Pilgrimage to the Matrika Varahi

We drive for hours through the blistering heat. Bouncing along the heavily pot-holed roads, trying to find the turn-off based on natural markings in the landscape- three stones stacked upon the other and the roots of one of hundreds of banyan trees painted in a special configuration of yellow and red. How will we know which tree it is? How will we know that these are the right triad of stones? These are not easy markers as there are many such shrines along these Indian country roads. We surrender to Devi, to Goddess to lead us there. And She does. After hours of driving in the sweltering Orissan heat, we pull up to the Candasi temple. It is a sacred Tantric temple to one of my favorite aspects of Goddess Durga, Varahi- the boar-headed Matrika or Mother Goddess.

Entering a Tantric temple is to enter the womb of Goddess—literally, for the Sanskrit name of the inner sanctum is Garbha Griha or womb and temples are considered microcosmic embodiments of the Goddess’ macrocosmic Reality. Upon entering, I find the narrow vulvic passage, which leads to a small opening through which one must bow their head in reverence and essentially crawl into the pitch back inner sanctum. To me it feels like I am re-entering the womb of our Mother and yet what I discover within her stone temple body is always a mystery. This particular space exudes a mysterious somewhat frightening aura. Frightening only because this sacred womb space is pregnant with the unknown and much that is unfamiliar to this contemporary initiate. What awaits me here? I wonder.

Cautiously, I slide deeper into Varahi’s dark chambers. My eyes, accustomed to the blazing sunlight, have difficulty adjusting. Having left the security that comes with the light of day, I now feel like I have been cloaked in the darkest of night— that time just before dawn. I feel nervous and a little afraid. Varahi has a formidable presence, and I have the sense that she is watching me through the thick black silky air. All I can see is the strong, powerful outline of her huge commanding body and the piercing glare of her metallic eyes as a sliver of sunlight slices through the blackened chambers and shoots off two newly placed metal eyes.

Varahi is not delicate. She is not graceful. She is not even sensual or seductive in the way the other goddesses I have seen have been. Instead She is fierce, immense, tough—and alluring. Intimidating, yes. And even totally captivating. I become rooted to the earth before her. I want to give her the offerings I have brought, the sweets, the kum kum powder, the jasmine incense, but for several minutes I cannot even lift my arms. She has possessed me. And I must wait and listen. No one fucks with Varahi at this temple. She can rip them to shreds with those tusks, and She will.

“Merge with me.” She whispers in a gravelly voice. I cautiously place my hand on her nostrils and can almost feel her snorting warm breath. She is covered in a sari, and my hands move down her neck and onto her chest. I rest my hands on her pendulous breasts, the thick cotton fabric beneath my finger tips. Tears fill my eyes as deep longing envelops me. If only I could rest in her lap and have her cradle me in her arms…I bow my head and lean against her. I can now hear her grunting with content, love and affection for her devotee. It seems as if her warm moist breath swirls from the back of my neck and up through the air. My consciousness follows and is taken to memories of the distant past.

I begin to have visions of chakras of practitioners, chanting, praying, singing to Her. My head begins to ache as I try to take it all in and question what I am intuiting, what I could be remembering from other lives, and how or if my studies and sadhana could be influencing these visions. What is Real? Ultimately all that is Real is the magnificence and Shakti of this incredible Goddess before me. My hands instinctively move to her full round belly. This belly is pregnant with creativity, abundance, knowledge and wisdom. The folds of her fat, although made of stone, seem to meld into my hands. My hands continue their journey to her valiant thighs and knees. I stand before her, my eyes now having adjusted to the darkness, gazing into her eyes, smelling the musty moist scent of the chamber. This is the sweetened wet fragrance of Her womb. Remembering. I cry and pray. I miss Her. I miss this place. I know this place deep in my bones. I know the worship that goes on here. It is my spiritual heritage. It transcends lifetimes.The longer I remain within Her chamber, the more intense the pounding in my head becomes. It feels as if I cannot contain all the Shakti that is coursing through me, the vast energies that are being provoked, stimulated, called back to memory. My fingers fall to Her feet and feel the sweet outline of several toe rings on the very same toes as my own toe rings. Sisters in adornment, I think. Perhaps my love for jewelry in this lifetime comes in part from these rituals where Devi must be adorned. It is a deep comfort to know of any symbolic as well as esoteric connection between my contemporary western life and Varahi’s age-old divine presence.

I want to be fierce like Her. I want to be fearless and free. I long for Her confidence and conviction. I need Her strength, Her unconditional love, Her unwavering stamina and discriminating wisdom. I offer my body, my heart, my mind and my soul. Let me be in service to you, Varahi Maa. Please help me to always remember who I am. I bid my farewell and enter out into the blinding sunlight. Using the outer temple walls as a crutch, I stumble to the back of the temple to rest my head and hands against the wall right behind where She so authoritatively resides. I slide to the earth and rest my body against Hers. My head and heart pounding. My soul feeling free.

(Excerpt from my forthcoming book on Durga based on my pilgrimage experience in India, February 2002.)

Are We Divine?

This past week I attended an event where Alice Walker spoke about her newest 'children's' book, Why War Is Never A Good Idea. This book is an evocative poem that personalizes the horrors of war and the devastating effects it has on our Mother, the Earth. She questioned why, through war, we would destroy the only home we have. She reminded us that this planet is our home, a magnificent house that every single one of us shares. If we poison the earth in the Middle East, we are polluting the water and air we ourselves will eventually drink. Everyone of us must drink from the village well for we live in a global village.

During her presentation she talked about how each of us has an essential question, a question that walks beside us throughout our lives. A question that is always being raised in our every act, our every thought and experience. Our question and the answer to our question is our offering, our medicine or wisdom for this planet and all Her inhabitants.

Alice's question, which she writes about in both "Possessing the Secret of Joy" and "Warrior Marks" is Why are the children crying? When I heard this I caught a glimpse of my own question. I felt her tiptoeing around me, waiting for me to notice her and to take her by the hand. And although my question's subtle movements had not yet settled into a form I could fully articulate, I knew that the reason why children are crying and my own question were related. Would we be bombing children in Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine or Israel or Iran if we truly knew that they, like ourselves, are divine? Children are crying because we adults have forgotten our inherent divinity. God is not some transcendent notion, some all-powerful, judgmental and punitive being who resides up there in the sky. No. God/Goddess/Spirit/Love/Divinity is in each of us. It is not something we have to search for outside of ourselves. Most of us humans have forgotten that. Instead the quest for whose God is most powerful, whose one God is the ultimate Truth has produced centuries of violence and bloodshed, of fear and rage, of terror and trauma. Considering the current state of the world with its senseless wars and vicious brutality, it is no wonder that children are crying.

In the Tantric tradition there is a concept called Nyasa, which refers to the process of becoming divine. Becoming divine is actually an endless act of remembering, of awakening and reawakening to our inherent wisdom, to our Shakti or power. It is not like we will wake up one day and forever thereafter think, Oh yes! I am God! I am divine! Rather, it is the evolution of our consciousness that happens gradually. I believe that we are here to learn to integrate our energies in a way that allows us to live in balance and harmony within our self and with all beings on this earth.

Seven years ago I went on pilgrimage to the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal for the annual Durga puja or ritual. When asked why I was there, I would initially respond with the same answer: " I am here to pay homage to Goddess Durga." Much to my surprise, I began to have a similar experience with many of the Nepalis I met. "No, you are not here to worship Her. You are becoming Durga," I was told this again and again. "You are here to learn to embody Her." "You are here because you ARE Durga." My initial reaction was embarrassment and extreme discomfort. How could I be a Goddess? How could I, with my tendencies towards depression, with my fiery Hungarian and Italian temper, with all my insecurities and fears, be a Goddess? What could they possibly mean?! And if what they said were true, what would I tell my friends and family when I returned? Hi, I had a great trip. By the way, I am God....They would surely think I was crazy, or ?

In her essay called "Divine Women" Irigaray writes, " Divinity is what we need to become free, autonomous, sovereign....God forces us to do nothing except become. The only task, the only obligation laid upon us is: to become divine men and women, to become perfectly, to refuse to allow parts of ourselves to shrivel and die that have the potential for growth and fulfillment...And yet, without the possibility that God might be made flesh as a woman, through the mother and daughter, and in their relationships, no real constructive help can be offered to a woman (or a man). If the divine is absent in woman, and among women, there can be no possibility of changing."

During that pilgrimage I became conscious, for the first time in my life, that my life's journey with its tremendous challenges and hardships, with all the suffering I have had to endure, and with all the wonder, love and blessings I have experienced as well, was transforming me in order for me to remember who I am. Durga is not outside of me. She IS me in all my anger, sadness, ecstasy and bliss. And I am Her. Sometimes I feel more aligned with Her than others. Some days I cry like a child and feel like my tears will never end. Some days I embody Her and see Her in every being I meet. She is me and She is you.

"Are We Divine?" That is the most essential question of my heart and soul.

What is yours?

Essential Sexuate Difference

Sexual or Sexuate difference? Irigary has coined the term sexuate to refer to the biological differences between women and men that are not of a strictly sexual (pertaining to the sexual act) nature. What is an ethics of sexuate difference? In part, it is the recognition of the biological differences between women and men without reducing us to restrictive, oppressive and traditional notions of femininity and masculinity. It is our very sexuate differences, namely the female capacity to menstruate, to create life through birth (and if we choose, end it with abortion), and the power of the female orgasm/female sexuality that lie at the heart of female oppression and male dominance and control. However, by mentioning our obvious biological differences, some would criticize me as being essentialist. Within this viewpoint, essentialism is erroneously believed to mean that women are restricted to and defined by their biological functions of birthing and mothering, when it is quite the contrary. Instead it is an honoring, a deep recognition of the profound relationship between women’s menstrual cycles and the lunar cycle, tidal ebb and flow and agricultural cycles. It is an expression of the deep interconnection between women and the cosmos.

The hormonal reality of our female natures are essential issues. (In fact, even the biological structure of a female hormone resembles a yoni!) And yet, essentialism has become an ugly, virtually forbidden word within many feminist circles. I choose to reclaim the essence of this word and embrace and celebrate the hormonal reality of my female body.

Female biology and physiology gives women entrance into states of awareness that are not accessible to men. This does not mean that men do not and cannot have their own altered states experiences, but there needs to be a respected, female-governed space within society where strictly female biological or physiological experiences such as menstruation, the power to give (pregnancy) or take (abortion) life that shift our consciousness and deeply influence the ways we as women see and experience the world are under the control of women and not the government or even our fathers or husbands. Whether or not women choose to have children, each month we are deeply affected by our hormonal cycles. Experiencing altered states naturally opens women in ways that go beyond rational thought and logical explanations for life. Menstruation, pregnancy and birth, quintessentially female states, can heighten intuition, induce visions and premonitions, bring tremendous healing powers, and allow one to communicate with animals, and even spirits and beings from other realms. This is female power. These are some very essential sexuate differences…JAI MA.

Woman as Woman

From the time we are born the society, the culture, our families all condition us into believing we as women have essentially two potential life-style choices as adults- and both are roles in relation to men. Storybooks, films, TV shows all perpetuate this male-centered heterosexist reality: One day, girl children will grow up to become wife and mother....blah blah blah. Are we ever even asked if this is what we want??? Like the virgin/whore dichotomy set up in Christianity, the wife and mother paradigm is exclusive and limiting. While it seems obvious that women who choose to marry and/or have children are much more than that, other realms of female experience are rarely acknowledged let alone respected.

For example, you go to a party and meet someone for the first time. Trying to gauge where you fit in the social order they (male or female) will inevitably inquire about your work and, perhaps "most importantly," relationship status -are you married? Single? And if single, it is assumed you must be "looking" for a partner (presumably male). If you are married, they will want to know if you have children, and if you do not at the moment, it is assumed you will want them eventually. Those of us who do not have children will certainly be asked why we do not have children-or why we do not want children. Often these questions are posed somewhat defensively and cautiously. What kind of woman would not want to get married and have babies? All too often it is assumed that those of us that make those choices must hate men. However, how many mothers are ever asked why they CHOSE to have children?

Irigaray notes that within western patriarchy culture, women are “force(d) to make murderous choices: either mother (given that a boy child is what makes us truly mothers) or woman (prostitute and property of the male)."("Women, the Sacred and Money" in Sexes and Genaologies). Women are presented with the choice of being either this or that. Women who do not choose the patriarchal model, are, like Lilith who was exiled from the Garden of Eden for refusing to be Adam's wife and subordinate, deemed a threat to the patriarchal order. Something must be "wrong" with such women.

What about those of us who want something outside of patriarchy? To have both this and that, which is modeled within the non-dualistic Tantra tradition, is structurally prevented through our isolation, through the visible and invisible restrictions placed on women. However,some of us do not want to be mother to human children (but maybe we want to mother/create books, films, other expressions of art). Some of us do not want to become the wife, a role where we often lack societal agency. Some of us may indeed want to be a wife, but have a different definition of partnership than the one we were taught as children. We need other choices, and we must not be limited to them alone. In this culture, there is no notion of women constantly becoming, rather her identity is static, fixed, pinned to one aspect of existence.

In contrast, goddess in the Shakta Tantric and other matriarchal traditions is constantly in a state of flux. As Irigaray notes in her essay, “Divine Women”, for women, “the goal that is most valuable is to go on becoming, infinitely.” (in French Feminists on Religion, 41). When will women be able to freely be both mothers, (if they consciously choose to be), partners (rather than wife), artists, sexual beings and professionals? When can women who choose to be celibate still have their erotic energies? When will little girls grow up knowing there are thousands of models of femaleness? If she wants to marry a man and be a mother- great! If she wants to love women, wonderful. If she wants to love women and men-fabulous! If she wants to be an artist, professional, healer, mystic, _______,_________,_________ or any of infinite possible modes of female expression- then, yes! What kind of social structure would be necessary for women to be able to flourish most freely and have a structural support that encourages them to continuously evolve?

Women need to be reinstated at the center of the web of meaningful life-giving activities. We need to demand and expect nothing less than absolute wholeness, sexual and social empowerment, and a wide range of choices that allow us to continuously evolve and express our true natures. Is this some far-fetched feminist utopian notion? I do not think so. What do you think?

I Am NOT A Guy-What is Sexual/Sexuate Difference?

What is authentic female experience? How can we know when we must live, think and breathe in a patriarchal world that is dominated by the white male perspective? In the West white male as subject is taken as universal truth, while women are relegated to the status of other and object. Our female bodies-our breasts, our menstrual cycles, our yonis (vaginas), our ability to conceive if we so desire- our entires bodies have become the battleground for religious and political control. Virtually every female body part has been compartmentalized, eroticized, objectified, commercialized, exploited, feared, lusted after, abused.... Under patriarchy our choices around sexuality and reproduction are under constant threat, and in most cultures have long been controlled by misogynistic and tyrannical men.

The writings of Luce Irigaray discuss the need for a a reinterpretation of every discipline, experience, ideology, and system. Experiencing female as subject - as agent of her destiny rather than passive observer or victim is essential to the liberation of women AND men. In An Ethics of Sexual Difference Irigaray writes, "Sexual Difference is one of the major philosophical issues, if not the issue of our age....Has a worldwide erosion of the gains won in women's struggles occurred because of the failure to lay foundations different from those on which the world of men is constructed?.....A revolution in thought and ethics is needed if the work of sexual difference is to take place. We need to reinterpret everything concerning the relations between the subject and discourse, the subject and the world, the subject and the cosmic, the microcosmic and the macrocosmic. Everything, beginning with the way in which the subject has always been written in the masculine form, as MAN, even when it is claimed to be neutral or universal."

Here is one example: If language influences consciousness, how does a word like guy, which is over-used by women and men to refer to boys and girls, men and women, affect our female sense of self in this world? I am NOT a guy and yet everywhere I go I hear women referring to groups of women and girls as guys. It is so disturbing to me that I have a visceral response. My body tenses and I feel a rush of blood and energy to my breasts and yoni (vagina) as if my distinctly female body parts are screaming I AM NOT A GUY!!!

I was heartened to hear, then later read Alice Walker address this very issue:

"It has been despairing to see the ease with which women, after over thirty intense years of Feminism, have chosen to erase their gender in language by calling each other, and themselves, "guys."…. Are we saying we're content to be something most of us don't respect? Conjure up an image of a guy. What attributes does it have? Is that really you? Is this a label you gave yourself?

What does being called "guys" do to young women? To little girls?

Isn't the media responsible for making it "cute" to be a guy, as if that's all the Women's Movement was about, turning us into neutered men, into guys? For guys don't have cojones, you know. They are men, but neutered, somehow. So if you've turned in your breasts and ovaries for guyness, you've really lost out.

(See Alice Walker: We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a in a Time of Darkness, "The Pause")

The Virgin

Now that the Sun has entered the sign of Virgo, I have been thinking a lot about the virgin. What does it mean that Goddess Durga cannot be reduced to being the virgin (or the whore)? What is a virgin? I remember being a teenager and not wanting to be a virgin any longer. Having no pubescent rite of passage rituals in this culture, on an unconscious level, I think I was longing for an initiation into womanhood. But, of course, I did not know that then. All I knew is that I needed to "go all the way." And yet, would having sex with a man (or teenage boy) really truly initiate me into being a woman?!! At the age of 16 I was ashamed to have not lost my virginity. I had 'lovers', but I also had a tyrannical father, who at the age of 12, before I had even kissed a boy had already called me a slut (I had to look up the word in the dictionary!). Given his dictatorial presence, I lived in an almost constant state of fear of being caught and then grounded for the rest of my life! Nevertheless, being a virgin was, in my mind, a state of being that made me an outsider-I was not part of the 'cool girls club' because I did not have the sexual experience that I was made to believe they had.

Let me pause for a moment to reflect on the language- to lose one's virginity? LOSE?!!! Indeed, what are young women losing when they have sexual intercourse for the first time-AND how heterosexist is this whole concept?!!! A woman can only lose her virginity to a man- not to a woman, and not to herself...hmmm...so the virgin is a state of being that has to do with being in relation to man-in patriarchal consciousness. (Consider the sex trafficking of girls and the ridiculous amount of money that is paid for having sex with (raping) a 'virgin'...) In the Judeo-Christian tradition our model of virginity is Mary. It is interesting to note the patriarchal co-option of Mary's sexual and spiritual power. Although she is the Virgin Mother of Christ, Mary lacks divine status.

In the Goddess traditions the word, virgin takes on a whole other meaning. In fact, the word virgin, means WHOLE UNTO HERSELF. A woman can have sex with man or woman and remain whole. She does not lose anything. She does not give herself away. Instead sex is a ritual act. Sex is sacred. It is a celebration of the wholeness of two beings coming together in ecstatic union. Luce Irigaray writes “Virginity must be rediscovered by all women as their own bodily and spiritual possession, which can give them back an individual and collective status…becoming a virgin is synonymous with a woman’s conquest of the spiritual” (p.116-117 “How Old are You?” in je, tu, nous: Toward a Culture of Difference)

We need to reclaim the word virgin and create rituals that honor and celebrate our virginity-at all ages, whether we are sexual with another being or not. What would a woman who was truly virginal, fully complete within herself, living in and from her own center sexually, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally actually be like? What kind of changes could possibly take place in ourselves, and in the world?

Goddess Durga

Goddess Durga is a sight to behold! One hand bears the mudra, Fear not, I will protect you while Her 17 other hands hold tools and weapons to liberate us from that which binds us into thinking we are smaller and less significant than we truly are. Durga sits confidently astride Her majestic tiger, a being who reminds us of our instinctual, powerful, and playful nature. With the aid of Her devoted feline companion, Durga fearlessly rides into any situation that needs Her discriminating and severing wisdom.

Durga embodies the paradoxes of our very existence: she is both warrior and divine mother, both death bringer and creator. She defies western concepts of femininity, her presence expressing the full spectrum of the female psyche. She cannot be reduced to either virgin or whore, but rather is a complex and paradoxical divine model of female empowerment. Durga transcends patriarchal definitions of femininity as passive and submissive and masculinity as active and dominant. She is Shakti-the dynamic creative female force of unbridled power. Durga represents unabashed female embodiment. She teaches us to take up space, to love our bodies and menstrual cycles. She is a passionate lover unafraid to claim Her sexual power and channel its energies towards planetary healing and transformation.

Through Durga we may understand the complete picture of human existence: that fierceness coexists with tenderness, death walks hand in hand with life, that pain and suffering are the complementary realities of joy and ecstasy. She teaches us to confront our fears and transform life’s difficulties. She guides us toward strength and spiritual empowerment. She is the liberator of the oppressed and the marginalized. No problem is too great for Durga to solve. Durga comes to our aid when life is out of balance. However, She is always with us, in peace and in turmoil, for She is the force behind all existence.

Jai Durga Ma!

Why a Temple of Female Consciousness?

Why a Temple for Female Consciousness? What do I mean by female consciousness? (And can consciousness even be gendered? More on this in upcoming posts!)? Is this a space intended exclusively for women? No. Not at all. In fact, over the past decade of my life I have come to know an ancient spiritual tradition, the Shakta Tantra tradition of South Asia, where male and female energies are viewed as complementary, not competitive or hierarchical. These energies are experienced not only as equal, but equally vital to our existence. Shakti, the dynamic, creative animating force that permeates all existence; and Shiva, the passive, receptive, quiescent force that is the ground of all being… these beings, these forms of consciousness provide a totally different understanding of the workings of the world and what is possible. Over the coming months, those of you who visit this Temple of Female Consciousness, will, hopefully, experience this other reality. Each entry will be a journey into the temple of my soul, into the luminous as well as shadowy souls of others, and countless sacred sites and realms of consciousness. We will begin with Goddess Durga, Goddess of Invincible Strength, Remover of Fear and Difficulty. The quintessential role model of Female Consciousness. This is Her Temple. And we will pay homage to Her very soon….