Welcome! this is the text from my first live meditation on Insight Timer. I wanted to share the info - which you’ll also find in my upcoming book Yin Magic.
I guided our meditators through half an hour guided story journey as a way to experience/meet the goddess - Akhilandeshvari.
Story journey, or guided meditation is a way to connect with a few of the elements that these incarnations of the divine feminine. This is a practice that I experienced a lot when I was training to be a priestess of the goddess at the Glastonbury goddess temple. And can be a different experience for us all, maybe you feel some kind of connection with the goddess, maybe you feel inspired, maybe you feel perhaps you learn a little something, maybe this representation of the goddess is one you find presents challenges that you are working with, you may find this practice just a little time to take a break from your day, all of these are valid and valuable.
Like fairy tales, like folklore there are ideas and stories that run the world over in our collective unconscious that I think are often embodied within goddess imagery.
In our journey, we met the Image of a goddess stands upon a crocodile upon a rushing river;
Akhilandeshvari, from Hindu culture.
Ishvari in Sanskrit means goddess, queen or female power, and Akhilanda has a variety of Sanskrit translations such as "a collection of things" and "scattered pieces" but popular goddess translations have turned this into the enigmatic "never not broken."
This goddess is a representation of change and loss. When we experience extreme emotions or trauma we may describe ourselves as "going to pieces" or "falling apart." And so, this interpretation of the goddess who is “never not broken” is born.
Her history has deep roots. She is a goddess from the ancient Hindu texts. But what Akhilandeshvari really wants you to know; is that her power is not from being whole, but from being broken: from the pulling apart, like an atom that is split, releasing energy in what we call nuclear fission. The yin and yang of Akhilandeshvari is here breaking apart and coming together. From this her power, is created.
And there is a goddess from Hindu mythology that teaches us that, in this moment, with these scattered pieces, as we rebuild, you are more powerful than you’ve ever been. Exactly as you are right now.
Life is constant flux and change, just like our goddess (and ourselves). Impermanence is the truth and of the human condition. Embracing it in can be the key to finding ease. This is a truth we may know in our minds but tend to resist in our hearts, Change is a constant in life, yet we long for the predictable reassurance that comes from things remaining the same.
The thing about going through sudden change is that it can destroy, for a time, our future: the story of our lives we had created in our minds about how things would unfold. What Akhilandeshvari offers us is the possibility and power of our choices from these broken pieces and uncertainty. Times, when we are shifting and unfolding in new ways, are a powerful opportunity to decide how we want to put ourselves back together.
This unknowing is an incredible teacher— no one has it all figured out; there is always a need to learn.
The goddess reminds us that with every new shiny wholeness we create, we will, one day, break apart once more and put ourselves together again in a perpetual cycle of life.
But don't despair! In our brokenness, we are unlimited. We have the strength and ability to break, re-create and rebuild ourselves over and over.
Akhilandeshvari helps us to grow, to transform, to heal and to mend. She shows us how to move with motion of life, the impermanence of reality, the flowing waters of the river, and the rhythm of nature, having a trust in ourselves that we will once again come together become a perfectly imperfect wholeness.
Namaste. x