Living Goddesses

by Clemensmarabu

Living Goddess is a documentary about three girls in Nepal who are possessed by the goddess Druga, also known as Kali and Taleju.  The youngest incarnation of the goddess is featured and her innocence juxtaposes again the Nepalese Civil War.


Being a goddess you meet perfection according to the religious bodies and advise the king.  These women and girls have power, however, because of the cultural and political sensitivity they are cautious about influencing anything against the king.


People came to the goddesses to ask for peace and blessings while they still incarnate human girls with wants and needs beyond the people who come to worship them.  The youngest still has the physical limitations of a child, but people depend of her spiritual strength to bring them closure.

by Manjari Shrestha

Being a goddess is an empowerment for the girl and family as well as a sacrifice.  When the young goddess does go out she knows she is a goddess; carried not to spoil her painted feet, an umbrella covers her body from the sun, her fine jewelry and garb sparkle under the sunlight, there is no denying she is revered.  But as she sits on her throne she becomes tired, board and wishes to play with other children, it's not denied to her, but she is sacrificing a childhood for blessings and riches.


All of these girls, before their first menstruation, make a sacrifice to the people in order to be an embodiment of peace and of a goddess.  A western equivalent could be any popular young female movie star who people choose to idolize and shower them with box office profits.


The worship of these girls in Tibet may be seen as ancient and strange, but in reality the differences between a young star here in the West and these girls are only in location and respect.  A Western star sacrifices her time, energy and childhood to preform for her worshiping fans, just as the girl goddesses do.

by Krish Dulal

Everyone worships something, but it's up to the person what and how they worship.  I think the Western world forgets the power of the female force and refuses to celebrate menstruation formally.  The Nepal goddesses are an open celebration of her eventual rise to becoming a woman through years of endowing her family with praise and money.


Westerners worship youth and ignore the transition from girlhood to becoming a woman.  I never realized there was any honor about transforming through puberty; it was dirty and not to be spoken about.  This practice honors it, like many native tribes all over the world did long ago.  Maybe the simple truth is this, honor the transition, honor your children and they can become well adjusted adults.

The Dragon in the Middle

The only dragons I've ever felt fully depicted my fantasy of what an actual dragon should look like is Draco from "Dragonheart" and Sean Connery's voice didn't hurt either. "Eragon" was a great book but it was a POS on the movie screen because they blasted through the story and altered it to where it didn't seem to entrance me any more. One example is when Brom died in the book, I cried, but in the movie it was glazed over like a Krispy Cream doughnut. It disappointed me, enraged me and is one of the many reasons why my family will not see movies with me anymore.

Also, I couldn't get though the second book "Eldest" because the it felt like I was grinding in WOW. It was annoying, because it felt like it had to be a bigger book because Harry Potter always progressed to a larger page number, until it became as large as the whole Lord of the Ring series in book 7. I didn't care about the deserts between locations, I just wanted to read about the epic dragon battles and add some kick ass imagination, but no, I couldn't drag myself through the first 200 pages before I returned it to the library.

You could say I'm obsessed with dragons, I even wrote a poem about one of my fantasies, nothing too sexual, considering it was published in my Christian private schools literary magazine. I've always seen dragons as intelligent creatures who are the ultimate balance between the four elements and since I've been an whacked out Libra all my life I needed a magickal example because my life was only filled with horrible unrealistic ones, like "God works in mysterious ways".

Sadly, with real life, I've paid little attention to writing stories, drawing or just imagining my draconic companions, but I'm on the road to recovery because I've been drawing, crappily, again. I've always wanted to transform myself into a dragon and scarf down my bitch-mother, even if it did cause indigestion and draconic diabetes. It was a little sick fantasy and I used to protect myself from the bewildering hatred spewing out of my mother's mouth.

In short, I like dragons because I think they are a symbol of balance and they can eat annoying people whenever they want because they are teeth, claws, flight and fire. I don't like making them too bestial or too magic-preppie because there is just this charm of watching an intelligent creature who has no shame in ripping a flock of sheep to shreds. It's the bestial vs intelligence/magick factor I think becomes a huge barrier in most fantasy minds about dragons, much like the moral stance in video games like Fable, you can be either Satan or Jesus, but there is no middle man.

This is why I like "Dragonheart", it fits in the middle, has one of the sexiest voices ever, other than when David Kaye when he voiced Megaton in "Beast Wars" and I could imagine myself in the story easily. I hate movies like "Dragon Slayer", "Harry Potter" and "Rein of Fire", not only because they were wyverns advertised as dragons and very stupid. "D-War" was another disappointment mainly because the story was absolute crap. Shallow characters following a 2-D form of reincarnation in order to bring peace to the world while sacrificing their love just sucks.

The only other movie I can stand is "Flight of Dragons" which was based on a book by Peter Dickinson and the novel "The Dragon and the George" by Gordon R. Dickson. Good storytelling, epic characters, a little choppy on the background of some, but I can still watch it today and laugh my pants off when the dragons, Gorbash and Smrgol wake up from a drinking binge and the inn is destroyed. Watch it. Anyway, I think I'm just sick and tired of the extremism of dragons in stories, bestiality has it's place, but you loose the magic and it just becomes another hormone moister to kill. Also, when it becomes a magical best, they are just a little dry, especially when they suffer from battle retardation.

"Eragon", the book, did a decent job of obtaining the middle ground also, which is why I like it, even if I couldn't ground my body through the jagged writing of "Eldest". The relationship between the boy and his dragon was charming, sweet and it touched my fantasy button and rendered me almost helpless, even with the frakkin elves invading with there arrogant attitude, as with every fantasy nowadays.

I guess I like to see dragons as fallible creatures with wants beyond shiny-virgin and magic-crap, because they are my symbol in a way, or at least my desired symbol. I want to be balanced but also realize I have wants and needs that are rather complex, except when it comes to food.

Even stranger, my totem dragons seems to be a Lung, my rain dragon, so to speak, even though I seem to visually appeal to more western dragons. However, I do like their fluid shape and think they are gorgeous to look at. Mine is a silvery/white dragon with blue undertones with a simply elegant long body shape. I'll have to try and draw a picture of it sometime.