Each year, we come together to celebrate a number of regular festivals and high holy days within our tradition. Public melas (festivals) are a chance to celebrate the Divine with others, be witnessed in community, and share of Her blessings.
Annual Public Celebrations
Kali Puja Festival
A Celebration of Kali Maa and the Quest for Light in the Dark Time of the Year
SHARANYA’s annual Kali Puja Festival is a time to delight in the mysteries of Maa in concurrence with what is known as the puja season in India. First comes Navaratri, the nine nights of Goddess, and then the festival of lights, Diwali. During the amavasya (new moon) of Diwali, Goddess Kali is worshiped throughout West Bengal, Orissa, and Assam.
Kali Puja Videos & Gallery Archives
Enjoy some of our previous pujas on our Galleries page and below through image and song:
12th Annual Kali Puja Festival
Begun in 2004, this year on November 14, 2015, we celebrated the 12th anniversary of our Kali Puja Festival at the time of Divali. Designed to welcome newcomers and provide spiritual seekers of all backgrounds an introduction to the Divine Mother, we joined together in song, movement, prayer, and devotion to honor Kali Maa.
11th Annual Kali Puja Festival
Begun in 2004, this year was the 11th anniversary of our Kali Puja Festival at the time of Diwali, held on October 25, 2014.
10th Annual Kali Puja Festival
This year marked the 10th anniversary of SHARANYA’s Kali Puja Festival. We came together on the night of November 2, 2013 to sing Her praises, offer our devotions, and worship Maa Kali as The Ageless One, Goddess of Crossroads, Black Mother, She Who is Beyond Time.
6th Annual Kali Puja Festival (2009)
Joyous song in praises to the Divine Mother, “Jai Maa!” and “OM Maa!” Listen, watch, enjoy, and join us for our next puja or special event. Everyone is welcome in Maa’s house!
Yoni Puja Festival
A Celebration of Goddess, Women, Earth and The Feminine in All Things
Join us each year around Summer Solstice for a devotional and celebratory festival dedicated to Mahadevi, Great Goddess, and Her most powerful manifestations through the Ten Great Insights, the Most Transparent Revelations of Consciousness, during the auspicious time of abundance in the cycle of life, death, and rebirth…the time when Devī, Goddess, bleeds.
Often, the connection between the power of women’s blood and the paradoxical mystery of the Goddess is most fully recognized in the Crone or Dark Goddess aspect of the Divine because She is the doorway between the worlds of life and death. It is the raudra devīs (fierce goddesses) who, in India, are said to menstruate. In temples dedicated to these intense emanations of śākti (the feminine force), one finds the rites and rituals of the goddess’ ritu, or menstrual blood.
At SHARANYA, we hold this space for Her and for all beings seeking peace, healing, truth and wholeness. During this time, we recognize the power of Her most holy festival of Ambuvāci–the three days the goddess menstruates (beginning on the new moon usually following Summer Solstice)–when the forces of life and death co-join at the temple of Kāmākhyā in northeastern India, birthplace of Tantra and a heartland today of goddess worship.
In our Yoni Puja, we recognize that Her potency is so wild and intense, so sweet and sublime, that whether seen as fierce or mild She is a force offering both comfort and strength…even in our moments of silence and despair. We invite you to be with us. Open in the safe space of our temple to the paradox held in the quiet and the song in order to receive her lessons, as well as Her blessings, during this most auspicious time. If you can’t be with us in person, join us in spirit!
SHARANYA offered the 8th Annual Yoni Puja Festival on June 22, 2014 at the Cultural Integration Fellowship in San Francisco. We gathered to honor women, the Feminine and goddesses as they exist in the spaces of being and planet. Our puja was divine! On the night of Sunday, June 9, 2013, we gathered together in community to celebrate the time when Goddess bleeds. Also known as Ambubachi Mela, this festival is celebrated annually in northeastern India. At SHARANYA, it is a weaving of indigenous, Earth-centered, and Goddess mysteries that culminates in the drinking of yoni tattva, the essence… There was nothing that could have prepared us for the way in which Maa manifested on Sunday night for SHARANYA’s 6th Annual Yoni Puja. Devotees gathered in San Francisco from near and far for the celebration that joins us with tens of thousands of devotees as the time of Goddess’ menstruation and Ambubachi Mela approaches… Not having done it before, I was not sure what to expect, and went into Yoni Puja pretty much as The Fool. Putting the yoni altar together was very powerful for me, especially as I had been in a pretty bad mood and not feeling very well. I’d gotten my period that day, and the…
Yoni Puja 2014
Yoni Puja 2013
Yoni Puja 2012
Yoni Puja: Celebrating Goddess, Women, Creation & The Feminine
Kali Puja: The Dark Goddess Awakens
A Powerful Ceremony Where East Meets West
SHARANYA’s annual participation in PantheaCon is a tradition going back to 2004, one that fosters community for many devotees of the Divine Mother, especially those who are a long way from our home temple in San Francisco. Many line up long before the ritual begins to ensure participation. The ceremony has evolved over the years, and we open our doors to about 100 celebrants with chant and a moving meditation that guides us into Her mysteries.
From the highest and most penetrating reverberations of the Divine undifferentiated, nameless and formless, we call to you Mother, to join us in our work to break free of the encumbrances we carry in this lifetime. Bereft of freedom in our hearts, we welcome you as Kali and implore you to break the chains of… Kali Puja at PantheaCon is something of a tradition, and as we entered the room to set up for the ritual on Saturday night, a devotee (the first in line waiting for the doors to open) noted this was her fourth year coming to worship with us. She had nowhere to go in her hometown… It was perhaps no accident that exactly 108 of us gathered last night at 11PM for a ritual dedicated to the Divine Mother, Kali Maa. In Hinduism, the number 108 is considered especially auspicious, aligning the heavens and Earth in powerful relationship toward peace. Indeed, our ceremony for the Dark Goddess was imbued with the… I’m always struck by how hard I make the practice in my head and how easy it is when it actually happens. It strikes me especially at the PantheaCon pujas. There we are, a little handful of initiates and perhaps hundreds of others, many of whom have no experience of Tantra or of Maa Kali…. Jai Maa! OM MAA! Jai Maa! This weekend’s Kali Puja was a glorious coming together of friends old and new…a veritable Tantrick festival within the walls of the Doubletree in San Jose! I hope you were able to join us for Kali Puja: Devotion & Worship of the Divine Mother; and if not, don’t fear…
PantheaCon 2014 – Kali Puja
PantheaCon 2013 – Kali Puja
PantheaCon 2012 – Kali Puja
PantheaCon 2010 – Kali Puja
PantheaCon 2009 – Kali Puja