Matrika Shakti: The Vibratory Power of Word
/The Little Mothers.
They are pure and potent. Pregnant with creative possibility. Forms that somehow hold and birth the infinite. They themselves are holy with the eternal and that which cannot be named. They name it. And spell this world and that one into being. They dance with syllable, sound and syncopation. Swami Tapasyananda says, “the creative force of the universe resides in all the letters of the alphabet. The different letters symbolize the different functions of that creative force, and their totality is designated matrika or the mother in miniature.”
The Little Mothers.
The ones that speak and sing and paint and laugh and make. I am a letter. A form that vibrates with the potential of the universe. When I dance and write and teach and put my hands on people, I feel my shape become a conduit for Her. I feel the inherent meaning of my life unfolding in word and movement. I am not a mother. I am not little. My energy is big and powerful. The power of the letter is in us all. And each one of us, like each one of the letters, channels the Divine in a functional way. Tapasyananda says, “The creative world- process… is seen not only in the production of articulate speech but also in the organization of the human body….The creative force of the universe which dwells in the letters of the alphabet also dwells in the nerve-centers of the human system.” It’s a physical thing, this birthing of word and world. A whole body thing.
The Little Mothers.
The very act of speaking is a divine creative one. The tongue is the sacred Shiva element, the lingham. The mouth is the sacred Shakti, the yoni. We make love each time we speak. So every word, every thing we say, just like the physical act of love, can be careless, impulsive and regretful or it can be a conscious celebration of the glory of divine creative power made manifest in this world. Every letter. Every word. We make love when we speak!This is why sound and words are so sacred and why “a mantra is not a mere combination of sounds, but is the subtle form of the Goddess herself….” The Goddess Shakti, the One we channel, the One that birthed all of us and all of this, the first mother.
The Little Mothers.
A month or so before my mom died, she lost her words. It broke me apart. Even though they had already become few and far between. Even though they didn’t always make sense or resemble actual words. It was a threadbare lifeline of connection that was suddenly quiet. What it showed me, in a way I can only feel and pretend to understand and describe, is how inextricable sound and language is from this physical experience and from the creative process of living. The world was devastating without her sounds in it any longer. Communication didn’t cease however. It got more refined. See, silence brings us up. To heaven, to God, to finer realms. But sound— sound brings through. It brings us through our deepest losses and our greatest joys. Sound brings us through our kicking and screaming, our mistakes and celebrations. Sound is the Great Mother Shakti bringing us through life and bringing life through us. And there is nothing for us to do but to be spoken.