In 2024 the monthly Shiva ceremony will run on the day and time on which it falls (departing from the preferred Sunday 1pm time slot often favoured in the past).
Every year we have celebrated Maha Shivaratri in Feb/March. It has always been a spectacular event, a time of growth and change. Yet this lunar festival occurs every 28 days, with every passing cycle through which the existing light is dissolved in the ocean of all possibility, to then return in fullness again and again.
Lunar festivities are always about the reflected light coming from the Great Sun. In this analogy the Sun is our Higher Soul and the Moon is our mind. The bliss of the higher soul can be brought to mind, but then the mind wants to wander off again into valleys of relative light and egoic dullness.
Our conscious mind, wonderful as it is, is largely a tool of our egoic vehicle. It latches onto a particular version of how things are. When we are on a spiritual path, we know that our experiences are subjective and relative. Nothing is fixed, everything can change and be reborn, transformed. We have more empowerment to bring awakening, growth and change when we stretch more into the light of our full truth.
Each month just before the moon goes fully dark there is a sliver of light, the waning moon.  That is a great time to connect with Lord Shiva. It is a time to surrender the fixed constructs that feel binding and disempowering. We offer them to the great Lord Shiva, dissolver of form, who frees us from the bondage we didn’t know we were in. Every Shivaratri is about overcoming darkness and ignorance.  Some of the things that we may gain assistance with in these monthly festivals:
The monthly festival for our community concentrates around a ceremony, the form will vary as guided by Shakti Durga. It may be a ceremony of fire, water (traditionally called abhishekam) or flowers for the month bringing all this into focus. They can be accessed through Shakti Durga Ceremonies Facebook group and in person at the Harmony Centre. It will be an opportunity for offerings, chanting, community, enjoying time together, and opening our hearts to more love and compassion. Traditionally there is chanting, fasting and meditating upon ethics and virtues such as kindness, non-violence, charity and forgiveness.
We come together in this way, we are helping not just ourselves but the world at large. Feel free to bring offerings such as flowers and food, this helps us to be active participants wherever we are and whatever role we are playing in the ceremony.
If you are watching online you can also place offerings on a table with a jug of water, and the intention is that there will be blessings for these offerings, which can then be consumed after to receive the blessings.
We are looking forward to sharing this precious time together. We are so blessed to be receiving such profound support at this difficult time globally.
Sponsorship
Each monthly Shivaratri ceremony can be sponsored, with a particular sankalpa (intention) to direct the energy of the ceremony strongly in that creative direction.
Sponsorship is $54 per person.
New York: 1.30am; London: 6.30am