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 raised and a culture in which daily life seemed to move in relationship with unseen forces.

The sacred was not separate from the ordinary.

It was present in flowers placed before an image, mantras whispered at dawn, lamps lit at dusk, food offered before it was eaten and prayers made before beginning a journey or opening a business.

At first, this was a source of fascination and curiosity. But as the years passed—and as I spent more time visiting and living in India, immersed in Yoga philosophy and spiritual practice—I began to feel that there was profound wisdom in cultivating a relationship with our invisible power.

Not as blind belief, but as a way of becoming receptive to the mystery, intelligence and creative energy moving through our lives.

My journey into the Goddess

Many years ago, I visited an ancient temple beside the Ganges dedicated to the ten Mahavidyas—the Tantric Wisdom Goddesses.

They were not the sweet, passive or uniformly beautiful goddesses I had imagined.

Some were wild. Some were fierce. Some were old, dishevelled or frightening. Some represented loss, rage, desire, emptiness, sovereignty and powers that women have often been taught to conceal.

What captivated me was that these Goddesses deeply honoured aspects of the feminine—and aspects of myself—that I had not always considered attractive or acceptable.

They regarded these qualities not as deficiencies, but as sources of wisdom and power.

I have been studying and living with the Goddess ever since: trying to understand, accept and revere these energies within myself and recognise them in others.

Who is the Goddess?

The Goddess can be understood in many ways.

For some, she is the Divine Mother: the great feminine presence from which the universe arises.

In Yoga and Tantra, she is Shakti—the dynamic creative energy that brings everything into form. Shiva represents pure consciousness; Shakti is the power through which that consciousness moves, creates and becomes the living world.

She is not only a deity who exists somewhere beyond us.

Shakti is also the intelligence within our bodies, our creativity, our intuition and our capacity to love, protect, heal and transform. She is the life force within each of us, waiting to be recognised and consciously lived.

The nine nights of Navaratri

Navaratri means “nine nights.”

The festival is celebrated in different ways throughout India. In northern India, the nine forms of Durga are honoured, with each day devoted to a particular expression of her power.

Durga was called forth when a destructive force threatened the world and could not be defeated by any man. The gods combined their energies, and from their collective radiance the magnificent Goddess appeared.

Riding a lion or tiger and carrying the weapons and powers of the gods in her many hands, Durga confronted the forces of ignorance, arrogance and domination.

She was not simply one woman fighting alone. She embodied the combined power of the Divine. Durga is fierce, but her fierceness serves love. She protects life, truth and all that is good, kind and authentic.

She is the “pull your socks up” Goddess—the energy we call upon when something difficult must be faced and completed. She gives us the courage to protect what matters, establish boundaries and do what we know needs to be done.

Think of the unwavering power of a lioness protecting her cubs.

I am sure you recognise that fierce protectress somewhere within yourself.

The Journey of the Navadurgas

At Johari House in Haridwar, I experienced Navaratri as a living nine-day journey through the Navadurgas—the nine sacred forms of Durga.

I was introduced to this tradition through my dear friend Seema Agarwal and through a treasured book written by her aunt, which records the stories, meanings and teachings associated with each form of the Goddess.

Each day of Navaratri introduces us to a different Navadurga and a different expression of feminine power.

Their stories are not simply ancient myths to be admired from a distance. They contain parables about courage, devotion, discernment, patience, transformation and the ways we meet the challenges of being human.

When we slow down and enter each story, we can begin to ask:

Where does this Goddess live within me?

What quality is she asking me to recognise or strengthen?

What does her story reveal about the life I am living now?

Over nine days, these stories create a profound inner journey. We are not trying to master the Goddesses intellectually or accumulate more spiritual information. We are giving ourselves time to listen, reflect and allow their wisdom to meet our everyday lives.

One Navadurga. One story. One teaching. One day at a time.

That is already an abundant and complete journey.

Awakening our invisible power

By participating in Navaratri, we make ourselves receptive to something new.

It may be a sudden insight into a situation that has troubled us. It may be an unexpected renewal of hope or the courage to take a step we have been avoiding.

Turning toward our invisible Shakti can also reveal the self-doubt, limiting beliefs and habitual reactions that have kept us from creating a joyful, abundant and deeply meaningful life.

This can be uncomfortable.

But once the Goddess within us is honoured and enlivened, we develop a greater capacity to remain present with discomfort while staying focused on what truly matters.

We become less likely to be swept away by old reactions or torn between the polarities of good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure.

Instead, we begin to live from a deeper centre.

By embracing the Goddess within, we can release energy held in the past, shift stagnation and take the action we know is needed—even when fear and the judgements of others are still present.

From mundane consciousness to sacred consciousness

The Goddess does not ask us to escape our ordinary lives.

She invites us to experience them differently.

A meal can become an offering. A challenge can become an initiation. Creativity can become devotion. A difficult emotion can reveal an unrecognised source of power.

The mundane becomes sacred because we are paying attention.

The Goddess within us is awakened consciousness in action—shining her love, courage, wisdom, creativity, joy and self-acceptance into every part of our lives.

What might change if you began to see each day as infused with meaning?

How would it feel to remain connected to a place of deep peace, even amid the chaos and whirlwinds of life?

An Online Navaratri Retreat

Nine Durgas. Nine Demons. Nine Mantras.

Our journey will be supported by my specially created new Navaratri Workbook, designed to accompany you through the nine sacred nights.

For each of the nine forms of Durga, the workbook includes:

🌺 The story and wisdom of the Navadurga

🌺 The symbolic “demon” she helps us recognise and overcome

🌺 Her individual mantra, chanted 108 times

🌺 Journal questions and sacred inquiry

🌺 Creative space for reflections and Devi Doodles

🌺 The Durga Bhakti devotional practice

The number 108 returns us again to the sacred number nine:

1 + 0 + 8 = 9

Nine nights. Nine Durgas. Nine demons. Nine mantras—each repeated 108 times as we awaken these sacred qualities within ourselves and surrender what no longer serves us to Durga Maa.

https://www.amandaahern.com/what-is-navaratri

If you feel the call, I would love to welcome you.