GloForward Feature: Goddess Lakshmi
Goddesses As Guides: Connecting to Inner Vitality
by Paulette Bodeman
July 9, 2021
Our Goddess series explores three ancient archetypes that represent different qualities and aspects of the universal feminine. Their stories can guide your journey through transition at midlife.
In part one, you met Kali who reminds that in order for newness to arise in your life something needs to die away. In part two, Saraswati offered the gift of discernment and encouraged you to develop a personal purpose for this particular period of your life.
Next, the Goddess Lakshmi arises as pure as the lotus blossom that emerges out of the dark depths of Saraswat’s river of consciousness.
Lakshmi is purnatva, or fullness. Fullness in this sense implies lushness. Lush with vitality and radiance.
Lakshmi isn’t relegated only to the blood years when your body is primed for pregnancy and the birthing of what was only potential.
For many women perimenopause and menopause feels depleting, diminishing and down-right depressing for the many losses of the things that have defined them.
Yet, Lakshmi is the omni-present inner radiance that is eternal. Sure, you may feel a dip in desire, motivation and vitality. However, knowing that this Goddess is always available to you is one way back to reclaiming your sensuality, health, and inspiration.
Living Abundantly
Lakshmi is voluptuous yet not flamboyant like a Las Vegas show girl. She is serene in her beauty. For it is from the well-spring of her many years of lived experience that abundance flows.
She is the generous smile you offer the grocery clerk as you check out, the fresh bouquet of flowers you bring to your elderly neighbor, the new silk scarf woven through with threads of amber and red you wrap around yourself during meditation.
Lakshmi is the volunteering you do at the food bank and the homeless shelter. She’s the Zoom class you’re taking on, healthy eating, yoga and trance dance. Lakshmi is the mentoring of young women on the art of living fully.
Lakshmi is the pure essential oil you pour into the bath water inhaling its mystical fragrance. She is the new lacy lingerie you purchase just for you, the novel you cozy up with and the friendships you savor. She is the appreciation of a glorious sunrise, a work of art, a leisurely stroll on the beach, each breath you take.
Lakshmi is the legacy of love you live every day.
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While many of us are familiar with Lakshmi as the Goddess of wealth, she is more than the Goddess of accumulating money and the extraneousness of what riches bring.
Affirming Life & Love
Lakshmi’s true gifts are her inner qualities of love, harmony, kindness and equanimity. These are the gifts of the badass and brilliant woman who can never be outsourced or stamped with an expiration date. They are virtues that age delectably like a fine Cabernet.
In some ways, Lakshmi is the mirror image of Kali. While Kali is naked, raw and unencumbered, Lakshmi is provocative, yet sweet and kind. She’s evocative, generous and generative. The more boons (gifts) she grants, the more they are returned. Her love is expansive and empowering.
And while Lakshmi does indeed enjoy the beauty and riches of a good life, she’s also practical and economical.
She is that which affirms life so she guides us to make the best choices we can in any given circumstance.
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Lakshmi asks that you never take more than you need. She warns that the single-minded drive for monetary wealth can hold you hostage and block your spiritual growth. She advises that worldly riches will keep you bound and that the practice of non-attachment will set you free in order for you to find the true assets that life offers.
When we are unattached to outer abundance, we’re more able to recognize the beauty of our inner riches. So too, when we experience the realization of our Goddess nature and our connection to all things, it is then that we become truly abundant in our divine essence.
Ultimately, Lakshmi is about recognizing your own divinity. That is the blessing that midlife transition offers, a deeper connection to that which matters most in life.
Her practice is not about accumulating wealth, but one of generosity. She is the harmonious relationship of all aspects of self on the material plane and the way into the lavishness of your interior landscape.
Lakshmi is the grace of self-love, self-respect and self-acceptance no matter what age you are.
When your ego mind is in alignment with your intrinsic Goddess nature it is that force which weaves together the golden threads of your heart’s desire and sets it free into the world.
Midlife is not end of life. Midlife is the reclamation of life.
I believe that a badass and brilliant woman is a woman who has learned to embody the energies of Kali, Saraswati and Lakshmi.
With their support they will help you to swim effortlessly in the current of midlife transition, looking to the future with joy instead of holding on with a death-grip to what was.
Paulette Bodeman
Paulette is a highly regarded yoga teacher and trainer, and long-time student of Tantric philosophy and the stories of India. She is also an Amazon best-seller, Certified Professional Integrative Coach, the founder of the Breakaway Academy and the Badass & Brilliant Method. For more than three decades students have praised the whole-hearted and transformational power of Paulette’s teachings, coaching, and personal development retreats. Paulette is a life-long learner who continues to crave knowledge. She’s earned a B.A. in Transpersonal Psychology and has studied with renowned yoga scholars. She continues to up-level her coaching skills by studying with internationally recognized business and life coaches.
