Washed Away.
Arthur Schopenhauer said: “After your death you will be what you were before your birth“. When we think of birth, we often forget to remember death. The joy of seeing new life or the prospect of new beginnings and opportunities are seldom marred by the inevitability of the end; death. Yet, the possibility of death [the end] is ever-looming in all instances; for that which is born, must die. However, that which has died (or ended), will in some form or another be born once more. For energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can simply be transferred or transformed.
The photograph titled ‘Washed away’ depicts a hand that has compulsively been washed and is now damaged (to an extent), serving as a reminder that in due time (no matter how long it may take), the skin (wounds) will heal and the scars will eventually fade.
This can be seen in the photograph titled ‘healed’. In this photograph, the scars are still visible, but a significant amount of healing has taken place.
The intent of these photographs is to depict the continuous cycle that Birth and Death (and Resurrection) share. It is also symbolic of the passage of time that has lapsed between the two photographs; this passage could be regarded as life (the short, healing space between Birth and Death). On a more personal note, the photographs depict the physical and metaphysical struggle that the photographer experiences with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Every day, it is as though her personality is being eroded [washed away] by her disorder; she must heal [rebuild/regrow] from the wounds or gaps that it [the disorder] leaves in her life.
Shiksha uses poetry (mostly) to express her internal and external struggles and journeys, inclusive of her OCD and depression roller-coaster ventures. Mostly, however, she writes in the hopes that someday, someone will see her as she is; an incomplete poem.
Shiksha has been featured as the Poet of the Month for January 2012 for Forward Poetry and has also had poetry featured on the Aerodrome online literary journal, Poetry Potion and Visual Verse.
RESURRECTION mag 