The Gayatri: Becoming Radiant
This month of August has been a full one on so many levels, so to support this big energy, radiance and the Gayatri Mantra emerged as our theme. The magic of this teaching and this time has been both grounding and disorienting as it unveils and unravels my understanding of protection, belonging and power.
The first time I visited India I awoke to the sound of the Gayatri Mantra being chanted as people gathered in the local temple for their morning prayers. When I opened my eyes, I watched the wind move the curtains to the sound of the mantra and I felt the energy of devotion dancing in the atmosphere as a wholly and holy new experience for me. The Gayatri is often referenced as the mantra of protection but the root ga means to sing and yatri is one who is on a spiritual journey. A spiritual journey for me is a path to becoming our most radiant self. My sense of the word protection is a barrier, or trying to keep “danger” away. Radiance on the other hand feels like it’s an energy that emerges from the inside out. As I pondered this more, a question emerged: Where does radiance come from?
This reminded me of the beautiful story that I heard Rachel Naomi Remen tell on an On Being podcast several years ago. She shared the story her grandfather told her when she was a little girl about the birthday of the world.
So this is the story of the birthday of the world. In the beginning, there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light.
And the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness of the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.
Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again, and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. This is a very important story for our times, that we heal the world one heart at a time. And this task is called “tikkun olam,” in Hebrew — “restoring the world.”
When I searched for this story I discovered that Rachel Naomi Remen passed away on August 8th, 2026 at the age of 88. Her books Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings as well as her brilliant work as a teacher and physician illuminated the difference between healing and curing. She will be missed but her inspiration continues to transform lives. She was a living example of allowing her suffering to be a path to discover the inner spark of light and shine brilliance into the world.
I’ve heard this story about tikkun olam and the birthday of the world many times. This time what struck me was the process of the sparks of light coming together to create wholeness in the world. We are in between a solar eclipse on August 12th and a lunar eclipse on August 27th and as these luminaries are in each other’s shadows there is an opportunity to look inward and ask questions about what helps us become our most radiant self and what might be holding us back. In my life, belonging became tangled up in pleasing, performing and productivity. This question about where radiance really comes from invites me to look more closely at my beliefs about belonging. It feels like it’s time to explore what it means to belong to myself, to that spark inside of me. Perhaps this is what inspires us to truly let life in so we will connect to and know our own spark. It seems receptivity is what continues to illuminate our life so we can fully shine our brilliance back to the world. When we truly belong to ourselves then we can truly belong to the world. It is only from this place of belonging that we can restore wholeness.
Much love,
Sue