Today is Friday – Devi’s Day

And so therefore, in-line with last week : fine Dhumavati (A)Art-i post.

As you can see, #CorvidGang is well represented here – apt for the Goddess Whose Animal Is The Crow

Interestingly, this particular Dhumavati depiction is in red – and various accouterments one ought expect for a Bride.

Why do I say that this is interesting? Because usually, Dhumavati is the Widow Goddess – for a variety of reasons, including that She persists even after Lord Shiva has perished at the End of Time.

This, evidently, is She at the other end of the cycle of creation – that is to say, at the Beginning. After all, this is often forgotten – that the Night which closes off Creation, is fundamentally coterminous with the Night from which the First Dawn also arises. A fitting revelation, given the pink, orange saffron and yellow hues which illuminate the sky and corner-pieces of this image.

The Smoke – so closely correlated with Ma as Dhumavati via Her Theonym – is here not so much a funerary pyre as it is the First Fire, an offering, and the spark which incepts so much else.

The winnowing-fan in Her other hand, is therefore not merely that which separates truth from illusion at the dissolution of the world and the unveiling of Maya to reveal Shakti [that is to say, the ‘illusory’ and ‘transient’ small-r reality giving way to the Capital R Reality that is all that can remain] – but that which incepts, and brings out the light within the darkness.

My mind is driven to link it to the beauteous metaphor of this in RV X 71 – the Jnanam Suktam – wherein it is exactly this process via which Language (the Sacred and Empowered Speech), the demesne and domain of Devi Vak, the true inceptor of the world is to be revealed.

Another area wherein, as was known all across the archaic Indo-European expanse, the Corvids – the Birds – are particularly competent 😉

Jai Mata DI !