It begins With a Call (Part 24): She Who Is Never Not Broken

My friend Jane and I have been holding a series of workshops for women elders called Convening the Council.  In preparing for one on the theme of brokenness, Jane ran across a goddess called Akhilandeshvari, or She Who Is Never Not Broken.  I have become a little obsessed with Her.  I find something very compelling and important about the concept of being never not broken.  I suppose it’s because broken is really how I’ve felt these last half dozen or so years.  Or always!  Maybe it’s true for all of us.  It reminds me of the Buddhist Noble Truth that life is suffering.  I have been so taken with this goddess that I researched her story and worked up a version to tell at our annual grief ritual.

My SoulCollage® card for Akhilandeshvari

Once there was, is, and will be a goddess called Akhilandeshvari, or She Who Is Never Not Broken.  She rides down the river of existence and through the villages of India on the back of a crocodile, striking fear and terror into the hearts of the people.  Being always broken has made Her always fierce. What could She mean to the people besides wrath and devastation? 

In the village of Thiruvanaikal, the people went to their philosopher and sage Shankara and pleaded with him to find a way to appease Akhilandeshvari.  And so he got the idea to build a new temple, to Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, the Remover of Obstacles, opposite Akhilandeshvari’s temple.  In this way, the first sight to greet Her eyes every morning would be Ganesha.  This apparently did succeed in calming some of Her destructive tendencies, but not enough to completely comfort the frightened villagers.  So, Shankara meditated on the situation again.  During his meditation, the mystical symbol of the Sri Yantra arose in his mind.  This image consists of nine interlocking triangles, representing the union of the sensory world and the cosmos.  

Shankara came up with the idea to make earrings for the goddess in the shape of the Sri Yantra, as an attempt to bring more balance to the goddess.  The gift pleased the goddess and did succeed in pacifying her anger more.  However, She chose to only wear them during the day.  At night, when She removes them, all of Her powers are released.  In the darkness, all of who She is emerges.

Akhilandeshvari rules over all endings and transitions.  She brings, is, and takes away loss and pain. 

We can understand – can’t we? - how being never not broken would make one angry.  How can She bear it?  She is not the goddess we would choose to pray to for healing, or to bring us our hearts’ desires.  But She can be a teacher and guide for those of us awake to all the joys and the suffering of the world.  Are we not like Her?  Always broken, always whole?  Full of anger at our lot.  Always riding on the back of the terrifying crocodile, aware that we might be eaten or drowned at any moment, and yet still daring to ride?

I’ve been reading quotes from Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron every morning.  She speaks a lot about learning not to prefer good over bad, but to accept whatever comes as a way to wake up.  And to cultivate gratitude and kindness, no matter what arises.  She says:

“Basically, the instruction Is not to try to solve the problem but instead to used it as a question about how to let this very situation wake us up further rather than lull us into ignorance.”

It’s a challenge.  What can Akhilandeshvari teach me?  Perhaps Her limitations and Her role, Her calling, are both Her gift and Her challenge.  My challenge?  To see any gift at all in the moods and symptoms I experience around my health.

Let It Open Me

Writing this from the Big Island of Hawaii, though the poem was written before we came.  I've been meaning to put it out, and I guess now's the time!  The photo is from our ohana on a mango farm in Captain Cook.

Let it open me –

            the pained lungs,

            the aching stomach,

            the morning sadness.

Let it open me –

            the small flock of birds winging west,

            the reach of the nearby redwood trees,

            the sound of children’s footsteps overhead.

Let it open me –

            the fears attending the aging body,

            the grief over a friend’s death,

            the water dripping through the ceiling.

Let it open me –

            the warmth of the bath,

            the sweet spiciness of morning tea,

            the flickering candles on my writing table.

Let it open me -

            this advice of

            the Buddhist teacher

            I read every morning.

This is the work –

            opening, opening, opening

            whether in pain and sorrow

            or in joy and gratitude.

She says - life is not for

            seeking safety and pleasure,

            nor for running from

            pain and suffering.

We must, I must,

            receive everything,

            breathe it in and

             let all of it

open me.

Mind the Gap

The sign on the platform

            of the London underground

                        reads: Mind the gap.

The phraseology –

            so polite,

                        so formal,

                                    so British –

made me smile

            when I saw it

                        for the first time.

Now, I am listening to

            Tibetan Buddhist teacher

                        Pema Chodron speaking

about the bardos of

            life, death and after death.

                        She says the definition

of bardo is gap,

            the in-between state,

                        transition.

And so, I recall the instruction

            on that London

                        underground platform,

revealing the most profound

            of teachings.

                        Yes.

Mind the gap.

Shenpa

Although I’m not a Buddhist, I’ve always had an attraction to Buddhist teachings.  Lately, it’s been to the work of Pema Chodron.  I love her book Taking the Leap, and I’ve been trying to remember to use the practice she recommends concerning shenpa, which is when you get hooked or triggered.  I’ve read and re-read this section many times because it’s so hard to remember to put into practice, and yet makes so much sense to me.  What I like about it is that it doesn’t deny or turn away from the feeling.  You acknowledge that you’re hooked (as soon as you catch yourself in the feeling).  You then drop the storyline by pausing, “leaning into” the feeling (how it feels in the body, what it makes you think), taking three breaths, then relaxing and moving on.

One of the things that happened this week was I that I got the results of some blood work that did not make me happy.  On top of everything else that’s happened, it tipped me over into a pretty deep pit of distress.

Last night I had a really helpful phone conversation with one of my oldest and dearest friends (and very wise woman) Judith Lynne.  We got around to the idea of acceptance.  I realized how much I had been resisting the state I find myself in and caught up in the story I’d made up about this string of unfortunate events.  I’ve been indignant about the seeming futility of all the work I’ve done and all of the discipline I’ve had (diet, supplements, seeing lots of practitioners – you get the picture).  She said that she felt this all happened after I retired because I no longer had to keep myself geared up to deal with the 8 - 5 world.  I think she could be right.  But I’ve done lots of work in the last year and a half to attempt to figure out what has been going on with me.  It’s not that I haven’t had some results and insights, but  they haven’t gotten me clear of the problems.  It’s all made me good and tired of trying to figure it all out, though.

This morning, in my morning pages, I had the thought that maybe my body has been trying to communicate something to me and that I just wasn’t getting it (and none of the practitioners were, either).  I don’t trust myself to know what I need to do and have been too dependent on the “experts.”  It’s challenging because I don’t get the kind of instant feedback other people do. For instance, I haven’t eaten gluten in over a year, but I can’t tell that it’s made a difference.  I’ve done it because I’m “supposed” to.  I have friends who know right away when they eat something that doesn’t work for them.  Not me.

I’ve been hooked big-time – so big that using the shenpa practice didn’t even occur to me.

So, now the question is:  what do I need to do to get into a place where I feel aligned, both physically and spiritually?  I know that one of my core issues is around trust.  The rare times I feel truly aligned in myself and with my purpose, trust issues don’t arise.  When I’m out of whack, like I feel I’ve been, I don’t trust much at all.  I don’t believe the universe is a safe place, and I have lots of evidence to back that up.  It is sort of a chicken-and-egg thing.  If I had trust, I wouldn’t feel so off, and if I felt more aligned I wouldn’t experience a lack of trust.

I don’t have any answers, but I feel like I’m at least asking the right questions.  Three breaths, lean into the unknowing, move on.