Come into the forest, you're welcome here <3

I'm on a quest - to live the deeply alive, immersive-breathing-and-dancing fairy life in this ever-rushing, always-demanding world. To marry the mystical life with the roles and identity we play in this experience within the few cubits of skin, blood and bones that we inhabit as the vessel of all our thoughts, ideas, feelings and desires. To infuse the spirit into each and everrrything I do.

This substack - forest fairy - is a recording of that journey. To show me it is possible to go slow like a snail and a sloth and still live a fulfilling life and go after your desires and dreams. And to show you that it is possible for you too.

Thoughts shared here will be raw and unfiltered, to keep it as close to my journey. To show you the part of me trying. The part of me messing it up sometimes and making it happen the other times.

To dance with the forest and with life. Because if we're not here for that - then what are we here for? What is the purpose behind this grand adventure of waking up, dreaming, making, creating and sleeping - if not for this dance?

I'm exploring that here in my life, in my work and in my being. I've recently learned that being alive is a practice and that's what I am practicing here.
The practice of living.

Because passing off surviving as living is not the same as being fully alive to this adventure of existence that offers so much to those who are present, intentionally present in each and every moment.

So this isn't an introduction for this publication, I just couldn't bring myself to write one — instead this is an invitation.

An invitation to the forest, to that open field that stretches all the way, surrounded with gorgeous redwood trees & fig trees and rugged mountains grounded in their unassuming yet steady way.

An invitation to that wide open and gorgeous field that the 13th century poet and mystic, Rumi, talks about — the one where there is no right-doing or wrong-doing. This is an invitation to dance with life in that field.

It's an invitation for me and you to explore together what living in that space looks and feels like, even as we live our very human lives in this world.

An attempt to combining those two versions of me — the forest fairy and
the woman.

You're welcome to explore along with me on the complexities of going slow when the world taunts you and pushes you to go fast — even straight up demands it. And to explore how to stay with that magical feeling of a fairy life even when it just feels like you never have time for it.

Because what we don't make time for — even when it is our goal — we choose to not pick in our life.

So put simply, if you want magic — that feeling of being alive and not just muddling through each day — make time for magic, for dance, for life.

As Rumi says (yes, we're a big Rumi fan here):

when you start to walk on the way, the way appears

So with that, let's feel and explore the full life force within us.

And let's dance, out in the wild.

fin.

*fursat is an urdu word that translates to leisure, a quiet interlude or a break. however, in colloquial usage, it started being used with negative connotations of being lazy because a capitalist word needs rest and leisure to be seen as lazy for the system to survive. here we reclaim the meaning to what it originally is - a place where we can un-hustle, unravel, lie under a tree on a cool day and watch the leaves play with sunlight even as we build, create, make and live all our roles in our life. I think fursat really comes down to presence and learning to stay with the moment. So I ask you, how alive are you to the cosmos of life around you right now?

Welcome to the fursat forest, I'm Shubhi — slow soul, artist, slow +cute things maker at basaisehi.com — living slowly, intentionally and with presence in the culturally beautiful Lucknow, India and building and spreading joy through my art and handmade stationery. In an increasingly divisive world that rewards rush and urgency, I think living slow and practicing presence and joy each day is resistance.

At Forest Fairy, I am on a quest to live a slow and soulful life of a forest being in this ever-demanding, always-rushing world and share with you the realities of choosing to go slow (trust me it ain't easy!) and the wonder of it too! Because slow living is not an Instagram-aesthetic trend, but a real choice to choose a simpler life rich in wonder, time and being rather than chasing ideals of success that society defined for you.

Follow me into the Forest, if you're tired of running an imaginary race the world put you in and you don't even remember why! May the wild softness of fursat find you! ♡

🌲🌳🌲🌳

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