Significance of Navratri
Namaste dear Soul, It’s spring season in the northern hemisphere. In India, we have a 9 day celebration of the divine feminine-Shakti, to mark the beginning of spring. We revere 9 forms of the Goddess, which represent or signify 9 beautiful qualities. This festival is called Chaitri Navratri, which celebrates and invokes the divine feminine, who brings fertility, growth, prosperity and abundance.
Another interesting thing is that we celebrate Navratri, or the divine feminine, after the Spring and Autumn Equinox, both. We invoke the Goddess energy before sowing seeds and also before harvest. So, whether you are sowing the seeds of new creation, or you are harvesting your labour of love, it’s time to celebrate.
I find it really interesting, that each festival plays a significant role on human consciousness. If we dive deeper, we understand the true symbolism of this celebration. To me, the 9 qualities of the divine feminine, which are represented by 9 different Goddesses, are more like 9 steps that help bring joy and abundance in any given situation.
Let’s see how. Each moment of our existence we encounter self created road blocks, which stop us from living to our full potential. Let’s see what these steps are, and you decide whether they make sense to you or are relevant to you. If it resonates with you, go ahead and try them out.
Step 1: Day 1- Goddess Parvati teaches pause and withdrawal.
“Pause and withdrawal.” Pause before taking a decision or action regarding a situation. This will give you clarity.
Step 2: Day 2: Goddess Durga helps in letting go and forgiveness.
“Letting go and forgiveness.” Once you get clarity, you are able to let go of unwanted thoughts, beliefs and emotional baggage connected to the said situation. You feel amazingly light.
Step 3: Day 3: Goddess Santoshi brings in contentment, peace and love.
“Contentment, peace and love.” You drop your past emotional baggage, which brings in contentment, peace of mind and fills your heart with love.
Step 4: Day 4: Goddess Amba fills us with unconditional love and acceptance.
“Unconditional love and acceptance.” When your heart is content and peaceful, you feel unconditional love towards yourself and the said situation. You are in acceptance of all that is.
Step 5: Day 5: Goddess Gayatri now helps us to focus and discriminate between right and wrong, teaching discernment.
“Focus, discriminate between right and wrong, discernment.” Clarity, lightness, contentment, love and acceptance helps you focus on the present. Focus helps you with discernment. You are able to discriminate between right and wrong regarding the given situation.
Step 6: Day 6: Goddess Kali gives us courage to face ourselves, our ego, and helps in clearing it.
“Courage to face ourselves, our ego, and helps in clearing it.” Discernment brings in courage to face ourself, our mindset, our ego, our beliefs related to the situation. Courage helps in acknowledging and clearing our shadow side, our blocks in being our true self.
Step 7: Day 7: Goddess Saraswati guides us to creativity, playing our own music, our soul song.
“Creativity, playing our own music, our soul song.” Courage and Creativity go hand in hand. Once you have cleared your blocks, you open up to creative ideas. You get many creative ideas to resolve the situation.
Step 8: Day 8: Goddess Laxmi teaches cooperation, sharing and bringing in abundance.
“Cooperation, sharing and bringing in abundance.” When you share your creative ideas with others, you help bring in abundance through love and cooperation.
Step 9: Day 9: Goddess Uma brings in joy and happiness.
“Joy and happiness.” Hurray! You are joyful and happy.
If you carefully go through each day, you will realise that this process of letting go of the old, making peace with yourself, and focusing your energies on creating the new, actually brings in joyful abundance in your life.
May you be blessed with all the wonderful qualities of the divine feminine. Happy Navratri to all. Enjoy the season of growth, fertility and prosperity.
Infinite love, blessings and gratitude Priti Mistry, Soul Growth Expert.
