In South Africa, 9 August is Women's Day and the month of August is National Women's Month. This is an opportunity to celebrate women's achievements and the important role that women of all races and religions have played and continue to play in South African society.
Today we want to share with you Nishita Kallian's poem. Nishita is a formidable woman dedicated and passionate about shining light on to the lives of every individual that she encounters.
The Beauty of our Diversity is in its Unity
" In the midst of the dewy green grass, she stands, bold, yet soft.
Quiet but expressive. Serene yet knowing who she is as a sister, her love equates to protection as fierce as that of a lioness protecting her cubs. As a daughter, her love sounds like waves crashing against each other, not always calm, relaying tumult in between, however displaying kindness and purity as the wave washes clean and starts the process all over again.
As a girlfriend, she loves in a sense of bringing clarity and yearning to see growth. Roots that spread so wide yet remain humbled and grounded to the intensity of faith.
As an employee, she feels the pressures of loving beyond reason as well as any season. She nurtures the self that she believes so deeply to be true whilst she is realising that her Source is in fact creating life all around the few. Who is she, they ask... She is you and she is me.
She is seen in the woman that is being wrecked and railed to the ground both physically and emotionally. She is the woman that might feel shame and insecurity at times, yet comes out of it with her own pride and stride. She is in the woman that cannot identify herself through all her child's drug abuse, yet, she still meets her source halfway to be woken every morning and put to bed the remaining children that wait for her lead.
She is in the woman that may dissolve her own emotions to cater to her creations for more than just one generation. Adhering to no rules or necessary commitments, through her own will, she breathes life into her daughter and her daughter's daughters and their daughters.
She is felt in the woman that is raising her children as a one-woman soldier. Here too, she is often times, asked by the Universe to put her own feelings aside to manufacture and manifest love that stands the test of time. She does so with her beautiful spirit and ends up conjuring more of her own spirituality through this continuing journey.
She is in the woman that feels the systemic pain and grief, sadness and guilt, hurt and rage. She, however, is also in the very same woman who identifies her warrior demeanour, the magical uprising of her glorious nature. She feels the same sentiments of being beautiful as the woman sitting next to her.
The same self-realisation of joy, appreciation, greatness and integration of many worlds coming together. Yes, our circumstances are varied and differential but our pain, suffering, joy and mercy. They remain the same, grounded in our being. She is you and she is me. She is then questioned on what is our greatest commonality; to which she quietly but convicted in her belief, answers...love
She claims, I am love
I am hope
I am mercy
I am freedom
And I am you as deeply as I am me"