What does it mean to experience one’s inner goddess?  How do you embody the goddess?

It may arise within you as if it were a morning sunrise or even a powerful wave crashing against the shore of the ocean with force — yet maintaining incredible grace and silence.  This is the divine feminine - one’s inner goddess.  Every soul holds a sacred form of the Goddess - where divinity is infinite and power arises from the purest and most innocent source. 

        In a society where one may feel as if their Shakti energy must be limited in form, so that it may fit into a conditioned way of life; I found myself disconnected from the sacred expressions of the divine.  Doubts would often arise about my own soul’s truth, creative intelligence, and insights.  As a child, I never doubted this connection with the divine -- Instead, I danced with it.   So why would I doubt it now?

    During the teacher training at www.sattvayogaacademy.com  I realized that with every passing year of my life I had become more disconnected from my true self.   But as I delved deeper into the practice, I began to allow my Goddess nature to rise and flow out of the vessel.   She may come as Kali, with blood-stained tears falling from our cheeks, all in the way of love.  She may rise in the form of Durga, her power found in the wind, in the sunset, or in the strength that a mountain holds.  Or maybe even as the graceful Saraswati, her innocence and wisdom felt and spoken through the melody that a tree dances too.   

  I began to experience my Goddess nature by connecting with my true power and sense of self, as well as releasing years of conditioning I had stored in specific areas of my body.  How was I able to cultivate and continue cultivating my inner Goddess?  I did this by remaining with my spiritual practice and evolution.  As I sat on a yoga mat in class, I felt the drops of sweat roll down my forehead, the tears run down my hot cheeks.  I felt all elements and aspects of life form into one - opening a space for the Goddess to ascend and shine outwards in the way of light. 

    A conditioned mind often finds reasons to disconnect from this purely energetic way of being.  But by embodying the practice of yoga and genuinely becoming the poses, the Kriyas, and the Guru within —  one will begin cultivating and experiencing their true Shakti nature.  Of course, every person’s experience of the Goddess manifests in different forms and through several aspects.   For some, it may become a rush of energy flowing through the body, silencing itself in the ashes its created.  For other’s it may be softer - subtle, rising in stages, yet all at once, like a symphony orchestrated to one’s ears. 

Whichever way one may experience their Shakti nature, it is always a gift from the divine.  The Goddess that we cultivate within is light that shines outwards and into the world.  Every day, as I rise with the morning sun, I am blessed to open my eyes and create space and will to be with the practice.  It is then that I cultivate this Goddess inside.  But it never stops there -- I continue refining her in every step and breath that I take.