{"id":10401,"date":"2021-05-28T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/?p=10401"},"modified":"2021-05-26T07:01:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T14:01:41","slug":"10401-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/10401-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ourselves and Deity: Never Not Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"

While this edition of Reflections is from the archives, I have made a few changes here and there, Not only that, but there\u2019s a very special PS at the end. Don\u2019t miss it!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Beloved – <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This edition of Reflections is one from the archives, actually from a blog post I wrote in 2016. It feels particularly pertinent for the lives of so many I know personally, and Goddess knows, for many I don\u2019t. I hope it speaks to you. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A dear friend asks questions of the day on his Facebook page. One day, he asked what conditions or experiences have made his readers grow or develop the most. One of the most common answers was \u201cdeath of a loved one.\u201d And many of the answers fell into a group: Heartbreak, loss, grief, or other trauma.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(The most common answer was \u201cparenthood.\u201d Not being a parent, I do not feel comfortable writing about the changes parenthood creates and their relationship to loss and grief. I have some theories, but I also have respect, especially in COVID times.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The other set of answers, though, I know a lot about. From our births onward, we all know loss. We all come to know grief. We all come to know heartbreak. And trauma is a global, social, and personal experience. We know what it is to find that parts of ourselves that we thought were together are not together at all. And this is when we come to Akhilandeshvari.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Such a beautiful name \u2013 Akhilandeshvari. Emphasis on the \u201clan,\u201d and falling gently down towards the \u201ci.\u201d Who is this being, this \u201cdeshvari,\u201d or goddess? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

She is a lesser-known Hindu deity, and one whose story and way of being can be very helpful. \u201cAkhilan-\u201c means, \u201cnever-not-broken\u201d and \u201cdeshvari\u201d is a Sanskrit term for goddess. Akhilandeshvari, then, is the She-Who-Is-Never-Not-Broken. She is in pieces, as are all who live. Her pieces are constantly moving dynamically to create experience and foster wisdom and compassion.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Times of loss and grief are times of \u201cgoing to pieces,\u201d or \u201cfalling apart.\u201d The wisdom of She-Who-Is-Never-Not-Broken is that, in some way, our being relies on brokenness. Brokenness is inherent in existence. From birth to death and beyond, we are on a journey, and it is a journey of loss. Loss of security. Loss of loves. Loss of limbs or their function. Loss of sight and other physical powers. Loss of memory. Loss of employment. Loss of identity after identity after identity after identity. Loss, after all, of control.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes it seems that bits of us are replaced, that we can be made whole. In the Abrahamic traditions, we are reminded by Job that loss is permanent, that nothing is ever restored exactly to its former state. In the Hebrew Bible, Job gets a new family after the death of his prior family. But he is never restored to the family he lost. He never won\u2019t have scars, grief, loss. Even he, the devoted servant of God, will never not be broken.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite much of our religious and spiritual ideology, static \u201cwholeness\u201d is not to be attained in this life. We are not whole. We just aren\u2019t. We are not at-One.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At least, not through the lens of Akhilandeshvari-Reality. Through Her lens, we are never whole, we are always in pieces, and those pieces and their movement is where Holiness and Reality are to be found. There is no need to fight our grief. There is no need to see others as \u201chaving it all together.\u201d No one is \u201ctogether.\u201d I heard just last week, \u201cNever underestimate the insecurity of the person standing in front of you in line.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We are not together. We never have been, and none of us ever are. In fact, we are never-not-broken. Even the heights of love happen in the context of other loves, other losses.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let us be gentle. Let us be understanding. Let us be compassionate for ourselves and others. We are not together, and it is okay. One might argue that such brokenness is only one way to see Divine reality. And I agree. Seeing Unity is another way, not The Way, of seeing Divine reality. We need various lenses at various times.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I believe the Divine is always breaking\u2014sometimes blindingly breaking in on us!\u2014and always knitting together. I believe the Divine is One and Many, Whole and Broken. When I have been grieving\u2014as I have been since a dear friend recently died\u2014it is the Divine Spirit of Akhilandeshvari Who comforts me. Her Never-Not-Brokenness fills my own broken heart with hope. Hope somehow that by embracing my jigsaw-puzzle realities, I may become aware of a sacred point of gravity around which all my losses and broken pieces can turn.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No matter how I spin\u2014like the crocodile on which Akhilandeshvari rides\u2014I can be in pieces and yet remain coherent, knowing the brokenness is all right. Knowing the brokenness leads to understanding, which is the precursor of compassion. I understand that I am broken, but I am not broken and alone. I understand that I am in pieces and that understanding is good. I understand that I have rents and tears between bits, and even where I cannot see the chasms directly, I know that they are there.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the torn and shattered places in my life have come through losing loved ones, living with both mental illness and a history of sexual assault, being fat in a fat-hating culture, and all the \u201cslings and arrows\u201d that come with entering middle age as a white lesbian in the United States. Some of my broken places have privilege\u2014whiteness, education, middle-class identity\u2014and some of them do not.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Being broken is not predicated on privilege or not-privilege. It is predicated on existence. This knowing, this understanding is what allows compassion to come through. We are all moving through the world as though reflected in shards of a mirror. The idea that the right hand truly and in all cases can know what the left hand is doing is laughable. And so when we come upon others acting out of partial awareness of their own parts and pieces, we can have compassion for them. After all, we act in similar ways.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And how much more so may we have compassion for ourselves in our inadequacies! May we be gentle with ourselves and our partial attempts at love, compassion, and wisdom.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There is a prayer in the tradition of one of my teachers that ends, \u201cI would know myself in all my parts.\u201d The prayer is not that we not be in pieces. Not that we not be broken. Not that we not have parts, bits, tears, wounds, even chasms\u2026.but please, Holy One, let us know them. It is a useful work to know them, to call them by name, and invite them to live ever closer to one another. We need the spaces, and we need the pieces the spaces define (typo: divine). Not only the brokenness. Not only the solidity. But the movement, the shifting, changing, dynamic reality that is All there is.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Blessings on us and on our houses.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

~Catharine~<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

PS — A note from my beloved Heart of Business: Maybe you\u2019ve contemplated starting a business or becoming self-employed. Maybe you\u2019ve already started, but are in the early stages, and you\u2019re just wondering what in the heck it takes to make it work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019ve even been in business for a while, yet it still seems like a strange creature, foreign to your heart and your deepest desires. Making a business successful requires all kinds of things. But perhaps the deepest it requires is a true understanding of how you can be in business from the heart.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My teacher Mark Silver at Heart of Business is updating his flagship course The Heart of Your Business. It looks like a fantastic way to give you the foundations, both spiritually and practically, to be successful. And, best of all perhaps, it\u2019s priced at pay-from-the-heart. (No, really, it\u2019s priced at pay-from-the-heart. There\u2019s a \u201csustainable\u201d price, but if you need to pay less, you choose your own number, what\u2019s doable for you. And if you\u2019re able to \u201csubsidize\u201d other folks by paying more, that\u2019s fantastic.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I highly recommend Mark and his work. Take a look! <\/span><\/span>https:\/\/www.heartofbusiness.com\/thoyb<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While this edition of Reflections is from the archives, I have made a few changes here and there, Not only that, but there\u2019s a very special PS at the end. Don\u2019t miss it! Beloved – This edition of Reflections is one from the archives, actually from a blog post I wrote in 2016. It feels […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewayoftheriver.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}