By: Sumanah Khan
On October 17, Dirty South Yoga Fest takes place in the midst of Navratri, the nine-night Hindu festival honoring the Divine Feminine in her many forms of power, protection, wisdom, and transformation. The festival attracts hundreds of women from all around Atlanta and the country. This year marks its 11th and the focus is community in action.
The timing feels especially meaningful. The Divine Feminine as power, wisdom and transformation and in community, is so needed. Community is not only a space where we show up to enjoy one another, its a space where we show up to be inspired, to find purpose, and to feel the power of the feminine energy in us all.
Navratri reminds us that strength is not the absence of softness, that fierce and gentle are not opposing forces, and that the feminine is not synonymous with weakness. She is Durga, the warrior; Lakshmi, the nurturer; Saraswati, the wisdom keeper; and Kali, the force that destroys what no longer serves us.
During this coming together in community, we can call on the particular kind of strength we are taught to admire- the kind that doesn’t flinch; the kind that doesn’t cry; the kind that keeps going, even when everything hurts. We can also call on the softness that mirrors it. Yoga asks us to consider strength- a strength that can bend without breaking. The kind that is loud, impenetrable, and always ready for battle.
Navratri 2026 (Oct 11th-19th)
Navratri is a festival honoring the Divine Feminine, or Shakti—the creative, dynamic energy of the universe. Across different Indian traditions and regions, the nine nights are devoted to the different manifestations of the Goddess, including the many forms of Maa Durga.
Durga is one of the most recognizable expressions of this paradox. She is Mother (Maa), she is protector, she is compassionate, and she is warrior.
She carries weapons, rides a lion, and faces forces of destruction and injustice. But her fierceness doesn’t make her less loving, and her softness doesn’t make her less powerful. She holds both, and to me, that matters deeply right now.
We’re living in a time when conversations about violence, assault, rage, boundaries, power, and safety are prevalent. There’s an uproar in the world, and much of that anger comes from something very human: the knowledge that something sacred has been violated.
The question is, what do we do with that anger? What does yoga ask of us? What yoga doesn’t do is ask us to become passive. It doesn’t ask us to tolerate harm in the name of being peaceful, and, it doesn’t ask us to become hard in order to survive. Instead, the practice asks us to become discerning; to know when to open, to know when to protect, to know when to speak and to know when to listen.
This is where we meet Maa Durga on the mat. Not as an abstract goddess from a story far away, but as a reminder of something that lives within all of us-the capacity to be both fierce and tender. We can have boundaries and still have compassion.
Strength is not the absence of softness. Perhaps true strength is having access to both. For me, this is what it means to practice yoga beyond the physical body.
The asana gives us a place to explore it, and it enables our bodies to sit in deeper states of meditation. We feel our feet root into the earth, we open the heart, we breathe and soften the jaw. We steady the gaze and move with intention- and somewhere between effort and surrender, we begin to understand:
- I don’t have to choose between being powerful and being gentle.
- I don’t have to abandon my softness to protect what I love.
- I can be both because the Mother lives inside of us.
This Navratri, may we remember the wisdom of the Goddess.
May we honor the warrior and the mother, the fire and the tenderness, the sword and the open hand, the strength and the softness- and may our practice remind us that we were never meant to choose between them.
Join us on October 17th for a myriad of classes that celebrates all aspects of yoga.
