Mahamaya Parvati as I See Her

Though some have stood out as closest to like Devi, Parvati, Durga, in one of so many forms in my imaginings, daydreams and devotions, I’m sometimes o’ertaken by so many lovely apparitions of feminine divine, Goddess manifest in women I chance to know, as lovers or friends or mere acquaintance wherein even is clear sign of divine Her. I look all around me, in past-times jubilance and even present languor, and whether known intimately or merely glimpsed in a crowd with one brief look of knowing, Her eyes for just one moment flashing through another’s, in some seeming random woman on the way to work, at market, coffeehouse or bar, She shows Her Presence, even if inaccessible sometimes.

Playful and sometimes harsh in Her love-play (She even bites sometimes!), sometimes teasing to teach , making love to elevate Her lover and bless the world as well as for bliss-sake, slaying to impart peace and enact compassion. Animal wild in Her actions and motions when flames—tejas—righteous stoked, whether afire for passion or punishment, pleasure to pain She knows with deepest wisdom; Greatest Yogini, Fiercest Sadhvini, Her Yoni is source of Life, Her Breasts flow forth to feed the world, Her Grace enough to melt the coldest heart, She is Pure—yet by no means chaste…

I’m sure I’ve seen Her even recently, in one lovely form or another proverbially winking at me, some fair maiden at coffeehouse or passing on the sidewalk, laughing gleefully yet not unmoved by devotions offered in each breath, for sometimes I’m sure I hear Her gasp with delight or desire as I raise my voice in intonations of sacred sounds, else in frenzied fervor of ecstatic nata, worshiping Her in wildman’s dance—devotions of a man mad with love’s spell, Kama’s arrow perhaps, or deeper far: bhakti. Jaya jaya MahaMaya!!! Jaya jaya Parvati!!!!