Calling Yoginis in Meditation & Ritual - A Love Song in Light, Earthshine & the Appearance of Saturn
New Moon. Shani Jayanti. Fireflies. And YOGINIS are linked to the liminal and known for being powerful, impure, dangerous—they protect and disseminate esoteric tantric knowledge.
THIS SATURDAY at the Alembic in Berkeley: A meditation. A calling to the Yoginis. A gathered focus of pristine non-dual awareness. A conjure. Join us!
Greetings, practitioners,
Yoginis are divine feminine powers existing within a celestial tapestry of awareness with a very long and amazing history interwoven with art, temples, and texts throughout India. In my current practices they act as a palpable resonance for untapped parts of myself, of others, and of the world out there—the immanent and the transcendent, the sacred and profane, the singular and the plural. They are shapeshifters, sky travelers.
Saturday at the Berkeley Alembic my friend Gregory Peters & I will be sharing our notes and practices of working with the Yoginis. We’ll explore who they are, where they come from, and how we can invite them into our lives now.
This newsletter also contains a few tidbits on today’s new Moon in the Krittika nakshatra, the birthday-like celebration of Saturn (Shani Jayanti), some earthly lights and luminescences, and how an ancient Buddha statue recently discovered in Egypt reinforces the well-understood transnational notions that “stories and world-views, have been floating back and forth between India and the Greco-Roman worlds for millennia”. Read on!
Peace,
-[s]
CALL OF THE YOGINIS
Creativity, Awe, and Wonder with Gregory Peters and Spiros
Saturday, May 20 · 2-5pm PDT | The Berkeley Alembic Foundation
Yoginis—wild and sometimes mischievous manifestations of the divine feminine or Shakti—are associated in tantrik traditions with creativity, bliss, and untamed awareness. They are muses of art, dance, and music; revealers of yoga, mantra, and tantra; and radiant embodiments of non-dual consciousness.
Yoginis were mentioned in the very first Hatha Yoga texts (e.g., the Amṛtasiddhi) and are present at the origins of Vajrayana (as the Dakinis). They've influenced not only Hatha Yoga but also Ayurveda, Indian Alchemy, and several schools of tantrism. Early Persian and Sufi texts refer to the Yoginis specifically as “spiritual beings.” Who are the Yoginis? How might we meditate and tune into them? What might the Yoginis reveal?
Pragmatic practices from Gregory’s recently-released gem, Yogini Magic, and an 8th- century Sanskrit text called the Kaulajñānanirṇaya, form the foundation of this workshop—a nonhierarchical, immersive, peer-to-peer summoning of both like0minded people in the spirit of the kula lineages and traditions, and of the yoginis themselves. Get tickets!
WHAT AND WHO ARE WE CALLING?
We're summoning a community of creative practitioners and explorers, a Kaula, similar to a sangha or a coven or a magical order. We'll call out for people who are interested in developing practices and working with liminal beings known as the Yoginis. We carry a strong tendency towards an anarchism-inspired, anti-authoritarian, non-hierarchical, DIY ethos with one foot in contact with lineages and tradition. We reflect upon our own interpretations of the texts with a Foucault-inspired, empathetic look at the epistemes then and now, and apply a strong sense of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's perspectivism (which for me means that we hold multiple cultural models as equally valid). We explore an immersive understanding of human and nonhuman species that possess a common values system and cultural framework. We are deeply saturated with bhakti and devotion in contemporary Hindu and Buddhist schools of thought and practices, but we're also rooted in aspects of Chaos Magic, itself an outgrowth of 70s western magical traditions.
This is an invocation of the Yoginis themselves. In a very real way we'll be learning about and calling forth this wonderful matrix of feminine beings. Inspired by these open-aired circular with stone carvings around the perimeter and a small form of Siva, called Bhairava, in the center.
We'll be sharing mantras, chakras, and Yoginis mentioned in the twilight language of an 8th-century text known as the Kaulajñānanirṇaya. Many of the practices we’ll be exploring in this gathering have been adapted into a contemporary context and milieu as detailed within Gregory’s wonderful Yogini Magic.
For details on these source materials, check out:
Yogini Magic by Gregory Peters
Translations of the Kaulajñānanirṇaya
Kaulajñānanirṇaya: The Esoteric Teachings of Matsyendrapāda (Matsyendranātha), Sadguru of the Yoginī Kaula School in the Tantra Tradition translated by Stella Dupuis and Satkari Mukhopadhyaya*
Kaulajnana-nirnaya: The School of Matsyendranātha translated by Michael Magee
The Royal Path of Shakti, The Erotic and Magical Techniques of Kaula Tantra by Daniel Odier (forthcoming)**
SHARED NOTES ON THE LUMINOUS (EATING THE SKY)
An Earthshine illuminates this new Moon as:
New Moon occurs Friday, May 19, 8:53am PST
While ‘western’ traditions considers a new Moon to be that asymptotal moment when the waning Moon becomes waxing, traditions in India consider the whole solar day from sunrise with the Moon still waning to the following sunrise as Amavasya. However, this name is based upon the lunar day, a tithi, and does change and end at that same new Moon moment.
Sun and Moon share this same zodiacal space from our earthly perspective in the part of the sky known in Vedic Astrology as the Krittika nakshatra.
Krittika qualities include the witnessing or feeling of burning fire, reflecting our own digestion of food and information, or the fundamental desire that our basic needs are met. Cutting things off and separations—and thus also births—can occur here. More luminous sparks of genius and novelty, or a message from the sublime, can occur.
Earthlight is a soft backlighting upon the Moon due to the Sun’s light reflecting off the Earth's surface | read When To See Ghostly ‘Earthlight’ At Its Best This Week With Naked Eyes at Forbes.
Shani Jayanti: On this new Moon the appearance of Lord Shani (Saturn), known in India as the son of Surya (the Sun) and Chaya (the Sun’s shadow and shadows in general), is celebrated. This is a great time to sing the Hanuman Chalisa (1 | 2). | Further details.
Earthly luminescence: “Fireflies are beetles—magical, but still six-legged insects…use their glow as ‘a love song in light’…” | Smithsonian Magazine.
[cultures interacting with cultures is culture always and throughout time]
Found in Egypt: a Roman-era Buddha statue carved out of Mediterranean marble
Speaking of the richness and bounty of the spaces in-between worlds, there’s mounting evidence that spices and jewels, stories and world-views, have been floating back and forth between India and the Greco-Roman worlds for millennia.
Garum Masala by William Dalrymple | A marble Buddha in Egypt and jars of Mediterranean (fish sauce) and olive oil in India | New York Review
Egyptian Archaeologists Have Unearthed a Surprising Find: Other discoveries in the same Roman temple include Indian coins, Hindu deities, and an inscription in Sanskrit | Artnet
The Yavanajataka | While spices, art, medicine, and gems between India and the Mediterranean were being traded, so were stories, ideas, and sciences being exchanged, like this Greek astrology text translated into Sanskrit at around 120 CE | Astrology Podcast
Practice is our empty grass hut, no?
Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage
I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it’s been lived in – covered by weeds.The person in the hut lives here calmly,
Not stuck to inside, outside, or in between.
Places worldly people live, he doesn’t live.
Realms worldly people love, he doesn’t love.Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten square feet, an old man illumines forms and their nature.
A Great Vehicle bodhisattva trusts without doubt.
The middling or lowly can’t help wondering;
Will this hut perish or not?Perishable or not, the original master is present,
not dwelling south or north, east or west.
Firmly based on steadiness, it can’t be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines —
Jade palaces or vermilion towers can’t compare with it.Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest.
Thus, this mountain monk doesn’t understand at all.
Living here he no longer works to get free.
Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
Bind grasses to build a hut, and don’t give up.Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
Are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
Don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.
— Shitou Xiqian (700-790), translated by Dan Leighton and Kaz Tanahashi
There’s always too many folks to thank for all the wonderful encounters and support that allows this newsletter and my work to continue and blossom. Perhaps through a link or inspiration, or a place or idea to rest my weary head for a long night and a new day. This very incomplete list includes folks like Allan Badiner, Erik Davis, Jennifer Dumpert, Harry McIlroy, Katherin Frey Rochlin, Gregory Peters, Juris Ahn, Danny Castro, Merrie Martin, Roberto Maiocchi, Prema Dubroff, Jodie Wille, Margaret Mahan, Rose Zimmerman, Ronnie Dreyer, Ṣravana Borkataky-Varma, Amy Kern, Geoffrey Ashton, Eddie Stern, John Goldsmith, Keith Cantú, Carl Ernst, Adam Fisher, David Newman, Melanie Jane Parker, and many, many more…