Easter has always been a time I naturally look forward to, and it is not something I have to think about or prepare for, it simply happens. Around this time of year, I feel a natural excitement, almost as if my body recognises the shift before my mind does. Spring arrives, the sun begins to show itself again, and everything becomes softer and warmer.
I notice it in the blossoms forming on the trees, in the small spring buds appearing, and in the daffodils that seem to appear everywhere on dining tables and kitchen islands, as though we are all part of the same unspoken rhythm. It is in these small, familiar details that the symbols of Easter begin to appear too, chicks, eggs, the suggestion of new life and new beginnings. There is a freshness in the air that invites you to open windows, to clean, to reset. It does not feel forced, it feels like everything is gently unfolding again.
I am always someone who walks, notices, and pays attention to the world around me, but in spring it all feels different. The light changes, the air softens, and everything seems to carry a gentler kind of movement. I notice it in the sun on my skin, the wind, the birds, and the signs of life returning.
In that way, those ideas of new beginnings are something I feel. I do not try to create them; I simply step into the natural rhythm and landscape of spring. It is already there, like stepping into an oil painting that has been waiting for me.
What Easter Has Really Meant to Me
Easter, for me, has always carried a deeper meaning beyond what is visible on the surface. It has always been about renewal, a sense of cleansing, a certain lightness, and a feeling of beginning.
But sometimes, life does not always unfold in the way you expect.
For a few years I was very ill, but Easter still held something positive for me. During those years, there was anxiety, and there was a heaviness that sat quietly underneath everything I was experiencing. I was in a very dark place, and it came from standing up for something. In choosing to speak up, I also faced what followed. There was a continuous imbalance I had to carry, and I had to go through it.
But Easter still reached me. It did not remove the difficulty, but it created moments where a softness could come through, a lightness that reminded me I was still present within it all.
That is why Easter has always remained meaningful to me.
However, this year feels different. I feel more positive, and I feel genuinely excited about the future. There is a steadiness in me now, and a different kind of strength that comes from knowing what I have endured.
And in coming through it, I know now that I could endure more than I once thought. That is why I will continue to stand up and show up.
But being stronger does not mean everything has passed.
The trauma is still there. When something has not been properly closed, it does not settle. Even if you try to draw a line yourself, it does not fully close.
Closure is not something one side can complete alone. It takes two connections to close something. To close a box, you need a base and a lid. To close a door, you need both the door and the frame. Without both, something remains open.
In my case, there has been no closure, and that is why it is hard to move on.
And because it remains open, there is a tension that does not easily settle.
My mind understands renewal. It sees the change in season, the warmth returning, and everything around me suggesting that it is time to move forward. But my body does not always follow.
The body remembers.
And so it stays.
It creeps in at night. It wakes me up, and it is there. The body returns to it, to remember, to analyse, to question. Why did it happen? Why was it allowed? Why was it seen as okay? The questions repeat, and they do not settle.
It feels like my thoughts are constantly circling, trying to make sense of something that does not fully make sense.
And it brings me back to this poem by Herman Hoyte:
There I go, my head again
Thinking things, can’t comprehend
Twisting round what I can pretend
Trying to guess my mystery’s end
Circling, spiraling
Twisting, listing
I wish I had a single clue
Of what to see and what to do
What means what, and who is where
When do I go, and who should care
Who shall I help, who’ll share me
When to invest, when to flee
Stop.
Slow and breathe.
Patience.
Let it be.
Even with all of that, I still continue. because I have had to learn how to live alongside it. It is not something I have been able to set down and walk away from. It stays, in different ways, at different times, and so continuing has become something I choose because it is necessary.
At the same time, there is something I hold onto that feels steady. If I know, then it is known. What is right and what is wrong, I know that within myself, regardless of how things are seen or handled elsewhere. That understanding does not remove what has happened, but it gives me something solid to stand on. It allows me to keep moving, even when part of me is still catching up.
And that is where my understanding of Easter has changed.
Renewal is no longer what I once thought it was. It is not simply a fresh start, not something that begins cleanly after everything has been resolved. It is not a reset, and it is not a moment where everything is left behind. Instead, it is something more complex, and in many ways, more real.
It is continuing, even when things are still unfinished. It is moving forward while carrying what is still there. It is growth with awareness, with acknowledgement, growth that holds everything that has come before it, rather than separating from it. That is what renewal means to me now.
And I see it most clearly in how I return to the stone.
Last year, placing the stone down felt like a moment of clarity. A way of marking something, of understanding it, of trying to create space between myself and what had happened.
This year, it feels different.
I am not placing the stone down to leave it behind. I am placing it knowing I am still connected to it.
It has changed, and so have I.
What it holds now is not just the moment it represents, but everything that has come after it. The weight of it, the understanding of it, the way it has continued to move through me.
The stone no longer feels like a singularity. It is no longer uniform. It has many facets now. Each one holding a different part of the experience, what happened, what followed, what I have come to understand, and what I am still learning to live with.
It represents something I am not stepping away from, but something I am learning to stand with.
So I do not place it as an ending.
I place it as something I am still in.
There is no distance yet, no clean separation. Only a different way of being beside it, with more awareness, more steadiness, and more understanding than before.
And that, in itself, is where the shift has happened.
Not in leaving it behind, but in how I hold it.
Not a release. Not a resolution. But a deeper recognition.
Let it be.
The Two Ripple Effects
There is a ripple effect in everything you do. Even waking up creates a ripple. When you stand up for something you believe in, that ripple begins to move outward, and it does not stop with you. The ripple continues, and it touches others.
In many ways, I feel as though I am living within that ripple. Not outside it, not observing it, but within it, where everything continues to move, whether I am ready or not.
So I have had to learn how to hold both.
To keep moving, while knowing that part of me is still standing in the moment where it began. To compartmentalise, not to ignore it, but to find a way through it.
Because when something has not been properly dealt with, the ripple does not only come from the initial experience. It continues through everything that follows. The silences, the things left unaddressed, the actions that never came. That becomes part of the ripple too.
And yet, this is where Easter returns to me.
Not as something to define, but as a moment of recognition, of pausing within what continues.
And in that pause, I find where I can place it.
And for me, that is where art comes in.
Art and poetry are not separate from this experience; they are how I carry it. You cannot suppress an artist. There will always be a way to express, and for me, that is where everything goes. It is my way of processing, my way of shaping something that feels overwhelming into something I can hold, something I can understand, something that still carries meaning.
It allows me to stay within the ripple without being consumed by it.
Because there is another side to the ripple that I hold onto.
What I went through does not end with me. It extends beyond me, shaping what follows, opening space for awareness, for honesty, for a greater willingness to face things as they are.
Knowing that something personal can extend beyond me gives it a different kind of meaning. It is no longer only about what happened, but about what continues because of it.
It is not a clean beginning, but something that meets you where you are, something that exists within the ripple itself.
Moving Forward
The past years have made me more determined, stronger, and more assertive. But it has also made me more guarded. I do not see things in the same way I once did.
At the same time, there are parts of me that have not changed. I am still playful, I still have humour, and even when something happens and people feel sad for me, I will still smile and make jokes because I do not want to put that burden on others. That is just who I am.
And the way I move through things has stayed the same. When I fall, I fall hard, but I get back up again. Like being in a playground, you graze your knee, you cry, but then you stand up again, you play again, you smile again, you laugh again. That part of me has stayed.
I am becoming more myself. Not someone new, not someone completely changed, but the truest version of who I have always been, without holding back in the same way I once did.
What has changed is that I understand myself more clearly now. I understand my strength more clearly, my responsibility more clearly, and the way I want to move forward more clearly.
If anyone finds themselves in a similar place, all I can say is this.
There are times when things are not resolved, when there are no clear answers, and when something remains open for longer than you expect. In those moments, moving forward does not always feel straightforward, but it is still possible.
It does not have to look a certain way. It does not have to make sense to anyone else. What matters is finding a way that allows you to continue, in your own time, and in your own way.
For me, that has meant staying with what I believe in, even when the path is not clear or conventional.
And I have come to understand that moving forward does not mean leaving everything behind. It does not mean forgetting, and it does not mean that everything has been put right.
It means no longer waiting for everything to be resolved before allowing yourself to move forward.
A moment to pause, to look back at what has been, and to acknowledge it.
Not in the beginning, not in the middle, but here, at the point where you choose to continue anyway.
Not because everything feels ready, but because you are.
And perhaps, beneath everything I have tried to understand, this is what it comes down to.
Silence
One silence holds the truth
Other silence conceals the truth
The superiority of your silence waits
To mark my one lonely voice,
One unprententious truth
Let there be silence
My silence holds a million truths
-Chandrika
