Last month I shared some ideas with you I’ve had concerning how to reinvent yourself. I realized how completely appropriate this theme is to help set the energy for the coming year.
I talked about how you may have reached a point that you realize you’ve held an image of yourself, whether it was conscious or unconscious, positive or negative, that has been limiting you from your highest expression of your true Self. You’ve decided you can and want to change that self-image. So, how do you do that? Replace it with a new one!
The image that I’ve decided to use to replace any limiting ideas I may have held of myself feels very expansive: the Divine Feminine.
I can infuse Her with all the attributes I would want the Divine Feminine to have; kind of a mix of Mother Mary, Quan Yin (goddess of Compassion), and the Egyptian goddess, Selket, who watched over the spirit of Tutankhamun: loving, kind, beautiful, soft, strong, playful and fun, creative, elegant, constant, supple, sensual, joyful, sexual, nurturing, wise, passionate, intelligent, prosperous, creative, expressive, open-hearted, constant, powerful, grounded, centered, patient, intuitive, compassionate, protective, nothing to prove-just be, and present, just to name a few.
My Divine Feminine would also have the attributes of Kali, the Dark Mother, Goddess of Time (Creation, Change, Preservation, Destruction) and Empowerment. She is the Fearful Goddess with a Heart of a Mother in the Hindu religion. Devotees have a very loving intimate bond with her, in spite of her fearful appearance. Here is some information I found online about Kali by Subhamoy Das.
“Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world’s deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, “fear not”! She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as a necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing. Her tongue protrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.
• Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature. Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: “Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her”.
• Her nudity is primeval, fundamental, and transparent like Nature — the earth, sea, and sky. Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or “false consciousness.”
• Kali’s garland of fifty human heads that stands for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes infinite knowledge.
• Her girdle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma.
• Her white teeth show her inner purity, and her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature — “her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world’s ‘flavors’.”
• Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bonds that bind us.
• Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali (‘Kala’ in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator of Tantrik texts, Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, “Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness.”
• Kali’s proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or “Pancha Mahabhuta” come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death.
• The reclined Shiva lying prostrate under the feet of Kali suggests that without the power of Kali (Shakti), Shiva is inert.”
My Proclamation for the New Year
In choosing to hold the space (to be a vessel, a channel) for the Divine Feminine, I fully acknowledge my responsibility for my thoughts, emotions, and actions. I am working in every moment to be conscious of my limiting, core beliefs and to cut away evil (lack of life) from my consciousness and life as Kali would.
In order for me to do that, I must be honest with myself about my ego limitations and separate out what has been programmed in since birth, irrational beliefs that I developed when I was young and reinforced throughout my life, along with those genetically passed on from my ancestors.
I know that there have been, are, and will be times that I will forget and lose myself in the world and the old image my ego would try to force on me. I must be as compassionate and non-judgmental as I can remember to be with myself as I release the old habitual, limiting thoughts, pictures, and beliefs, both conscious and unconscious.
I understand the importance of and with full willingness ask God and my Guides to help me remember to be compassionate with myself and others through this sacred, creative unfolding. Also, I understand this is a process that will last throughout my life and I must trust and be patient with myself and the process.
I invoke the unconditional love, beauty, grace and infinite power of the Divine Feminine and claim it as my own. I am a light in the darkness and a way shower to others in channeling and sharing the light and the word of love to the world.
Remember and live your passion.
Happy Holidays! Maren Nelson