Welcome to this guided meditation for exploring the experience of disappointment and despair through the archetype of the goddess Dhumavati,
Whose name means the smoky one.
She is a goddess from the Hindu shakta tantra tradition that has been around since about the 12th century.
In this meditation we will let her teach us about the value of being in a place of disappointment,
Loss,
Despair,
Grief,
And even non-being.
This is an excellent meditation to practice if you are grieving,
If your identity is going through a major shift,
If you're in a time of illness,
Loss,
Death,
Or even facing the end of your own life.
Dhumavati is also the quintessential widow,
So if you have lost your spouse,
She is a very helpful goddess to connect to.
These are dark experiences,
But they are true experiences of a human life.
Dhumavati is here to help us navigate them.
To prepare for this meditation,
You may like to light a candle and have a journal and pen handy.
Settle into your seat,
Whatever it needs to look like today,
And close or soften your eyes.
Acknowledge the land that you are on and your relationship with this land.
Take a moment to consider your people,
Where they're from,
What traditions you were born into.
If,
Like me,
You are not from India and didn't grow up with these traditions,
Take a moment to acknowledge that,
That there may be pieces you and I don't understand or can't share,
But it is with an intention of learning and respect that we come to these stories and ideas.
And now we will imagine Dhumavati.
This goddess is supremely ugly.
She is old and thin,
The wrinkled skin,
Dirty clothes,
Maybe missing a few teeth.
She sometimes rides on the back of a crow and pulls an empty carriage behind her.
She likes to spend time at the cremation grounds and her skin is pale and ashy.
She lives at the edges of society.
She's not always someone that people will go to,
If given the choice.
One of her hands carries a broom and another a winnowing basket.
Another hand is held in the gesture of gift-giving and the last of her four hands is in the gesture of wisdom.
It is said that she was born of the smoke from the funeral pyre.
Imagine this figure in your mind.
See her before you,
Inviting you into this bare scene of loss,
Hunger,
And death.
But notice also that she offers gifts.
She is sometimes described as tender-hearted and she holds wisdom far beyond her foreboding looks.
Her winnowing basket is able to set Her winnowing basket is able to separate the wheat from the chaff,
To discern what's real and what's not real.
Her crow is a harbinger of death,
Maybe,
But it's also a very wise animal that can fly and speak languages and understand things beyond what we can see with our human eyes.
The key to working with Dhumavati is not to look past her,
To really be with the pain she represents.
Shaktatantra is a non-dual perspective,
Which means it does not see God or Goddess as separate from us or anything else.
Everything that exists,
Every experience,
Every experience,
No matter how difficult,
Is an expression of the ultimate power of Shakti,
The Goddess.
She has plenty of beautiful and auspicious manifestations,
But she has fierce ones as well,
Like this one,
Dhumavati.
This Goddess reminds us of the numinous quality of despair and disappointment,
That Goddess is here just as clearly as she is anywhere else.
And so we witness.
Observe this image of Dhumavati in your mind.
Notice what it brings up in your body.
As you observe her,
Observe yourself too.
What are you feeling in your body?
What thoughts,
Images,
Or memories are coming up to your mind?
Notice if there's fear.
Observe that too.
Let it all be present without needing to do anything in particular about it.
Witnessing has its own medicine.
Rest within that witnessing.
Take your time.
If tears or rage or words come,
Let them come.
If nothing comes,
Let it be nothing.
It all matters.
And we'll come back to the tender-hearted quality of Dhumavati.
Let her see you in this moment of despair that we all share from time to time.
Remember that she is everything.
Yes,
She is loss,
Pain,
And hopelessness,
But she's also beauty,
Hope,
And growth.
She is everything.
She is Shakti,
And so are you.
You contain all possibilities within you,
Even right now.
One of those possibilities is nothing,
Non-being.
That's a part of it too.
Witness that too.
Take your time being with Dhumavati.
She's not always easy to be with.
When you feel complete in this meditation,
Don't forget to thank her.
Honor her for the gift she brings.
Bow deeply in gratitude and humility to her power,
To her wisdom,
To her tender heart.
And when you are ready to come back to your world,
You may like to spend some time journaling about this experience.
Thank you for listening.
