To Sing One Another Free

Navjeet Kaur

Cutting into pomegranates holds a significant memory of love for me. As a child, I was always intrigued by the way my father cut into the pomegranate, starting with a symmetrical round cut at top, then cutting it into a star and finally tapping out the seeds gently into a bowl. As I got older, he would still cut pomegranates for me in this magical way. It became a way for us to connect, a ritual of love.

This recipe reflects how rituals of love are passed down through containers in ceremony. Containers which can be literal, physical, or through the non-physical body. As my father gently places the seeds into the coconut bowl, I cut my fruit into my white skirt in my lap. I allowed the fruit to spill over in red and pink stains on my white linen skirt, exploring where and how grief can sit in the body.

Not only where grief sits, but also where our memory, love, and power sits. A ritual requiring a pomegranate, memory of the hands of an ancestor, a small bowl, cloth sewn by an elder, a blade, and water that brings you

I found her through the rivers, mountains, turquoise skies, and the red earth that remind me of my baba’s hands. The hands that held on to mine to teach to walk to hold on to love. Does she remember that the water carries stories of her?

The water, so delicate like mama’s hands that held on to mine to protect to dance to hold on to love. Speak the stories. Speak the stories, of her people into her.

Of the land

Of her medicine

Of her song. Tell her she carries them and they carry her. Our interconnection is love.

As you cut into the fruit, recite these words to bring you back home: Navjeet

That is how we remember. That is how we sing one another free. Remind her grief is not to be held. Grief is not all hers to carry. Grief is felt through our flesh, blood, and our bones to be released and set free as gifts to the future. Remind her that grief is praise, not a stain, not her sacrifice. Grief carries with it love. Love of what has been lost, Yet continues to live within our spirits. Tell her we hold and carry her through grief. When she is lost tell her. Tell her this story. That’s how we sing one another free. That’s how we come home. I found her. We found her.