By Parvati
I have always felt a strong connection to the Earth, to Nature as a whole, and to unseen energies. I am by far not alone in this bond. Many are acutely aware that our planet, a living organism, is now going through a healing that affects us all because we are literally part of her.
During the summer of 2010, while I was living in Toronto, Canada, the unusually hot global weather patterns led me to cancel a pending Asian music tour and travel to the North Pole in September to raise awareness of the quickly melting polar ice caps. At the top of the world, I performed and shot video for four of my songs, becoming the northernmost performer ever to help raise awareness of our planetary interconnection, our need for conscious awakening, and our ecological responsibility.
At the North Pole, in gratitude to our Mother Earth, I did energy work and puja for the planet chanting the Sri Lalita Sahasranamavali (the Thousand Names of the Divine Mother), an ancient Sanskrit chant. I prayed with all my heart and said to the Earth, “Mother, I know you are suffering. If I can help alleviate your burden, take anything on, let me know.”
Our Prayers are Always Answered
We never know how our prayers will be answered, but they always are, and sometimes not in a manner we expected. On March 11, 2011, before I learned that a tsunami had devastated Japan, I got up to walk downstairs to my meditation room after an unusually turbulent night’s sleep. On the way, I found my pelvis knocked off kilter and my legs numb and not fully functioning.
It was the middle of the Canadian Music Week conference, and I pushed myself to the bookings I had, getting in and out of cars by lifting my legs with my hands because they would not fully move on their own. I figured this strangeness would pass, just as it had mysteriously arrived.
But when I returned home after a day of meetings, mind-altering pain shot suddenly and violently through my spine. My mind went blank from sheer trauma. Paralyzed from the waist down, I would remain fully bedridden for three months, unable to move for even the most basic functions. Doctors at the hospital insisted I had been in a car accident, but I repeatedly said there had been no physical impact. After an ominous diagnosis of a damaged spine and spinal cord, I was given a 50/50 chance of dancing again, and spinal surgery was recommended.
In my core, I did not believe that surgery was the way for my healing. Sent home, I dove deeply into myself and surrendered to the Divine Mother in a way I had never done before.
Other than a couple of friends who carried me weekly on a spine board for healing visits to a gifted biodynamic osteopath, I told no one of my situation. I went deep inside my inner healing cave.
Nature Heals
What followed was a rearranging of everything I knew. For me, this was a time of “karma fast forward,” where I was challenged to let go of that which no longer served me and to learn to absolutely trust a Higher Power for everything—even the basics we take for granted, like walking.
In order to heal, my intuition said I needed to be willing to see my current physical body and the state it was in as a reflection of my limited state of consciousness, which is temporary and imperfect.
I needed to find gratitude for this situation and receive it as divine Grace.
I needed to be willing to suspend judgment of how healing occurs and enter into a field of utter possibility, sensing that all of reality is plastic, malleable, and guided by the immense and perfect force of Nature, which is beyond understanding.
After months of cultivating these attitudes in intensive meditative surrender and absolute trust in the Divine Mother, slowly a miracle occurred: movement returned to my toes, legs, then hips. After learning to roll on my stomach from side to side then push myself up to crawl, by June 1, 2011, I stood again for the first time since the injury.
In the months that followed through the summer of 2011, I had to learn to put one foot in front of the other in a whole new way. As soon as I tried to “do” something that was directed by my mind, I was cattle-prodded by searing pain through my spine and had to stop. The universe had put blinkers on my psyche, and the only way I could move was to deeply listen to an inner impulse that arose from within my body. This impulse rose like a wave through my being and movement effortlessly followed. I did not feel like “I” was doing anything. I did not understand what was happening, but I knew this was working and there was no bargaining with an omniscient power that was clearly in charge.
With grace and with the loving and tireless support of friends and my amazing partner Rishi, who lived every moment of this with me, by the end of October 2011 I was back on stage singing and dancing in rapturous surrender headlining the St. Pete Yoga Festival in Florida.
Chants for the Divine Mother
As soon as I was able to sit for any period of time, I moved into my music studio to create new material in praise of the Divine Mother. The album and show I now tour was born: “YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub,” songs that combine fierce dance grooves and lush electronic soundscapes, featuring traditional Sanskrit chants devoted to my guru Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, also known as Amma or Mother (www.amma.org).
As I wrote, engineered, produced, arranged, and mixed the tracks, I was literally brought to my knees again and again. There was something powerfully different about this album. Not only was I being affected by the vibrational potency of the ancient Sanskrit chants; exactly a year previous to when I produced the album, I had been in bed, in agony, with that severe spinal injury. It was as though this musical work channeled the fruits of my inner transformation. At worst, the creative process felt like taking dictation. At best, I was dancing with the Divine through sound. It was an exhilarating creative process.
We are One Earth Family
The Divine Mother is the planet. She is the body that is born and dies. She sustains us. She is eternal and beyond it all. We are the planet. When the Earth cries, so do we. When she moves, so do we. We are carried by an inexplicable force that moves through our cells, that animates our souls, that literally keeps us alive.
Nature loves us in a way we cannot comprehend.
We cannot comprehend it because it is not of our ego-mind, which knows only to divide and separate. By surrendering to Nature’s intelligence, I was called on the North Pole journey. By surrendering to Nature, I was also healed and experienced what doctors call “a medical miracle.”
To walk: We take it for granted. But it is a miracle. Through the injury, I saw how even the impulse to move is grace, a force beyond will. We think we are the doers, but the “me” does nothing.
Grace is always moving through us, even when we don’t see it.
Healing only happens in the state of absolute surrender and trust in the whole. When we think “we” are healing, we interfere. There is no doing. Because of the grace of free will, we can amplify or interfere with Nature’s communication pathways. Nature will keep on creating and evolving, with or without us. It does not need our “help.” It needs our respect and service. I saw from my journey to the North Pole, and from the healing that followed, that we must reverentially get out of Nature’s way in order to fully thrive as spiritual beings in this material world. We are the planet and she is our Divine Mother.
Parvati Devi, known as the “Positive Possibilities lady,” is a Canadian musician/yogi/activist who encourages those who listen to her music and attend her shows and workshops to believe in the revolutionary notion of possibility. Spearheaded by her independent hit “Yoga in the Nightclub,” Parvati currently tours her show “YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub” through the United States, inspiring audiences to find the Divine everywhere. She has also toured a show called “Natamba,” which has been described as “Madonna meets Cirque du Soleil.” While on tour, she teaches workshops on YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine and provides inspirational talks and individual counselling. For more information on her visit to Florida in early November, please visit parvatidevi.com or yogainthenightclub.com.