Lalita - Lily Diamond: Music

 

July/August 2006 Issue No.8
Shakambari Devi – She Who Nourishes
by Lily Diamond
You may know Ma as Kali, Tara, Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Lalita… but do you know the Mother as Ma Shakambari? Amarananda Bhairavan translated her name for me as, “She-Who-Is-Clothed-In-Leaves-And-Twigs.” Swami Veda Bharati in his essay, “Shakambari Devi: The Bearer of the Greens,” suggests that this goddess become the symbol for international ecology.
The epic poem, THE DEVI MAHATMYAM, (Glory to the Goddess), otherwise known as The Chandi and as The Durga Saptashati, is chanted during the fire ceremony conducted at the end of “Durga Puja,” or “Navaratri,” the annual ritual celebration of the Divine Mother. In the sacred text, Durga prophesies that when the earth has been dry for a hundred years, the wise ones who continuously meditate upon her will cause her to be born in a superhuman fashion and she will bring forth from her body; fruits, flowers, vegetables and herbs to take away our hunger and thirst and our fear of death. She calls herself, Shakambari. The Devi Mahatmyam is well-known as powerful tool for personal transformation and is intended through its esoteric meanings and its sonic vibrations to alleviate suffering and restore balance during times of natural disaster, war, famine and disease. Many saints and sages make a practice of chanting it daily. Storing wisdom-energy in rituals, objects and locations is a significant aspect of all the spiritual traditions of medicine and healing I have studied. These containers create portals for transmission of the energy and the practice of chanting from The Chandi is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
Discovering Shakambari has been part of a mystical journey for me, connecting with the eternal power of the Divine Mother as She carries out Her mission of bringing enlightenment and restoring balance to the earth. The Studio City Public Library was the setting for one of Mother’s messages to me several years ago. Helping a computer-illiterate neighbor, aptly named Faith, I performed a title search for the play, The Autograph Hound, on the L.A. County’s library catalog and the words, “THE DEVI MAHATMYAM” unexpectedly appeared on the computer screen. This title consistently reappeared after attempting several times to search for the completely unrelated document, and a later check proved that there is no copy of The Devi Mahatmyam in the system’s catalog.
The first day I recited, The Chandi, another synchronicity occurred. In Chapter Eleven, I recognized the words I’d sung every morning for seven years which I’d been divinely guided to do in another extraordinary experience. The words came to me originally from Krishna Das’ recording, “Devi Puja,” the hymn sung in praise of Ma by the Gods, known as The Narayani Stuti, which precedes the appearance of Shakambari. Her story immediately kindled a spark in my heart, and I vowed to write a musical composition. In preparation for receiving a melody to fit the meter of the verses, I made a pilgrimage to Ojai on the day of Autumn Equinox. I sat in the dry riverbed with a friend, playing the harmonium and chanting. When I sang out, “Shakambari, Shakambari… Shak-amba-ri!” a red-tailed hawk flew straight at us, a foot off the ground, made a sharp, low turn to avoid colliding with our bodies, then perched in the nearest tree until the song came to an end.
Once the song “Shakambari Devi” was recorded, Ramamurthy Prabhakaran found it while surfing the internet. Ramamurthy of Chennai, India, is a man so profoundly touched by the hand of the Goddess, he started a temple, Shakambari Purim. We have developed a friendship and one day the stories of our encounters with Shakambari will be told. In the meanwhile, here in the West, through chanting in kirtan we summon her, “She Who Nourishes… Hey Ma! Shakambari Ma! Hey Ma Durga, Jaya Devi Ma!”
Lily Diamond leads kirtans and workshops throughout the Southern California area. Her concert at Jyoti Mandir in March, 2006 was surcharged with the energy of the Divine Mother. More information about Lily, her activities and her beautiful CD, A Heart in Harmony, may be found at her website: www.lilydiamond.com.
“ And whosoever with a concentrated mind shall pray to Me constantly with these hymns, I shall without a doubt put an end to their every trouble.”
-Devi Mahatmyam, Chapter 12, verse 1-2