Layers of Practice in Devotion to The Goddess

Layers of Practice in Devotion to The Goddess

Meeting the Goddess every morning is not only spiritual practice. 

It’s energetic, physical practice and at times, it can feel like a workout. She’s powerful and if we allow her life force to move through us, we need a strong energy body. It’s sensorial. Shakti vibrates and flips, she soothes and shimmers. 

It’s soul practice, rooted in creativity, the imaginal and meaning making. 

It’s emotional, which means we can become flooded by terror, grief and joy when we allow the Goddess to flow through us. 

It’s sonic. When we call to the Goddess, she can begin to sound through us. Both in practice in terms of moans, sighs and hums which may escape our lips. But also through singing, Bhakti and the particular charge of our voices when we speak from the level of reality where Goddess most tangibly resides. 

Psychological Alchemy and Inner Companionship

And, it's psychological work. Goddess devotion can help us to become more discerning about our thoughts and build our capacity to meet the exiled, rejected parts of ourselves by allowing them to resurface and meeting them with love. Allowing the Goddess to wrap her arms around them and say yes, this too belongs. 

We can easily relegate our spiritual practice to our morning routine. We meet the silence, we might chant a mantra and enjoy the experience of Goddess washing up against the shores of our dawn. Fresh and free, spacious and silent.

And then the day begins. Life begins. And that silence gets drowned out by the music of life. The necessary rhythms of responsibility, routines and ‘reality’. 

Tantra and The Heart of Spiritual Practice

From the Tantric view, these aspects of reality, of the everyday, are not illusion. They are not separate from spiritual practice. They are the heart of it. And when we build our capacity, which is to say, consciously make the effort to remember and remember and remember that the Goddess is ALSO holding us, loving us, living through us in these moments too, we can let her power and love seep through more and more layers of our being. 

Let’s look at the energetic layer. We can cleanse and supercharge our energy body in our morning practice with pranayama, mantra, mudra, prayer and asana. All these tools are also available to us throughout the day - what about when you’re at the train station waiting for a (delayed) train? Inwardly speak, see, feel a mantra to drop you back into her fullness. To let all the aliveness flood back into you. It’s always, always right there. 

Soul Practice and the Imaginal Realm

And the soul level. Visionary and imaginal practices are a staple of Tantric sadhana. You can build your capacity for this in your morning practice by allowing the colours, the textures, the form of Shakti, or other deities, to begin to seep into your awareness, into your body as you sit in silence. Trust that she will come as she comes. And then, throughout the day, you can call on the support of this image to resource you and call you back to source. 

When you slip back into the soul field, she may come and wrap her many arms around you, place her hands on the small of your back, beckon you forward: ‘it’s this way, my love”. Or perhaps she writhes and dances and delights before you, perhaps she bends down and kisses the flowers, the moss, the concrete. Let the vision of her perform its magic however it wishes and drink the charge of the image all the way into your soul.

Emotional Waves as Sacred Currents

It can be very hard to remember that the Goddess is also there at the layer of emotion. When emotions are exhausting, devastating, terrifying, she can suddenly feel very far away. When emotions are big, they tend to wash everything else away, like a tsunami. But listen closely. She’s still there. She’s there on the shoreline, where you can either call her out to the startling depths with you, to feel it all together. Or, where you can ask her to call you back to land. Her arm that beckons, that reaches for you, that pulls you back in. She’s not there for you to avoid the feeling, but to devour it with you. To let it wash all the way through you.

Sounding the Goddess Into Being

If she feels far away in any of these moments, if you can’t see her, hear her, feel her, then sound her. Let her mantra drip from whispered lips. Or maybe you’re brave enough to call her name out loud, again and again and again. Maybe you fall to your knees and cry out her name in desperate longing. Or maybe she sounds from you, a groan, a scream, a devotional call to prayer. She is always hovering on the tip of your tongue, waiting to be spoken, waiting to be sung. 

Thoughts in the Light of Her Presence

If the thinking part of your day, which is likely present throughout your day, feels separate and severed from the Goddess, remember that she is here too. And that you can ask for her discernment in meeting thoughts as they are, as vibrations of energy, as ideas, not concrete truths about reality. What happens when you try to hold onto a thought and make it concrete, intangible and rigid? Most thoughts dissolve when you try to make them stay too long. 

Thoughts can become overwhelming, all encompassing or just plain too much, so having a toolkit of practices at your disposal to help settle them is a powerful ally. This might be your favourite pranayama, journaling, heading straight out to the hills. Or maybe it's in the steady glide of asana, letting the charge of thought melt through muscles, swirling into new ideas and shapes as you shift between poses. Remember: when you move, everything moves. 

Glorious Mess and Momentum of Daily Life

To walk this path is to let the Goddess make a home inside you. Not just at sunrise, but in the glorious mess and momentum of daily life. It is to trust that her power wants to move, speak, create, and transform through you in every ordinary moment. And the more you say yes to her, the more your life becomes an expression of her wild intelligence. This is the true practice: not returning to her, but realising you have never been apart.

To meet the Goddess in practice, community and ever expanding currents of life, join us in The Remembership.