Transformation Magazine: Healing Through the Divine Mother

TRANSFORMATION MAGAZINE (USA) November, 2012
HEALING THROUGH THE DIVINE MOTHER
By Parvati Devi
I have always felt a strong connection to the Earth, to Nature as a whole and to unseen energies. I am by far not alone in this. Many are acutely aware that our planet, a living organism, is now going through a healing that affects us all, because we are literally part of her.
During the summer of 2010, while I was living in Toronto, Canada, the unusually hot weather patterns led me to cancel my pending Asian music tour and, by September of that same year, travel to the North Pole to raise awareness of the quickly melting polar ice caps. At the top of the world I performed and shot video for four of my songs as the northernmost performer ever to help raise awareness of our planetary interconnection, our need for conscious awakening and our ecological responsibility.
At the North Pole, in gratitude to our Mother Earth, I did energy work and puja for the planet, chanting the Sri Lalita Sahasranamavali (the Thousand Names of the Divine Mother), an ancient Sanskrit chant. I prayed with all my heart and said to the Earth, “Mother, I know you are suffering. If I can help alleviate your burden, take anything on, let me know.” And that was that.
PRAYERS ARE ALWAYS ANSWERED
We never know how our prayers will be answered, but they always are. On March 11, 2011, before I learned that a tsunami had devastated Japan, I got up to walk downstairs to my meditation room after an unusually turbulent night’s sleep, to find my pelvis knocked off kilter and my legs numb and not fully functioning.
Soon thereafter, mind-altering pain shot suddenly and violently through my spine. My mind went blank from sheer trauma. Paralyzed from the waist down, I would remain fully bedridden for three months, unable to move for even the most basic functions. Doctors at the hospital insisted I had been in a car accident, but I repeatedly said there had been no physical impact. After an ominous diagnosis of a damaged spine and spinal cord, I was given a 50-50 chance of dancing again, and spinal surgery was recommended.
In my core, I did not believe that surgery was the way for my healing. Sent home, I dove deeply into myself and surrendered to the divine in a way I had never done before. Other than a couple of friends who carried me weekly on a spine board for healing visits to a gifted biodynamic osteopath, I told no one of my situation. Deep inside my inner healing cave I went.
KARMA FAST FORWARD: NATURE HEALS
What followed was a rearranging of everything I knew. For me, this was a time of “karma fast forward”, where I was challenged to let go of that which no longer served and learn to absolutely trust a higher power for everything – even the basics we take for granted, like walking.
In order to heal, my intuition said I needed to be willing to see my current physical body and the state it was in as a reflection of my limited state of consciousness, which is temporary and imperfect. I needed to find gratitude for this situation and receive it as grace. I needed to be willing to suspend judgment of how healing occurs and enter into a field of utter possibility, that is, sensing that all of reality is plastic, malleable and guided by the immense and perfect force of Nature, which is beyond understanding.
After months of cultivating these attitudes in intensive meditative surrender and trust, slowly a miracle occurred: movement returned to my toes, legs, then hips. After learning to roll on my stomach from side to side then push myself up to crawl, by June 1, 2011, I stood again for the first time since the injury.
In the months that followed through the summer of 2011, I had to learn to put one foot in front of the other in a whole new way. As soon as I tried to “do” something that was directed by my mind, I was cattle-prodded by searing pain through my spine and had to stop. The universe had put blinkers on my psyche and the only way I could move was to deeply listen to an inner impulse that arose from within my body. This impulse rose like a wave through my being and movement effortlessly followed. I did not feel like “I” was doing anything. I did not understand what was happening, but I knew this was working and there was no bargaining with an omniscient power that was clearly in charge.
“YIN: YOGA IN THE NIGHTCLUB” CHANTS FOR THE DIVINE MOTHER
As soon as I was able to sit for any period of time, I moved into my music studio to create new material in praise of the Divine Mother. The album and show I now tour was born: “YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub”, songs that combine dance grooves and lush electronic soundscapes, featuring traditional Sanskrit chants.
As I wrote, engineered, produced and arranged the tracks, I was literally brought to my knees again and again. Not only was I being affected by the vibrational potency of the ancient Sanskrit chants; exactly a year previous, I was in bed, in agony, with a severe spinal injury. At worst, the creative process felt like taking dictation. At best, I was dancing with the divine through sound.
WE ARE ONE EARTH FAMILY
The lessons I experienced from the healing journey are many and profound. We literally are the planet. When the Earth cries, so do we. When she moves, so do we. We are carried by an inexplicable force that moves through our cells, that animates our souls, that keeps us alive. Love and devotion do not require us to take another’s pain on. We are already connected. The choices one person makes already affects the whole.
Nature loves us in a way we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend it because it is not of our ego-mind, which knows only to divide and separate. By surrendering to Nature’s intelligence, I was called on the North Pole journey. By surrendering to Nature, I was also healed and experienced what doctors call “a medical miracle”.
Through the injury, I saw how even the impulse to move is grace, a force beyond will. We think we are the doers, but the “me” does nothing. Grace always is, moving through us, even when we don’t see it. We think ourselves as divided, but we are literally one.
We each express our own unique flow in this world, and exist within an intelligent whole that unconditionally supports us. Healing only happens in the state of absolute surrender and trust in the whole. When we think “we” are healing, we interfere. There is no doing. Because of the grace of free will, we can amplify or interfere with Nature’s communication pathways.
Nature will keep on creating and evolving, with or without us. It does not need our “help”. It needs our respect and service. It needs us to listen more deeply and receive the beauty that already is. To be truly in service, we need to learn to get out of the way, and live in humility.
I saw from my journey to the North Pole, and from the healing that followed, that we must reverentially get out of Nature’s way in order to fully thrive as spiritual beings in this material world. We are the planet and she is our Divine Mother.


BIOGRAPHY
Canadian musician/yogi/activist Parvati encourages those who listen to her music and attend her shows and workshops to believe in the revolutionary notion of possibility.
In the fall of 2010, Parvati travelled to the North Pole where she became the northernmost musical performer ever, to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice. Following the popularity of her active blog, she launched Parvati Magazine to support conscious evolution.
Spearheaded by her independent hit “Yoga in the Nightclub”, Parvati is touring her show “YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub” through the UK summer 2013, inspiring audiences to find the Divine everywhere.
While on tour, she also teaches workshops on YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. For more on Parvati, please visit www.parvati.world.