Once upon a time, in a land of endless fire, a woman’s sovereign form flew hard and fast through the sky, through the night, through the dawn, through the noon-day sun, through orange fields of licking heat with indomitable blue centers.
Durga was born with a quest of gigantic magnitude. To slay the most dangerous, the most undefeated, the most eruptive demon you can imagine. A water buffalo of immense size, strength, and indestructibility.
And a huge blind streak.
I hate to tell you about Durga’s enemy, whose name was Mahisasura.
You might at first be fooled because Mahisasura has a bottomless kind of craving for life that we sometimes sum up with “Carpe Diem!”. But hold up! It is the kind of life that enslaves rather than liberates you. The more you grab for, the more numb you become, the more immediate pleasure you experience and then crave AGAIN , the less you will feel.
And though we all might distance ourselves from this particular demon’s metaphorical indulgences, there is life-squashing poison in its never-enough, loops of craving that only leads to more craving and confusion.
Another related problem is that while we will likely be able to see Mahishisha in others (in great detail) –we will neglect to identify all the places where the nasty spirit has visited not just them but us.
The times when we lose sense of what we care about most and the bigger picture.
Enter Durga.
Durga is the reality of time riding by with her thousand choices. There’s a reason she strikes a pose atop her lusciously pawed tiger, a growling container for our basest selves, leaping through grassy meadows and clouds of stars faster than you just blinked. Durga’s the last chance, every minute, to ride atop rather than chase your primal tiger, to change your course by acknowledging where you might have taken –and where you still might take-the right action. The edge of each second and I’ll just say, you know it when you are in it. Hint: It sucks.
If Durga, had a tagline it would be one word. And my guess is that word will surprise you.
Durga is judgy. But before you get your back up, you really should thank her for it. She’s the kind of judgy not at all about how your living room hasn’t been vacuumed and a lot more about the kind of places where you are making dangerous choices that have nothing to do with living in accordance with your soul’s deepest hunger, which is what will matter to you at the end of your days.