PHOTO: DURGA-INSPIRED ART BY MONICA MORENO ARTFinding Durga
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april 2019yogajournal.com.auThis legendary goddess can help empower your
aspirations and call forth the leader within.
FIVE YEARS AGO, Lynda opened a yoga
studio in an inner-city neighbourhood
in a big city. A recovering alcoholic,
Lynda saw the studio as her public
service, a way to reach out to other
young women who might otherwise
lead troubled lives. She used donations
as well as money from her sessions withBy Sally Kempton
private clients to pay the rent, and she
advertised free yoga classes for high
school girls. Slowly her classes filled up,
often with girls who had no place to go
in the afternoon after school. Teaching
these vulnerable, sceptical, wounded
young women was challenging for
Lynda. One night, after a particularlytough day, she dreamed of a beautiful
woman mounted on a huge roaring lion.
When she awoke, she realised that the
image she had seen was reminiscent of
Durga, the warrior goddess of Indian
mythology. That day, guiding an
especially restless group of girls into the
Warrior sequence, she began to tell