The Evil Eye and The Stone Baby

Through Archetypal Storytelling, I explore
how my fear of the evil eye inhibited me from
sharing my gifts and the risk I had to take to choose
my soul calling over social acceptance.

*** Trigger Warning: This piece deals with child loss. ***

ஃ The Stone Baby ஃ

Lilith was ready to give birth any day. She could feel the churning of an oceanic swell within her--the bubbling of life force itself preparing to manifest through her powerful body. For the nine months she carried this tiny human, Lilith wrestled with the guilt she felt when she saw the grief of those around her who were secretly dreading the birth of her child. Her mother-in-law, who hoped for a boy, stopped paying attention to Lilith when she discovered the yet-born was a daughter. Her husband, who had recently lost his job, eyed her swelling belly with worry about another mouth to feed. Lilith's sister, unable to conceive, couldn't hide her twisted grief in her fake smile when Lilith had a back pain that needed soothing or her swollen feet rubbed. And Lilith's first child, envious of the unborn's child growing importance to his mother, ignored his mother in protest of having to share the spotlight with the little one soon to arrive.

When Lilith looked at the sullen, worried, and jealous faces that circled her day and night, she felt an enormous dread to imagine her life with her new baby. What should've been a celebrated blessing began to feel like a miserable curse, and more than anything, she wished she could make it all go away.

As the full silver moon reached its zenith in the black sky, Lilith was startled awake by a tremendous, shooting pain. Her panicked screams pierced the softcover of midnight like a fire alarm and shook her family awake. No, no, no, this isn't happening! She said to herself. Lilith clenched and unclenched her fists, closed her eyes as tight as she could, and folded her body over into the smallest ball she could make. She wanted to disappear. When she cracked one of her eyelids to look around the room, she saw the whites of several eyes widened and watching her writhe in panic. It felt as though the force of gravity were her pulling down to the core of the earth, and water poured from Lilith's brow as she wrestled with the sense of urgency she endured as her child pushed forth. She wished more than anything that she could help this little one arrive with encouraging thoughts, but all she could focus on were the staring eyes gathered around, waiting for a head to emerge.

As the early morning sunlight began to illuminate the contours of her families' silhouettes and their eyes became tired with sleep, the unbearable pain of a tormented night became the dull ache of a confusing morning. Lilith's family returned to their beds, and she, too, drifted to sleep. Perhaps, it was just a false alarm, they all thought.

Three days later, Lilith awoke. She had no baby in her arms and, although her belly still seemed full, no child ever came. Until her long black hair turned grey and her life story etched lines upon her face, she would live with an ache in her belly and a wonder if she had ever really been with child all those moons before.

A bicycle is adorned with a lemon and flowers to ward evil away from its rider.

Portrait of me as a child with black dots of eyeliner on my face.

ஃ The Evil Eye ஃ

Just like the dreadful, worried, and jealous eyes of Liliths' family, the "evil eye" is a concept that has persisted in humanity for thousands of years and is still feared in numerous cultures to this day. Regarded as a gaze that is usually inspired by envy, the evil eye is universally prevalent, from the blue eye amulets sold in Istanbul's bazaars to the strings of red chillies, lemon, and neem leaves above doorways in India. These protective talismans have seen a modern-day surge in popularity through symbols like the Hand of Fatima hung at the front door or a ceramic blue eye hanging from a rearview mirror. In Tamil Nadu, my mother's ancestral land, ladies decorate thresholds with kolams--geometric designs formed with rice flour and used to ward off evil spirits and invite blessings.

The threshold of my aunt’s house in Chennai is decorated with symbols for protection.

A woman stands beneath a string of neem leaves used by a shopkeeper to ward away evil.

My periyma (mother’s elder sister) sits on the stone threshold of a temple in Tamil Nadu where a kolam has been drawn with rice flour. — My *periyma* (mother’s elder sister) sits on the stone threshold of a temple in Tamil Nadu where a *kolam* has been drawn with rice flour.

As a child growing up with an Indian mother, I am no stranger to the evil eye. My mother always dotted my cheeks and forehead with her black eyeliner to protect me from unwanted negative energies. To this day, she wears black threads on her wrists as a traditional means to protect oneself from evil. As a teenager, when the shelf of our new TV cabinet fell, or my mom's car was stolen, she first considered which person she had just seen or who might be jealous of her meagre success. She hails from an ancient culture of living superstition where an envious glance or feigned happiness for a person's success has the power to rip that thing away from them unceremoniously. For that reason, it was of the utmost importance not to flaunt, be excessive about showing off one's wealth or beauty, nor divulge select dates and plans to friends until after an event occurred. To do so could invite a spiteful eye that could inflict disastrous misfortune.

A roadside tea stall in the Nilgiris is protected by a string of chillies.

The entrance to a house in Gujarat is decorated in neem leaves.

Consequently, I grew up with an unspoken fear of success. My cultural upbringing was obsessed with upward mobility and gravely afraid of an increase in social status eliciting a supernatural attack. Perhaps, as one means of self-protection, I chose to live much of my life far from any eyes, as a traveller on adventurous roads where I was mostly anonymous and could do as I please. Though I have always been a person who enjoys social popularity, I dread any form of envy that might stoke feelings of inferiority. For many years, I was unable to face my own internalized shame for not living up to my maternal culture's conservative standards, which is often at odds with my birthplace's liberal culture. The pressure I have felt from the fear of a judgemental eye once held power to keep me silent. However, inevitably, as my calling to share my light with the world pushed against my fear of truly stepping into my power, I had to face this destructive force suffocating my authentic self-expression. Image by published image, and word by expressed word, I fought these demons, and I still battle them every time I sit down to write. It has often felt as though whenever I take one creative step forward, I become paralyzed from advancing any further from imagined sets of eyes circling me with vulturous glares. But deep down in my gut, I have always known that to live my highest truth; I would have to risk everything--even the love of my family--to birth my creative self the fullest expression.

Several years ago, I received a clarifying insight that adds a new perspective to this feeling I have struggled with all my life. I had just watched a fascinating documentary called "The 46 Year Pregnancy," which tells the story of a 75-year-old Moroccan woman who gives birth to a "stone baby,"--a fossilized fetus--46 years after she conceives. A Lithopedion (Ancient Greek: λίθος = stone; Ancient Greek: παιδίον = small child, infant) is a rare occurrence when a fetus dies in the womb and is not born but calcified, often remaining in the abdomen for decades undetected.

I immediately understood a connection between the stone baby and the unexpressed creativity within myself, slowly turning to stone. I knew that if I didn't face my fear of others' judgement, my ideas would calcify like stone babies, never taking the breath of manifest life they deserved.

A Tamil child is decorated with black eyeliner to ward off the evil eye, Idaikatttur, India.

The tale that I created about Lilith and her stone baby simplifies the lesson I learned about integrity to my soul calling versus social acceptance. Like the one found in children's' stories, archetypal language is the symbolic meaning stored in the Anima Mundi—World Soul—the living soul of our planet endowed with a kind of collective unconscious with which our personal souls are familiar. We, humans, think in story, tell them, and create the narratives that ultimately guide our lives. When we dim our light, become invisible, shrink ourselves into a small ball, or shut ourselves up to make others feel better, we are trading our most genuine selves for approval. We deny the gifts from our creator for untruth. But unlike the end of Lilith's story, we have the power to change ours.

We are children of a long line that came before us, endowed with ancestral burdens that we often unknowingly carry to the end of our lives. We are part of the interconnected web of the living and non-living, spirals of cosmic stardust encoded with the blueprint of our authentic destiny. But like a double-headed dragon that stands in our way to becoming the victors of our journey, unhealed ancestral wounds are the roots of the wars we have waged within ourselves. And most beautifully, they come to show us where the cracks are and how we can fill those cracks with light.

Finally, perhaps, the eye we need most to be aware of is the one we cast on ourselves. We are often the ones standing in our way. So, whether through facing our self-criticism, others' judgement or cultural superstitions, we must stop pausing at the ring of fire and instead push these visions, insights, and ideas--our babies--into the world where they belong. To do so, we must grieve how we committed treason against ourselves and finally feel compassion for how hard we have tried to shield ourselves from abandonment and disappointment. This work is our sacred inheritance.

When our life unravels or old stories bump into new ones, there is a hidden opportunity to rewrite our stories. By facing what lurks in the shadows, we can finally be free to step forward into the light. Our gifts were given to us to be shared with the world, so let’s be our magic selves, be bright, and be seen.