I’m only a butterfly free and light

From Your garden-worlds of Bliss

Who leaving Your starry bloom’s delight

Swooped down to the earth’s dim kiss —

 

Swooped down into Night from your golden Day

Swift-borne by the gold-bright winds

That sweep all the hellish vaults away —

Swift-borne by Your Love’s wide wings

 

To kindle the dark with the song of gold —

The verse of the Godhead’s flame

That calls all the hearts to the new Day’s world,

Our souls’ ever-calling aim —

 

Our souls’ eternal home of Light

Where all the sleep and weep end,

Where never can come any pain or night

In Bliss where we ever wend —

 

In Bliss where we’ll find ourselves again

In Your golden Hymn’s sun-glow,

Again our freedom-wings regain

To soar, to embrace, to love…

 

We’re all only butterflies free and bold —

Swift-borne by Your Dream’s high song

We wing to Your garden-worlds of gold

Where You wait for us so long!.

 

                                Ritam. Song of Butterflies

 

ABOUT ME

RITAM, a Russian poet and writer and translator and photo artist and traveller.

 

Born as Dmitrii Melgunov in Gatchina, Leningrad (now St-Petersburg) region, USSR, in 1969, he was educated first at a School of Arts of Gatchina and then at Baltic State Technical University of St-Petersburg as missile technology engineer. But in 1990 he came to know about Sri Aurobindo’s message and vision and was so greatly inspired by his spiritual wisdom and his unearthly poetry that turned his entire life towards studies of the spirituality and the works of the great Guru, his grand epic Savitri par excellence. Gradually in the course of these intensive studies the mantric force of Sri Aurobindo’s God-inspired poetry converted him into a poet, a translator and a writer. As he has written in one of his poems,

               Touching his heart with His mighty beam,
               The Lord a poet awakened in him
               An dropped so many a poem star
               From the distant heaven to his praying jar…
 

Around 40 books from Sri Aurobindo’s writings have been published to date in his Russian translation, including full poetical translation of  the epic Savitri in four volumes; fundamental translation of some parts of Savitri with extensive research materials and commentaries; Rishi; Selected Sonnets and Poems; Selected Plays; The Synthesis of Yoga, Part I (published by an editorial group of the Russian State Academy of Science); various compilations on the subjects of Yoga. He was the editor of several volumes of Sri Aurobindo’s Collected Works in Russian like The Upanishads, The Foundations of Indian Culture, Bengaly Writings, The Glossary of Terms in Sri Aurobindo’s Writings and some other works. He has translated the well-known book Beyond Man on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother by their Flemish disciple George van Vrekhem; was a co-editor of Sadhana magazine of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga published in Russia in the 1990s; edited some other translations from Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s works. His own poems and essays and translations in Russian and in English have been published in various magazines and books in Russia and India as well as in some other countries. In 2016 a 600-pages volume of his poems in Russian and English Songs of the Soul of the Universe was published in St-Petersburg.

 

Since 1995 he often visits India staying mostly at Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Pondicherry) where he has great honour to study Sri Aurobindo’s legacy and vision with close disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother with many of whom (including legendary Nirodbaran and Amal Kiran) he has developed a cordial relation. It is in the Ashram that he received his spiritual Vedic name Ritam which means dynamic truth, truth in action, the one who expresses truth in his thoughts and feelings and words and actions. He feels India to be his second Motherland. For a few years he also participated in the work of Auroville International Association. For around three decades he is also involved into educational activities giving various lectures and talks on the subjects of Sri Aurobindo’s poetry and Yoga in different cities of Russia and of former USSR countries and sometimes in India. For the last few years he also conducts advanced studies of Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri for the Russian-speaking audience via internet.

Another significant aspect of Ritam's creativity is artistic development. He has finished a School of Arts in his teens and since the early 1990s he has been developing his skills in computer art and design, especially in the book design. The majority of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s Russian translations has been published in his design, as well as some of their books in India. He also participated in some computer art projects. For last 9 years he has been studying deeply and intensively photography as a visual art and has become a professional photo artist. His main subjects are art photography of Nature and Culture of various countries, first of all Russia and India. Often he enriches his photos composing poems that express in poetical language the message of his images. His special themes are photography of the Himalayas, of butterflies, of flowers.

 

Ritam's professional photo-poetic site:

www.ritam-art.com

He held his personal exhibitions in many respected centers of various cities of Russia, including the Roerich Museum of Moscow, the Darwin Museum of Moscow, as well as in India, including Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Delhi, Aurovalley Ashram in Rishikesh, the Russian Center of Science and Culture of Chennai by the Russian Consulate in the South India, and in some other countries like in the Indian Cultural Center by the Embassy of India in Tashkent and in the Russian Cultural Center by the Embassy of Russia in Tashkent (Uzbekistan).

See his exhibitions

 

The main inspiration of Ritam's creativity is feeling oneness with the universal Soul of Beauty and Harmony of which we are all living particles and vessels, and expressing that Oneness and Beauty and Harmony in his poetry and writings and translations and photo art.

 

Happy to share with you the fruits of this spiritual inspiration!

 

                                                                                                                    Ritam