reBirth2022

The reBirth Ceremony of 2022 was held on Saturday July 16, 2022 and was focused on honoring my grandmother who passed away on April 10, 2022.  Many of my reBirth ceremonies have 4 sections: Reality, Digestion, Ceremony/SOMDEland, Hair Ceremony.  In the Reality section there is lecture that provides knowledge.  In this reBirth, the Reality section contained my grandmother's life story and some of her deep spiritual thoughts.  Thematically, the Reality Section explored life, death, impermanence, energy (God), samadhic meditative state, and seva.  In the Digestion section, ideas/themes from the Reality section are processed through communal discussions and artwork.  In this reBirth ceremony, as people discussed the themes, they applied henna which represented impermanence and cherishing the present moment.  They also brainstormed ideas for seva (devotional service to make a positive impact) which was a central desire of my grandmother.  These ideas they wrote on pieces of paper.  In the Ceremony/SOMDEland section, we 'gave birth' to a vessel that I had made during my Grandmother ceremony which represented the reborn spirit of my grandmother.  One of my grandmother's greatest wishes was for people to do seva (devotional service), and that wish was reborn in the form of seva that the community would do in her honor.  During the ceremony, people seeded (i.e placed) their ideas of seva into the vessel.  These ideas would fruit in the next reBirth ceremony (of 2025).

Part 1 - Reality: Katha (My grandmother’s life and spiritual thoughts)

Themes expressed during the Reality portion: life, death, impermanence, energy (God), samadhic meditative state, seva.

1. Introduction and Meaning of my reBirth Ceremonies  

This was a special rebirth ceremony that broke the pattern of occurring every 3 years because it honored the passing of my grandmother.  In this video, I share how I started my rebirth ceremonies as a way to overcome feelings of self-hatred and depression when I was in high school.  Now, my reBirth ceremonies have 3 main purposes: 1. to do a deep review of my past and nonjudgmentally acknowledge my failures and successes, 2. to understand the desires of my subconscious, 3. to look into the future and use pieces of my past and the desires of my subconscious to make incremental steps towards reaching my new goals. My reBirth ceremonies typically have a communal event on the first day followed by a hair shaving ceremony on the next day.  The purpose of the hair shaving is to pair a drastic physical change with a spiritual change.  In this way, every time I look in the mirror and see a physical change, I am reminded of my goals.  

2. Eulogy for my Grandmother by my Mother 

My Mother gave a small overview of my grandmother's life journey and shared the deep love between my grandmother and her sister.  We then showed a short video of a touching and beautiful conversation between both sisters (at 8:32).  They both sang a bhajan (devotional song) which, afterwards, my Mother also sang and provided an interpretation (at 11:42).  My Mother finished her eulogy by singing a portion of the Ramayana (at 15:14). 

3. Eulogy for my Grandmother by my Sister

My sister shares her admiration of my grandmother's journey from India to the US and thinks about similarities with her own journey from the US to Germany. 

4. Eulogy for my Grandmother by my Brother

My brother shares a poetic eulogy with many memories of my grandmother.

5. Discussions on God and Seva with my Grandmother and my thoughts on Aging

Across decades of discussions, I shared the wisdom that I gained from my Grandmother. Our discussions often focused on understanding the concepts of God, Maya, and the Universal Consciousness (at 1:07).  We also discussed how one can connect with the divine.  I shared how my Grandmother's connection with God initially relied on physical methods such as puja but as she aged she could reach a devotional place just by chanting mantras, and finally, towards the end, so could feel the presence of God without needing anything.  My Grandmother's concept of God also changed as she aged where towards the end, she perceived God as being formless spiritual energy (at 5:08). Next, I shared my thoughts on my Grandmother's final decade of life (at 12:30) and showed a video of her final few weeks where she would sporadically nucleate smiles (at 25:26).  I finished by showing videos of my Grandmother talking about the importance of seva (devotional service) (at 31:03).  

Part 2 - Digestion: Digest themes of Reality through Art and Discussion

In the Digestion section, community came together and digested, through conversation and artwork, the themes presented in the Reality section.  These themes included the idea of impermanence which was represented by henna.  Henna is a plant which can temporarily dye skin and its role in India was described by Meenakshi (at 5:41).  Endring (at 9:15) and Patrick (at 10:54) gave ideas on design elements.  The goal was for people to meet new people and give one another impermanent tattoos.  

The second theme was Seva and during conversations with one another, people were encouraged to brainstorm  and write ideas to make a positive impact in the world through devotional service.  These ideas were then used in the Ceremony section.  

Objective 1: Meet interesting new people and have deep discussions that go beyond small talk.

Often when I attend parties, it is hard to approach new people.  For this reason,  I always strongly encourage attendees to approach and talk to people who they do not know and to pull anyone by themselves into their groups.  To encourage meeting new people, I announced every 15 minutes for people to float into a new conversation with someone else. 

Objective 2: Through discussion, digest the themes from the Reality portion.

The main objective of the Digestion portion was to break small-talk and dive into meaningful discussions on the themes of the Reality Section, such as Life, death, impermanence, energy (God), samadhic meditative state, and seva.  Because these were difficult topics, people were also given the option to talk about anything else such as their hobbies and passions. 

Objective 3: Talk about seva in your discussions (i.e. devotional work to make a positive impact).

At the end of the session, people wrote their ideas for seva (devotional service) on a slip of paper.  Specifically, I asked them to share what they have done to make a positive impact, what they want to do and/or what I should do to make a positive impact.  On the slip of paper, they were also given the option to write their name and whether they would like to collaborate on the idea.  These slips of paper were then used in the Ceremony section. 

Objective 4: Recognize the impermanence of life and also its beauty.

The impermanence of life was symbolized by henna.  Henna is made from a plant which impermanently dyes skin.  Henna also represents the Earth (because it is made from leaves and looks like mud) and the passage of time and aging (because you have to wait for the henna to age and dye your skin). The realization of impermanence reminds us to cherish every moment which was symbolized by the henna designs.  The goal was to make the ripples of discussion last longer by having people apply henna 'tattoos' on one another.  In this way, the arms or legs became a tapestry of the interactions and promises of positive impacts.

Part 3 - Ceremony/SOMDEland

The ideas that were presented in the Reality section were processed in the Digestion section and then symbolically re-expressed in the Ceremony section.  The symbolism of the Ceremony is derived from the vocabulary of SOMDEland which is the collection of my artwork.  So, every action in the Ceremony section is communicating a message through symbols encoded in SOMDEland.  And, of course, woven into the ceremony is the ridiculous because I find it fun.  

1. Putting Masks On

In the rebirth ceremony of 2020 I explored the transformation of identity through music, masks and dance.  In this rebirth ceremony, people were given the opportunity to use those same masks as a way to transform and feel more liberated during the ceremony.   The masks were like a flowing stream of memories between the two rebirth ceremonies, creating a larger narrative across years of self transformation. 

A special thanks to Donald, Anicet, Sid, Aneil, and Gabe for playing instruments to create the right musical vibe. 

2. Offerings to the Sacred Fire

My grandmother passed away in Mirzapur, in the same house where she raised my Mother and aunt.  After she passed, her body was cremated on a sacred pyre by the river Ganga.  To represent her death, we had a sacred fire that burned pieces of the the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death (both who had met my grandmother). 

Similar to the Hindu death ritual where people offer wood to the burning pyre, we had people offer the sacred fire pieces of the Tree of Life.  The fire represented the transformation of the spirit and the Tree of Life represented the reBirth of my grandmother as Seva that we will do in honor of her.

In the Grandmother ceremony that I held in Mirzapur before my grandmother passed, I used cow dung which I brought back to the US.  Cow dung is burned in many rituals, including after the death ritual.  I offered this cow dung, from Mirzapur, to the sacred fire. 

3. Birthing the Vessel of Rebirth

A central part of the Grandmother ceremony in Mirzapur was making a clay vessel from the Earth of Mirzapur which represented the reBirth of my grandmother.  During the Grandmother ceremony, members of the family seeded (i.e. placed) items that represented themselves into the vessel. The idea was that my grandmother's family are her rebirth.  The actions (seva) we take, in her name, gives new karmic (cycles of cause-and-effect) birth to her.  

During this ceremony, we collectively gave reBirth to this Vessel of rebirth.  Those who felt comfortable lay around the vessel which was wrapped in a fabric placenta.  With outstretched legs and instructions from my Mother, we all gave birth to the vessel.  To make the moment magical, other attendees blew bubbles and milkweed seeds into the air.  The bubbles represented the theme of cherishing the impermanence of life and the milkweed seeds represented new life.  

To deliver the new baby (vessel), I went through a tube which represented the journey from nonexistence to existence.  

4. Nursing and Nurturing the Vessel of Rebirth

After giving birth to the Vessel of Rebirth, I placed milk (the white latex produced by the milkweed leaf) and honey on my nipples. The honey was obtained from my honeybees who used the flowers of my land to create the honey.  The honey represented death because it is part of the Hindu death ritual and the milkweed, collected from my Backyard of Biodiversity, represents life.  Together, the represent the transformation and metamorphosis of death into life.   

 The act of nursing represented the act of seva (devotional service) and it also represented transformation and metamorphosis. Before the birth and nursing, the Vessel was just an idea that was wrapped with inaction.  Then, the nursing caused it to transform and open its wings of destiny.  Using nursing as a symbolic catalyzt for metamorphosis was first explored in my Butterfly ceremony.  On the theme of butterflies, the milk from the milkweed is drank by the monarch caterpillars so that they can eventually turn into butterflies.  

5. Seeding the Vessel of Rebirth

As mentioned in part 3, the Vessel of Rebirth was created during my Grandmother ceremony using the Earth of Mirzapur. In that ceremony, family memebers seeded (i.e. placed) items that represented themselves into the vessel.  This represented the idea that my grandmother will be reborn as actions that are taken by her family.  These actions will lead to karmic, cause-and-effect, interactions with the world. 

In this rebirth ceremony, the community did the same.  In the the Reality section we talked about my grandmother's dreams of doing seva (devotional service to make a positive impact). In the Digestion section, people discussed how they would do seva and wrote it on slips of destiny-paper.  Finally, during the ceremony section, people placed, as destiny-seeds, their actions of seva into the Vessel.  Over the next three years, these seeds will mature into action-fruits.  

6. The Chickadee Dance

A a celebration of Life and our commitment to make positive impacts to add beauty into the world, we did the Chickadee dance which I had composed and choreographed for my Rebirth Ceremony of 2020. In the rebirth of 2020, the Chickadee dance represented when Humanity got its distinct Identity.  It represented the birth of Thought, Language and Consciousness through my voice and my words. In between, we also did a baby walk dance, inspired by my nephew when he was an infant. 

7. The Destiny Seed

Brainstormed by Patrick, he used a sari from his wedding to create Destiny Seeds that each attendee could take with them.  The Destiny Seed consisted of:

1. black sesame seeds which are used in hindu rituals to honor ancestors

2. ashes from the sacred fire which represents death and transformation

3.  milkweed seeds from my Backyard of Biodiversity which represents life and rebirth. 

4. the sari represents rebirth because it was given new purpose and destiny 

The Video of the Ceremony

0:00 Introduction into the creation and meaning of the Vessel of Rebirth

4:32  Overview of the Masks and Sacred Fire

6:40 Offering to the Sacred Fire

9:32 Overview of the Birthing Ceremony

13:30 Birthing

15:08 Nursing 

17:19 Seeding

18:51 Chickadee Dance 

21:27 Destiny Seed

Hair Ceremony

My rebirth ceremonies are often started by a communal event and, on the next day, finished with a hair ceremony.  The idea of the hair ceremony is that I make a drastic physical change (shaving all of my hair) which is then paired with a spiritual goal (doing seva to honor my grandmother).  Everytime I look into the mirror, I am reminded of the physical change and therefore also reminded of my spiritual goal.  Then, for the next 3 years the hair grows, as a record of time, reminding me to fruit my goals.  

In the hair ceremony, I placed my MasterSticks around my First Sacred Tree.  While wearing my SuperJacket and Ceremonial MasterPants, I braided my hair into a number of strands that matched the number of people participating in the ceremony.  With drums and guitars playing my nasty theme song, I took off my shirt and entered into my nastypose.  One by one, each attendee came and poured water on my head using the Sacred Spoon I made from the Tree of Life. Then, they cut a braided strand of my hair.  In the process they made a wish and they became part of my spiritual family.   

Announcement

Below is the document that people received when they had arrived to the rebirth ceremony

Saturday July 16, 2022

Everyone is welcome to this rebirth ceremony which is focused on honoring my grandmother who passed away on April 10, 2022. To avoid spamming everyone, I mostly just sent invitations to people who have previously come to my rebirth ceremony. Even if you are not on the list, you are definitely invited! If you would like to collaborate, definitely reach out! I will finalize the time and details in 1-2 weeks.

~~~~~General Information

- If you have any, bring decorational masks (this will help you transform in the SOMDEland portion at the end)

- If you have any, bring instruments to jam

- If you want, wear clothes that have meaning, that can be a great thing to share during the socialization portion and allow you to talk beyond small talk.

- You can park on my sandbar or along Butterfield Rd

- Go down the hallway, the bathroom is the first door on the left

~~~~~Rough Schedule

- 1:00-1:30: Lunch (Indian food + snacks+selzer water)

- 1:30-2:30: Reality: My grandmother’s life and spiritual thoughts

- 230-4:30: Digestion: Socializing with henna and positive impacts brainstorm

- 4:30-5:00: SOMDEland/Ceremony: reBirthing

~~~~~Reality (~60 mins): Katha (My grandmother’s life and spiritual thoughts)

1. I will give the meaning of my reBirth ceremony

2. Mother will give an overview of my grandmother’s (NG) life journey

3. Mother will talk about NG's relationship with her sister with a video of their bhajan which mother will sing and provide an interpretation.

4. Mother will sing portions of Bhagavad Gita and Ramayan and give interpretations

5. Shalu and Shyam will give memories of NG

6. Vivek will talk about his discussions of God with NG and her journey through aging and her viewpoints on seva. I will show some video clips.

Themes expressed during the Reality portion: life, death, impermanence, energy (God), samadhic meditative state, seva.

~~~~~Digestion (~2 hours): Digest themes of Reality through Art and Discussion

Objective 1: Meet interesting new people and have deep discussions that go beyond small talk.

- Talk to people who you don’t know! Pull people in who are looking to talk to people..

- Every 15 minutes I will recommend that people talk to someone else

Objective 2: Through discussion, digest the themes from the Reality portion.

- Talk about anything (your hobbies and passions)

- If you feel comfortable, try to break small talk and talk about themes from the Reality Section, such as Life, death, impermanence, energy (God), samadhic meditative state, seva.

Objective 3: Talk about seva in your discussions (i.e. devotional work to make a positive impact).

- At the end of the session, I’ll ask people to write their ideas for seva on a slip of paper. On this paper people can share what they have done to make a positive impact and what they want to (or I should do). You can also write your name (if you want) and whether you would like to collaborate on that idea. At the end I’ll ask anyone who wants to share their ideas. Then, in the future, I’ll hold a second session for those people who want to collaborate. I will give myself $1001 and a year to implement some of those ideas.

Objective 4: Recognize the impermanence of life and also its beauty.

- Make these ripples of conversations last longer than they usually do through the henna and hopefully remind everyone to try to implement some of the positive impacts that they spoke of. Because the henna is only temporary, it represents that impermanence. It also represents the Earth (because it is made from leaves and looks like mud) and the passage of time and aging (because you have to wait for the henna to age and dye your skin).

- Meenakshi will give an overview of henna in indian culture and show her artwork which could motivate designs.

- Endring will give an overview of his tattoo designs.

- Patrick and Samela will give an overview of simple and elegant design.

After talking to a person, ask if the other person wants henna and if so, apply a small aesthetic addition to their growing design. In this way, our arms or legs will be a tapestry of our interactions and promises of positive impacts.

Take Group picture and pictures of final hands/feet with henna

~~~~~SOMDEland (~30 mins) Ideas from the Reality Section that were processed in the Digestion Section are symbolically re-expressed in my mythological universe.

- SOMDEland represents my subconscious along with the set of ceremonies, rituals and artwork that I have done in the past. That is, SOMDEland simply represents my feelings through artwork.

- Today, ideas/feelings/themes that were shared in the Reality section and then were processed in the Digestion section are now symbolically remapped into SOMDEland through rituals and ceremonies. That is, every action that I do (however ridiculous) has a symbolic meaning representing something in Reality.

-Some of what I do can be ridiculous, this is because I find it funny/interesting and also it makes everything more memorable.

- I’ll introduce the reBirth Vessel and the Beard Ceremony I did in India in February.

- Those who want to, can put on their decorative masks, others can wear masks from the previous rebirth ceremony (thereby connecting to that).

To represent death,

-We will start a fire and burn the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death (both who had met my grandmother). These were the same things I burned on the day NG died.

- People offer the Tree of Life (and therefore rebirth) to the fire. This represents the themes of Life and Death. During the death ritual in India, each person offers wood to the pyre.

- We will also burn cowpoop that I brought from India and that I had partially burned during the Beard Ceremony when NG was alive. Burning cow dung is done ritualistically after death in parts of India. Therefore these actions represent the passing way of my grandmother.

- To represent the rebirth of NG (through actions of seva in Reality), we will give birth to the reBirth Vessel which was created during my beard ceremony in Mirzapur when NG was alive. It was created using the Earth of Mirzapur and Mother, Mosi and I formed it.

- Birthers: Those who want to give birth will circle the vessel and spread their legs

- Music: Gabe will play music that will slowly crescendo, anyone else is welcome to join the jam session.

- Others: To represent impermanence people will blow bubbles and milkweed seeds which also represents Kashi (bubbles) and new Life (milkweed).

At the end of the crescendo I will move from nonexistence to existence with the vessel through the Tube of Kashi.

- After giving birth, I will nurse the reBirth Vessel/God by putting milkweed milk on my nipples which represents the transformation of the Butterfly ceremony. Milkweed is drank by the monarch caterpillars. Nursing represents the idea of seva talked about in the Reality and Digestion sections.

- I”ll put honey (from the bees of my land) on my nipples (Patrick’s idea)

Honey is used in the death ceremony in Mirzapur and other places. So, while the honey represents death, the milkweed represents Life.

- People, using the henna hands/feet (representing impermanence) will place the slips of paper into the God-Vessel. This represents the actual rebirth. It is because of my grandmother’s will that a positive impact will manifest (therefore representing seva).

- We will finish with a dance,

The ceremony started with Death and will finish with Life. We will do a baby walk in the dance (as I saw Kashi walk). We will also do the Chickadee dance which I authored in my last rebirth ceremony.

- Mix ashes and black sesame seeds (death) with milkweed seeds (Life) and then they take it with them

The black sesame seeds and the cremated ashes are used to honor the dead in some parts of India.

Do a chant/song while people are making their packages.

It is wrapped in sacred cloth (Patrick’s idea)

People take with them a mixture of Life (milkweed seeds), Death (black sesame seeds and ash) and Impermanence (henna tattoos) and rebirth (the pouches).

~~~~~Collaborators

- Mother (Rita Pandey): all parts

- Shalini and Love: Sharing stories of NG

- Meenakshi: Henna overview and art design

- Endring: Tattoo design

- Patrick and Samela: Elements of design

- Patrick: Brainstorming aspects of the ceremony (cited above).

- Gabe: Saxophone during birthing ceremony

- Elizabeth: muffins of Life and Death

- Stephen: chairs and tent

- Shana and Debbie: Paper Wasp Party Idea Follow up

- All the attendees!

~~~~~Sunday July 17, 2022

Everyone is welcome to this too, this is a quick ceremony where people cut locks of my hair.

~~~~~Future

Make artwork of the constellation of ideas

We will assemble all of the ideas and make an artistic constellation that showcases all the ideas. Everyone is welcome to join this, we will do it sometime in the future.

Collaborative follow up

I will contact those who want to collaborate on making a positive impact and schedule a meeting.

Paper Wasp Party Idea (with Shana and Debbie)

We will first talk about how kewl paper wasps are and then show a bead-wood art project on paper wasps. Then we will have a large wall that looks like a paper wasp nest and people will put their wishes and ideas in there. This will probably be sometime in August.