my Lord,
melt me on the betelnut leaf
show me that i am rough on the surface
but soft all the way through
my delusions of mass
my convictions of being,
my frights of flow
in the melding of haldi
and sanctified water,
apaḥ sips my contractions
pours of holy water,
my fissures dissolve into You
fingertips adorned in yellow hue
and moist eyes of velvet,
i throw my head back and gasp
𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒
photos: the ecstatic Caturāvṛtti Tarpaṇam, completed in forty-one days with my saṅgha of Śabda Yoginīs.
“Tarpaṇam is ritual libation in which the gross flows into the subtle, the lower into the higher, the rigid into the flexible, the known into knowing and the knowing into the knower.
Gaṇapati rules over the gaṇas in the Mūlādhāra cakra. It is here at the Mūlādhāra that solidity becomes our way of life. As soon as I think or say, “this is how I am,” my being has solidified exactly into that way of being. All other possibilities are eliminated. What was previously flowing (from the Sva-adhiṣṭhāna) has now become fixed, definitive, and stubborn.
When we invoke Mahāgaṇapati, he dissolves these self-imposed chains, allowing them to flow out of restrictions toward expansiveness. Unless this solidity melts, there is no growth or expansion.
In November 2022, Śabda Yoginīs across the world took the saṅkalpa of completing the Caturāvṛtti Tarpaṇam for forty-one days. Every day, we prepared a turmeric pyramid representing Mahāgaṇapati that dissolved with 444 offerings of mantra-infused water. The collective experience of this ritual resulted in exponential expansion, groundedness and miraculous transformation and transmutation of the gross to the subtle…
Deep gratitude to our Guru Maṇḍala for guiding us, leading us, and dissolving us.” 
read the rest on Śabda Institute, where you can also find many gorgeous photos from the collective Tarpaṇam experience. 
amaryllis 