Articles

Goddess Festival : Navaratri

Navaratri is an ancient festival celebrating the Goddess and the many forms of feminine power. This presents a rather different perspective from the one many of us encountered growing up in Western culture, where the Divine was usually imagined as masculine and the visible, measurable world was often treated as the only reality that could be trusted. I first visited India when I was 24 years old. I was immediately struck by the contrast between the world in which I had been r

Amanda Ahern

Jun 185 min read

Guru is You -Yoga, Jyotish and the path back to the Self

First of all, let’s clear up some of the misconceptions surrounding the word Guru. Many people — particularly in the West — feel uncomfortable with the concept. But according to my understanding through years of studying Yoga, the true Guru is not outside of you. Ultimately, the Guru points you back to your own divine nature. The word Guru is often translated as “dispeller of darkness” — the darkness of ignorance, forgetfulness and disconnection from our true Self. In the yog

Amanda Ahern (Daya Ma)

May 173 min read

Digital Detox - Keeping the Faith

A magic bush retreat in outback Queensland Chinchiila 2015 was my first adventure out West in over a decade. My darling friend and...

Amanda Ahern, 21st Century Yogi

Apr 28, 20164 min read

Ready for a Fresh Start? Making Room for What Comes Next…

I’ve been thinking about how quickly we decide that anything we want to release must have been bad. A bad habit. A bad decision. A bad version of ourselves. Something to overcome, eliminate or firmly escort from the building. 😄 But perhaps not everything we release needs to become an enemy. Some things simply complete their purpose. The fear that once kept us safe. The people-pleasing that helped us feel accepted. The procrastination that protected us from the possibility of

Amanda Ahern

Sep 303 min read

Preparing for Navaratri—Inside and Out

How do you prepare to spend nine days with the Goddesses? Let’s begin with what you do not need. You do not need to redecorate your house. You do not need to understand Sanskrit. You do not need an impressive meditation practice. And you certainly do not need to purchase an entirely new wardrobe of white linen. Unless, of course, you have been looking for an excuse. 😄 The practical preparation can be very simple. Choose a little place in your home where you can be undisturbe

Amanda Ahern

Sep 303 min read

You Can Rip Out the Plant. But Life Keeps Blooming.

Last week, a friend and I were walking one of our favourite tracks. It's in suburbia, but you'd hardly know it. The path winds through beautiful natural forest, lush and green and just wild enough to make you forget there are houses backing onto it. And spilling out from one of those gardens, over the rocks and onto the path, was the most glorious mass of nasturtiums. Completely unruly. Red and orange flowers everywhere. We stopped to admire them, picked a couple and commente

Amanda Ahern

Sep 303 min read

The Goddess Is Hiding in Plain Sight

One hour. That's it. Not nine days removed from ordinary life. Not a spiritual boot camp. And definitely not another worthy commitment that leaves you wondering how on earth you're going to fit it in. 😄 One hour a day for nine days. We meet on Zoom. We chant the names of the Goddess together. We meet one of the Nine Faces of Durga Ma. We will share her myth. We talk a little about what this particular face of the Goddess shows up in our own lives. There'll be a short medita

Amanda Ahern

Sep 182 min read

What Happens When Women Gather to Invoke the Goddess?

There is something rather delicious about a group of intelligent, capable women deciding to spend one hour a day for nine days invoking and honouring the Goddess in her many forms.. Women who run businesses. Manage families. Meet deadlines. Pay mortgages. Make difficult decisions. Know how to get things done. And yet, somewhere underneath all that competence, perhaps there is another knowing. A quiet sense that we are more mysterious than our CVs would suggest. That undernea

Amanda Ahern

Sep 182 min read

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