Sri

Have you also spent most of 2020, and continued into 2021 thinking about whether to focus more on your own needs or that of others?

We seem to be at a time when we are being pressured to find a balance between our own needs and those of others.

Balances of power need to be restored. If someone has taken power over someone or something else, it needs to be given back. If you have been deprived of power over yourself, it needs to be repossessed.

It also seems to be a time when we need to learn how the individual good is connected to the collective. How do you really make your best contribution to the world? And what really makes us happy? It does not feel as if this time will allow superficial answers to this question. Instead, we are confronted with our illusions.

The goddess of the Tantric tradition who represents the balance between giving and taking is Lakshmi.

Lakshmi is also called Sri because her very nature is a personification of sri; wealth, abundance and beauty.

Sri is also linked to fertility and the power of growth. You could say it’s the power that nurtures all of life.

As with everything, we can get both too much and too little of this quality in our lives.

Just as it is important to see when we let our tendencies to enjoy go too far, it is important to see when it is time to nurture ourselves.

We also need the ability to see what is real nutrition, and what is false.

That is the only way we can achieve harmony within ourselves, with others and the environment around us.