Sooner or later, everyone of us has to learn to Let Go. Of situations, material things, cities, countries and people.

Letting go of our parents when we move out of the house, letting go of a romantic relationship, of friendships, of our grandparents and parents when they die and more material things like the flat we lived in, books, clothes ect….

I personally often have a hard time letting go, if it comes to relationships or even material things I collected and bought with a lot of intention or love.

Soon I will fly to my home country Germany where there is a big clearing process waiting, the process of giving up my flat and selling lots of my stuff.

Days ahead in the dark basement of my parents, opening all the boxes, selecting, deciding, what do I eventually need one day again and store there?! what do I take to Bali ( just 30 kg in total ) – and what do I let go of sell or give away to friends?!

My Goal is to let go of as much as possible.

Me, my mum, my brother and a friend of mine will do a flee market, like we’ve done it the few last years, its always fun, you get up at 5 am in the morning and have to be at the market around 7 am to get a good spot. Then you will stand there the whole day, many people of different countries will pass by, many tourists, and you will talk, sell and laugh, eat and sweat.

In the end of the day you are done, so done, your feet hurt so that you need a serious reflexology massage from your boyfriend but you will also feel happy and light, yes so light. The only difference this time is that I will sell things I REALLY like, not the ugly flower pot with a frog face you go from your aunty or the pair of socks with kittens patterns, no I am talking about your favorite red lacquer high heels ( you wore maybe 2 times and it hurts like crazy to wear them, but who cares they are just sooo beautiful to look at and to imagine yourself wearing them – hahaha ????

And then there is this daisy duck pullover and I love it so much it makes me happy to wear it, its very warm and a little oversized, perfect over a leggings, its dark blue and has a daisy head on it with a glitter surrounding, it wasn’t even expensive but its one of those cheesy and very cool pieces, you know?! But for bali definitely way too hot, and who knows when and if I will ever gonna wear it again?! So why shall it rot in the basement ?!

All this won’t be easy I guess!

And I asked myself what can help me in the process of letting go.

I came to to the goddess Dhumavati, not one of the sexiest or most famous ones under the divine tantric mothers.

But definitely a powerful and helpful one to honor.

In india she is invoked by widows and people who lost somebody or want to let go of something. But she is the most misunderstood and tender – hearted goddess. She is not misfortune she is our Lady of Rest from all sorrows and misfortune.

Dhumavati’s outer appearance seams to be disgusting and not as beautiful as Lakshmi or Sarasvati, but for those you can’t see beyond the surface and see her inner beauty and love. For those who can go past the fear to look at her she promises immortality. ( Isn’t that a worth a look?! ????

The Origin of Dhumavati – The smokey one

Dhumavati was originally Shivas wife Sati, who knew that?!

Once Sati was dwelling in the himalayas and Sati became very hungry, she asked Shiva to get her something to eat but he refused. So Sati ate Shiva instead. ( This bad ass Goddess doesn’t take much time when it comes to getting her needs met ????

So the result of eating Shiva was that Sati widowed herself.( what surprise – haha )

Shiva asked Sati to vomit him out and let him free – Sati finally followed his will but he was so mad that he cursed her into the form of Dhumavati.

And Dhumavati is always hungry, but only eating Shiva will satisfy her hunger.

All the stories in hindu mythology are symbols and metaphors for our own life, so from my perspective I understand her hunger like this:

As Shiva embodies pure consciousness you could say, that nothing will satisfy her hunger except the deep nourishment that comes from recognizing herself beyond all forms, identifications and material things, but as pure consciousness itsef.

Animal: The crow which symbolizes death itself and the death of worn out forms.

Symbol of Her Basket : The basket represents the need to discern the inner essence from the illusion of outer forms.

The Dress: Is taken from corpse at the crematory grounds, to reming us that we don’t take anything material with us when we die.

Invoke Dhumavati for:

the guidance of your wise grandmother
the wise old woman/man inside of you
for great detachment
rids you of all enemies also the internal ones
ends your frustrations
discovering the freedom in letting go
humor and wisdom of the crone
accepting old age
finding unexpected blessing in loss
So the goddess Dhumavati will travel with me to Germany, she will help me to let go of material things, detach and find rest in the freedom of letting go.

She will help me to allow a part of myself to die, even though that may sound dramatic, thats how it feels, leaving behind the identity i have built up over many years in order to swim with the river of life towards new shores, towards where Im meant to be.

The beautiful thing about invoking and working with gods and goddesses is that we don’t have to be religious or pray to them on an altar if we don’t feel like that.

The gods and goddess from a tantric perspective are all aspects of ourselves, they live inside of us. Although even this is not essential, it can help to carry a picture or chant a mantra to invoke of a certain deity more strongly inside of us.

Here is the Mantra for Dhumavati: Dhum Dhum Dhumavati Svaha

Dhumavati can be a good friend for all of us, not only when we have something to let go of. She is especially empowering for us woman, as most of us have a hard time accepting the fact that we get older, myself included and we feel ourselves under a big pressure of youth delusional. Dhumavati can help us to accept the fact that we all age and die.

No, that fact is not sooo sexy, I know, but its important that we accept this natural process otherwise we all end up living in fear and augmenting our faces to look like Daisy Duck. This is not my standard of a beautiful woman. I want to be a woman that ages gracefully, who calmly accepts herself in her aging process, accepts her wrinkles and her spots, accepts her scars and is proud of herself, because she knows she is one in a million. She knows her worth and inner beauty, she trusts in her wisdom and life experience and believes that the right man loves her just the way she is.

She has an easy time letting go as time passes by and trusts in the guidance of life and god.

One fact helps me when I think about death in terms of letting go :

‘When I will leave this world, I will leave naked, I will not take any of these material things with me when my soul leaves this body’

For me one good reason to practice yoga is to learn how to deal better with the challenges of life, but also how to deal with the fact that death is a part of life and that one day our body’s going to die.This goes for all of us – Trusting and relaxing into the uncertainty of life, trusting that we are guided, taken care of and held by life.

Even though you might have heard it many times: what matters is not how we look, what we have or who we think we are and identify ourselves with ( don’t get me wrong I will not stopp buying myself beautiful earrings or a cool Daisy Duck Shirt – I heard Bali has plenty of them?! I also love the treasures of material life, I am not dogmatic at all ; )

But I also know that what matters the most, what matters in the end is how much we have loved and embody love, the love we feel in our hearts towards ourselves and the love towards others. The collective frequency of love is what will make the world a better place, and it is this which we should all put our focus on.

BREATHE IT ALL IN AND LOVE IT ALL OUT!

Yours Wanda