Shakti

Shakti, herself, the Great Goddess (Kali Ma), is realized as both the sexual partner and the innermost animating soul of man or god.  Jung has called her My Lady Soul: “Every mother and every beloved is forced to become the carrier and embodiment of this omnipresent and ageless image, which corresponds to the deepest reality in man.”

Shakti means “Cosmic Energy.”  She implies “power, ability, capacity, faculty, strength, prowess; regal power, the power of composition, poetic power, genius; the power or signification of a word or term; the power inherent in cause to produce it necessary effect…”. She rebuilds after destruction.

Shakti was also a spirit-wife, or female guardian angel, who could incarnate in human female form or remain wholly supernatural at will.  She is the epitome of the thought that “behind every successful man is a great woman”. “An important division of the ‘mythology of woman’ is devoted to showing that it is always a feminine being who helps the hero to conquer immortality or to emerge victorious from his initiatory ordeals…”

So with Shiva we have Shakti.  It is said that all things rose from the union of the two, and that to “become” the powers of both, the body and soul absorb together, bringing one into “possession of her, the cosmic Shakti, the living embodiment of the principle beauty and youth eternal, the ultimate quest”, and with Shiva, lord of yoga, or union, bringing one into contact with his own universal energy, actualization of body, and eternal bliss.

This will be an epic tattoooo.