Little Red Books

Or how I came to share Kindred 108 with you

In my late thirties, I started keeping notebooks of teachings and my own thoughts about practice. Two of the dozens of notebooks I filled are pictured here.

My notebooks were eclectic. They contained oral teachings I had received, quotes from books and poems I was reading, instructions for practice, dreams, outbursts of insight, poems, recipes, drawings, and questions. Many questions.

I read these notebooks over and over again, drawing inspiration, sustinance, and support.

I no longer write in notebooks. Instead, I create and gather electronically. But I’m still an avid collector of words, music, and images. In some sense, the entire project of Kindred 108 is a way to continue the eclecticism and spiritual and creative chaos of my notebooks. I’m so happy you decided to join me here!

Page of a notebook from earlier years

Everything belongs with everything

Kindred 108 is an alchemical mix of words and sounds about nondual, animist life from me, Shambhavi Sarasvati. We're all kindred here.

“Animism” means everything is imbued with aliveness, with a supra-intelligence, even rocks. There is no distinction between the spiritual and the mundance. Collectively, everything is speaking through the play of circumstance and symbols, including words.

“Nondual” means everything in existence is a single, self-aware continuity and that the experience of separate beings and objects is a display, a self-expression of the continuity.

Trika Shaivism and other Tantrik traditions from India compare the totality of manifest life to a magical city where we can enjoy infinite encounters. If we are more realized, we are immersed in the continuity, enjoying its magical display of wild diversity.

The Daoist teacher Liu Ming and I were hanging out in my kitchen many years ago.

His eye fell on a shelf of cookbooks that included a three-ring binder labeled “Ming Things.”

“You’ve got everything in there?” he asked.

“Yep,” I answered. “Recipes, incense making, and divination and dream teachings all together.”

These were the things I had learned from Ming.

Ming smiled with a sweet sense of satisfaction and nodded. “That’s how it should be.”

with infinite love,
Shambhavi