Diwali is about celebrating new beginnings and prosperity in all of its forms, by honoring the goddess Lakshmi.
Lakshmi is sometimes simply referred to as “shri.” She is our inner radiance.
Her teachings emphasize a felt sense of having enough, a felt sense of being enough, to recognize that what we ultimately crave is not more stuff, but the inner sense of abundance.
In that spirit, I invite you to think not only in terms of material abundance, but it terms of abundant spiritual wealth, abundant health, abundant joy, and maybe most important, abundant purpose.
Ritual is just one way of tending to the divine. We don’t need all the perfect conditions to honor the divine. One thing I’ve learned in my travels to India, where there is so much beauty and chaos, is that it’s possible to honor the divine that is present within the chaos, the mess and the beauty of our daily lives. We can certainly do this on our own, but when we join together, we are reminded we are a part of something bigger. I invite you to light a candle, place it on a small altar in your home, and honor all the ways you are abundant.
The Light in Me Sees and Honors the Light in You,
Valerie and the Neighborhood Yoga Family
