Ambika TalwarCreative Vision for Changing TimesAuthor * Healer * Artist * Teacher AMBIKA TALWAR is an India-born author, wellness consultant, artist, and educator whose vision is to realize her sacred destiny and invite others to find their brilliance. Insights gleaned through life challenges have prompted her to make her poetry a call to action. Composed in the ecstatic tradition, her poetry is a “bridge to other worlds.” She has authored Creative Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change and also 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father). She is published in Kyoto Journal, Inkwater Ink - vol. 3; Chopin with Cherries; On Divine Names; VIA-Vision in Action; in Poets on Site collections; St. Julian Press; Tower Journal, Tebot Bach, and others; has interviewed with KPFK; has recorded poems for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California She won Best Original Story award for her film “Androgyne” in Belgium; she produced and directed it. She asserts it is time for creatives to offer a narrative that changes our worldview. And the big film studios must play a part in this transformation. She practices IE:Intuition-Energetics™, a fusion of modalities, sacred geometry and creative principles for wellness. “Both poetry and holistic practices work beautifully together, for language is intricately coded in us,” she notes. An English professor, she lives in Los Angeles. For book readings, poetry presentations, workshops, and individual or group healing consultations, please contact her at:luminousfields@gmail.comCheck her web sites:http://creativeinfinities.c... See more

Ambika TalwarCreative Vision for Changing TimesAuthor * Healer * Artist * Teacher AMBIKA TALWAR is an India-born author, wellness consultant, artist, and educator whose vision is to realize her sacred destiny and invite others to find their brilliance. Insights gleaned through life challenges have prompted her to make her poetry a call to action. Composed in the ecstatic tradition, her poetry is a “bridge to other worlds.” She has authored Creative Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change and also 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father). She is published in Kyoto Journal, Inkwater Ink - vol. 3; Chopin with Cherries; On Divine Names; VIA-Vision in Action; in Poets on Site collections; St. Julian Press; Tower Journal, Tebot Bach, and others; has interviewed with KPFK; has recorded poems for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California She won Best Original Story award for her film “Androgyne” in Belgium; she produced and directed it. She asserts it is time for creatives to offer a narrative that changes our worldview. And the big film studios must play a part in this transformation. She practices IE:Intuition-Energetics™, a fusion of modalities, sacred geometry and creative principles for wellness. “Both poetry and holistic practices work beautifully together, for language is intricately coded in us,” she notes. An English professor, she lives in Los Angeles. For book readings, poetry presentations, workshops, and individual or group healing consultations, please contact her at:luminousfields@gmail.comCheck her web sites:http://creativeinfinities.comhttp://goldenmatrixvisions.comhttp://intuition2wellness.com Her March 2010 KPFK interview can be heard at: http://www.timothy-green.org/blog/taoli-ambika-talwar/She was interviewed by The Human Frequency Radio on August 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn8w5Tg2yVQ 1649 Colby Avenue, 201, Los Angeles, CA 90025mygoldenmatrix@gmail.com (310) 477 9293Ambika Talwar was recently published in "30 Poems in 30 Days." This book is a compilation of poems written by participating poets of the Tiferet Journal's Poem-a-Thon in April 2015. It was a pleasure to work with Donna Bayer Stein, editor of Tiferet Journal, and fellow poets, Kimberly Burnham, Udo Hintz, Tracy Ann Brooks, Maureen Meshenberg, Shannon S. Hyde, Catriona Knapman, Jayne Moriarty, Hazel Saville, Laura J. Wolfe. (c) 2015. She currently teaches English at Cypress College, California. ———————Other Books, Essays, and Poems By Ambika Talwar“Singing Flutes & Poetics of Longing” An essay in Poetry as a Spiritual Practice: Illuminating the Awakened Woman. (2016) Edited by Catherine Ghosh and others. Golden Dragonfly Press.“Vision of Surrender” in Identity & Anonymity: An Artful Anthology (2016) with Susannah Campbell, Judy Chicago, Vincent Tavani, Loren Talbot and others. Edited by Jonathan Talbot, Leslie Fandrich and Steven M. Specht. Mizzentop Publishing.30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing Prompts & Poems from Tiferet Journal (2015) with Lisa Sawyer, Monica Gurevich-Importico, Tracy Brooks, Kimberly Burnham, Udo Hintze, Shannon S. Hyde, Catriona Knapman, Maureen Kwiat Meshenberg, Louise Jayne Moriarty, Hazel Saville, Ambika Talwar, and Laura J. Wolfe. Creating Calm Network PublishingA Single Drop of Blood (2015) with Gary D. Blankenship, Traci Siler, Keri Colestock, Ed Bremson, Ambika Talwar and 15 inspirational authors."Rishikesh: Silent Hum of Mystery" in Himalayan Bridge (2015) with Niraj Kumar, George van Driem, P. Stobdan, and Ambika Talwar. K W Publishers Pvt Ltd.4 Stars & 25 Roses: Poems for my Father by Ambika Talwar (2011) Published by Golden Matrix VisionsCreative Resonance: Poetry: Elegant Play, Elegant Change by Ambika Talwar (2006) Published by Golden Matrix VisionsPoems in Color 1995In the Folds of Your Sari Poems for Anna 2000—————INTERVIEW with Ambika Talwar on her forthcoming book, My Greece: Mirrors & MetamorphosesInner Child Magazine (ICM): What was the inspiration behind your book, My Greece: Mirrors & Metamorphoses?Ambika Talwar: I had been thinking of a story I wanted to write set some place with lots of butterflies. I had an outline ready. And out of the blue, someone sent me info on a screenwriting workshop with a group traveling to Greece … I had made a film in 2000 titled Androgyne. Somehow it all seemed to be connected. So I jumped on it. And Greece, this ancient land of myth and shadows, tugged. Who would want to turn away an opportunity to visit this old land! Someone suggested I would love being in Paros to write this new story … but I never made it there. Yes, the Island of Rhodes is known for its butterflies – have not been there either. We are raised on stories of how we came to be and what becomes to and of us as we journey. I was curious to visit a place whose mythology I had read while growing up in India, also ancient. And I kind of missed such elements here in Los Angeles. So things move too quickly here… I missed a sense of layered tones. So as I traveled with my big PD 150 Sony camera and a notebook, I recorded my experiences. These included meetings with people, traveling between ruins, cafes, old and new parts of old cities. And I was both enchanted and deeply sadly disturbed. It made me realize how much we have lost over time and with rapid industrialization and how fragmented we are in so many ways … well, as if neuroses were always the fuel. Should it not be beauty, grace, and the play of wisdom…? Does this make sense? I wanted to record and share the narrative of my experiences, which gave rise to other narratives and poems. These I feel … reflect to me the richness of each moment alively tuning us in. And on another level, I just wanted to tell this story of my time there.ICM: Why is this book important to your audience?Ambika Talwar: Let me reframe this. What I wish people to get out of this book, which has taken me so long to complete, is simply an understanding that every single moment of our lives is a journey and a destiny and a purpose. That a story, a name, a metaphor can reveal ways for us to find simplicity in our lives. I wish people find their story in these moments that are poetic narratives of longing, of isolation, of union … of desires and create ways to find this… And, I warn you, in moments the stories run very fast. This is a caution to me as well. We need to let go of so much, to be whole.ICM: What might I glean from the book?Ambika Talwar: I’d say this is best left to the individual reader. What is your particular, unique essence that responds to my story and poems? This is where you would find yourself. ICM: What do “Mirrors and Metamorphoses” have to do with Greece?Ambika Talwar: Well, one can’t travel somewhere and not see the rich fare offered … foods, but sensibility, mythological framework, syncretistic connections … something gained, something lost. It’s as if our layered skins take on whole new identities and just when we start to know ourselves, something else rushes in to claim us – leading to distortions, sorrow, loss, chaos, and then must follow a renewing of faith in ourselves. So in this context… I had titled my book My Greece: Mirrors, Metaphors, and Metamorphoses, but found “metaphors” redundant. “Mirrors” said it all for me. So really, the stories reflect how we are mirrored and how we are changed by one another. Meetings with people and places offered motifs to remind me of things forgotten or of the mysterious. Everywhere I went, people would welcome me saying, “You are Indian. We are cousins.” And indeed we are cousins. We are all related. So we share mirrored realities, be it in story, art, mythology, music … and our deep human longing. What is our sacred destiny? What do we wish now to mirror? How shall we transform together? Isn’t it this – to discover all our moments as sacred? ICM: How can I use this book to apply it to my life? Is there a strategy? Is it a fun read or is it a transformational book? Ambika Talwar: No, it is not a how-to book, but it invites you to travel with me, experience my stories, ask questions about who we are, and wonder where we are going. We may be transformed by various influences; this is your call. Perhaps, aspects of my story might inspire you to be more yourself… whatever that is. I would wish that my readers and, maybe you, are inspired to see yourself as part of all that is … our inherent unities. This, I feel, ought to be the foundation of our human culture from now on. And if this is an offering of “feminine magic,” as one of my reviewers said, so be it. I like it. It surely is time for us all to reach out to each other so we may stand in wholeness. Yes and re-discover our human heart and its capacity. It’s tough to break out of conditioning. ICM: Is it a story or narrative in which I will get lost?Ambika Talwar: It is a narrative with smaller narratives enlivening the tale. You can either get lost in it or find yourself… and this, too, is a journey. You choose.ICM: So there was a gap in your writing of it. What compelled you to finish it? Ambika Talwar: I could not rest with myself, had I discarded it. My initial very rough draft sat for a bit. For many reasons I could not get to it. Traveling, teaching, recovering from injury caused delays. I had to get it done. And in 2014 I picked it up again. So here we are. I have to say, I am quite a romantic at heart. This book has been a bit of a strange love affair. Meetings with filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos was surely exciting; experiencing the underworld through being robbed left me vulnerable but I handled it quite well; not visiting the rock in Tinos shattered me; dancing at the Plaka was sweet swimming in the Mediterranean was pure joy; listening to the Roma boys sing was enchanting. And, learning to say “Yes” which sounded like a “No” and created confusion… all this was play. All these moments mattered. I did not want to forget them. We are all related. Also, before I traveled to Greece, I had met many Greeks here in LA. I took some classes in Sirtaki, ate Greek food, went to a few parties… it is again synchronistic that this opportunity showed up when it did. I was being prepared for the journey. I am grateful that we are enriched not by the samification of our cultures but by each particular uniqueness.See more on the author's page Follow Niraj KumarBrief content visible, double tap to read full content.Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.Niraj Kumar(1973- ) is the author of classic work on Asian Integration, "Arise, Asia! Respond to White Peril"(January,2003). The sequel "Asia in Post-Western Age" has been published in 2014. He is an initiate in Ramakrishna Mission Order and disciple of Swami Ranganathanadaji Maharaj. He is intimately involved with the Himalayas, Buddhism and Tantra. Currently, he is Joint Secretary in the Government of India and resides in New Delhi. His ongoing work is five volume set on translation and commentary on the Kalacakra Tantra. The first volume, Kalacakra Tantra: Translation, Annotation and Commentary (DK PrintWorld & Mody Univ of Science & Tech New Delhi:2022) has been internationally well received. It is first verse by verse commentary on the complex text, written after a gap of millennium. The second volume has been released on 22 November 2024. Third volume dealing with the construction of sand mandala and first seven initiations is expected to be released in July 2025.[Books: Arise, Asia! Respond to White Peril(2003), Autopsy of Revolution(Poetry,2006),I Have No Voice(Poetry,2013), Sri Yantra and Geophilosophy of India(2014), Asia in Post-Western Age(2014), Rainbow of Indian Civilization(2015), Tagore's Refuge Unto Buddha(co-ed. Lama Chosphel Zotpa, S.N. Mishra , 2014), Himalayan Bridge(co-editors George van Driem, P. Stobdan, 2016),Rekindling Pan-Asian Spirit Through Rebuilding Nalanda(2017),The Kalacakra Tantra, Vol. I(2022), The Kalacakra Tantra, Vol. II(2024)]. He is also co-authoring a book on geopolitics of Buddhism, commissioned by Penguin Indi