Dhumavati is the crone goddess of disappointment and letting go.
"Do not be afraid to suffer, give the heaviness back to the weight of the earth." - Rilke
Dhumavati stands for sadness, despair, and failure. "With her grace, we can mine the exquisite wisdom hidden in the heart of life's most difficult moments."
She is one of ten goddesses in the group of "Great Wisdoms". "Dhumavati represents the void stage which we all must go through on the path to higher awareness."
She is tall, unsteady, and angry. She wears dirty clothes. She rides in a chariot decorated with a crow banner. The chariot has nothing pulling it. Her complexion is "like the black clouds that form at the time of cosmic dissolution." Her face is very wrinkled, and her throat, eyes, and nose resemble a crow's. Her face has a venomous expression. She is very old.
"If we allow ourselves to look her clear in the eye, we see that she is pure beingness in its raw form. She has the power to teach us that outer beauty fades, but our divine Self always remains intact. If we can see ourselves in this way regardless of what falls away, we've tapped into Dhumavati's strength."
Kempton, p. 222
"Dhumavati is the feminine unsupported by male authority In many paintings she sits in a chariot with nothing to pull it, a position that, as author and Hindu scholar David Kinsley points out, underlies the fact that in the conventional sense she is a woman going nowhere..... The stalled chariot has a deeper esoteric meaning as well. It can also represent the stillness of the eternal present, the action that arises from non action, the void state where forms dissolve in deep meditation.... As an energy in the physical world, she represents the absence of fertility and life-giving moisture. She lives in whatever is desolate, abandoned, unfortunate, and unpleasant." Kempton, p. 223
Dry lake bed, barren landscapes, drought, clear-cut forests, dead corral reefs, foreclosed homes, refugee camps, etc. She is everything we want to turn away from.
"The trick with Dhumavati is to find her enlightened core, the transformative power within hopelessness and failure. This requires inhabiting your worst fears and facing into your losses.....
Can your inner equilibrium survive that level of collapse? Can you find your yogic groove when everything falls away? These are two of the great questions that yogic practice is meant to answer." Kempton, p. 224
"Fairy tales are full of crones who, when treated kindly, will whisper the magic word that lets the courteous young man find a treasure or helps a goose girl wed a prince. Dhumavati is one of those [goddesses] who looks fierce but is actually tenderhearted." Kempton, p. 226
Dhumavati is your capacity for letting go of the things you thought you needed." Kempton, p. 232
All quotes and ideas taken from Awakening Shakti, by Sally Kempton
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Sita
Sita is the Goddess of Devotion and Mystical Submission
Sita exists only for love. She personifies loyalty. She incarnates devotion. She stands for the feminine principle of loving devotion.
Sita is Rama's wife and she is most often pictured sitting with him on a single throne. If you practice chanting or listen to chants, you hear Sita's name chanted right along side of Rama's: Sitaram.
She is the heroine of the Ramayana, the core mythological text of Hinduism. She is the icon of traditional Indian womanhood.
"Such a woman is called a pativrata ("husband-vowed"), one who is committed in unselfish loyalty to her husband, who is essentially her deity. Her vow has all the power of yoga; through her intense selflessness, a pativrata generates yogic fire, and this gives her immense siddhis, or yogic powers." Kempton, p. 204
She is an archetype of the "static feminine"-- completely yin, unconditionally faithful, utterly supportive. Sita is not a favorite Goddess of feminists in India.
Sita has pale skin and dark hair. She wears a white sari, a flower garland around her neck, and a necklace of small black beads. She wears colored and gold bangles on her wrists. At her third eye point there is a vermillion dot. Her eyes are closed.
Rama accuses Sita of being unfaithful. The first time he does this, she proves her fidelity by standing in flames, untouched. The second time, she descends back into the earth, from which she came. Rama never remarries and mourns her forever. He keeps a golden figure of Sita by his side.
"The yin aspect of the feminine, like the fertile Earth, doesn't fight to protect itself. Fierice goddesses-- like Durga and Kali-- fight to protect the world, to protect the gods, to protect life. They "punish" pride and disrespect with weapons. The gentle goddesses simply withdraw." Kempton, p.211
"Committed to the path of submission, it is only through passive resistance, especially self-immolation, that they can force the masculine to look at his own cruelty or impel him to turn back to values of love and justice." Kempton, p. 211 For example, Ghandi, the Civil Rights Movement and MLK, Argentinian Mothers of the Disappeared.
Sita "represents the sacred Earth which continues to bring forth crops and support life even as her pastures are paved with concrete and her life-sustaining rainforests are cut down. She is the symbol of every woman still deprived of voice by clueless patriarchy, yet who manages in her suffering to keep love and forbearance alive." Kempton, p.212
Sita "embodies the feminine insistence on the primacy of relationship." The need to take care of another person trumps the rule of law.
"In the West, we've transformed the Sita archetype into Cinderella, where the passive, beautiful woman is carried away by the handsome prince."
"Sita is the exact opposite of Kali and the other fierce goddesses. She is that in the feminine that most needs protection, because kit is most open to violence and betrayal. She is the submissive daughter-in-law of Hindu and Islamic tradition, the fifty-year-old wife divorced by her husband for the sake of a younger woman. She is the generations of women who believed that by being good wives, good daughters, and good mothers they would be protected, that their connections to others defined them. Contemplating Sita can bring up all the grief of the collective feminine and a deep rage at the masculine..." Kempton, p.213
Sita is the holding quality of love. "Kali's dynamic force pushes the child out of the womb. Sita is the womb itself. Her Shakti flows as the mother's vital fluids as they nurture the embryo. It appears as the maternal bliss that, for many women, makes the act of caring for a child so ecstatic." Kempton, p. 213
This loves asks for nothing in return.
Ideas from Awakeing Shakti, by Sally Kempton
Sita exists only for love. She personifies loyalty. She incarnates devotion. She stands for the feminine principle of loving devotion.
Sita is Rama's wife and she is most often pictured sitting with him on a single throne. If you practice chanting or listen to chants, you hear Sita's name chanted right along side of Rama's: Sitaram.
She is the heroine of the Ramayana, the core mythological text of Hinduism. She is the icon of traditional Indian womanhood.
"Such a woman is called a pativrata ("husband-vowed"), one who is committed in unselfish loyalty to her husband, who is essentially her deity. Her vow has all the power of yoga; through her intense selflessness, a pativrata generates yogic fire, and this gives her immense siddhis, or yogic powers." Kempton, p. 204
She is an archetype of the "static feminine"-- completely yin, unconditionally faithful, utterly supportive. Sita is not a favorite Goddess of feminists in India.
Sita has pale skin and dark hair. She wears a white sari, a flower garland around her neck, and a necklace of small black beads. She wears colored and gold bangles on her wrists. At her third eye point there is a vermillion dot. Her eyes are closed.
Rama accuses Sita of being unfaithful. The first time he does this, she proves her fidelity by standing in flames, untouched. The second time, she descends back into the earth, from which she came. Rama never remarries and mourns her forever. He keeps a golden figure of Sita by his side.
"The yin aspect of the feminine, like the fertile Earth, doesn't fight to protect itself. Fierice goddesses-- like Durga and Kali-- fight to protect the world, to protect the gods, to protect life. They "punish" pride and disrespect with weapons. The gentle goddesses simply withdraw." Kempton, p.211
"Committed to the path of submission, it is only through passive resistance, especially self-immolation, that they can force the masculine to look at his own cruelty or impel him to turn back to values of love and justice." Kempton, p. 211 For example, Ghandi, the Civil Rights Movement and MLK, Argentinian Mothers of the Disappeared.
Sita "represents the sacred Earth which continues to bring forth crops and support life even as her pastures are paved with concrete and her life-sustaining rainforests are cut down. She is the symbol of every woman still deprived of voice by clueless patriarchy, yet who manages in her suffering to keep love and forbearance alive." Kempton, p.212
Sita "embodies the feminine insistence on the primacy of relationship." The need to take care of another person trumps the rule of law.
"In the West, we've transformed the Sita archetype into Cinderella, where the passive, beautiful woman is carried away by the handsome prince."
"Sita is the exact opposite of Kali and the other fierce goddesses. She is that in the feminine that most needs protection, because kit is most open to violence and betrayal. She is the submissive daughter-in-law of Hindu and Islamic tradition, the fifty-year-old wife divorced by her husband for the sake of a younger woman. She is the generations of women who believed that by being good wives, good daughters, and good mothers they would be protected, that their connections to others defined them. Contemplating Sita can bring up all the grief of the collective feminine and a deep rage at the masculine..." Kempton, p.213
Sita is the holding quality of love. "Kali's dynamic force pushes the child out of the womb. Sita is the womb itself. Her Shakti flows as the mother's vital fluids as they nurture the embryo. It appears as the maternal bliss that, for many women, makes the act of caring for a child so ecstatic." Kempton, p. 213
This loves asks for nothing in return.
Ideas from Awakeing Shakti, by Sally Kempton
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Saraswati
Saraswati is the goddess who "flows as language, insight, and sound"
A Saraswati woman loves solving intellectual and artistic problems.
Saraswati women are not so much interested in relationships; they are passionate but in an impersonal way.
She is associated with the creative impulse and the flow of creativity through you. She writes novels, plays music, finds connections, and solves intellectual problems.
She is associated with computers and the flow of information on the internet. You can invoke her to help you finish a paper or fix your computer.
Shadow side: when you have trouble expressing yourself or you are misunderstanding communication, your saraswati energy is blocked. Also, misuse of creative speech: lies, propaganda, rumors, internet chatter, negative self-talk.
Discursive though itself is Saraswati's shadow: "if you doubt the power of the goddess, an hour of trying to stop the mind will convince you that Sarawsati's creative flow is indeed a river, or perhaps a fountain- endlessly running. You can't control her, you can only flow with her, using a mantra or your own awareness as a boat you can steer along those channels that lead to expansion and joy rather than suffering and confusion." Kempton, p. 183
"Her skin is fair and her eyes are lustrous, with a deep peace radiating from them. She is dressed in a white sari, and around her neck are pearls. She carries a book in her hand." She rides a swan. "Breathe with the sense that you are breathing with her."
Her swan is a symbol of discernment. The swan lives in a lake in the Himalayas. "It is said that if you pour milk into the lake, the Paramahamsa's beak will act as a filter, separating the milk from the water, so he only drinks the milk. One of Sarawati's gifts is the discrimination to separate truthful, liberating knowledge- and words- from the kind of information that creates confusion and fear. She is, for this reason, the prime deity of wisdom and knowledge- especially the knowledge transmitted heart to heart, by the speech of the teacher." Kempton, p. 186
"As an archetype of the feminine, Saraswati is the solitary woman, the scholar at her desk, the yogini or the nun who gives up conventional life for something subtler, more pure." Jane Austen, Dian Fossey
She teaches us we need dedication and immersion in order to extract the subtle truths of life and art.
Many men with an abundance of Saraswati energy have a hard time with relationships. When you're a channel for her energy you might not have the space for ordinary relationships.
She is also the goddess of intuition and insight. "You can prime intuition by asking yourself a question and then holding still until the answer comes." Kempton, p. 191
"To recieve insight, you have to go past the thinking mind. You have to get quiet enough, focused enough, and patient enough to discern the voice of the inspiration or the intuition." p. 192
"Her shakti expresses itself through the inner work we do to hone the mind, to study, to practice- the careful, rigorous effort that allows us to become a container for wisdom and inspiration." p.196
Ideas and quotes taken from "Awakening Shakti", by Sally Kempton
A Saraswati woman loves solving intellectual and artistic problems.
Saraswati women are not so much interested in relationships; they are passionate but in an impersonal way.
She is associated with the creative impulse and the flow of creativity through you. She writes novels, plays music, finds connections, and solves intellectual problems.
She is associated with computers and the flow of information on the internet. You can invoke her to help you finish a paper or fix your computer.
Shadow side: when you have trouble expressing yourself or you are misunderstanding communication, your saraswati energy is blocked. Also, misuse of creative speech: lies, propaganda, rumors, internet chatter, negative self-talk.
Discursive though itself is Saraswati's shadow: "if you doubt the power of the goddess, an hour of trying to stop the mind will convince you that Sarawsati's creative flow is indeed a river, or perhaps a fountain- endlessly running. You can't control her, you can only flow with her, using a mantra or your own awareness as a boat you can steer along those channels that lead to expansion and joy rather than suffering and confusion." Kempton, p. 183
"Her skin is fair and her eyes are lustrous, with a deep peace radiating from them. She is dressed in a white sari, and around her neck are pearls. She carries a book in her hand." She rides a swan. "Breathe with the sense that you are breathing with her."
Her swan is a symbol of discernment. The swan lives in a lake in the Himalayas. "It is said that if you pour milk into the lake, the Paramahamsa's beak will act as a filter, separating the milk from the water, so he only drinks the milk. One of Sarawati's gifts is the discrimination to separate truthful, liberating knowledge- and words- from the kind of information that creates confusion and fear. She is, for this reason, the prime deity of wisdom and knowledge- especially the knowledge transmitted heart to heart, by the speech of the teacher." Kempton, p. 186
"As an archetype of the feminine, Saraswati is the solitary woman, the scholar at her desk, the yogini or the nun who gives up conventional life for something subtler, more pure." Jane Austen, Dian Fossey
She teaches us we need dedication and immersion in order to extract the subtle truths of life and art.
Many men with an abundance of Saraswati energy have a hard time with relationships. When you're a channel for her energy you might not have the space for ordinary relationships.
She is also the goddess of intuition and insight. "You can prime intuition by asking yourself a question and then holding still until the answer comes." Kempton, p. 191
"To recieve insight, you have to go past the thinking mind. You have to get quiet enough, focused enough, and patient enough to discern the voice of the inspiration or the intuition." p. 192
"Her shakti expresses itself through the inner work we do to hone the mind, to study, to practice- the careful, rigorous effort that allows us to become a container for wisdom and inspiration." p.196
Ideas and quotes taken from "Awakening Shakti", by Sally Kempton
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