DURGA, THE GODDESS WITH TEN ARMS

North Somerset, December 16th 2024

Our final session before the Christmas break was mixed, changeable and we found it challenging to find the theme or thread that drew each person, image and element together. While some stayed for the whole session having waited that morning for the arrival of The Community Table, others visited in more fleeting ways, with some staying for varying lengths of time in between.

There was a buzz around a handheld barrel instrument that is played by feeding a strip of paper across its mechanism, where holes have been punched into the notation paper…It is the absence of paper that creates the sound. At the other end of the table a man patiently sorted through magnetic words, intentionally or otherwise creating a monologue, which sat above a pattern he made with coloured wooden tiles. Doorways, arches, thresholds, piles, loops all appeared while gentle musical conversations happened between people playing chime bars scattered across the table.

We covered many topics of conversation which included learning about a form of the supreme Hindu Goddess Durga, who is both the singular universal Goddess, Mahadevi, and a panoply of individual goddesses. In each of her ten hands she holds weapons belonging to other gods - she is fierce, a warrior and also a mother-protector goddess, banishing evil forces and restoring peace.

Words by Amy Wilson & Sarah Robinson.

Final image credit: brittanica.com Hindu goddess, made in clay for the Durga Puja in Kolkata