I’m sure by now, some of you have noticed that Uma, the goddess who is all of the goddesses (as is Kali but in a different way), is, at least when transliterated, an acronym for Aum.
I am looking forward to February’s meeting of the Willow Street Book Club this coming Sunday, where we will be discussing David Frawley’s, Spiritual Secrets of Ayurveda: Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddess. Especially since many of us will likely have been to hear some or all of Professor Douglas Brooks’ discussion of the great goddesses last weekend, the meeting promises to be full of lively, thoughtful, and insight-provoking discussion.
One of the things I have been pondering on this latest read is how I can fully imbibe the wisdom that is offered with the imagery and stories of the goddesses, without getting caught up in being troubled from a feminist perspective. Many yoga practitioners I know rely on the call in the texts to worship the “goddess” as a way of saying that women are not diminished in the classic texts. My conundrum is that when one looks at the texts and the images about the goddesses, all the stereo-typical notions of beauty and youth are inextricably intertwined. Like the Western fairy tales I gobbled up in my youth and their entrancing but insidiously prejudicial archetypes, the sweet, loving, desirable goddesses are the young and fair; the fierce and powerful goddesses are the ugly crones.
I woke up this morning remembering. How could I not? People all over the world are remembering and thinking about the events of 9/11 and how they changed the course of global society.
And yesterday morning I woke up at my friend’s house in the East Bay to the news of the explosion in San Bruno. Even as we enjoyed the city and got together with another friend, the frightening and intense tragedy going on just a few miles away was not far from my mind. How is it that but for having read the news, we would not even have known?
This morning we will be going to hike in Muir Woods. I will be embracing nature and friendship, but still remembering. It is, I think, by loving and embracing life to the fullest that we can remember and have the most strength and will to offer of ourselves and move towards a more compassionate existence, and I think that is the true teaching of the tantric yoga.
What are you doing today? How are you sharing your memories and your dreams? What are you doing to help make the changes you wish to see in the world? I am asking myself these questions even as I am sharing them.
On my way to a weekend in Philadelphia to attend a weekend yoga asana workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh, I left the house an hour early and stopped at the people’s Filibuster.
