Navratri day 1
Today is the first day of Navaratri 🪔 nine nights of the Devi (Goddess) which ends in VijayaDashmi on the 10th night, the victory of ABSOLUTE REALITY over PERCEIVED NON DUALITY. Nav means nine, and Ratri means night.
Celebrating the 9 forms of Goddess Durga (which resides in each of us), Day 1 is dedicated to Maa Shailiputri, the wife of Lord Shiva, also known as Parvati and the daughter of Lord Himalaya (the daughter of the mountains)🏔
In the words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, “Navratri is a celebration of the spirit or prana which alone can destroy mahishasura (inertia), shumbha-nishumbha (pride and shame) and madhu-kaitabh (extreme forms of craving and aversion). The seeker gets back to the true Source through fasting, prayer, silence and meditation.”
These are powerful days to return to the source, the womb of the Mother. To not indulge in sensory activities that take us away from the source. It is truly a very powerful time! Chanting, dancing, “bathing in mantras” leading to a deep state of samadhi.
First three days are dedicated to the Tamas (inertia), next three to Rajas (activity) and the last three to Sattva (tranquility).
Tonight I will bring home a red clay Garbo, a Gujarati word for Garbha (in Sanskrit) or the Womb. We keep the Garbo lit every night and day for the following nine nights and chant to the mother Goddess. These are the most powerful nights of the year for me, when I truly experience the heightened state of my own femininity. Growing up in a family where we worshipped the Goddess, femininity (Shakti) has been an ever-present gift in my life. But it was only in the last three years when I lost her several times that I understood the part she plays in me, in us, in the world!
Over the next nine days, I’ll be posting photographs of some of the most powerful women I met along my journeys.
Happy Navaratri!
JAI MA!