This Tantric ritual will take place over the course of three evenings, although it will be possible to join for single evenings also.
Kamakhya is the Goddess of desire. Kama in her name means desire, and Puja means ritual. Her ritual is celebrated for three days following the Summer Solstice. This ancient Tantric festival celebrates her menstruation as a way to honour the passing of the lengthening days and welcoming the introverting cycle as the nights start to lengthen.
It is a ritual time for honouring
the dark internal space of the womb.
Following the solstice, the nights start lengthening and nature starts to make her descent into the womb. These ritual nights are a time for internalising and addressing the feminine for both man and woman. This includes work of accessing our receptive feeling nature as well as working with issues of the womb and sexual area. The female menstural rhythms are brought into focus also at this yearly junction. The Kamakhya ritual can create a lot of movement in reproductive and sexual health, on both physical and spiritual levels. Chanting the Kamakhya Mantra’s within her Mudras, brings the whole area of desire and sexuality into focus.
Those who seek the Goddess, undertake Tantric pilgrimage across landscapes both inner and outer to receive the blessing of Kamakhya. Many reclusive yogis who usually live in states of samadhi (meditation) only come out on these 3 days each year to perform the ritual dedicated to Kamakhya, which highlights the central place of this ritual within Tantra.
As well as a fertility festival, it represents to the Tantrics a time of insight into the root of desire.
THE EARTH BREATHS & MENSTRUATES
During the nights of Kamakhya by focusing and listening within, one may observe in themselves the suspension of the object of desire, and find that a strange and unfathomable spiritual longing arises and takes centre stage in the usually dominating forces of desire and the movements towards its fulfilling. The suspension within is reflected in the suspension without. There is a pause between the light half of the year and the dark half. Kamakhya is that pause. She is the place that houses the essence of desire.
The darkening half of the year following the solstice is the exhalation of nature. On the solstice day, nature had reached the full extent of its inhalation. Which by the laws of polarity, must be followed by the exhalation following the pause between. Suspension and interludes are times of catching the great mystery that can evade us in the louder and brighter shades of life. Having crossed this transition, the poles of nature switch into the introverted state. It is for Tantrics the time for addressing and empowering the Feminine, as the Goddess of desire has her yearly menstruation.
Welcome to Kamakhya Puja.
THE RITUAL
THE DOOR TO THE TEMPLE
The Kamakhya sequence of moves is an ancient Tantric formula and is most favourable for working with the sexual energy and womb centres. Kamakhya practice relates to the menstrual cycle, sexual health on both psychic and physical levels for both genders. This particular branch of practice rules desire the area of creation in general. Kamakhya mudras often involve intimate use of the hands upon sexual zones of energy on and in the body. These mudras can sometimes be arousing. The main action and effect are, that they create a movement of the Shakti energy from frozen states. This is healing on both physical and psychic levels. Kamakhya practice is heating in nature. Through the force of desire she creates diamonds – a stone much desired and resulting from the powerful force of the Earth’s desire.
The Heerchalana Mudras are strong yet simple forms of Mudra in motion. They represent physically and psychically the compressing of a diamond by the forces of the Earth in its creation. We shall engage in this important and usually secret Mudra which is one of the Gupt Mudras (hidden practices of initiation).
The positions that open the feet and toes bring the currents of sexual Shakti force into motion through the physical and psychic self. Work on the toes, along with moon positions like Chandra namaskar, open the channels so the feminine currents can open. Chandranamaskar a central asan in Tantric practices. We will combine this asan with Kamakhya (Desire) and Heer (Diamond) Mudras.
22 June – FIRST NIGHT OF KAMAKHYA | WATER AS SHE POURS DOWN
The first stage of Tantric Kamakhya practice in the 3 day festival begins with the journey of the Rise of Kundalini Shakti that is wound up in the unconscious realms and seeks Union. The Shakti within us only finds this reflected union with that which she is bound by. The unconscious bindings are mirrored in the physical and psychic worlds, by the object of desire – the desire being reflected back in its opposite. In the case of Sati, as the story shows (read Blog), she is the pure manifestation of Shakti, unbound and expressed upon the Earth. Her opposite is Shiva, the one who seems barely to sit upon the Earth and has his vision above in the higher Chakras.
Kam Kam Ka Meh Kha
Kam Kam Ka Meh Kha
This is the Mantra that relates to the mudras of the first night of the Kamakhya Puja.
23 June – SECOND NIGHT OF KAMAKHYA | FIRE AS THEY BOTH BURN
The second night opens the practice of mudras that relate to the second part of the myth, in which Shiva is distraught by the loss of his beloved Sati and becomes mad, possessed by destructive force. The second night of Kamakhya Puja is Tantricly worked out by the Mudra of Tandav, the dance of destruction. Restlessness and anger are addressed and brought to the Tantric altar for healing, by these inner and outer mudras. We will dance the Tantric Tandav of Shiva’s play of Yog, through the forms of Rudra and Bhairav.
Kamakhya Ree
Kamakhya Raa
This is the Mantra that we will chant on this night. The Tandav strotram is a 30 verse poem honouring the dance of Shiva, and is also sung to invoke the spirit of the eternal dance of longing.
24 June – THIRD NIGHT OF KAMAKHYA | THE UNION OF SHAKTI-SHIV
The third and final night of the Puja sees the conclusion of the myth, in which, through compassion for the devotion of Shiva, Sati reincarnates as Parvbhati. Pharbati represents Tejas, the calming fire which cools the heat of longing that burns Shiva to the point of destruction. The mudras of Shakti and Shiva are Tantricly practiced as the conclusion of the Kamakhya Puja. These are the mudras that relate to the Union of the Goddess and God within us. The practice of these Mudras, begins on the psychic level as Antar Mudra (inner Tantric invocations) The practice of such mudras have the effect of spreading out to the manifest level. They begin an alchemical reflective process of harmonising the polarities in our manifest lives.
Kam Kam Kamaksha
Kam Kam Kam Kamaksha
Is the final Mantra that relates to the completion of the ritual. It is the mantra that instills the mystical union within us and within our outer lives.
KIM is an Eco-Activist turned Yogi and the founder of Healing in the Willows, the retreat company hosting Working with the Shadow, which he developed in 2014 in collaboration with Boonath, who he assists with the teaching. Kim discovered Yoga in 2005, following a burn-out at work that brought him onto the path of ‘Yog’. Kim had spent over 10 years coordinating international environmental campaigns in Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin for major environmental NGOs, including Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, ActionAid, and many others.