Download Free Singing To The Goddess Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Singing To The Goddess and write the review.

This collection presents 145 brief Bengali lyric poems dedicated to the Hindu goddesses Kali and Uma. These poems were written from the early-18th century up to the contemporary period. They represent the Bengali tradition of goddess worship (Saktism).
Kirin Narayan’s imagination was captured the very first time that, as a girl visiting the Himalayas, she heard Kangra women join their voices together in song. Returning as an anthropologist, she became fascinated by how they spoke of singing as a form of enrichment, bringing feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, and even good health—all benefits of the “everyday creativity” she explores in this book. Part ethnography, part musical discovery, part poetry, part memoir, and part unforgettable portraits of creative individuals, this unique work brings this remote region in North India alive in sight and sound while celebrating the incredible powers of music in our lives. With rare and captivating eloquence, Narayan portrays Kangra songs about difficulties on the lives of goddesses and female saints as a path to well-being. Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in courtyards or the subtle balance of flavors in a meal, well-crafted songs offer a variety of deeply meaningful benefits: as a way of making something of value, as a means of establishing a community of shared pleasure and skill, as a path through hardships and limitations, and as an arena of renewed possibility. Everyday Creativity makes big the small world of Kangra song and opens up new ways of thinking about what creativity is to us and why we are so compelled to engage it.
Annually during the months of autumn, Bengal hosts three interlinked festivals to honor its most important goddesses: Durga, Kali, and Jagaddhatri. While each of these deities possesses a distinct iconography, myth, and character, they are all martial. Durga, Kali, and Jagaddhatri often demand blood sacrifice as part of their worship and offer material and spiritual benefits to their votaries. Richly represented in straw, clay, paint, and decoration, they are similarly displayed in elaborately festooned temples, thronged by thousands of admirers. The first book to recount the history of these festivals and their revelry, rivalry, and nostalgic power, this volume marks an unprecedented achievement in the mapping of a major public event. Rachel Fell McDermott describes the festivals' origins and growth under British rule. She identifies their iconographic conventions and carnivalesque qualities and their relationship to the fierce, Tantric sides of ritual practice. McDermott confronts controversies over the tradition of blood sacrifice and the status-seekers who compete for symbolic capital. Expanding her narrative, she takes readers beyond Bengal's borders to trace the transformation of the goddesses and their festivals across the world. McDermott's work underscores the role of holidays in cultural memory, specifically the Bengali evocation of an ideal, culturally rich past. Under the thrall of the goddess, the social, political, economic, and religious identity of Bengalis takes shape.
This practical approach to a growing movement offers suggestions for honouring the feminine spirit and communing with the Goddess. It includes chapters on the Goddess of the spheres, pagans and witches, re-creating the sacred dimension, altar etiquiette and invoking deities. The author shows how how to build a meaningful altar, use rituals and meditations to enrich awareness and invent new rituals to celebrate personal events. Her suggestions run from the mundane, to the exotic, to the extraordinary.
"Full of wonder." —Elizabeth Acevedo A Best Book of the Year at BuzzFeed, Refinery29, and Entropy Magazine What makes a self? In her remarkable debut collection of poems, Destiny O. Birdsong writes fearlessly towards this question. Laced with ratchetry, yet hungering for its own respectability, Negotiations is about what it means to live in this America, about Cardi B and top-tier journal publications, about autoimmune disease and the speaker’s intense hunger for her own body—a surprise of self-love in the aftermath of both assault and diagnosis. It’s a series of love letters to black women, who are often singled out for abuse and assault, silencing and tokenism, fetishization and cultural appropriation in ways that throw the rock, then hide the hand. It is a book about tenderness and an indictment of people and systems that attempt to narrow black women’s lives, their power. But it is also an examination of complicity—both a narrative and a black box warning for a particular kind of self-healing that requires recognizing culpability when and where it exists.
Explores the contemporary nature and the diverse narratives, rituals, and performances of the Navar?tri festival. Nine Nights of the Goddess explores the festival of Navarātri—alternatively called Navarātra, Mahānavamī, Durgā Pūjā, Dasarā, and/or Dassain—which lasts for nine nights and ends with a celebration called Vijayadaśamī, or "the tenth (day) of victory." Celebrated in both massive public venues and in small, private domestic spaces, Navarātri is one of the most important and ubiquitous festivals in South Asia and wherever South Asians have settled. These festivals share many elements, including the goddess, royal power, the killing of demons, and the worship of young girls and married women, but their interpretation and performance vary widely. This interdisciplinary collection of essays investigates Navarātri in its many manifestations and across historical periods, including celebrations in West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Nepal. Collectively, the essays consider the role of the festival's contextual specificity and continental ubiquity as a central component for understanding South Asian religious life, as well as how it shapes and is shaped by political patronage, economic development, and social status.
This long-awaited poetry collection from award-winning Pasifika poet Karlo Mila spans work written over a decade. The poems are both personal and political. They trace the effect of defining issues such as racism, poverty, violence, climate change and power on Pasifika peoples, Aotearoa and beyond. They also focus on the internal and micro issues – the ending of a marriage, the hope of new relationships, and the daily politics of being a partner, woman and mother. The collection meditates on love and relationships and explores identity, culture, community and belonging with a voice that does not shy away from the difficult.
You are a creator, lover, priestess, and healer—a multifaceted goddess with confidence, spiritual wisdom, and the power to reinvent yourself. Based on a lifetime of deep spiritual study and her firsthand experiences around the world, Katalin Koda offers an innovative way for you to bring the sacred feminine into your everyday life. Fire of the Goddess presents nine goddess archetypes that correspond with every woman's inherent gifts and the most important facets of her life: firebearer, initiate, warrioress, healer, consort, bodhisattva, priestess, weaver, and crone. For each archetype, you'll connect with its associated goddess—Pele, Artemis, Quan Yin, Isis, and others—through inspiring exercises, the power of myth, and a sacred ceremony. Form a women's circle Call on your ancestors Find your animal guide Celebrate your sensuality Open up to your inner masculine Practice deep listening Through the exploration of each goddess aspect, you will begin to discover the strength, spirituality, beauty, and authenticity of your sacred and ever-evolving self. Praise: "This is a truly wonderful literary experience that connects women to a profound aspect of themselves that is often overlooked by the modern world."—Prediction
Aphrodite. Zeus. Medusa. Hercules. You've heard their names. You thought you knew their stories... until now. Lose yourself in this collection of eleven young adult re-imaginings of Greek myths from the authors of Snowy Wings Publishing. From magical kingdoms under the sea to the halls of a modern high school, from Ancient Greece to the distant future, you will find romance, courage, fantasy, danger, and more. With each story bringing a twist on a classic legend, there is something for everyone to enjoy again and again. Across the ages, the Muses call: SING, GODDESS!