Title: Durga Slays, 19x13in, ink on bamboo photorag, 2019

As legends have it, Mahishasura was a king with the head of a buffalo. He was a staunch worshipper of Lord Shiva. After years of penace by Mahishasura, Shiva was pleased and offered him a wish. Mad with power, Mahishasura demanded immortality. Shiva explained that he was unable to grant him immortality because everything must die. So instead, Shiva said I’ll grant you this: “no existing man, animal, or god will be able to kill you.

Mahishasura believing that this was the next best thing to immortality, began to attack the three worlds of earth, heaven and hell with his army.

All of the gods tried to fight him but were unsuccessful in their attacks. Fearing for their lives and worlds, the gods approached Lord Shiva for help. Shiva, deep in meditation said, “what to do?” and told them that he was too busy with his practice and that they should seek out his wife for counsel.

All of the gods approached Parvati, Lord Shiva’s wife and after some consideration, she asked all of the gods to channel their power through her at one time and thus the great goddess Durga was created out of every single god in the pantheon. Parvati her beauty, Lakshmi her lotus, Saraswati her wisdom, Shiva gave her his trident, Ganesha his axe, Rama his bow and arrows, Vishnu his chakra and conch, Hanuman his mace, and so on.

Goddess Durga then fought Mahishasura over a period of fifteen days during which he kept changing his shape to become different animals and misled her. Finally, after fighting, Durga approached Mahishasura with a compassionate love and compassion. Mahishasura took notice and began to be entranced by her beauty and fell in love with her. At that moment, Durga was able to get close enough to him stabbed him with her trident and that was the end of him. Mahishasura was defeated and killed.

And so this story is so rich in imagery and symbolism, but what I love most about it is that Mahishasura represents all the shadows and demons that we have within us. This could be addiction, fear, doubt, codepedency, trauma, etc. And this story shows that we can actually slay these demons by befriending them and falling in love with them instead of trying to simply “rid ourselves of them.”

And so, chanting to Durga, the supreme compassionate mother and whose name means “impossible to overcome,” is extremely helpful in times of distress. You can find her chant “Om Dum Durgayei Namaha” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5wlqRcTLDA&t=24s