Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!
For this session we read a poem The Rolling Saint by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, posted below.
Our prompt was: “Write about a time you kept going.”
More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!
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Please join us for our next session Monday May 23rd at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.
The Rolling Saint by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Lotan Baba, a holy man from India, rolled on his side for
four thousand kilometers across the country in his quest for
world peace and eternal salvation.
—Reuters
He started small: fasting here and there,
days, then weeks. Once, he stood under
a banyan tree for a full seven years, sitting
for nothing—not even to sleep. It came
to him in a dream: You must roll
on this earth, spin your heart in rain,
desert, dust. At sunrise he’d stretch, swab
any cuts from the day before, and lay prone
on the road while his twelve men swept
the ground in front of him with sisal brooms.
Even monkeys stopped and stared at this man
rolling through puddles, past storefronts
where children would throw him pieces
of butter candy he’d try and catch
in his mouth at each rotation. His men
swept and sang, swept and sang
of jasmine-throated angels
and pineapple slices in kulfi cream.
He rolled and rolled. Sometimes
in his dizzying spins, he thought
he heard God. A whisper, but still.
Source: Miracle Fruit (Tupelo Press, 2003)
Connections in Narrative Medicine 