It’s an auspicious time for honouring the Goddess Laksmi as we enter the middle of Chaitra Navratri - a nine day festival honouring the Goddess in many aspects.
Laskmi’s blessing is that of abundance, prosperity and spiritual wisdom.
She’s a radiant beauty and her many names describe her as ‘Hiranmayi’ The Golden One, ‘Vibha’ The Radiant One, ‘Shuchi’ The Purest One, ‘Aditya’ Resplendant like the sun and so on. She’s also ‘Shri’ the pure essence of auspiciousness, beauty, grace.
Lots of conversations around here these days start with “How’d you go with the floods?” and then we each tell our story about where we were and how we fared when three weeks ago flood waters inundated our town and surrounding towns. I suppose you’ve heard about it. Perhaps you were here too.
Our story goes a little something like this…
I’ve thinking a lot lately about my role as a teacher and how I show up for my students and the yoga teachers I mentor. And I’ve been reflecting on an important teaching about “Looking for the Good” that I received from my first yoga teacher.
In the olden days (in the early 2000’s), I used to love to go to nightclubs and shake it like a polaroid picture (probably to some Outkast as well as other 90s hip hop but mostly dance music). And I mean, SHAKE it. On more than one occasion I woke up with whiplash after dancin’ all night long with my mate Kirsti.
Recently I read this comment online that simply said “Self Worth is sexy AF” and it struck me as so true.
Not only is it attractive in another person but it’s a sexy feeling within.
I find mantra a powerful tool for meditation. One of my teachers, Anandra George, who is a nada yogini, taught me that each syllable has it’s own Shakti, it’s own power. And I experience chanting as stepping into a particular energy stream. It’s like, rather than just popping your kayak in any old body of water, you are choosing a particular river to take you to the ocean of Consciousness.
Today marked the beginning of Navaratri, an important Hindu festival which celebrates the Great Goddess, Durga Ma, over nine nights.
As an anglo-Australian who fell in love with yoga in my late 20s I did not grow up worshipping the Goddess. My introduction to Devī has been through my yoga teachers and through study, so while I acknowledge and honour the Goddess at this time, I note oh, how different it would look were I was raised in a Hindu family.
It sounds better when you pretend that you are Count Dracula and say it with a thick Transylvanian accent: “I got vaxxed” but then you might misunderstand me and think I recently visited a beautician. I definitely did not do that. I gave up the pornstar smooth vijayjay years ago. Sorry, is that too much information? I feel that way about talking about the vaccine too, to be honest. It feels like a personal decision that maybe I don’t need to broadcast about…
But at the same time, there’s a part of me that believes in the value of sharing our stories
There are a few moments when I’m doing an asana practice that I especially treasure and those are the moments when we move from one phase of the practice to the next. For example, the moment when we move into our first downward facing dog. Or, when we move from being on our hands and knees to standing at the top of the mat. Or when we move to the floor towards the end - oh man, that’s such a goodie.
What I love to do in these moments is take some time to just pause and feel how it is to be in my body in that moment. I really milk this. Potentially to the point of tediousness if you’re practicing with me. But for me, it’s the most sacred of moments, that pause. A chance to do absolutely nothing but bask in the afterglow of all that movement and breath and feel what’s alive in me. And it’s part of the discipline and challenge of practice, to be fully present.
In Hindu Mythology the elephant headed God Ganesha
I watched a beautiful interview a few weeks ago with a psychiatrist called Dr Anna Lembke who works with people with addictions. She was being interviewed about her book ‘Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence’ on the Huberman podcast.
I loved listening to her compassionate perspective on addiction and found I could really relate to what she was describing when she talked about how addiction operates and what we might experience when we have a dopamine deficit, caused by too much indulgence in
My friend’s Dad (the inimitable Kent Osborne) has this great saying: ‘Bloom where you’re planted’ meaning, wherever you find yourself, grow there. Bloom there. Share your beauty and perfume, express yourself there. Don’t wait till you’re elsewhere and think elsewhere is more worthy of your energy or time or brilliance.
I think it’s good advice (especially since we can’t go anywhere anyway right now). But really, so often we think we’ll get it together sometime in the future and that’s when we’ll really hit our stride, show ‘em what we’re made of, or something like that. We don’t bloom where we’re planted because we feel that we’re not ready somehow.
