Homage to Darkness

Last night there was a blackout. The entire neighborhood pitch-black except for headlights of cars that would occasionally come down the street. Sweet darkness? I was sitting in it for hours. Darkness and silence. No music, no computer, no telephone. Instead of being bummed, stressed or worried, I felt content. Even the creaks and groans of this 100 year old house did not scare me. I felt strangely protected by this unexpected enigmatic visitor. My plans to be creative- to write and to bead were not going to happen, but I did not mind. Obviously these sparks of creativity still needed to gestate. I would chant and meditate instead. I lit the few candles I could find and made a mental note to stock up on more candles for the future, and then I reflected on how wonderful it felt to be in the dark. In the dark-often used to mean not knowing or ignorance. We are always at some life juncture of not knowing, are we not? Our life journey is one of removing the layers of ignorance our conditioning imposes on us. I have sat in the dark with so many different aspects of my life for months, for years. But eventually, some piece is revealed and I can finally understand what the waiting was for. The outcome, sometimes different than what my ego had desired, but always a much better manifestation than anything my limited mind could have concocted.



It was not until I realized that I had no heat and the temperatures were dropping outside and in that I became at all concerned. So I took my flashlight and went into my backyard to collect any left over firewood I could find from our fire puja. There was not much, but I knew that one piece of wood would be enough for a flame to cast light into my living room and bring a bit of heat, albeit temporarily, into my space.


For days I have been thinking of the yoginis and yogis who spend their lives in caves high in the Himalayas. I have wondered about their meditations in the natural cycles of lightness and darkness. I have considered what it would mean to be at the mercy of the natural elements. I have questioned whether it is a path I could ever embrace in this life. In my younger years I could have done it (and did on a 15 month journey through Southeast Asia), but these days I have grown accustomed to certain physical comforts. And regardless, it is my dharma to be in this world as difficult as it can be. To embrace all that comes instead of running away. Same last night- I could have left and stayed at a friend's, but would I have wanted to miss out on this opportunity? I was being offered a Berkeley-esque cave experience from the comfort of my beautiful house-a far cry from a Himalayan cave! But darkness. Darkness is darkness regardless of where one is. Can we just be with it without judging it as bad or good? Can't it be honored for the mystery that is its essence? Enough of modernity's overemphasis on light- the light of "reason" and "rationality" and all the blatantly racist metaphors around light being positive, dark being negative. Time to reclaim this language and its effect on our consciousness! The dark is too often demonized. Painfully so. But it is the dark mother from Africa who is the oldest divinity on the planet (See Lucia Birnbaum's work). And it is the dark fertile soil that grows much of our food, and the dark night sky, body of the Cosmic Mother within which our planet spins and resides, the dark of our mother's wombs where our physical forms were created. And what about those studies on the consciousness of dark matter- perhaps scientific 'evidence' of our beloved Kali Maa?? And there is the dark night of the soul that, although ruthless and excruciatingly painful, frees us from our past habits, conditioning, and delusions. It is time we reclaim the dark. The so-called dark 'other', the darkness that we fear around us and especially in ourselves. What lurks in those shadows? Why have we given it our power? How can we take it back? Remember- the light cannot exist without the dark.



I have learned to love the darkness. In darkness we have to see with our hearts, with our intuition and not with our eyes. Things are not as they appear and we must learn to trust our bodies, not our minds to discern what is real and what is unreal. Whether we are plunged into darkness or choose to surrender to it, whether our artificial sources of light wane from a power outage, or depression obscures the passion of our hearts, the Mystery is always the same. Darkness is a place of transformative and generative power. We must only learn to BE with it. No judgment, little fear. Patience. Trust. Patience.

The Ultimate Spiritual Teacher

November Full Moon

Ammachi, Mata Amritameshwari is in town. Her ashram only twenty five minutes away in Castro Valley. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to see this incredible saint/living goddess twice a year. Amma’s entire life has been of selfless service, of complete surrender to the divine. She has created countless humanitarian projects serving thousands of people. She has hugged-as her darshan- millions. She receives countless awards and presents talks on gender equality, spirituality, and unconditional love. She sits for 20 plus hours at a time hugging devotee after devotee and blessing them with the unconditional love of the divine mother. She is truly an exceptional being.

Five years ago I began seeing Amma and I have kept my vows to see her every time she visits her ashram the M.A. Center in Northen California-in June and November. Despite the sense of overload I have felt this past week and a deep desire to integrate all that has transpired in the last few weeks without any more outer input, I still felt there was one more ‘piece’ I needed to understand. There was something that I still did not quite ‘get’ about my spiritual journey and once again I found myself making a pilgrimage to a spiritual teacher.

As I was driving to the center I found myself weeping. Tears of sadness and frustration about the confusion around my spiritual beliefs that still remains. Tears of gratitude and relief to be going back to see Amma, who has nurtured me spiritually since my initial darshan with her five years ago. After all the intense Shakti I have been experiencing between Amma and Swami’s visit, the mystical experiences the Durga puja evoked, and the 7 months I spent in the underworld, it was deeply comforting to be going to see a “mother.”

When I went up for my darshan, Amma pulled me to her breasts. My friend C. and I had just been talking about the symbolism of breasts-nurturance, nourishment, abundance and our longing for the Mother, and here I was with my face nestled between Amma’s breasts! For a second I wondered if my head was supposed to be on her shoulder instead. But she held me tightly and I believed she had “heard” our conversation. She eventually guided my head to her shoulder for darshan and hugged me. I began to cry. Her hug called forth a somewhat lost and neglected part of myself that I immediately realized needed to be nurtured. It was almost shocking how obvious it is.

I do not need Amma Pratyangira or Swami, or Amma, or Nandu, or any of the wonderful teachers who have graced my life to lead me into my heart and soul and to confront and embrace the shadows and the light. I need to do this myself. And I am strong enough to do it alone. They all have been my guides, my mentors along with many other remarkable beings: Vicki Noble, Alice Walker, Kyle, my kula of Shakta and feminist sisters, Gypsy-- but the ultimate Spiritual Teacher is me. I am the one to lead me through the darkness, chaos, and disillusionment and to guide me toward decisions that are in my highest good. I will continue to turn to these sagacious beings for insight and guidance at times, but ultimately I must always remember that the Shakti that I seek and yearn for can be fully generated from within. This is true for each of us. A guru is there to initiate our awakening and evolution of consciousness, to help us tread the path. They are always with us, but we do not need to give our power over to them and rely on their Shakti to sustain and propel us. I fully believe they can help us in various ways. They can serve as role models and guides and remind us of the tools we already have. They can share the teachings of our ancestors and present horizons of expanded consciousness that are available to us. But at some point we have to let go of their hand and walk proudly and courageously alone.

I am a yogini. Unconventional and unfettered. Attendant of Goddess Within.

It is time I begin teaching.

Sweet Darkness

On Thanksgiving my beloved friend, who is battling cancer and was recovering from chemo, chose a poem for me from a wonderful collection of poetry. It felt like an oracle to me:

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~ David Whyte ~

(House of Belonging)

A few days later I attended a yoga class and the teacher read us part of a chant from the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad while we were in savasana (corpse pose):


yastamasi tisthann tamaso'ntrah yam tamo na veda yasya tamas sariram yastamo'ntaro yamayati esa ta atma-ntaryamy-amrtah


That which exists in darkness, and pervades it throughout, that which darkness does not know, whose bodily manifestations the darkness is, which controls the darkness from within, That is your Self, the Inner-controller, the Immortal One.


This upanishad is a preparation for death. Death is inevitable for each of us. Reciting this mantra is a tool for approaching death more consciously. Death is as much of reality as is birth. But this culture denies and represses darkness and death. And yet these are integral states to the cycle of existence. What happens to the soul when it leaves this physical body? Where do we go? Reciting this mantra expands our consciousness and helps us remain aware of our Self
during our transition.


I am thinking a lot about death these days. In part because it is the season of dying and one finds many religious holidays honoring of the death aspect of the cycle. And also because of my dear friend who is fighting for her life. It is no mere coincidence that I am being given such mantras to help midwife my friend's journey-- and my own. In the very least they are soothing. Pillars within our faith that keep us centered and grounded, open and free.

The Force of Ma Pratyangira and Swami

She weaves the Shakti web in mysterious ways. I am having countless mystical experiences. It is difficult to write about what is happening. But it feels important to express what I can, to share the Shakti that has graced my life from Amma and Swami's visit.


On Saturday night Amma and Swami gave darshan at a local Unitarian church. Despite the inclusiveness of this denomination of the Christian religion's views, the energy in the church felt cold and oppressive. Despite its openness, its roots lie in a patriarchal institution that has excluded women or demonized them for centuries. And even where women have been included, they have been de-sexualized. When the Divine Mother arrives in one of such places, the energies are inevitably formidable. And She, Durga can certainly slay the demons. While Ammas embodies Pratyangira other goddesses like Durga, Kali, Varahi, Lalita all come through her. The Goddess whose qualities are needed comes. And Amma is the blessed receptacle for these energies that are available to all of us. Amma always reminds us that She has come here to help us recognize Goddess in ourselves and each other. We too can harness such amplified energies, but serious yogic practices are necessary in order for our physical bodies to be able to contain the energies.


A workshop on the Sri Vidya tradition and practices to Pratyangira was offered on Sunday. Amma commented on how strong the force of Goddess was in my temple space. How all those that were present had brought Her there, and how because of the devotion I have for Durga, Durga in Her various forms is coming through me and opening my home to others who share this path. We all received an initiation that evening and five us were invited to go deeper into the tradition and to be initiated at another level.


And then Amma went into her bhava. We had put a large mat in the center of the room. It has the yantra or geometric form of Goddess painted on it in orange, red and yellow. This yantra is a portal into other forms of consciousness. In this tradition the yantra is Goddess Herself. Amma and Swami performed a puja, offering water, rice, incense, fire, sandalwood oil, red vermilion paste, tumeric, bhajans, mantras, and prayers . Amma called us up to the center of the mat, one by one. Her devotees would stand on the bindu of the yantra while Amma would place her finger on their third eye. Two of us initiates were asked to stand on either side of the devotees receiving darshan. We needed to catch them if they started to fall and help those who needed it to their seats. And people would fall back, their eyes closed, and we would be there to push them upright until finally Amma reached for them (with the aid of Swami as She was totally in trance) and hugged them for darshan. Her hands perform mudras or sacred hand gestures that invoke and honor divine energies. Her tongue stretches out and her eyes roll back. She mutters mantras or cackles . Some devotees She locks in the fiercest embrace and they shake, laugh and sometimes cry. All in my living room. Standing in the mat for the entire darshan was intense. The energy was electrifying.


How can I doubt the forces that have guided and informed my life, especially what I felt while Amma and Swami were here? What really happened this past weekend? Will I ever know, or can I just shed the mind that is trying to rationalize and explain? How can I even explain these extraordinary experiences and feelings?


Goddess was here. Goddess is here. Can you feel Her?

The Divine Mother

The Shakti. Five days with two saints has transformed my life. I feel more integrated and aligned. I am aware I could very easily fall out of this state, but for the moment I surrender to it and ride the waves! The Divine Mother was here. She is POWERFUL! We all felt Her. In Amma AND Swami. I am struck by how familiar they are to me, and how human. Divinely human. A state of consciousness that is available to all of us. It is truly amazing. The synchronicities that are flooding my life right now. Profound. This Shakti web is very real, yet ineffable. Extremely mysterious...All I can think about is Goddess. Every experience, every thought, an expression of Her.

Amma Pratyangira and Swami

The Divine Mother was here. In amplified form. I have spent the last five days with Amma and Swami. The homa or fire puja, Diwali celebration, Amma's Bhavas, 100 devotees-so many beautiful and powerful experiences. Mata Pratyangira is a living force!


On Friday evening Swami and Amma Pratyangira performed a fire puja in my back yard. 108 sacred herbs and plants went into the flames, the fire itself worshiped as Goddess. Sweets, incense, ghee, coconuts, honey, 9 different grains all were offered. From my stereo placed on the back deck, the Lalita Sahasranam-1000 names of the Goddess came resonating through our circle. Amma chanted along while 50 of us were held mesmerized by the energies. For about an hour Amma played her favorite bhajans or devotional hymns and sang along with sheer devotion while Swami performed the puja.


Many of the photos (to be posted at a later date) show Amma and Swami in their bliss bodies or ethereal bodies. They appear translucent yet a smoky veil infuses parts of their physical form. In some certain body parts disappear completely into the ethers. In one of the photos Swami takes on the form of Chinnamasta for it appears his head hovers over his shoulder. Photo after photo shows some divine expression of energy. And the 'fairy' lights around them along the fence continuously shape shift into various forms. The fire itself takes different guises and the entire aura of the evening is infused with the Divine Mother's Love.


After the homa we all went inside for darshan. For days I had prepared the temple space. An altar with many different murti (divine images) was placed around the fireplace. Diwali candles lined the mantel. Amma began performing darshan. Calling out Jai Bhuvaneshwari Ki and everyone would cry out Jai! (Victory to Goddess Bhuvaneshwari). She would then ask the name of each devotee and call out their name with this reverent chant: Jai ______Ki... Jai! the rest of the room would shout. Anandalahari and Francesca played the most divinely melodious music for Amma's darshan. Again Anandalahari's Han drum transported me to another realm. And Francesca's kirtan was haunting-beautifully so. On this sacred holiday Diwali, my house was graced with devotional music, reverence, and love.


Being the hostess I missed much of the darshan and was involved with other sacred interactions. After a couple hours I suddenly knew I needed to go into the living room and be with Amma. I was immediately called up to her. The last to receive darshan. She was already in her Bhava. Fierce and wild-like Kali Maa. Her tongue stretched out, her eyes bulging, her hands in various mudras, until she raised one as if she was holding a sword. She pulled me to her and started chanting. She named the fierce goddesses I worship in my ritual practices. I had not told Amma about my devotion to these goddesses when she was in "normal" consciousness, and here she was embodying some tremendous force and reciting mantras for Varahi, Chamunda, and Chinamasta. I was blasted with energy. My muladhara or root chakra experienced a fiery surge of energy that traveled up my spine and made my entire body shake for minutes. Amma Pratyangirae held onto me tightly and continued to chant and occasionally cackle (!) while my physical form trembled and shook. The kirtan music died down and the room became perfectly silent except for the Divine Mother's breathing and sacred utterances. It was sublime. After she released me I fell back onto one of my sister's knees and grabbed onto another sister's hand. I needed to share the powerful currents of energy that were coursing through me. I could not hold all that energy in my body and indeed experienced a headache all through the night. (Om Namas Chandikayay- She Who Tears Apart Thoughts). Nor could I sleep. So much Shakti! But I also continued to experience sheer Bliss. Devotion. And Love. The evening ended with Amma feeding about 10 of us from this endless pot of savory Indian prasad. She had cooked for us right before the puja-in an hour she had created 8 different dishes that were truly sublime.


Amma does not remember what happened in her bhava state. So after the puja we sat in my living room and shared as best we could- words really can not express the Shakti that blazed through us all that evening. Jai Maa!

Mata Pratyangirae and Diwali

Amma Pratyangirae is coming to my house for Diwali. Diwali is known as the festival of lights and will take place on the dark moon on November 9^th this year. At this time Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of Spiritual and Material Abundance, Harmony, and Beauty is celebrated and worshiped in the homes. People pray for the success of their businesses and peacefulness in domestic life. Hundreds of candles of lit, footsteps are drawn on the path leading to the front door, and inside flowers, sweet foods, incense, music, and devotees await Her…

Mata Pratyangirae is a fierce primordial goddess of over 2000 lion heads. She is ancient and all powerful. She has appeared to us in the 21^st century in the body of a Tamil Indian woman from Singapore. While Durga removes difficulty and fear, Lakshmi brings abundance, and Kali helps us deal with our anger, Pratyangirae is the Goddess we call on to help us remove negative karmas. She has come in human form to "eat" our fears, worries and problems and help us to find and live our true light. It is not that she takes all the difficulties away from us, but with her guidance a challenging situation may suddenly be less formidable, or a bad habit may release its hold on us. We cannot sit back passively waiting for all the stress to dissipate from our lives even when we are blessed to be in the presence of a realized being like Amma Pratyangirae or Swami. We must also do the Work and we can begin with opening our hearts.

Diwali is the perfect ritual for accessing the blazing radiant light of our souls. The candles we light are symbolic of the flames that burn within each of our hearts. This is yet another sacred time in the autumnal season of death and decay, where we have an opportunity to dispel the darkness of our ignorance and suffering through ritual practices. Such rituals teach us of the inherent cycles in our lives. Everything has its season. Life is a constant battle-
or it is a dance between the tensions of opposites that are continuously at play within our lives. All things that are born will eventually die. This is a seemingly simple truth, and yet most of us in the West have trouble accepting the reality of death. We run from it, deny it, repress the fact of its inevitably. We do so much to try to prolong and enhance this life and to keep a firm hold on all of our attachments. What if we took a different approach? What if we understood our lives as a preparation for perhaps the greatest spiritual initiation there is, death of our physical bodies? Our physical death is going to happen to each of us, so how can we live more consciously, so that in the end, we can die more consciously? Every day we experience death-whether of the moment, a feeling, a relationship, time, or even a loved one. In this season of lessening light, rituals like Diwali help us to stay connected to our inner light.

During the Durga Puja and fall equinox we celebrate the fruits of our labor from the past 9 months. But the bounty of the harvest too will pass. Fall is a season of celebration and letting go. Here in the Northern hemisphere as the days get shorter and the nights longer, a ritual like Diwali or even sitting in the presence of a Spiritual Teacher can aid us in preparing our hearts and our minds to approach death in her myriad guises in a more present way. To me this season is a time of preparation for dissolution. I may or may not be conscious of what I need to release, but I have come to respect the often cold harshness of these days as a time to go within myself, to hibernate and reflect. A sacred time when the veils between the worlds are thin and messages from our ancestors come streaming in...I I take comfort in fall's cold inky darkness and these opportunities to contemplate the mysteries of death and life. It is a wondrous blessing that Amma and Swami are coming here to perform these rituals.

Over the past several weeks, I have experienced numerous synchronicities pointing to Amma Pratyangirae’s arrival. Too many to share, but they continue to occur whether through 'out of the blue' phone calls, seemingly random encounters, or 'odd' experiences that have a numinous essence. I merely observe and surrender to them- trying not to judge or interpret. A female saint is coming to my home, but not as an award nor as a punishment. I, my ego mind has no idea why we are hosting the ritual gatherings here, and it does not matter. I am not sure what it all means and hope to be able to open to the spiritual potential for deeper awakening. Still, I remain awestruck by the blessing that is being presented. Being in their presence I have the sense of being with two very wise and realized souls. Grace, peace and love permeate my experiences with them. May this be true for all who encounter them.

Last Friday I saw Amma Pratyangirae in San Francisco. Swami, Amma’s Shiva (for they are indeed the embodiment of Shiva and Shakti!), performed a flower puja and Amma went into her bhava or “mood.” When someone enters a bhava they usually exhibit mystical qualities, signs of spiritual states of consciousness. Amma’s eyes roll back till only the whites show between her trembling eyelids, her voice changes, she performs mudras in a trance-like state, then gives darshan-or a blessing, and sometimes offers prophecies. The energy in the room intensifies. It feels hot, electric, enlivening. Everyone present is captivated by the sacred play or Lila. Amma is here to awaken our own divinity, which she describes as Love. One by one we sit or kneel before her and she presses sacred ash on each devotee’s forehead-right between the eyebrows. Sometimes she mutters mantras to various goddesses like Aum Bhubaneswaryay Namaha or Kali Kali Kali Kali, or She emits a deep throated AUM whose resonance seems to shake the walls! Occasionally she cries out, PHET! in a very fierce deliberate tone—for cutting or severing emotional and mental afflictions. This one is quite startling as the vibration of the syllables coming from Amma cut through the thick waves of Shakti circling around us and for a moment I experience a state of dissolution. Hearing PHET! makes me shudder—perhaps my own negative tendencies do not want to be banished and are raising up in protest. Nevertheless almost instantaneously the Shakti resurges and continues to stir the energies within and around us. Sometimes the energies make us cry, others laugh—we never know what to expect. These Shaktified experiences truly are different than ordinary reality. And yet it is pretty amazing how “easy” it is for us to access the Shakti. Ultimately it is within each of us, waiting to be stirred and awakened.

When it was my turn to kneel before Amma, I began to cry (which does not happen to me out of sadness or joy, but out of a profound sense of recognition and relief). “Hey Mata”, Amma said to me. Hello Mother, which she has called me from the moment we first met. She has greeted many women I know in this way-to Amma we are all the Mother. Amma tells us she is here to help us find Pratyangirae in our self and all others. It was such a relief to be in her presence again. Everything around me dissolved and for a moment, I found a refuge from the chaos of life. Amma placed her finger on my third eye and my head fell back. All my thoughts disintegrated, crumbled and collapsed. There were things I had wanted to pray for, offerings of gratitude I wanted to give, blessings I had hoped to ask to receive, but no words came into form, all of my thoughts turned to dust. I became part of a vast blanket of emptiness. I felt deep peace and tranquility. Tenderness and sweetness. There was nothing to do, I could just Be. I drank it all in and a part of my consciousness clicked in and made an imprint of this serene awareness that I would call forth in stressful times in waking life.

After many seconds (that to me had stretched into hours), I heard Mata Pratyangirae chanting, Ambika-Durgayay, Ambika- Durgayay. I was called back to ordinary consciousness. When I awaken from such states it takes me a moment to remember where I am. My eyes rested on Amma's physical form. Beautiful Amma Pratyangirae standing before me, beaming. It felt as if we had never been separated even though a year had passed since we last met. I cherish such moments of ease and freedom. Presence. I moved away filled with sweet gratitude and then received a blessing from Swami.

On Diwali, people begin new business ventures, and this year I will begin one too. A couple weeks ago I began making special amulets out of silver and glass boxes and circular lockets within which I secured two different images of the Goddess. I wanted to talk to Swamiji and Amma about selling them and donating a percentage to the Ekatvam organization, so I wore one the night I went to their puja. Swami noticed it right away and was astonished that this locket held an image of Mother Pratyangirae. When I showed Amma, she was very excited. She told me the Mother had just been saying three days before that they needed to have an amulet of Her image to sell on the website and at events. And here I was wearing the amulet. We had both received the same guidance. Here is a sweetly divine opportunity for us all to invoke more Lakshmi energy into our lives.

***My dear new yogini sister, Sri Acala called just now! I must share this synchronicity as this is exactly the kind of thing that keeps happening. These subtle, yet powerful messages of alignment, of flow. SriAcala was the lead priestess of the Durga Puja I attended. A CLEAR EMBODIMENT OF DURGA MAA HERSELF. This woman has SHAKTI. Her friendship has been one of several great blessings that have evolved since the Durga puja. Acala called as I sit writing about Mata Pratyangirae to tell me how one of her jyotish teachers just emailed his list of 2000 people about how powerful Amma and Swamiji are and how they must try to meet them in Berkeley. He also had tremendous experiences with them. This, yet another fabulous synchronicity in a mala of Goddess-infused prayer beads…Jai MAA!

If you live in the Bay Area and wish to join us on November 9th and 11th, please email me and I will send directions. For more info on Mata Pratyangirae and Swamiji go to www.ekatvam.org