Celebrating Diwali: The Festival of Lights

 

Goddess Lakshmi
by Raja Ravi Varma
1848-1906

“Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.”  Mahatma Gandhi

“Diwali or Deepavali is one of the biggest and auspicious festivals celebrated by Hindus all around the globe. The festival of lights signifies peace and joy, the victory of good over evil, and light over darkness every day. It is one of the most symbolic Hindu festivals, and all the communities in the country celebrate it with much pomp. During this festival, people clean their homes, decorate every corner with lights, lamps, diyas, flowers, rangoli, and candles. Families also perform Lakshmi Puja and pray to the Goddess of wealth to bless them with health, wealth, and prosperity.”
https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/festivals/diwali-2021-significance-history-date-time-puja-muhurat-and-all-you-need-to-know-101635849456204.html

Diwali, celebrated this year on November 4, is also known as the Festival of Lights. I offer you some story sites from India to help you celebrate.

Hitopadesha Tales - A compilation of short stories following the pattern of prose and verse. 
http://tinyurl.com/24vvn29

Jataka Tales - These fables, written in 300 B.C. were intended to impart values of self-sacrifice, morality, honesty, and other values.
http://tinyurl.com/36o6cg3 

Celebrating the Country of India
This is an older blog post I shared in January of this year. It is full of wonderful resources consisting of  several story collections, along with individual stories, book selections, curriculum and more. 
http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2021/01/celebrate-country-of-india.html

Here are some stories of light from around the world.

STORIES

The Blue Light – Germany
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0562.html#grimm

The Buried Moon - England
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft24.htm

The Goddess of Light - Canada
https://fairytalez.com/the-goddess-of-light/

Light Makes Prosperity - India
http://tinyurl.com/7c4crnt

Crow Brings Daylight – Native American – Inuit
http://tinyurl.com/7zyzudr

The Origin of Light – Native American
http://tinyurl.com/85x6uhg

Raven Steals the Light – Native American
http://tinyurl.com/5lnq26

BOOKS

21 Children’s Books About Diwali
https://coloursofus.com/21-childrens-books-about-diwali-the-festival-of-lights/

The best Diwali books to share the Festival of Lights with your child
https://www.motherandbaby.com/reviews/education-toys/best-diwali-books/

PBS – Celebrate Diwali with Books!
https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/celebrate-diwali-with-books

CRAFTS

Diwali Diya Mobile 
https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/diya-mobile  

Diwali Door Hanging - Traditional embroidered door hanging to welcome visitors and hopefully the Goddess of Fortune Lakshmi. 
https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/diwali-door-hanging  

Diwali Coloring Pages 
https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/diwali-colouring-pages  

RECIPES

100 Diwali Recipes

https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/diwali-sweets-recipes-diwali-recipes/

SOMETHING EXTRA

8 Easy Diwali Crafts for Kid
https://theeducatorsspinonit.com/easy-diwali-crafts-for-kids/

Diwali in History
https://www.diwalifestival.org/diwali-in-history.html

The Lesser Known Stories about Diwali
https://www.tell-a-tale.com/the-lesser-known-stories-about-diwali/

National Geographic – Diwali is India’s most important holiday
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/diwali-history-customs-indian-festival-of-lights

 

 

Please note, websites change at a rapid pace and weblinks may change or break without notice. I cannot be responsible for redirected or broken links.  At the time of this posting all links were in working order. Thank you for understanding.

 

Karen Chace 2021 © 

This blog post was researched and compiled by Karen Chace. Permission for private use is granted. Distribution, either electronically or on paper is prohibited without my expressed written permission. For permission, please contact me at storybug@aol.com. Of course, if you wish to link to my blog via your website, blog, newsletter, Facebook page or Twitter please feel free to do so; I appreciate your support and personal integrity.

 

Fighting Demons with Compassion

Goddess Durga
18th Century, Author Unknown

Fighting Demons With Compassion
By Gaye Sutton © 2012

It was autumn; the time of year that one of my favourite poets calls the ‘sacred, sensual, significant time of the year’ ¹ The trees were blazing colour, the sky grey and the harvest almost over.  I’d been telling stories at the Addictions Centre for three weeks, encouraging the women to paint and draw afterwards.  Some of them loved to paint and some struggled with their confidence.  But they all loved hearing stories.  The mornings were fun; they were an upbeat bunch, the women the Addiction Centre staff called their ‘chronics.’

But that fourth week; the atmosphere was dull and flat, everyone looked morose especially Janie and her mates.   The morning check-in took a long time.  Janie had ‘relapsed’ at work over the weekend. She sat with her blonde head bowed; her small frame huddled into the corner of the couch, her voice almost a whisper as she told us about the temptation, her attempts to resist and the caving in. 

During morning tea in the kitchen, talk turned to the hopelessness they all felt about ever losing the label chronic.

 “They [the staff], don’t expect that we’ll ever leave this group and I’m not sure I believe we will either,” one said and several heads nodded.  I leaned against the bench, remembering my despair about what I thought of as the impending end of the world and our apathy about it. I’d begun collecting re-creation stories, stories of hope to sustain myself and it seemed to me, that this was a moment for one of these.

Once everyone was seated on couches and chairs again I stood and began my story…”The world stood poised on the brink of destruction once before.

Rivers dried up, plants refused to grow. People starved. There was war everywhere.  Slaughter prevailed.  Dancing stopped, even singing was forgotten.  The asuras, the demons, were loose, raging unchecked across the world, drunk with destruction…”²

It’s a myth about the cosmic battle between Durga, who rode a lion out of a column of fire that stretched from the sky down to the top of the Himalayas, and the many, many demons she had to fight to save the world.  A battle so fierce ; “…oceans boiled, the sky stretched thin, the mountains shook…”

A powerhouse tale of an alliance between many of the Hindu goddesses and a reminder that the last fight is one we must win alone.  The atmosphere, when I finished, was electric and the women moved eagerly towards the art materials on the table and worked in deep silence. 

Afterwards, I asked each woman to tell us the story of her images, as I held them up and responded to each story by personalising the image.  Janie’s painting was of black mountains, covered in snow. A huge column of fire stretched from green foothills to the heavens. Durga stood in the flames, but her feet were planted firmly in the green earth.

“She’s got her feet on the ground and she’s in the flames, but fighting her way through, to save her world.” Janie said.  

I held the painting up to her and said, “This is you Janie, grounded in the earth and fighting the fire to save your world.”  It was a powerful moment and one that Janie referred to often in the weeks that followed. 

We moved back to the couches where I told a personal story about my discovery of  Kuan Yin, the Mother of Compassion in Buddhism, which begins with a powerful meditation recorded in Jon Blofield’s book: ‘In Search Of The Goddess of Compassion’.

As the story ended, a discussion began; about spirituality as opposed to religiosity, their antipathy to the Twelve Step Programme because of finding a male God unacceptable.  It was a turning point.  Several of the women joined their local AA groups, taking feminine representations of the divine with them to meetings. It helped them stop resisting notions of the divine.   Some of them adopted Kuan Yin as a mother archetype and used her to make contact with their compassion for themselves.   When my stint at the service finished some had been sober longer than ever before. 

1.  Dinah Hawken.   Writing Home

2.   China Galland, The Bond Between Women :A Journey to Fierce Compassion

Gaye Sutton is a storyteller, Child & Family Therapist and Celebrant living under mountains in New Zealand on a small organic farm with her beloved Michael.  She likes to weave and spend time with her delightful children and grandchildren   She is currently the Convenor of Glistening Waters Festival of Storytelling Inc. and seeking committee members and willing souls to make another festival in New Zealand in the future.

She loves the way mythology; “informs and enlivens our daily lives,” and is always looking ‘for the links. Gaye can be found at www.storyweaver.co.nz  or on her blog http://storyweaversjournal.wordpress.com/ .

Gaye Sutton is a guest blogger for Karen Chace and Catch the Storybug blog. All rights to this article belong to Gaye. Distribution, either electronically or on paper is prohibited without her expressed, written permission. Of course, if you wish to link to the article Facebook or Twitter please feel free to do so. If you would like to be a Guest Blogger contact Karen at Storybug@aol.com for the details.