The cosmic power of creation emanates and extends itself in all directions from the heart of today’s goddess. On the 4th day of Navaratri, goddess Kushmanda is celebrated, and she is
the warmth and radiance of the world.
After her battle with the bat demons (check out yesterday’s story), the world is still in darkness, and Parvati is gathering her wits. She’s gone into the depth of her fear, she’s excavated profound courage, she scared away the army of the bat demons by making a lot of noise with her bell, she destroyed their leader, and she now needs to deal with the disarray of the cosmos.
Sounds familiar? It’s like a typical day in the life of a forty something year old mama in this falling apart world, with war raging, hate spewing in all directions, in a capitalistic society, during election season.
The gravitational force is out of balance, darkness surrounds everything, nothing grows out of the soil. The goddess is ready to shift from her role as destroyer of demons into the restoration of the world.
We can look around us and feel devastated for the state of humanity and the conditions of the world, as our heart breaks for the brutality in our society. And it’s important that we consider what it is that we want to create instead. What do you want to bring to life through the soil fertilized by ashes of what was? Who do you want to become as you dissolve some of your old patterns?
Like her previous form, Kushmanda rides the wildest of animals. She sits upon a tiger. And she is deeply connected now to her untamed parts. She’s found her rageful, roaring self, and she knows now how to relate to her own darkness.
When we are able to be with our shadow, to breathe with the fears, when we befriend the feral ferocity of our animal nature, we become more rooted in the creative core of life. And this is exactly the place we find ourselves today with this powerful form of the Śakti.
Kushmanda has eight arms. This is not uncommon for Durga. She often has eight to ten arms. That’s an expression of her resourcefulness. She is the creative power herself. She doesn’t only carve a new path, she IS the new path. With eight arms she shakes things up, she agitates the norms, she pokes at the status quo, she breaks down the structures and systems that are outdated, she reshapes the world, and reconstructs reality.
She holds many tools and weapons in her hands, and one of her hands is always in Abhaya Mudra; the gesture of courage.
To restore the world and bring life back into it, with just a hint of a smile, Parvati becomes Kushmanda. She generates heat and light from within – after all the tapas she’s generated through her sadhana, she knows how to turn it on on the spot.
Parvati is the mother of the universe. She is the power of all creation. She’s the animating force within all of existence. If anyone can breathe life and bring light into the world again, it’s her.
So she goes into the place within the solar system where the sun used to shine. She emanates light and heat, and creates the sphere of the sun around her. With her intensity she is on fire, and she becomes the body of the sun and the force that radiates light and heat, the ferocity that gives life.
Sometimes it’s our gentleness that nourishes the world. Other times, we become Kushmanda. Our intensity can help ignite a world that feels dull and dead. We need our fierceness to fuel the process of recreating. We laugh and bring a spark of vitality to our surroundings.
As she becomes the sun and brings its powerful light back into the world, Kushmanda becomes the goddess of vegetation. She takes care of regrowing the plants and the trees. She is the mother of all that comes out of the soil.
Anda is Sanskrit for a cosmic egg. Ushma is warmth or energy, Kushmanda is the heat and energy of the cosmic egg, the fire of the primal urge to exist.
The egg is, of course, a symbol of the origin of life, the creative source, the beginning of existence. And the egg is something that must break in order for life to emerge.
She’s here to remind you that your creative energy, your movement into reformulating reality, is never without deconstruction. And so she smiles, and laughs, and the universe comes into being.
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Go here for a video to explore Kushmanda with a mantra and mudra practice at the end.
XOOX
Hagar