Jeff Carreira: Hello, Tejal. I wanted to speak with you about your explorations in poetry. You are the author of Illusions of this World, which I believe is both your first book of poetry and, if I remember correctly, your first significant exploration of poetry as a literary form. Is that true?

Tejal Tarro: That’s true. Outside of the forced haikus we had to write in high school, I had never really written poetry before.

Jeff Carreira: Please tell us about how poetry came into your life.

Tejal Tarro: So it came as a complete surprise to me.

At that time, I was going through a profound shedding of identity. My mother had passed away. I was dealing with significant health issues. My children were growing up and leaving home. I had also sold a business that I had poured my heart into, without having any clear sense of what would come next.

I knew I wanted to write, but I assumed I would be writing essays about leadership and systemic change, because that had been the focus of my professional life. But whenever I tried to write in that mode, it felt performative. Something deep inside me kept saying no.

Eventually, I decided I simply wasn’t going to write. I would instead spend time healing, listening, and just being.

Around that time, I attended a spiritual workshop where the instructor asked us to contemplate the question: “What does your soul desire?”

I sat with that question and later went to sleep. Then, around four in the morning, I suddenly woke up completely alert and words began pouring out of me. That was the poem called Secret Soul Longing.

Jeff Carreira: Can you read it for us?

Tejal Tarro: Yes.

Secret Soul Longing
Intimacy
Secret soul longing
So close that other ceases to exist
Penetrating shiny veneers hiding darkness
Releasing beauty in cosmic rapture
Loving so tenderly the tangle

When I looked at it, it felt like it was vibrating with its own life force. I haven’t changed a word of it since it came out on paper that night.

Jeff Carreira: What do you think was happening? Why do you think that poem came through you at that time?

Tejal Tarro: I think part of it was that I was finally available for the message to come through. My defenses were down. Unfortunately, it happened the hard way, because before that I had been carrying a great deal of armor in my life. But during that period, I was very raw and very open.

And I think that when I received that prompt about the soul’s desire, something in me simply became available to whatever wanted to emerge. That openness created the conditions for it to come through the way it did.

Jeff Carreira: And why in poetry? Do you have a sense of that?

Tejal Tarro: I had been writing for years—journals, essays, presentations, all kinds of things—just not poetry.

At the time, I didn’t really understand why what emerged came out in poetic form. But looking back now, I feel that poetry somehow comes closest to the essence of the Divine, which is itself a pure essence beyond words.

Poetry feels to me like it exists just on the edge of that veil between the unmanifest and the manifest, between oneness and duality. There’s a potency in the words that came through, and many of them are words I would never ordinarily choose in my everyday thinking or speech.

So I think poetry has this unique ability to distill essence in its most concentrated form, without all the layers of thought, judgment, rationalization, and explanation that so often get in the way of writing.

Jeff Carreira: What the Romantic poets appreciated about poetry was its power to communicate the ineffable. Poetry isn’t trying to nail things down. It’s really gesturing the reader’s attention in a certain direction so they can find what the poem is pointing to for themselves. Poems have an interesting way of pointing away from themselves toward the reality of what they want to convey. And I find that in poetry what is being gestured toward is not going to be found in the words. It is found in the direction the words are pointing to. I would love to hear how you experience that in poetry, both your own and of other poets.

Tejal Tarro: Yeah, I think you stated it beautifully as gesturing towards the ineffable, because the ineffable can’t really be described. And so it absolutely resonates with me. I didn’t study the academics of poetry, I haven’t studied meter or rhyme or any of those elements, and so it wasn’t even about whether the poem was good from that point of view, it was about if it stirred something. And yes you said, it’s really about what it evokes in someone. It’s not even about understanding the meaning of the poem because that is using the rational side of our mind. It’s really about, what emotion or insight or stirring does it evoke within you? And I think that’s the power of poetry. You know, people ask me what I was thinking at the time of writing a poem? And a lot of times I don’t specifically remember what was happening at the time. Sometimes when people tell me what a poem evokes for them, it might reflect a different meaning, but still equally as beautiful.

Jeff Carreira: I want to point out that the poem you just read to us, which you said was the first one you wrote, actually occurs on the 112th page of your book. There are many poems prior to that. Tell us a little bit about the structure of the book and why you structured the book in this particular way?

Tejal Tarro: Well, after that first poem, the poems just started spilling out of me one after another.

By the time I had written around ten poems, I began sharing them with a few people. Then, somewhere around twenty poems, I started to feel that maybe this was becoming something, though I still didn’t know exactly what it was.

It wasn’t until I had written about sixty poems that I finally laid them all out together and began asking myself: What is the story being told here?

Interestingly, none of the poems in the book appear in the order in which they were written. And I think that actually reflects something true about life itself. Life isn’t linear. It spirals.

So while the book may appear to move in a linear progression, to me it feels much more like a spiraling journey, continually circling back through different themes and deepening into them from new perspectives.

Jeff Carreira: One of the things I’ve been fascinated by recently is what I’m referring to as mythopoetic awakening and how writing about our experience becomes a way to process what is happening to us spiritually. Spiritual experiences are ineffable and can’t be completely described, so recording them in words requires a certain amount of interpretation and shaping. So as we articulate what occurs for us on the path, we’re also shaping the path we are on. So we’re not just sort of reporting to ourselves on it. We’re not even just processing what’s happening. We’re co-authoring our awakening process. I would like to know what your experience of that was as these poems were coming through and you were articulating them. Could you see that you were actively participating in an awakening process?

Tejal Tarro: Yes, absolutely. There were many different dimensions moving through the writing. Some of the poems were clearly connected to my own process of working through trauma and difficult life experiences—things that I think are deeply human and probably recognizable to many people.

But there were also other poems that felt entirely different. They felt more like callings or transmissions coming from somewhere beyond my ordinary self, almost from another dimension. It was as though I was receiving a kind of download and simply taking dictation for something that was trying to come through me.

What was especially striking was that sometimes I would only fully understand a poem afterward. I would later go through experiences that revealed more deeply what the poem had already been expressing before I consciously understood it myself.

So the writing felt connected to all parts of the transformational process at once: the working through of past karma and experience, the immediacy of what I was feeling in the present moment, and also this sense of a future, or perhaps another dimension of being, calling something forth through me.

Jeff Carreira: During the time period when the poems were coming, how frequent were they?

Tejal Tarro: It would ebb and flow. There would be weeks where I would write one poem every two days. Then there would be a period of time, sometimes weeks, when there wouldn’t be a single poem. There was even one stretch of two months when I didn’t write a single poem, and then all of a sudden it started again.

Jeff Carreira: Was there a moment where you realized that this collection was done?

Tejal Tarro: I struggled with it being done because the poems were still coming, but I had a friend advise me that at some point it’s probably good to put a stake in the ground and say it is done. So I did, and it felt complete enough in the sense that I wasn’t actively writing the next poem at the time, and I knew there was more to come. That part was exciting to me.

Jeff Carreira: Looking at this book now can you identify it as a singular journey? Was this a journey you were meant to take? I want to think about it as an initiation, but I’m wondering how you feel about this book in relation to your spiritual path.

Tejal Tarro: It really does feel initiatory to me. I have a strong sense that there is a second book coming, and perhaps even a third. But this first book is exactly what the title suggests: a process of working through the illusions of this world in order to liberate the divine love that already exists within me.

So the writing itself became part of an initiation. It felt like I was moving through many layers of identity, illusion, and conditioning so that I could arrive at a mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical state that would allow love to flow through me more freely and fully.

Jeff Carreira: Your journey with poetry didn’t have to happen. In a very real sense, you surrendered to it. It’s interesting to imagine what might have unfolded if you hadn’t surrendered to that impulse. I think many people feel the call to write, but for one reason or another they don’t follow it. Maybe they believe they can’t write poetry, or they don’t trust what’s coming through them, or they simply feel they don’t have the time or space for it. How do you think your life would be different today if you hadn’t allowed yourself to follow this poetic calling? How would the Tejal who wrote these poems differ from the Tejal who never did?

Tejal Tarro: I almost don’t even want to think about it.

The Tejal who writes poetry is still very much a work in progress, still growing and unfolding, but she is far more embodied in her life. That expressiveness now moves not only through poetry, but through dance, through relationships, through the simple act of living more fully and honestly.

I think the Tejal who never allowed herself to write poetry would still be trying to fulfill all the roles and responsibilities of her life, but inwardly she would feel hollow. I think she would continue struggling to fit herself into the structures of the world while feeling increasingly disconnected from something essential within herself.

And honestly, I think eventually it would have become too much physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So yes, I almost don’t even want to imagine a world in which I never surrendered to poetry.

Jeff Carreira: Since this issue is centered on the transformative power of poetry, I’d love to ask more directly about your own experience of that transformation. From everything you’ve shared, it’s clear that poetry has profoundly transformed your life. How would you describe the transformative power of poetry as you’ve experienced it through this process?

Tejal Tarro: It’s been transformative on multiple levels.

First of all, the actual process of writing poetry, as well as what that process requires of me, has transformed the way I live my life. Poetry demands space, stillness, slowness, and the willingness to sit with discomfort long enough for something authentic to emerge. I couldn’t continue living in a state of constant busyness, distraction, or productivity and still remain connected to the source of the poetry. So in a very practical sense, poetry changed the rhythm and structure of my life.

But beyond that, there’s also a deeper identity shift that has taken place. I have heard you speak about mythopoetic awakening, and I resonate deeply with that idea. I feel that poetry became a portal for me into another way of being. Through the writing, I began to recognize aspects of myself that I hadn’t previously allowed myself to inhabit fully. I became a poetic mystic and perhaps even a kind of sorceress. And now I move through the world carrying that awareness within me. Poetry helped reveal those dimensions of myself, and in doing so it transformed not only how I write, but how I experience who I am.

Jeff Carreira: We hope this issue serves as both an invitation and an encouragement for more people to explore poetry for themselves. I personally feel that poetry holds enormous potential as a mythopoetic tool for awakening. And so I hope that this conversation, and the issue as a whole, inspires people to embark on their own poetic journeys. If someone feels that impulse stirring within them, and they are contemplating entering into a relationship with poetry, what advice would you offer them?

Tejal Tarro: First of all, I would say: don’t begin with the intention of writing “good” poetry. Instead, ask yourself: Does it stir your soul? Let that be the grounding intention.

I would also encourage a sense of playfulness. Even when writing about subjects that feel dark, painful, or profound, there can still be an element of play in the process. At times, it almost feels to me as though I’m dancing with the Divine, or what some might call the Muse. There’s a kind of conversation happening between us. So I would encourage people to enter that space as a dialogue, to allow themselves to listen, to respond, and to be surprised by what emerges through them.

Finally, I do think reading other people’s poetry is incredibly important and inspiring. Whenever I read poetry that truly moves me, it opens something within me. It gives me access to parts of my own inner world that I might not otherwise reach, and that, in turn, deepens what I’m able to express in my own writing.

Jeff Carreira: I know that you also have led writers’ workshops. Can you conclude by telling us about that?

Tejal Tarro: I’ve participated in a number of writers’ workshops over the years, and I’ve noticed that the role I naturally tend to play is not so much teaching technique as awakening desire in people to continue the journey.

Because, as you said earlier in the interview, I think many people feel the impulse to write. The impulse is already there. But so often their conditioning, self-doubt, or beliefs about themselves prevent them from moving forward. What I most hope to do is help people trust the impulse enough to keep going beyond the initial fear or uncertainty so they can discover what might be waiting for them on the other side.