Thirteen — A Night of Devi, Śiva and Farewell

Thirteen — A Night of Devi, Śiva and Farewell

Last night was a night of dreams.

What remained with me first was a beautiful field of green—the unmistakable color and feeling of Mātangī. It was less an intellectual identification than a recognition carried by the experience itself: green, alive, beautiful, and suffused with the presence of Devi.

Later, somewhere between waking and sleep, another vision appeared.

Devi was set well back from me, perhaps twenty feet away, toward the southwest. She was surrounded and decorated with flowers—pink, red and orange—and beside the right side of her crown was a small crescent moon, its curve touching the crown. From that distance, Devi held up her right palm in blessing.

She did not need to come closer.

The blessing crossed the distance.

I looked at the time.

4:36 AM.

And immediately:

4 + 3 + 6 = 13.

The number brought Sarvamaṅgalā Devi to mind.

I eventually returned to sleep. Then, sometime around five in the morning, came another remarkable experience—a dream within a dream.

There were hibiscus flowers.

They were vivid enough that I seemed to awaken while still inside the dream. Amazed by what I had seen, I told my wife about the hibiscus flowers. Only afterward did I actually awaken from the larger dream.

There was something beautiful about that nested awakening. It was almost as though the flowers had to be remembered inside the dream itself before I was permitted to carry them into waking consciousness.

Later, I woke fully into Sunday morning and looked at the clock.

6:34 AM.

Again:

6 + 3 + 4 = 13.

An Old Number Returns

Thirteen is not a new number in my spiritual life.

It used to appear frequently about thirteen years ago, during a period when I was deeply immersed in writing on the Śiva Purāṇa. Seeing it repeatedly again therefore awakened an older current of remembrance.

Thirteen naturally evokes Trayodaśī and Pradoṣa, and the Śiva principle that had occupied so much of my contemplation during those earlier years.

My understanding then, as now, begins with consciousness.

Sadāśiva notices the insentient. As Consciousness identifies with manifestation, Īśvara arises; and within manifestation the functions we recognize as Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Rudra express creation, stabilization and laya.

Śakti makes manifestation possible. Śiva is the Consciousness by which manifestation is known.

Even the story of Gaṇeśa carries, for me, something profound about this completeness. Although Gaṇeśa is extraordinarily close to Śakti, he initially fails to recognize Śiva and loses his head. Later, in the celebrated contest with his brother, he recognizes his parents themselves as the universe and circumambulates Śiva and the Mother rather than the physical world.

The lesson is not Śiva instead of Śakti, nor Śakti instead of Śiva.

It is their inseparability.

Sāmbāśiva.

And suddenly the crescent I had seen beside Devi's crown during the night seemed even more beautiful. The experience was filled with Śakti—Mātangī's green, Devi, flowers, hibiscus, blessing—and yet Śiva was quietly present in the crescent.

Not apart from Her.

Within Her completeness.

The lunar timing added another dimension. The sequence around these days carries the movement through Trayodaśī and Pradoṣa, Māsa Śivarātri and Caturdaśī, toward Amāvāsyā.

The Moon moves toward disappearance.

Toward laya.

And yet my inner night, while the outer Moon was diminishing, had been overflowing with green, pink, red, orange, flowers and light.

Then Thirteen Revealed Another Meaning

I thought that was the meaning of thirteen for the day.

It wasn't finished.

That evening, while scrolling YouTube, something appeared unexpectedly before me concerning “the first 13 days after death.”

And suddenly I remembered.

Tomorrow is the thirteenth-day ceremony for a close couple who were friends of ours and who passed away in the Tibet–Nepal floods last week.

The realization changed the emotional meaning of the entire day.

Earlier in the evening—before making this conscious connection with the thirteenth day—I had experienced what appeared to me as two balls of light, separated from one another by time and space.

That immediately brought back another experience.

Last week, on the day following their passing, I had experienced one ball of light.

Today there were two.

I cannot turn such experiences into propositions that another person must believe. Nor do I need to.

I can only record faithfully what was seen, when it was seen, and what arose within me afterward.

Only later did the apparently incidental appearance of that video remind me that tomorrow marks the thirteenth day—the traditional threshold at which the immediate rites surrounding death reach an important completion and the departed are lovingly released onward.

Then the recurring 13 of the preceding night seemed to hold yet another meaning.

It had begun with Devi.

It had opened into Śiva.

And by evening, it had become farewell.

Two Lights

Perhaps that is why I do not want to reduce the experience to a single interpretation.

13 was Sarvamaṅgalā.

13 was Trayodaśī.

13 was Pradoṣa and the returning memory of Śiva.

13 was a number that had accompanied me during my Śiva Purāṇa work thirteen years ago.

And now:

13 was the final day of farewell to two friends.

The previous week there had been one light.

This evening there were two.

And tomorrow, the thirteenth day, we say goodbye.

Whether another person calls these things dreams, coincidences, workings of memory, symbols arising from consciousness, or moments of grace is ultimately less important to me than remaining faithful to what was actually experienced.

There are times when spiritual experience seems to teach through words.

There are times when it teaches through silence.

And occasionally it seems to weave together color, flowers, numbers, memory, dreams, death and light, allowing their meaning to reveal itself gradually rather than all at once.

Last night began in Mātangī's green.

Then came Devi, far away yet blessing, surrounded by flowers.

Beside Her crown was the crescent.

Then came 13.

Then hibiscus.

Then another 13.

Then Śiva.

And finally, as the day approached its end, came the remembrance of two departed friends and two lights.

Tomorrow is the final goodbye.

May their onward journey be in light.

Not Śiva instead of Śakti.
Not death instead of life.
But dissolution within completeness,
and two lights continuing beyond the place where our eyes can follow.