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
