We’re now in the middle of the nine nights of the Divine mother Festival of 2011.
Sounds so heavenly to me. 9 is completion. We all come from the Divine Mother as humans, that is our commonality. If you value yourself, your Life, your humaness,then you have to be grateful to the Goddess the Divine Mother of All.
To many Westerners these kinds of festivals seem pretty crazy, and that includes people in the “yoga” community.
http://festivals.iloveindia.com/durga-puja/108-names-durga.html
I was introduced to Durga by my dear friend Edda West an herbalist, La Leche League leader, speaker and activist, wise woman, who created and runs VRAN an amazing vaccine risk awareness site out of the Slocan Valley in British Columbia http://www.vaccinationnews.com/edda-west
Edda of the West introduced me to Durga in the 90’s. She was a follower of Guru Muktananda many years ago and learned to sing the Hindu Sanskrit chants. I remember she told me that she knew intuitively that Muktananda’s interpreter GuruMayi would be his successor.
I loved the sound of the Sanskrit chants and the sacred language has always felt familiar and easy to memorize. I live one block from Little India Town in downtown East Toronto. I myself haven’t visited India yet, but my husband Napoleon Brousseau travelled there, spending about a year and a half on two visits. He made a beautiful book of miniature paintings on his travels.
Our house is full of Hindu weavings and images. I love to sing the mantras, prayers chants.
Durga is a fierce protectress and a strong role model. When the world was being destroyed by demons Mata or Mother Durga was called on to stop it all as no one of th emany other Gods had the power.
She rides her beautiful Tiger. In India they have always worshipped the Female Deities. We need Her strength now, Her wisdom Her power to give birth and to destroy. The Indian pantheon is very balanced and whole. They do not fear the darkness or death. They understand the obvious balance of Nature. She gives and She takes away. We need to reconnect to that balance again.
Hindu’s worship the fearsome Goddess Black Kali who destroys ego. The reverence of the death-bringing aspect is very powerful.
Black Kali destroys the Ego
In a mash of Eastern and Western Astrology I would see Pluto in Capricorn, Vedic astrology traditionally does not acknowledge the newer planets. Capricorn besides being thought of as the Big Business Sign is the Cardinal Earth sign, related in the Kabbalah to Binah, the Empress # 3 in the Tarot.
Capricorn is an Earth sign and I’d see PLUTO in Capricorn as an aspect of Kali, the Death Goddess to capitalism, corporate structures the patriarchal traditions.
HAIL MATA DURGA.
Tara Greene,Tarot Reader, Astrology Psychic 