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The Power of the Divine Feminine in a Dark Time, Part 4: The Way of Yin

THE WAY OF YIN
The Divine Feminine comes in many forms – from the subtle to the overt, from the form to the formless. She is everything that is form and beyond. My song The Birth of Lakshmi illustrates how Lakshmi, the goddess of matter, arises out of the waters of pure consciousness to come into form. The traditional Sanksrit chant Sri Mahishasuramardini Stotram narrates the story of the warrior goddess Durga who draws her sword to slay a demon and keep cosmic balance. The traditional Sanskrit chant 108 Names of Parvati Devi celebrates the goddess in all her various forms. She is everything and nothing. She is eternal and temporal.
I called my recent show YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub for a specific reason. Not only is YIN an acronym for Yoga In the Nightclub, but the word also references feminine power. The show celebrates the divine feminine, so this is fitting. YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub celebrates the Divine Feminine in all her aspects, be it the oceanic goddess Lakshmi, the compassionate mother in my song Lokah, or the fierce Parvati and warrior Durga. We tend to think of yin as soft, and in our culture, this is often associated with weakness. But the power of yin is very deep and beyond what we yet understand in our culture. It is deep within the inner knowing in women. We can liberate this as we educate ourselves on the value it has.
It is no surprise to me that we tend to culturally admire yang more than yin energies globally. We value productivity, willpower and exertion. We tend to take from the Earth what we can, without considering giving back. Just as we seem to praise the sun while calling the moon “fickle”, we like to think of the feminine as somehow not as good as the male.
Yet the power of softness, yielding, openness, is what great spiritual masters ultimately teach. There is no black belt martial artist who can master his craft if he does not embody yin as well as yang. If we can learn to soften, open, receive, listen and commune, it seems to me many wars would be prevented, lives would be saved and our world would be a far happier and healthier place.
Both men and women can go inside and trust these yin qualities. Women can easily access them, as they are part of their makeup. We can learn that there is a deeper power, greater than pushing and conquering. Women hold within their biology the power of a revolution. But this power does not come from fighting, rather, from a profound surrender to the force of nature and life itself.