Seven Fires of the Feminine - Chapter I - The Forgetting

By Parijat Pathak

Once, I knew the language of thunder.

My name lived in the pulse of rivers,

and mountains bowed when I breathed.

But someone—maybe time, maybe man—

taught me to whisper instead of roar.

They braided obedience into my hair,

poured silence into my throat,

told me my power was unbecoming,

that light should stay inside its lantern.

So I became small enough to fit

inside a borrowed story.

I traded prophecy for politeness,

fire for fragrance.

Yet even in my quietest hour,

something ancient kept humming—

a pulse under the ash,

a memory of magnitude.

And though I forgot my own divinity,

the universe did not.

It waited—patient as dawn—

for me to remember

that stillness is not surrender,

and forgetting is only

the first act of awakening.

Dust veils the mirror,

but the soul beneath still breathes—

light dreams of itself.

By Parijat Pathak