I am making room for the unstoppable force. It is not an idea, a vision born of my mind, for that is made of thoughts which are temporal and passing. It is not a passion that churns in my heart, nor a voice that yearns to be heard as it echoes through time. It is not an itch that only wants to be scratched, nor a restless desire that seeks to be fulfilled. It is no longing that swells in my soul as I hope and dream, nor a call that drives my moods and actions. The unstoppable force is that which already is and can be changed by no will of my own. It is now and forever, born and unseen, present and unchanging. It exists through all, yet has no form. To identify with form is to attempt to contain it. It rises through my spine like a volcanic heat that runs through a corridor of dispassion. It is witness to the suffering of the world, at one with the pain, the beauty, the sorrow and the bliss of life and untouched by it all. It asks nothing and is made of no thing. Yet it creates, destroys and sustains all I know and beyond. My passions, thoughts, visions and ideas – all the…
Hello friends, As you read this, I will be in Marlborough, MA spending time with my guru Amma on Her Boston tour stop. By Grace, I also got to see Her in Chicago. If you are in New England and can get to the Boston area this evening, I invite you to join me at the free Devi Bhava program beginning at 7pm. The “Yoga in the Nightclub” video preview party at Lee’s Palace was a wonderful event. I loved getting to sing in my hometown for the first time since my US and UK tours, and seeing the performances of the talented cast and crew. It was also great to see the thrilled reaction of the crowd to the preview screening of the “Yoga in the Nightclub” video. We ended up showing it twice on the big screen because people wanted to see it again! Ameerah Sakina and Lisa Cherry both won free admission for themselves and a friend for sharing the event on Facebook. Thank you! Here are some shots from my performance that night. I also have some exciting news to share on a personal front. My long-time partner Rishi Deva and I will have the great blessing of being married by Amma at the end of Her Toronto programs. Please…
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…
THE POWER OF A WOMAN’S BODY I feel very blessed to be a woman, even though I have not always felt that way. I have found it hard to accept that in the West in subtle ways and overtly in many places in the world, women are treated as less than men. I believe that cultures have feared throughout his-story a sacred power within a woman’s body. I also believe that both men and women misunderstand and mistrust it even today. A woman’s body has a sacred tie to the Earth. Within women there is an essential force that serves to keep life in balance. This energy is not limited to women per se, as men too may be in touch with it. But women must make peace with it to be at peace with their physical incarnation. The planet is our mother who gives and sustains our life. The Earth makes it possible for us to live on this planet. Just like an infant is dependant on its mother to survive, so too we are dependent on our mother Earth. A woman’s body is uniquely tied to the cycles of the moon, planets and cosmos through our menstrual cycles. Just like the ocean’s tides flow in and out, as though the ocean were breathing, so…
RECLAIMING THE DIVINE FEMININE (Continued from The Power of the Divine Feminine in a Dark Time) I had already moved from Montreal in 1989 when the Polytechnique shootings happened. I remember thinking from my Toronto home that it could have been me that was shot and killed that day. I was like those 14 young women, ambitious engineering students who had followed their path to higher education. But unlike them, I had chosen to study at the University of Waterloo. I was in the school of Architecture, which was at that time, and may still be (I honestly don’t know), very much an old boys club. I allowed the energy of that clan to deeply affect the way I felt about myself. Fed up with being a topic of conversation for my long blonde hair and bold attitude, I found myself soon with a shaved head, flirting with the idea of same sex relationships and unconsciously desiring to be more like a man. Needless to say, I became sick every month as an unexplored rage at being was pumping through my body in the form of extremely dysfunctional menstrual cycles. I hated being a woman. For much of my life, being a woman has felt unsafe. I have been subject to two overt physical assaults, one…
As the sun moves further away from the Earth, and the days grow even shorter, this weekend, December 6, marks a somber anniversary of the 1989 Polytechnique shootings and caps off 16 Days of Activism on Gender Violence. This blog entry and the ones subsequent will touch upon violence against women in the context of the need for greater respect for the feminine principle that exists in both men and women. Days marked for remembrance, be they for the tragedy of the Polytechnique, or days like Mother’s Day and International Women’s Day, help us take pause and remember the value of the women in our lives and give thanks. In so doing, hopefully, we become more aware of the important role women play in society through our understanding of health, nature, spirituality and culture as a whole. Each day of remembrance is like a mindfulness meditation chime that rings in the midst of our sitting practice – a sonic moment that pulls us from indifference into greater awareness. With practice, we learn to live every day with the broader awareness we may experience on these “special” days. No one is untouched by the love of a woman. All of human life emerges from her body. Whether or not our relationship with our biological mother was close…
Hello Friends, Typically, the week of a Parvati Magazine launch, I don’t write a blog entry. But I have been a bit delinquent with my entries to you. So despite the latest issue of Parvati Magazine being now live – go check it out!! – I wanted to share a bit of my heart and my creative process over the last couple of months with you here. As you know, I have been immersed in the world of sound, creating my album “YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub”, which I hope you have had a chance to listen to, and perhaps enjoy as much as I do. If not, please take a listen to it at Yoga in the Nightclub. As I wrote, engineered, produced, arranged and mixed the tracks (and the mix polish process with the talented sound engineer Carl Gardiner in the U.K.), I was literally brought to my knees again and again. There was something powerfully different about this particular album for me. At first, I thought, perhaps it was the short window of time I had to create it. But that did not feel right. Then my audio engineer friend Carl suggested that perhaps it was the typical ‘second album angst’ that seems to plague most bands and artists.…
Dear friends, I am still immersed in the world of sound as I get ready for this Friday’s album launch. I thought I would share with you a few of the tracks that will be on the new “YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub” album. Yoga In The Nightclub New Tracks by ParvatiDevi Hope to see you this Friday evening at the Yoga Sanctuary! Jai Ma, Parvati
Hello Friends, As you may know, I am in the thick of the creative process finalizing my new album. This album is a nod of gratitude to the yoga community for the support I have received over the years, and of recognition of my deep spiritual roots there. The album uses my independent hit single “Yoga In the Nightclub” as a point of departure. The album includes traditional Sanskrit chants, original pop songs, anthemic dance tracks and expansive, spacious soundscapes that allow listeners to rest in the lap of the Divine. The creative theme for the album is “Songs to the Divine Mother”, an expression of gratitude to my guru Amma. The release party is fittingly on Mother’s Day weekend, at 8pm on Friday May 11 at the Yoga Sanctuary at 2 College Street (at Yonge). All ages are welcome, and kids under 6 are free. Advance tickets are available at my online store Positive Possibilities. There will be an early bird special, so make sure you order yours early. Full details will be on my websites soon. I hope to see you all there! I feel like I am in a creative cave as I create sounds to produce songs in my music studio. For me, it is a fully engrossing process. A friend from Montreal is in from Toronto and asked me to come to his…