Still, We Cross

The Great Indian Epics & The Moral Architecture of Bridges

I am in India.

I’ve been waiting to say that for over a decade.

And yet the timeline, of my mere three decades on this planet, feels almost irrelevant here. I feel so tiny, yet protected, by the ancient nature of this land.

India’s stories, the great Epics, according to Hindu cosmology, stretch back not thousands but millions of years.

Though these tales may be mythological, I see them less as fixed events in time and more as evolving timelines of consciousness.

Their characters are archetypes that map the terrain of our, oh so, human souls and teach us, again and again, how to be.

Since arriving, I’ve been experiencing what Oprah so adorably calls, “aha moments.” Sudden, magical instances when something stops you mid-step and you feel; not intellectually but in your bloodstream-pumping-directly-to-your-heart, that everything makes sense.

Almost a decade ago, I nearly failed my university world religions course; the philosophy of the Vedas and the Epics that followed, felt so unbelievably daunting and abstract then. Too distant and dense sitting at a desk.

But I’m here now, in the mountains just outside Rishikesh, in a small village called Kyarki, overlooking the Tapovan valley, where these stories took place.

The lightbulb has begun to flicker and last night I felt it blazing. Insight after insight, recognition after recognition. Aha.

Of course, the teachings were out of reach at school; they were never meant to be studied; they were waiting to be lived.

And when something becomes alive within you, it’s hard to summarize.

So, I won’t attempt to retell an Epic, because that would be like condensing the Bible into a single breath. Instead, I will dive into the depths of just one word.

Julley.

(Pronounced Joo-Lay)

I heard it from my new friends Vivek and Chandan as we walked up a narrow, pebbled path toward a sunset point high above the valley. Escaping their busy New Delhi lives for the weekend, the longtime co-workers and friends led the way with an eagerness and childlike joy.

“Oh, I feel julley,” Chandan laughed, searching for translation. “Almost like jolly, but warmer. A mountain warmth. A feeling of being held and pleased by that comfort and connection,” added Vivek.

Julley.

The amused fullness that arrives when you recognize you are exactly where you are meant to be. A soft, completely natural internal smile between you and your surroundings; your soul connecting to the oneness of the Universe.

It can also mean, hello. And that makes me fall in love.

I am in love with the way a single word can carry so much meaning, how some languages trust one sound to hold many worlds. It’s as if the language itself refuses to be confined, each word is like a child’s kaleidoscope. As we play without boundaries, tilt our heads slightly, these words have the possibility to reveal entirely new patterns of philosophy and feelings.

As we continued on the trail our conversation turned to jhulas; the traditional Indian swings; and then onto the great suspension bridges below: Ram Jhula and Lakshman Jhula - all in connection to the concept of julley.

In the Epic Ramayana, Lord Rama and his devoted brother Lakshman are believed to have crossed the River Ganges on simple swinging ropes, strung across wild waters during their exile. What is so significant about this part of the Epic, is that the men accepted the exile without resistance.

This moment marks the trail of dharma, the moral architecture of the universe. The sacred order that keeps rivers to their banks, and humans to their highest nature. It is both cosmic law and the personal path; the call to act in alignment with truth, responsibility, and the role your soul has taken on in this lifetime.

A jhula is a swing.

A jhula is a bridge.

Julley is the amusement we feel when we accept the movement without resistance, the undeniable motion or path of life.

The words began to root.

We reached the lookout just as dusk began painting the Tapovan valley sky the colour of smokey marigolds. The two suspension bridges below lit up, glowing like strands of light suspended between worlds. As beautiful as the Manhattan Bridge but held in the palm of the Himalayas. I had casually walked across them days earlier in the peak afternoon heat, completely unaware of the mythic crossing they stand to commemorate. I looked down and tried to imagine two Princes swinging from ropes above the roaring water, surrendering.

Did the ropes fall from the sky? Were they tied to trees? Did they tremble as the brothers crossed? Did they feel fear? Or did they feel julley; the warm steadiness that comes not from control, but from trust?

The jhula, I learned, became tradition. Swings hung in homes and gardens, on porches and courtyards. They are places for rest, for bonding, for gentle movement, the calm lull of motion and stillness at once.

I saw myself as a child on the swing in my backyard, staring up at our maple tree, feeling something I didn’t yet have language for.

I saw my grandmother at the cottage, sitting on her rocking chair, in the corner of the porch. The landline tucked between her shoulder and ear, laughing with her sister. Back and forth; presence and being.

Perhaps we have always known julley.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about the Italian word: attraversiamo in her memoir Eat, Pray, Love meaning “let’s cross over.” This word is an invitation into fullness, the courage of stepping from one shore into the bay of another, accepting fate and allowing another person to hold your heart with bravery. And when Liz, played by Julia Roberts in the film, finds the courage to cross over, it is not just towards a man, but toward a version of herself that no longer negotiates with fear. On the edge of the most romantic Balinese sunset, Javier Bardem is waiting; not as her saviour, but as her witness.

Julley feels like attraversiamo’s quieter, little sister.

If attraversiamo is the decision to cross, julley is how we cross. With warmth, with reverence, with amusement at the trembling.

Because a bridge only exists in relationship, land to land, self to self, human to divine.

We are not separate from the crossing; we are participants in it. The suspension bridge responds to our weight, and our willingness to move.

When we feel fully alive, we sense that we are always in transit: crossing seasons, shedding skins, walking toward purpose, toward each other, toward something that feels like home.

When I told Vivek how comforting it is that while cities change and people come and go, the mountains remain, that mountains always feel like home, he smiled gently and said, “Yes, because we are all one. Nature reflects that.”

Maybe the closer we get to what we imagine heaven to be, the closer we feel to one God.

Over the past few days in India, I have been asked about God at least ten times. About free will. About destiny. About purpose.

All I know right now is that I am here and I want to be here fully.

I want turmeric staining my fingers as I eat Dal Khichdi slowly and with gratitude. I want my shoes off. I want my shawl draped over my left shoulder, doubled like a pashmina wrapped over my heart, the way you swaddle a newborn against your chest.

India is ancient, yes, but to me it feels like a newborn baby; curious, tender and disarmingly open.

Before dipping into the Ganges yesterday, a local, older man offered me a ride down to the river’s edge on his scooter.

He looked at me when we arrived and said softly, “You have sacral chakra pain. Perhaps you lost a child?”

I had. Last Spring. It was an unexpected loss that felt bizarre and a year later I still have not been able to unpack the associated grief in the depths of my being.

“Go to Mother Ganga,” he said. “Tell her to hold you.”

As I submerged my body into the glacier fed, crystal river, a group of people started singing Krishna Das’s Sita Ram; a song I have been listening to on repeat since the beginning of this journey almost half a year ago.

I felt the river. My heart. My womb. And asked for cleansing; for calm amidst her rapids swirling around me.

From above now, I see the river snaking through the valley, wide in some places, narrow in others. The serpent carved into temple spires here no longer feels like a warning to me, but a guardian.

A creature offering protection and renewal. A reminder that our life force is one that sheds and continues.

In 1998 Alanis Morissette sang, “Thank you, India. Thank you, terror.”

I have contemplated that lyric since I was four years old, long before I could even begin to understand what terror really meant or why it was mentioned in connection to India. And now I am seeing it as gratitude; not only for beauty, but for rupture, for pain, for the things that split us open and force us to cross terrain we never intended to travel.

War has always existed, outer wars, inner wars, and still, what do we do as humans?

We create, we tell stories, we build bridges, we hang swings from trees.

Creation during war may be the most defiant act of faith there is.

Perhaps that is what Lord Rama and Lakshman understood when they began their journey of exile: that joy is not waiting safely on the other side.

It lives in the trembling middle.

In the sway. In the suspension.

In the willingness to step forward even when the river below is roaring.

“In full swing,” we say in English, meaning fully underway. Fully alive.

Julley feels like that.

Like Ram Jhula at dusk.

Like the mountains holding you while you walk through both the good and the unbearable.

I am in full swing of my life. My feet are aware of the ground, my hands are gripping the ropes thrown down to me, my heart is steady over the flowing river.

Standing in Mother Ganga, glacier water rushing against my skin, strangers singing Sita Ram into the evening air, I realized something:

Even in grief, we are still suspended between what was and what will be.

Even in loss, we are still moving.

Julley is not the absence of pain, it is the warmth that coexists with it.

It is the amusement of a soul that says: attraversiamo.

Let’s cross over, not because we are fearless, but because we are willing. Not because the river is calm, but because something inside us is steadier than the current.

The bridges will sway.

The rivers will roar.

The hearts will break.

And still, we cross.

Julley.

May we always feel amused in the trembling.