Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – Complete links/Writing Process

The Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) is complete. Below this article you will find the links to all the posts in the series.

As TheLightweaver, I coach folks to write. Some details on how I wrote the series:

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 12 (No Visarjan/Sa Ham)

The tenth day, Dashami used to bring tears to my eyes. For in the Eastern myths, this was the day Mother left Earth and returned to Mount Kailash. For me, Her coming to Earth and leaving was real. I used to be sad and lost on this day, refusing to look at the images of Mother being immersed. In the last few years, this sadness became intensified post-Diwali/Kali Puja. After

the completion of the many celebrations of the Goddesses, I felt I had no one with me. The depressive cycle became intense.

This sense of powerlessness was because I had externalized Mother and cast Her in a story where the Divine with all Her formidable qualities came and left Earth. I was and remained a vulnerable not-good-enough human stuck to Earth.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 11 (La Que Sabe/The Woman Who Knows)

These paintings are compiled by Babu T.N. Mukherji here

In some communities in the South, today is the day of Saraswati, the Goddess who symbolizes the act and art of learning and knowing.

We each are La Que Sabe, the Woman who Knows. Yet we spend a lifetime not believing and owning that.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 10 (The Battle that Isn't)

Today is Mahaashtami. In the myths, the battle enters its fiercest stage. Nine forms of Durga emerge and weapons that Mother carries astound. Today is also the day, Kali does her work with the tough demons.

Yes, fight fiercely when you are attacked, when your life and lives of your loved ones are threatened. Fight when your assets and livelihood are threatened. Fight when you can’t move freely and can’t access what you need to.

But what if in your mind you are always in a battlefield?

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 9 (Equation with Money)

It is said that Goddess Durga reached Earth on Shashti along with her four children – Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh and Karthik. I will focus on Lakshmi today.

Women internalize one of the two social messages about material prosperity, depending on their family contexts. The first of which is – the source of material prosperity is a man and through marriage with a prospering man they attain it.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 8 (Land Dreams to Earth)

From Pinterest here and perhaps originally from here

Today is Shasthi. As per cultural beliefs, today is the day Goddess Durga reaches Earth. It is time for some of us to reach Earth too.

We are encouraged to dream big, dream the impossible, dream for anything in any world. Active dreaming is a powerful act which opens up many channels of our brain; dreams (as in ‘I want to do that’) are powerful anchors that help us move from feelings of despair and inaction. I believe elaborate and deliberate dreaming can be a resourceful anchor located in the future like how trauma is a unresourceful anchor located in the past.

And indeed, for some of us who are tied down to realities in a gristly cynical way, dreaming can feel as a liberating force.

The problem is not with dreaming. The problem is we don’t work on refining dreams and making it a reality. We are encouraged to dream but we remain unskilled in the art of making it real.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 7 (Battles are in our Mind)

Photo by Rupam Sarma

The Goddess is celebrated for her triumph over the demon-king in the battle. I know there are many sociological counterpoints to the story detailed in Devi Bhagwat Puran and mythologists and scholars butt head over underlying assumptions.

Leave that aside.

As per the story from this source, the Goddess appeared in the outskirts of the capital city of the Demon King, bedecked, armed and roaring. That the demons who saw Her reported what they saw to the King. The King decided he had to possess her.

From that moment, the battle started.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 6 (she is She)

You are She, she is also She. The woman next to you is She.

I often hear remarks about women hurting women. I have written about it before in Painting a Suncatcher Together. I will reiterate the reasons why women do so.

Sa Ham -I am She (2017 series) – 5 (Identification)

It is easier said than done – I am She. For this reason – we don’t do the process of identification or what, in NLP terms, is called association.

Here are the things that we do instead when we worship Her. We bathe and wear new clothes. During Durga Puja in Bengal, men and women wear fine clothes to give arati, especially the Ashtami arati (eighth day offering). Pre or Post arati you look around to check who is wearing what. What has happened is you have anchored the Puja with wearing fine clothes that others will appreciate.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 4 (Unconditional Love/Heal from Shame)

Photograph by Arnab Dutta (Wikimedia Commons)

Heard this phrase “unconditional love”? Many talk about it, some yearn for it, some say they received it from someone or in some form, some say they can give it. However, all those who talk about unconditional love have experienced conditional love.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) -3 (The Battle)

From A Journey Around My Skulls (Wikimedia Commons)

Is Mother a sexual harassment survivor?

The battle of the Goddess and the demons is unlike other battles. It is not for a kingdom or lands or honour. It is about the right to choose and the right to be. It is a battle that we women are intimately familiar with.

The demons assumed Mother would marry their Demon-Lord. When she refused to kowtow and instead challenged their king, the Lord sent his men to force her into submission. The more his side lost, the angrier the Lord became till he stepped into the battlefield for the culminating fight. The Goddess triumphed.

Would you call this battle as sexual harassment? Would you call Mother as sexual harassment victim or perhaps survivor?

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series) – 2 (Dashabhuja)

The beautiful Goddess Durga has ten arms. Each arm carries a weapon. As a child, I wondered why she needed ten weapons when she finally strikes the demon with the lower end of the trishul. She is said to carry the conch, thunderbolt, mace, sudarshan chakra, snake, flame, half-bloomed lotus, sword, bow and arrows.

Post-NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), I understand the complexity of Dashabhuja. As we journey from birth to death, we are faced with different challenges and emotional blocks. Whether it is while we dream, to work to make dreams a reality, or just be and grow, these challenges and blocks impede us.

Sa Ham – I am She (2017 series)—1 (Akaalbodhan)

This beautiful image of Goddess Lalitha is made by Prof Neelima of Tirupati and worshipped for two decades. Recently she gifted Her to me and now resides in my altar.

In the first research paper I worked on back in 2003, titled as this series, I examined the disconnect between Goddess-woman and Human-woman.  That in people’s minds (women and men) there was a difference between Devi and the woman in the streets/home. One researcher noted that the worship of Devi was mediated by the male priest in most occasions and that women were not considered pure and auspicious enough to do the rituals for Her. This mediation distanced women from the Devi.

I decided to eliminate the distance and learnt the puja process and how to do homa. And during the learnings, I discovered the brilliant psychology behind these rituals and how it can empower us women.