Bringing Indigo Home

Brown Hands Blue.

I had a different post planned for today but couldn't pass on sharing this beautiful picture my Beloved took while I was deeply lost in the unfathomable depths of නීලකාන්ත. The blue-black one. The one so completely beyond the dimension of color that only In-digo can ever be used to depict...that-which-is-not.

This is also the way, at the tiny age of 7, I was taught to cook my first ever meals. Three clay bricks in a triangular formation, sticks crackling into flame, eyes full of smoke and a heart full of joy. A typical Lankan set-up. While that simple meal of rice and potatoes in coconut was finished with lashings of ash and sprinklings of soot, I also remember thinking it tasted more amazing than anything my little self had ever eaten.

Now, doing my work with Indigo in the same way, feels so seamlessly like second nature. Like an unlearned, unschooled, purely imbibed sense of knowing and feeling which connects me immediately to that phenomenal textile heritage I am a part of.

There is no thought, not even a hesitation when I work with my Brown Hands in Blue. It is an elation, a Homecoming of such intensity I'm failing miserably at putting it into words in the middle of the night, as I dash off these few words before settling in to sleep with my baby.

Sitting deep in a South Asian squat, (which I choose any day over standing or seating of any kind!), my little pumpkin wrapped in Indian hand looms on my back, trying to catch smoke with her bare hands. My own brown hands turning bluer and darker in my sweet organic vat, raised & maintained using traditional methods, without metal salts or mined processed materials. In the midst of this sacred communion I feel quite protective of this newly birthed baby. You can see it in my eyes I think. Knowing how much has been taken (polite for stolen), the elation & anxiety seem to come in equal measure.

But, I am still Sky Dancer. I promise I'll find my way through the murkiness of the legacy left to our Brown Hands. I will transcend the anxiety & fly with the joy of Bringing Indigo Home.

Namaskaram, Daki