DHUMAVATI
ELDER AMONG THE MAHAVIDYA GODDESSES
BY THE POWER OF THE SMOKEY WIDOW
Oh Dhumavati!
You are the Widow Goddess,
You stand alone with crow, in places desolate,
You show us the secret wisdom in facing
the things we have lost, and are yet to lose,
You reveal the power of the widow
that stands just one heartbeat before despair.
Indeed you stand beyond despair!
To you we bow.
Dhumavati is the end of what is to be known.
She is Jyeshtha, the elder one.
She is so ancient that to talk of her wisdom and teaching, only serves to wrap her up in modern riddles, and so we will keep this presentation short.
Dhumavati has her annual Jayanti on the half rising Moon in the month of Jyeshtha.
Jyeshtha means the elder and is an epithet of Dhumavati.
Dhumavati is the intensely ugly widow Goddess, bitter, barren and bereft of Beauty.
Her nose is beaklike, her countenance inspires disgust,
She is dirty and smelly, with only a few rotten teeth left.
She wears a perpetual scowl of an expression upon her face.
Her breasts sag with the pendulous weight of time, dried out, empty and withered.
She is an elder Goddess, the grandmother of all Goddesses, it could be said.
Dhumavati is difficult to approach as she can inspire deep disgust and nauseating horror.
Oh but Dhumavati holds the deep wisdom inherent in age and loss.
Dhumavati has no peer and is distinct among Goddesses as having no opposite.
She is a Shakti that is self-contained and she stands alone.
ANCESTRAL QUEEN OF KETU
Dhumavati be the Queen of the ancestors.
She is the ancient emissary of the Chaya Grah (shadow ‘planet’) Ketu.
Ketu be the South Node of Moon. The deep energy of the solitary soul that has no cords to anything.
Ketu – just like Dhumavati – is outside of all realities.
No opinions, no convictions, no nothing!
Ketu is the Liberator. The Karaka of Moksh.
Ketu is the end of Karma. That which is left behind really is left behind.
This symbolism of Ketu is hidden in the image of Ma Kali ripping the head and leaving the body behind.
Ketu is in full power when we ritually worship Dhumavati.
Ketu, the headless body who rules the deep past has as his domain a smokey place that is made of the recordings and imprints that live in the forgotten realms
The Head is Rahu.
Rahu the North node is always opposite to Ketu.
No matter how far the head goes from the body, the two will be ever bound together.
The head of Rahu ever exhales, whereas Ketu ever inhales.
Ketu will inhale the Moon at eclipse times.
‘Twas Ketu that gave Shukra (Venus) Mritsanjeevani Vidya.
That is the power to bring the dead to life.
Ketu is the dead realm of the ancestors.
Venus and Ketu share a deep bind.
We see this when we contemplate the why and how of the deep bond that they share.
They are bound in sacred oath.
The story tells that Venus did the most intense Tapasya (Yogic austerity).
So intense that Shiva had to intervene and say, that’s enough.
Shukra (Venus) tied himself upside down from a tree and inhaled thick black smoke for endless ages. Blood pored from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth… and his head was about to explode.
Oh but his love indured.
Shukra is the Guru of the Asuras because of his power.
That’s the power of love and endurance. The Asuric force is potently enduring.
Knowing eternal patience, Shukra’s devotion brought him to Mritsanjeevani.
Only love can bring what is dead to life.
Love is the sacred, creative, infinite urge of infinity.
In the endarkening shadowy smoke of Ketu, by way of applied focus, we are able to glimpse the movements of consciousness that are not easily or usually seen.
Dhumavati in her ancient smoke of Ketu, does unfold the deepest secrets of Ketu.
Ketu is the tail of the serpent,
The body without a head.
Ketu is the ancient of days.
He is the place of old wisdom
and the realm of the ancestors.
Dhumavati is the wisdom of age.
She can show us how we can become occupied and possessed by the ancestral patterns of our line.
Sometimes we echo the relationships and energy exchanges of our ancestors.
When we get aware of what we are doing in a momentary pause of sobriety, we sometimes wander who is really talking.
‘Sometimes what is in our heart and mind
might have nothing to do with who we really are’
Dhumavati shows us the timeless ageless one that we really are.
Dhumavati is the queen of smoke and ancestral healing.
Sometimes we just need to look at our heritage to see strings of similarities where the puppet dance of tradition is continued.
The Tantric practitioner, under the auspices of the ancient smokey crone Dhumavati, looks at what it is that is truly pulling the strings.
Focused Yogic practice is the attempt at the pause of sobriety in which the sacred heart can be glimpsed.
Like mystic ray from the jewel of love.
Like scent from the sacred flower of heart.
Like sound from the melody of infinity.
The Love song of the ancient Goddess,
Like an old melody that softly exhales the frayed silken edges
of the fabric of our lives upon eternal eyes.
Ketu completes the song of the Rnubandan (Karmic bind).
The breaking of the Narial (coconut) is a potent rite in the mystical arts of the Tantrics
The Rahu head smashes to reveal the flesh and body of Ketu.
Her Love song is the crow cry,
Time has come, ancient so ancient,
Time has come for Dhumavati…
TALES OF SMOKE & WIDOWS
Dhumavati is the one who is smokey. Dhum in her name actually means smoke.
Smoke is an important element when working with Dhumavati.
When invoking her, the more smokey the better.
Smoke is the secret key to Dhumavati.
Some tales tell that she is born of the death of Sati in the fire.
As Sati burned to death in the despair of torment at the injustice she suffered, she became the unobtainable widow.
Sati’s insulted and dishonoured spirit manifested and took form in bitter smoke.
The smoke became Dhumavati… she who is born of smoke.
Another story tells of how Sati after uniting in love with Shiva, had started to live together with him in the Himalayas.
Sati was always hungry, as the Himalayas did not offer the royal dishes that she was so used to.
One day she became so maddeningly enraged with hunger.
Shiva told her to have patience and wait.
She lost patience and got so hungry that she turned on Shiva and started to eat her way to widowhood.
Shiva applied the heat of his Tapasya, and howled within her stomach.
He burned in her belly and smoke oozed from all her orifices until she could not help but vomit him out in thick clouds of smoke
Shiva glared at her with his third eye which casts the gaze of truth.
Her impatience cursed her to lose all her beauty.
And so, she shriveled up into an old decrepit hag with a terrible, ever-hungry and unsatisfied expression upon her old face.
The secret wisdom teaching concerning Dhumavati is that Shiva always loves Shakti in all her forms no matter what they be like. That is the secret of his Yogic stature…
that is his Shakta.
As the old hag Dhumavati, he still loves loves and desires her.
He loves her in her very dry fruitless winter… just as much as when she was in the fresh blossoming fertility of her spring.
SHE WHO IS OLD & WISE
Dhumavati has the wisdom of years.
She holds the secrets hidden by the smoke of time.
She offers us time-honoured and weathered secrets that can easily escape the pursuits of the youthful striving spirit.
Dhumavati is the timeless pause of every age.
She brings the depth of sober wisdom that breaths deep to the pit of eternity.
Dhumavati brings us to the places we might easily pass by and avoid.
It is easy to view her realm as being devoid of value, for it is ugly, dirty, barren and widowed.
To venture toward her, is to go into the places we would not usually go to.
Her age takes us to the wisdom behind the formulations of time.
Dhumavati teaches us of the wise acknowledgment
of that which we have lost over the span of our lives.
Dhumavati teaches us of the wise acknowledgment of that which we have lost over the span of our lives.
If something is lost or dies, it is often a cause for lament, oh but she shows us that it also holds the seed of the rebirth of another mode of being.
Dhumavati is the Shakti that shows us that
when one thing dies, another is born.
The Tantric work with Dhumavati is to listen to the elder voice that exists at the crossroads of every loss.
If we heed her aged being by learning to look with her eyes, then does her ancient wisdom give its Darshan (vision)
Dhumavati can assist us is in our widowed parts.
She shows us the need to go into deep feeling and the healing of grief.
She reveals the healing nature of mourning, and facing loss and emptiness with feeling.
She opens the vision to the ancient power that is latent in that which we might all to easily choose to turn away from.
To join the ritual,
