Monday Music: Song of Celebration in India

Navaratri: Hindu Festival to the Mother Goddess

[Note: this blog post is being simultaneously posted today on The Music of the Spheres a new blog site dedicated to music]

In 2014, Navaratri starts on September 25 and lasts until October 3. Navaratri is the Hindu festival of nine nights dedicated to the glorification of Shakti, the feminine form of the Divine. The first three nights are dedicated to the goddess of action and energy. Her different manifestations -- Kumari, Parvati and Kali are worshiped during these days.

During Navaratri, we invoke the energy aspect of God in the form of the universal mother, commonly referred to as " Durga ," which literally means the remover of miseries of life. She is also referred to as "Devi" (goddess) or "Shakti" (energy or power). It is this energy, which helps God to proceed with the work of creation, preservation and destruction. In other words, you can say that God is motionless, absolutely changeless, and the Divine Mother Durga, does everything. Truly speaking, our worship of Shakti re-confirms the scientific theory that energy is imperishable. It cannot be created or destroyed. It is always there. (From  "Navaratri: The 9 Divine Nights" at http://hinduism.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/navaratri.htm)

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Hope Is Reborn Every Spring

Myth runs deeply in any culture, even down to the very core where collective memories are held which individual minds have all but forgotten. How else can you explain the joy of Easter? In the Bible Belt of the Deep South, even conservative fundamentalists seem to have no qualms about celebrating a holiday named after the Great Mother Goddess of Northern Europe, Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). Even though the holiday was given Christian trappings centuries ago, the term "Easter" is nowhere to be found in the Bible. Easter is, after all, associated with the vernal equinox as was the ancient rite of the Mother Goddess, whose name the holiday still bears. This makes sense to us as we live within the natural rhythms of the earth. When we begin to see new life arising all around us, and we feel the chill of winter letting go, we naturally feel the hope of new life deep within us. 

The heart celebrates; the mind later tries to give meaning to the experience. It is only natural that the greatest hope that Christianity has to offer would become inexorably linked with the greatest blessing the earth has to give.

Years ago, I wrote a poem relating one Easter experience. It was something I had wanted to write about and finally found the vehicle to present it when I began writing about a snow day. As we are emerging from a cold winter, looking ahead to Easter, may the memories expressed here color your expectation as you wait. 

Southern Snowfall

                       

It was one of those rare days

When all the conditions were right

And a bright soft snow fell

All day long.

Everything was covered in beauty.

Unneeded activity came to a halt.

No hurry.

A wonderful quiet in the city.

All is well.

It will last a day (two at the most)

Then there will be mud and slush

And life as usual.

One Easter at midnight mass

I suddenly saw that everyone was aglow.

A subtle light from within

Revealed wonder in every person,

Joy in every action.

Everything was covered in beauty

And I was completely connected

(Not the usual outsider).

No doubt that all shall be well.

Life returned to normal after a day (two at the most)

Except I carried with me the realization

That what was seen only for an instant

Is always true,

Even while life goes on as usual.
                                   
                                                                  ~ CK

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Pictured: 
Top: Illustration of Ēostre by Jacques Reich, originally with the caption "Eástre."

From  Myths of the Norsemen by H.A. Guerber (1909)

Public Domain 

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Bottom: People hold candles during an Easter vigil mass in the Cathedral in Vilnius, Lithuania
Image found at Word of Technology

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To a Local Goddess

In 1981, I moved to Hong Kong to teach English for two years at Hong Kong Baptist College (now Hong Kong Baptist University). My Cantonese instructor arranged a trip for his students to go into the Canton (Guangdong) Province of China. It had been just five years since the Cultural Revolution had ended in China with the death of Mao Zedong and arrest of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. Under Deng Xiaoping the country was beginning to open up, but entry by foreign travelers was still limited.

That first afternoon, we stopped at a hotel that had recently been built to accommodate tourists. We noticed a new Chinese temple that had been constructed up on a ridge above the hotel. We wondered about it, since we had read so much about Chairman Mao cracking down on religious practices. One of the people in our group who spoke better Cantonese than I (I had only been studying for a few months) asked about the structure atop the hill. With the Chinese man's limited English and our limited Cantonese, we learned that indeed it was a temple erected to a local goddess. It must be another sign of things opening up in that country, we thought. At any rate, some of us decided to make the trek up the mountainside to visit the temple. The pictures you see here are photos that I took that day. The poem that follows is one that I wrote after returning to Hong Kong as I recalled the experience.

To a Local Goddess

At a little crossroads

Not far from Sheik Keih

In the Guangdong Province

At the foot of Chung Shan,

   the Middle Mountain,

We spent the night.

Hard working men in cloth shoes

Had labored to build stone steps

All the way up the mountain.

Someone said that she had been

A local maiden

Whose loyal and heroic deed

Earned her a place with the gods.

"And the government doesn't mind that

They built a new temple for her?"

I wondered aloud as we climbed the steps.

Apparently not.

Perhaps this little village is far enough away from Beijing.

I suppose I'd be proud too,

If she were from my hometown.

I did not know her at all                            

(Unless I had mistaken her for

   a sister or a cousin, a friend or a lover

   somewhere along the way),

But after six months of crowded streets

Hot sidewalks

And tall buildings,

My first trip to the countryside

Was like taking off cheap shoes

   at the end of the day.

I went back to a time

That had been years neglected,

As a bright moon rose

Above newly planted rice fields

And I looked down from Middle Mountain.

Somehow I was renewed

And free.

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Photos by Charles Kinnaird


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