Navaratri

Ghatasthapana (Pot Ceremony)
Fill a clay or copper pot (kalash) with water, place a coconut on top wrapped in red cloth, surround the base with soil and barley seeds. By the ninth night, the barley will have sprouted — a living symbol of the Shakti growing inside you.

The Altar
Clean a dedicated space. Place an image of Durga at the center. Add a ghee lamp, incense, fresh flowers (changed daily), and a plate for offerings. Red cloth underneath.

Fasting
Avoid grains, onion, garlic, meat, alcohol. Sattvic foods: fruits, milk, nuts, sabudana, kuttu, potatoes, sweet potato. One meal at sunset after evening puja. The fast redirects digestive energy toward sadhana.

Daily Rhythm
Wake before sunrise. Bathe. Light the lamp. Chant the mantra of the day 108 times. Read the katha. Wear the prescribed color. Make the offering. Evening: full puja with aarti, Durga Chalisa recitation, and chakra meditation.

Essential listening throughout:

• Durga Chalisa — Anuradha Paudwal for daily recitation
• Aigiri Nandini (Mahishasura Mardini Stotram) — the most powerful Durga hymn
• Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu — Devi Mahatmyam set to music
• Jai Ambe Gauri — classic Durga aarti, sung every evening
• Om Dum Durgayei Namaha — Krishna Das
• Devi Prayer — Craig Pruess & Anuradha Paudwal
• Kali Durge — Jai Uttal for the fierce nights
• Saraswati Vandana — for nights 7-9
• Garba and Dandiya Raas music — for communal celebration

Chakra: Muladhara (Root)
Color: Red

Katha: After Sati immolated herself, she was reborn as Parvati, daughter of Himavat. From childhood drawn to Shiva, she undertook fierce tapas until the heat of her discipline melted his withdrawal. Shailaputri grounds herself first — ascent requires foundation.

Mantra: Om Devi Shailaputryai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Pure ghee
Practice: Sit on the earth. Attention to the base of spine. Visualize red light at Muladhara. Ask: what foundation am I building?
Music: Durga Chalisa + Om Dum Durgayei Namaha

Chakra: Svadhisthana (Sacral)
Color: White

Katha: Parvati performed thousands of years of penance. The devas sent Kamadeva to shoot Shiva with love-arrows; Shiva burned him to ash. But Parvati's tapas continued. It was discipline, not desire, that moved Shiva. Brahmacharini teaches: the second chakra's energy is fuel to be channeled.

Mantra: Om Devi Brahmacharinyai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Sugar or mishri (rock candy)
Practice: Pick one indulgence and consciously redirect that energy. Meditate on sacral area with orange-white light.
Music: Jai Ambe Gauri aarti. Quiet, sustained chanting.

Chakra: Manipura (Solar Plexus)
Color: Yellow

Katha: When Shiva appeared at their wedding in terrifying form, Parvati took her own fierce form — ten arms, riding a tiger — and commanded him to appear beautifully. She matched ferocity with sovereign will. Chandraghanta transforms terror into beauty through courage.

Mantra: Om Devi Chandraghantayai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Milk or kheer
Practice: Face something you've been avoiding. Ring a bell 3 times before meditation. Solar plexus with golden-yellow light. The first three nights complete — tamas is cracking.
Music: Aigiri Nandini — let rhythm build courage.

Chakra: Anahata (Heart)
Color: Green

Katha: Before creation, only darkness. Kushmanda smiled, and from that smile the universe was born — not through effort but through joy. She rides a lion and holds a jar of amrit. Her eight arms hold the instruments of cosmic creation. The heart's warmth is the most creative force in the universe.

Mantra: Om Devi Kushmandayai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Malpua (sweet pancake) — food made with love
Practice: Smile before every action. Meditate on heart center with emerald green light. What wants to be born through your heart? Tonight the energy shifts from destroying tamas to creating sattva.
Music: Om Jai Lakshmi Mata — gentle, abundant.

Chakra: Vishuddha (Throat)
Color: Grey

Katha: Skandamata holds infant Skanda on her lap. Skanda was born to destroy demon Tarakasura. Before becoming the general of divine armies, he was a baby in his mother's arms. The fiercest strength is born from the deepest tenderness. The throat chakra's power is truth spoken from maternal authority.

Mantra: Om Devi Skandamatayai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Banana
Practice: Speak one truth you've been holding back — not as aggression but as love. Hum during meditation, filling the throat with vibration. What needs to be said? What needs sacred silence?
Music: Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu — the gentler, maternal verses.

Chakra: Ajna (Third Eye)
Color: Orange

Katha: When Mahishasura obtained a boon that no god or man could kill him, the Trinity combined their energies and Katyayani emerged. Each god gave her a weapon: Shiva's trident, Vishnu's discus, Brahma's kamandalu. She is the collective rage of the divine made feminine — the absolute refusal to tolerate adharma. Also worshipped by unmarried women, because she is the Shakti that knows exactly what it wants.

Mantra: Om Devi Katyayanyai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Honey
Practice: Sit in darkness. Attention to the third eye. Visualize eighteen arms, each weapon a faculty of consciousness. What needs divine precision to cut away?
Music: Aigiri Nandini — full intensity.

Chakra: Beyond standard mapping — shadow work, descent before final ascent
Color: Blue

Katha: Kalaratri is Parvati's most terrifying form. Dark as the void, hair wild, flames from her breath, necklace of skulls. She rides a donkey — true power needs no display. When demons Shumbha and Nishumbha terrorized creation, her laughter alone annihilated armies. She is the dark night of the soul — everything you thought you knew, stripped away.

Mantra: Om Devi Kalaratryai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Jaggery (gur) — sweetness found only in darkness
Practice: The most powerful night for meditation. Sit in complete darkness. Do not resist fear, grief, or whatever arises. Let Kalaratri consume everything false. This is not comfort — it is truth.
Music: Kali Durge — Jai Uttal. Or silence.

Chakra: The purified energy body — what remains after the dark night
Color: Pink

Katha: After years of penance, Parvati's skin was dark with ash. When Shiva accepted her, he bathed her in the Ganga from his hair, and she emerged radiantly white — not absence of color but every color combined, like sunlight. Mahagauri is the Goddess after the fire. This is Ashtami — the most auspicious night. Special pujas and homas are performed.

Mantra: Om Devi Mahagauryai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Coconut — hard shell broken to reveal pure interior
Practice: After last night's darkness, notice what has been burned away. White light filling the body from crown to root. Forgiveness — of self and others. Stay up late in prayer. Ashtami is the night for extra devotion.
Music: Saraswati Vandana — energy shifts from fierce to luminous.

Chakra: Sahasrara (Crown)
Color: Purple

Katha: Siddhidatri sits on a lotus, worshipped by devas, asuras, and sages alike. She grants the eight siddhis: anima, mahima, garima, laghima, prapti, prakamya, ishitva, vashitva. But these are not powers to acquire — they are recognitions of what consciousness already is when fully awakened. Siddhidatri unveils your own completeness.

Mantra: Om Devi Siddhidatryai Namaha (108 times)
Offering: Sesame seeds (til) — tiny seeds containing vast potential
Practice: Navami — the final night. Feel all nine Durgas simultaneously, root to crown. The full circuit is alive. Recite complete Durga Chalisa. Offer everything into the fire. Kanya Puja today: worship the Goddess in every girl and woman.
Music: Full Durga Chalisa, then Devi Prayer by Craig Pruess.

Also known as: Dussehra (Dasha + Hara = removal of ten sins/heads of Ravana)
Color: Your choice — this is the day of freedom

In North India, giant effigies of Ravana are burned at sunset — the ten-headed demon of ego consumed by nine nights of fire. In Bengal, Durga Visarjan — the clay murti is carried in procession to the river and immersed. The Goddess returns to formlessness. In South India, Vidyarambham — children write their first letters in rice grains. Saraswati's wisdom crystallizes into knowledge.

Practice: Remove the kalash. If barley has sprouted, distribute it. Share prasad from nine days of offering. Clean the altar. Sit quietly. What has shifted? What was burned away? What sprouted? Write one sentence capturing the essence of your journey. This is your vijaya — victory over the ignorance that made you forget what you are.