Parvati

As usual, I found a great article in Yoga Journal. This one, by Sally Kempton, was about Parvati and Shiva. You can believe the Hindu story or use it as an archetype. Women she knew used it to see how to balance being feminine and masculine. They wanted to be, for instance, loving and assertive. They wanted to be soft, loving their partners and children, and assertive, saying "no" when they wanted to, saying what movie they wanted to watch, and saying what they did not like.

Parvati was Shiva's second wife and took him out of his doldrums after his first wife Sati died. Together, as in yin yan, I say, "their figures contain the full power of the Absolute". The author says that, when one contemplates them, they "shed a particular quality of light" into our consciousness. Their story inspired the Tantric texts, that are not only about sexual positions. By tuning into Parvati, one can liberate certain qualities in themselves. They enlarge one's sense of Self.

Parvati was powerful in a subtle, soft yet very strong way and inspired Shiva. Many wives do this for powerful husbands, and vice versa; we all have masculine and feminine in us. usually, men have more of the spirit, mind, and logic qualities and women have more of the feeling, sensuality and capacity qualities. (That's what she writes. If this is so, I must be a man. lol)

Parvati's aim was to reunite the masculine and feminine, inner and outer, spirit and soul. Parvati keeps taking on different roles, I can relate. In all the roles, her creativity, ecstasy and strength of will are paramount. She is an impulse to break through one's veils. She is a force of transformation. I like this phrase. Again, there is balance: transformation yet force.

Parvati can be powerful and focused, yet intuitive and caring.

Kempton writes: "The flow of creative will, the devotion that cannot be broken, the strength to live in liberated partnership--all are contained in the figure of Parvati, and they come alive in us when we contemplate her."

Creative will is also a balanced, interesting phrase of, in certain ways, opposites.