Goddesses of Litha - Lakshmi : Hindu Goddess of Wealth, Power, Success & Beauty
Lakshmi is the Hindu Goddess of good fortune, abundance, wealth, success, luck, authority, power, beauty, well-being, radiance, love, fertility and sustainability.
She is usually depicted as a beautiful woman with a serene expression, dressed in an exquisite red and gold or magenta sari and adorned with jewels. She is normally seated on a pink lotus, holding lotuses in two of her four hands, with a shower of golden coins dripping from her other hands. Her four hands represent the four aims of human life: righteousness, pleasure, wealth and liberation.
The hymns that praise her point out that she is ‘the bestower of intelligence as well as success, of liberation as well as of worldly enjoyment’ (1)
One of her names is Kamala, which means ‘lotus’. The lotus is a symbol of growth and transcendence - the roots begin in muddy waters and have to grow through the murkiness of the pond but the flower blooms pure and beautiful on the top of the surface. Lakshmi is that blossoming essence - the unconscious made manifest and an embodiment of purity, beauty and consciousness.
She was said to be born radiant from the churning of the sea holding a lotus (echoing the birth story of another goddess of beauty, radiance & love, my Goddess of Beltane - Aphrodite). She also shares similarities to another abundance, beauty, fertility and love Goddess from the Yoruban culture, Oshun - both are incredibly beautiful, dress lavishly, love beautiful things and their presence ensures the continuing fertility of the land. Like Oshun, if Lakshmi doesn’t feel her presence is valued she won’t stay to debate her worth, simply preferring to up and leave, causing all growth on earth to cease (but more on that later…). This is a Goddess who Knows. Her. Worth 💁.
Also like Oshun, Lakshmi has been worshipped as an early 'mother Goddess’ or 'mata': the female energy of supreme consciousness and the perfect embodiment of grace, beauty, purity and prosperity.
She’s the beloved wife of Vishnu and mother of Kama, god of love. She is said to have assumed the personality of the wife of Vishnu in each of his ten avatars or incarnations making her not only a goddess of wealth and prosperity, but also of love, devotion and marriage (as if she didn’t have enough to reign over!).
Lakshmi is believed to be the Goddess energy who preserves life. Her ‘Shakti’ - or particular brand of divine feminine energy or power - is sustaining life both in the physical and subtle realms. She was worshipped in the Vedic prayers as ‘Shri’ for bringing forth whatever is glorious and beautiful in the natural world. Besides being a name of Lakshmi, Shri signifies all the qualities associated with auspiciousness - good fortune, loving kindness, material prosperity, physical health, beauty, purity of motive, well-being, authority, energy, vitality and every kind of radiance (um yes please! 🙋)
To this day, Lakshmi is still one of the most popular deities in the Hindu pantheon and nearly every home and business has a statue or image honouring her (since the early incarnations of my channel and business I’ve had a fabric print of Lakshmi pinned up in my temple room). She is worshipped year round but is particularly celebrated at the festivals of Navaratri and Diwali where her worshippers will engage in a ritual of thorough house-cleansing and decoration in advance - symbolic of washing away negativity and welcoming in Lakshmi’s blessings (she is a Goddess of beauty after all, so make sure your space is clean, tidy and aesthetically pleasing before expecting her to bestow her many blessings!).
‘“Life is good” is a Lakshmi mantra. If you could see Lakshmi’s energy as light, you would see that it is rose-gold - rosy with the colour of optimism, good health, and love; gold with the colour of abundance, the inner sense of fullness that overflows as joy and sweetness.’ - Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti
In this, she aligns well with the festival of Litha - a time that honours the increase in light, warmth and energy and was a celebration of abundance, fertility, growth and joy.
HER MYTH
One day, Indra, the king of gods, is riding his celestial elephant through the glorious kingdom of the gods. He has the arrogance of an absolute ruler and rather thinks of himself as god’s gift to mankind (you know the type… I’m sure we can recognise this in certain political leaders today….).
As he’s sashaying along on his elephant, he notices the sage Durvasas standing on the road, looking a tad dishevelled and holding up a garland. Durvasas offers Indra the garland telling him it contains the very essence of auspiciousness - ‘Shri’ - and prosperity and to guard it well as it is a divine gift.
Indra offers a rather absent-minded greeting to the sage, takes the garland and then arrogantly drops it on the ground. Durvasas is appalled at Indra’s blatant carelessness and curses him - “just as you dishonoured auspiciousness, auspiciousness will abandon you!”
Immediately every sign of life in Indra’s kingdom droops. The garland was the form of Lakshmi herself, the Goddess of abundance, auspiciousness and all-round-goodness. Her flowering form represented the flowering of the natural world, and the sage had offered it freely to Indra.
When Indra didn’t take care of the auspiciousness so graciously bestowed on him, Lakshmi (not the type of Goddess to stay around to prove her worth) simply upped and disappeared from the worlds taking all beauty, fertility, and prosperity swiftly along with her.
It wasn’t just crops that stopped growing - every form and expression of goodness also dried up - people stopped giving gifts, no-one offered anyone any charity or helped their neighbours. Nor did anyone clean the streets or tend to the temples. Couples quarrelled, people were indifferent to each other and rulers forgot to consider their people and raised taxes mercilessly. Even the sun and moon dimmed and a dull cloud lay over the earth (hmm any of this sounding vaguely familiar…?🤔) This is the rather drastic result of Lakshmi withdrawing her generative powers and benevolence.
In desperation, the other gods approach Lord Vishnu, the ruler of the worlds, whose cosmic task it is to maintain the material universe in balance. He does this cosseted high up in his cosmic abode however it is Lakshmi who gives him the power to do this so when she disappears from the worlds even he can’t keep anything going.
Once he scans his awareness to discover what has happened, he goes to the end of the boundless ocean and gets all the gods to stand on one side, all the demons on the other and together with prayers and supplications, they all start churning the ocean.
Many amazing treasures come forth and eventually as the waters are swirling into vast waves, the beautiful figure of Lakshmi slowly rises up from the centre of the whirlpool standing gracefully on a lotus. Golden light pours from her and as she steps from the lotus and takes Vishnu’s hand, the earth bursts into flower. The memory of love is reborn and sages rekindle their sacred fires. The sun and moon regain their splendour, generosity returns and the wealthy invite the beggars to come and feast with them. Goodness and fertility is restored.
When Lakshmi marries Vishnu, the world celebrates the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine, of wisdom and love. In their union, an age of order and harmony is born. Dharma itself, the principle of righteous action, is Lakshmi’s gift.
“It’s easy to see this story as a parable for our time. Just as carelessly as Indra tossed away Durvasa’s garland, our own Indras have used and tossed aside the bounty of the earth, poisoned the atmosphere and insulted nature in a thousand ways. We see signs of Lakshmi’s withdrawal in the desertification of so many parts of the planet, in the pain of starvation and cruelty that afflict so many on the earth, and in the cynicism and violence of so much contemporary art and culture. From a subtle perspective, when we consider what it means to live sustainably in this world, we are actually contemplating what it means to incarnate Lakshmi. Even the word sustainable is a reference to her. She is the goddess energy who preserves life.” - Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti
WORKING WITH HER
Self Worth & Cultivating Abundance
If you struggle with low self-worth or low self-value, tend to under-charge for your work or the value you give, or struggle to trust in a sense of abundance, Goddess Lakshmi is the Goddess par excellence to work with to heal this.
As Sally Kempton says of Lakshmi in Awakening Shakti:
“Her Shakti manifests inwardly as a subtle trust in the goodness of the universe, as a feeling of contentment and confidence. Lakshmi embodies a kind of heartfelt self-worth, which is why meditating on Lakshmi is a good way for someone with self-esteem issues to uncover their own intrinsic value.” - (p.90)
The Lakshmi card in the ‘Wild & Sacred Feminine deck’ contains some gems of wisdom along these lines on cultivating abundance:
The Hindu Goddess of abundance says that when you follow your dharma - your purpose in life - contentment will follow.
If you suffer from scarcity consciousness - the belief that you are neither good enough nor have enough - it is time to treasure your inner assets. Abundance is the realisation that what you have is enough. Rather than obsessing on attracting more for yourself, think about what you can liberally give away: attention, support, goodwill, love. Don’t obstruct the flow of wealth; make it your aim to give more than you take and know that what is yours will come to you. Blessings are ever flowering, but only those with ample hearts appreciate the devotion behind Lakshmi’s providential pearls.
Lakshmi teaches that while you don’t need material wealth to feel rich, you must consciously choose to live a life of generosity. If you blame the world for withholding its treasure from you, try turning that thought around. What are you withholding from the world? As counter-intuitive as it may seem, true abundance comes only to those who are unstinting in their largesse. Just as abundance nourishes you, you are here to nourish abundance.
- Wild & Sacred Feminine Oracle Deck, Niki Dewart & Elizabeth Marglin
The Jennifer Lopez film, ‘Second Act’, is a good example of harnessing the knowledge and resources you already have rather than dismissing it as perennially not enough. Jennifer’s character Maya is a retail employee with street smarts but little educational qualifications who’s frustrated at not having achieved more in life by the age of 40. After a friend makes up a fake professional profile for her to get an executive position at a major cosmetics company, she decides to go along with the lie. In the process she learns a valuable Lakshmi lesson - that it’s not about any external accolades that make her a worthy asset to the company, it’s really about all her own unique wisdom and skills, her own internal treasures, she had been withholding from the world all along. Once she learns how to put these to good use to propel a huge project forward, others see her as an asset and a worthy addition to the company despite her lack of external qualifications.
Balancing Giving & Receiving
Being the Goddess of prosperity both material and spiritual, Lakshmi blesses with material wealth but also with inner abundance.
She is said to have two faces - as Raja Lakshmi (literally ‘the luck of kings’) she can grant power to rulers and leaders (similar to the Celtic goddesses with their concept of sovereignty that can only be bestowed upon Kings by the Goddess) and can bestow sweeping success and good fortune - but not necessarily the kind that lasts. In her aspect as ‘Vishnupriya Lakshimi’ (literally beloved of Vishnu), Lakshmi showers her followers with auspicious qualities - integrity, empathy, compassion and the capacity for love - in other words, the most lasting forms of wealth…
The natural action of the Lakshmi Shakti expresses itself in the fine balance of giving and receiving. When we can allow ourselves to receive with the feeling that we deserve the gifts of life, and then give with the feeling that others deserve them also, this is adopting Lakshmi’s auspicious state of mind. We feel Lakshmi’s presence as internal abundance and also as gratitude and as the desire to bless others. It’s then that you can begin to feel Lakshmi’s energy as your own - Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti
In the amazing ‘Our Tarot’ deck which features notable women in history on each of the tarot cards, the 9 of pentacles card features Khadijah - the 6th century Arabian entrepreneur and first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, who is a classic embodiment of both sides of Lakshmi - the power, fortune and success of Raja Lakshmi but also the integrity, empathy, compassion, generosity and the desire to be of service of Vishnupriya Lakshmi. Her story is paraphrased below:
Khadījah (CA. 555-620) Arabia
Daughter of a merchant, Khadijah grew up to be a successful businesswoman herself. She hired the young Muhammad as an agent to work for her and once he’d proved his integrity and piety she decided to propose to him. When Muhammad starting having intense spiritual revelations Khadijah’s confident and intelligent nature supported him to make sense of them. Moved by his experiences, she became the first Muslim.
In the years that followed, Khadija used her financial resources to feed the hungry people in her community. She also bought the freedom of many Muslim slaves.
“Khadija lived a life of abundance and material wealth, however, greed did not taint her spirit. The Nine of Pentacles [and Lakshmi] reminds us to be generous. Good works will yield positive results. Don’t be afraid of your own power and don’t hesitate to be generous with yourself too. The Nine of Pentacles tells us to take care of ourselves first so we can share our wealth, not out of fear but out of love. When Khadija’s card appears- ask yourself: What makes you feel confident? How can you use your confidence to create more material abundance? And when you do with whom will you share it?”
— Our Tarot - Sarah Shipman
RITUALS TO CONNECT WITH HER:
The Balance of Giving & Receiving - get out your journal, light a candle and take a moment to tune into where you may need to balance giving and receiving. Is there some area of life you can be more giving? If you aren’t in a position to donate anything financially, could you give of your time, energy, skills, love, care to someone more in need than yourself?
If you are feeling extremely depleted maybe you have been over-giving and there may be a need to allow yourself to relax into the feeling that you too deserve the gifts of life - this is one of Lakshmi’s gifts! It can be something as tiny as genuinely accepting a compliment rather than dismissing it as ‘oh no, I’m not that good really, it was just a fluke’ or downplaying your skill or involvement - trust that you are worthy and valuable! Or allow yourself to accept support from others when you’re overwhelmed or even gift yourself a treat such as a massage or a small luxurious item. Lakshmi loves to support those who give but she doesn’t approve of martyring ourselves in the process! Remember the wisdom from the 9 of pentacles card above - it’s about taking “care of ourselves first so we can share our wealth not out of fear but out of love.”
Practice gratitude - start a daily gratitude list or journal - and you can even start to write or speak affirmations of gratitude for things you wish to see come into your life in advance. This forward gratitude process can support you tap into the frequency of abundance rather than scarcity. The more you entrain your brain to notice and celebrate things to be grateful for, the more you’re anchoring in that frequency of abundance. Once you can sustain that frequency, the more the Goddess / the Universe will reflect that back to you with more abundance on the outside. The universe doesn’t give you what you’re asking for, it can only respond to the vibrational frequency you’re emitting. As within, so without.
Dedicate an altar to Lakshmi - she’s the Goddess of Beauty and likes to dwell in beautiful places, so ensure it’s as aesthetically pleasing and sumptuous as possible! Clean your altar first as a symbol of purification and then dress your altar space golden and red/orange/magenta/pink fabric. From there you could add gold coins, banknotes or something else you value like gold or valuable jewellery or keepsakes and crystals associated with Lakshmi (such as pearl, ruby, citrine, aventurine, peridot and any other stones you personally feel connected to for abundance) and make offerings to Lakshmi of fresh flowers and fresh fruit.
Music - there are many hymns, chants and music dedicated to Lakshmi on YouTube but I particularly like this one
Chant her mantra: Aum Shrim Maha Lakshmyai Namah
REFERENCES:
1) Awakening Shakti - the Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga, Sally Kempton
The Wild & Sacred Feminine Deck - Niki Dewart & Elizabeth Marglin. Illustrations by Jenny Kostecki-Shaw
Our Tarot - A Guidebook & Deck Featuring Notable Women in History - Sarah Shipman
The Twelve Faces of the Goddess - Danielle Blackwood
The Witches’ Goddess - Janet & Stewart Farrar
Goddess Power Oracle - Colette Baron-Reid