When all the women in me is celebrated, when I am my own nurturer, my own harbinger of prosperity and wealth and enterprise, my own endless well of curiosity and learning, a lover of all the arts, my own courage fighting the seen and unseen demons alone, the endless phoenix Sati lifting myself from the ashes to rebuild herself into various avatars, when nothing but a fluid, genderless, equal and complementary is the true lover and partner, when all of creation pours itself into me, when I can know the terrifying Kali within and know the Durga Ma in me and become the compassionate Tripurasundari, cook endless meals in love as Annapoorni, be my own natural healer as Mariyamma, when all the women within me, the lived and unlived fuse into a celebration of a mere mortal existence ... I realize ... nine nights is a little too short to celebrate and forget it all for the rest of the year. It must have started from the minute I took my first breath... And, with every step and breadth, through every road taken, choices made, life celebrated. Lived... I have come home to all the Goddesses within me. I am Shakti. An endless creator celebrating the sheer aliveness of creation as I lose my sense of Self.

Every Goddess is in me, an integral part of my life and identity. Fused. Changing form fluidly from one to the other. If I celebrate the totality of who I am, I have worshipped every Goddess within me.

Nine days is not enough. Just a lifetime just might be.