WINTER SOLSTICE/FULL MOON/SHIVA TEMPLE 2018

Winter Solstice

Full Moon 2018

Shiva Temple Kauai

In place of this months Full Moon Blog I am writing on my experience at the Shiva Temple on Kauai following a few snippets on the planets.  The Full Moon coinciding within hours of the Winter Solstice today is very auspicious.  It is promising us that the future is blessed with brightness or at least this next cycle.  The moon is in a part of the sky called Ardra Nakshatra, it is located in the middle of Gemini and is ruled by Rudra, a fierce form of Shiva who is known to bring the rains and can represent sorrow.  As the Moon is transiting this area of the sky the Sun is opposite (as is always the case on a full moon) in an area of the sky called Mula Nakshatra, ruled by Niritti, goddess of destruction, and a form of Goddess Kali.  This area of the sky is the Galactic Center and the Sun transits here every Winter Solstice, the darkest and longest night of the year, which also means more time to see that beautiful round moon in the sky.  Ardra is ruled by Rahu and Mula is ruled by Ketu so there is also the axis of the North and South Node of the moon contributing to the energy this weekend.  Mula means root so perhaps we can find a way to gather on Friday in circle and ritual and get to the root of the things that we want to change in the coming year.  This is an opportunity for REbirth as the light returns. I have been reflecting on Newgrange in Ireland a lot this week.  Newgrange is a stone structure/passage tomb (mostly white quartz) dating over 5000 years old (thats older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids) that was built to capture the rising sun on the Winter Solstice.  The sunlight shines through the entrance perfectly and lights up the entire chamber, only on this day.  I hope to one day be selected to be in the chamber on that morning.  Because of this months full moon connection to Shiva I thought I’d rather honor him by telling the story of his Temple on Kauai that I was fortunate enough to spend a good bit of time at.  And, the rains that came down while we were there reminded me so much of the constellation Ardra, so it’s perfect!  

I don’t think I can put into words the magnificence of this Hindu Temple and Monastery!  I had been anticipating this moment for quite some time.  Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami was the founder of the temple and monastery and left his body in 2001.  He was quite the mystic and his book The Lemurian Scrolls is a channeled work like no other that I have read.  On a Tuesday morning in November we arrived at 9am for the daily Siva Puja and were greeted immediately by a beautiful Ganesha followed by an amazing and enormous tree being, a Banyan tree with little outcoves for meditation.  Right there, that was enough for me, but it just kept getting better!  Next we removed our shoes and walked behind Nandi the bull, a massive 16 ton statue carved from a single block of black granite.  Nandi is on watch at every Shiva Temple around the world, his eyes never veering from Shiva and he faces the door of the Kadavul Temple, representing the perfect devotee!  The center of worship, in front of Siva Nataraja, in the temple is a 700lb quartz crystal that is emanating so much shakti!!!    It was never cut and resembles a Siva Lingam.  I’ll get back to this story later!  

Before that there is a remarkable astrology wheel that sits in the center of the room just a foot above the floor and I was hoping they sold them in the gift shop😆 I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it, naturally.  It was wooden and had constellations carved in the top along with gemstone spheres resting in their place for that particular days forecast. I thought at first it might be Shiva’s Birth Chart but then as I got closer I could see that it was a reflection of the current days stars.  The Swami that was leading the puja practices Jyotish so he is the one responsible for moving the spheres around everyday...a job I’d love to have some day😆Along the edges were the Nakshatra’s and signs and on the bottom plank of wood the houses.  This piece was one of a kind, I have never seen anything like it before.  To the left of the crystal is another gorgeous Ganesha and to the right a large Lord Kartikkeya, the God of Yoga. The room had 3 shelves that surrounded us and there must have been over 100 Shiva Nataraja’s all portraying different postures.  The kids were amazing and sat through the 2hr puja with no problem, which allowed for some much needed reflection time.  We all wrote our prayers down and placed them in an offering basket!  We were given these beautiful blessed hibiscus flowers at the end that we decided to give back to Ganesha before leaving.  

Hindus are able to request darshan from the Satguru and so we wrote to them a few weeks ago.  The Satguru is traveling at the moment but after puja a very kind monk by the name of Saravananathaswami took us on a special tour of the monastery that was otherworldly!  We were encouraged to take photos (just not in the Kadavul Temple) so I am able to share them with you here.  In 1985 Gurudeva had a dream about a second temple and in 1990 they started building the Iraivan Temple, America’s ONLY all-granite, Hand-carved Hindu Temple.  They are still working on it today, chiseling by hand, just like they did 2000 years ago.  The workers come over from India in 2yr increments, so thats 28yrs of work and it’s still not finished!  We were taken inside the special outcove where the crystal Siva Lingam will be installed and we chanted for a bit.  The vibrations in that small space were astounding, just divine.  We also placed flowers in the tiny holes carved for devotional purposes, imagine they took the time to make tiny holes in the structure so you can make flower offerings.  It brought me back to my travels in India and how detailed, devotional and ornate everything is.  A culture that is in no rush and all about the details and simple gestures.  Below the holes are carved figures of the Bhuti, the elementals that live closest to our earth plane.  They are similar to what the Hawaiians call the Menehune.  

From there we visited the holy Rudraksha trees and I gathered a few to take home. These trees are behind the new temple not in the Rudraksha Forrest that you can visit.  There is only one hole naturally in the seeds so they must be gathered immediately after they fall and a hole must be carved into the other side if they are going to be used for Malas.  I did not know this part, I always thought both holes were drilled.   The fruit drops twice a year and I am pretty sure I will come back and help with the harvest at some point in the future. There were lots of seeds on the ground because they weren’t able to get to them fast enough.  From there we went to see this other small tented rock temple.  The story behind this is magical!  Gurudeva had a vision in meditation that Siva, as a divine light being, appeared atop 6 rocks.  The next day he hired a bulldozer, because at the time the land and property was all jungle.  He told the man to carve a path behind him as he walked with a machete cutting through the Forrest looking for it.  Low and behold there they were at the end of a long path, he found them in the exact placement that he saw in the vision.  The rocks have never been moved.  As we placed flowers Noko began to draw symbols in the sand and Saravananathaswami said she was writing the language of Shum, which is a language of the future consisting of shapes that the Devas had shared with Gurudeva, and that he had written down, WHOA!

Now back to the crystal!  When the new temple began construction Gurudeva started putting the word out that he was looking for a deity to install in the new temple.  He was open to all ideas.  There was a woman that had a store and was part of a new age community who had a connection with a crystal miner in Arkansas.  Gurudeva sent her there to see what the man had.  He showed her everything and it didn’t seem like he had anything that was a fit.  She called Gurudeva and he said go back in the morning and ask him if there was anything else.  She did and he said no, that was all he had.  She reported back to Gurudeva and he said, go back again and ask him one more time.  During that visit he said, ok, there is one more thing.  It was then that he showed her the 700lb crystal.  He said he had found it 10yrs ago on its side just laying on the ground, it had already stopped growing, and he didn’t know what to do with it.  He tucked it away and knew  one day it would reveal itself.  So off to Kauai the crystal went and now we get to sit in its powerful presence and receive its Darshan.  I love this idea of a crystal as the center of worship.  Crystals reflect light and isn’t that what the Divine and our spiritual teachers do.  I was so enchanted by my whole experience and felt so held at this magical sanctuary.  Being from a Shiva Lineage, this place felt extra special to me.  The kids got to pick and feed bananas to the fish in the pond and we all picked lovely flowers to place on different deity’s during our time on the grounds.  Saravananathaswami was so generous with his stories and time and we are so very grateful for this special experience, I could feel Gurudeva’s presence the whole time.  

One of the other  sacred spaces here that I loved so much was the Dakshinamurti, God Shiva as the Silent Guru.  He is shown sitting under a Banyan Tree teaching 4 Rishis (Sanaka, Sanandana, Santana and Sanatkumar) who are the first humans to hear of the path to realization of Absolute Reality, the Self within all.  Rather than transmitting wisdom verbally Dakshinamurti awakens our own intuition and inner knowing by his divine presence.  There is so much reverence pulsating through the grounds, they’ve even created a sculpture of the architect from India and the workers, so beautiful. 

There are 7 Heiau’s ( Hawaiian temples) along the Wailua River that align with the Pleiades and we visited 3 that day.  It is believed by the Hawaiians that we all come from the Pleiades.  It is also a significant constellation in Mayan and Aztec and Egyptian civilizations aligning with some of their ancient structures.  The Pleiades was very visible in the sky during our stay on Kauai as it was near to Makahiki, a four month season that begins sometime in November after the waxing crescent moon.  The first night it was visible to us just so happened to be the night that my husband and I renewed our vows at a Heaiu at the mouth of the Wailua River which just felt cosmically perfect as we had no idea about this alignment with the temples until after.  The Pleiades and mans journey to Earth are discussed in much detail in the Lemurian Scrolls channeled by Gurudeva.  I have my own Lemurian connections and experiences (stories for another time) and seeing them interwoven into a Hindu/Vedic tapestry spoke to my soul and just resonated so deeply within me.  I have gone back to the monastery many times in meditation and continue to find comfort and inspiration from our pilgrimage.  And Shiva continued to pop up in the most unlikely places during the rest of our travels, which I may write about in the near future.  Until then may you experience the Return of the Light and Rebirth that is available during this magical time of year. Solstice Blessings to you!  Om Namah Shivaya🙏🏼