Naam Smaran: Calling the Name as Remembrance and Making

Naam smaran—remembrance through the repetition of sacred names—was Mirabai's core spiritual practice. She called upon Krishna's names in song, devotional speech, and contemplation. This practice reveals something crucial for grief-sourced creativity: the act of naming and calling is itself a form of making. When we grieve, we often name what's lost aloud or on the page: we say their name, we describe them, we invoke their memory. This naming is not mere sentimentality—it's a way of keeping them present in consciousness and preventing them from disappearing into abstraction. Mirabai's songs function as naam smaran; they keep Krishna alive through utterance. For contemporary creators, this framework invites us to honor the power of naming in our work. The poem that names a lost person specifically, the novel that calls a deceased place by its true name, the performance that invokes an absent presence—these acts of naming are spiritual and creative simultaneously.