once a year: crispy, flaky pastry wrapped around a mix of nuts, coconut, semolina and cardamom. Handmade by my mom, handed down from her mom. Sweet, glorious ancestral practices.

Diwali represents the culmination of the epic mythology of the Ramayana - a return from exile, a celebration of the conquering of demons, the path lit by lamps on a moonless night. When I was thinking about Diwali earlier this week the phrase that popped into my head is a line from the Ada Limon poem “Where the Circles Overlap”: The thesis has never been exile. It’s in the last stanza of the poem and for me is about true belonging. If we knew we carried the spark of divine light we could exist beyond questions of worthiness, beyond questions of belonging.

On a recent trip to Johannesburg, I took this photograph of a bottlebrush, moved by the sense of unbridled abundance. The poem somehow ties the same notions together as the celebration of Diwali does: that our true nature is one of homecoming, and that alongside the suffering that is part and parcel of life there is also an essential richness of life force, a pulsing aliveness, a vibrant reciprocity, a wild flow.

Wishing you sweetness today. And a flicker of remembering to guide your way home.