Shiva is, according to sivasakti.com:
The god of Destruction. Shiva literally means “auspiciousness, welfare”. He is the third god of the Hindu Triad and he is the god of destruction. He represents darkness , and it is said to be the “angry god”.
The term destruction as it relates to Shiva’s cosmic duties can be deceiving. Often Lord Shiva destroys negative presences such as evil, ignorance, and death.
Also, it is the destruction created by Lord Shiva that allows for positive recreation. For example, an artisan may melt down (i.e., destroy) old pieces of metal during his process of creating a beautiful piece of art.
It is for this reason that Shiva holds a complementary role to Brahma, the god of creation. Shiva protects souls until they are ready for recreation at the hands of Brahma. Because of his connections with destruction, Lord Shiva is one of the most feared and heavily worshiped deities in Hinduism.
However, according to Hinduism, creation follows destruction. Therefore Shiva is also regarded as a reproductive power, which restores what has been dissolved. As one who restores, he is represented as the linga or phallus, a symbol of regeneration.
For the majority of my life thus far, I did not have any specifically strong connections to Hindu gods, but occasionally, within the past 2-3 years, I would pray to Durga or Lakshmi for either strength or abundance . I was raised (loosely) Buddhist so my spiritual ties were most closely connected to Buddha, Quan Yin, and Ong Dia for most of my entire adolescent years. I had heard of the name Shiva here and there and knew he was a Hindu god, but I had no real concrete information about him, much less knowing what he looked like or what he represented.
That is why when I had the dream below, my entire spiritual world shook to its core. I had never had a Divine experience such as this before that I have absolutely no explanation for it other than this: Shiva is my patron god (or at least one of the main ones who help to guide me).
In this dream, I was hanging out with a group of "friends" who were people I didn't actually know in real life at all. It seemed like this was a new group of friends I had just made and it was possible we were in a class together. During a break time period from our class, one of the girls in the class showed us a new tarot deck that she had just acquired and was excited about it. I distinctly remember what the cover of the tarot box looked like: it was very simple illustrations in black ink as if someone had just sketched the artwork with a pen. The title of the deck that was displayed on a swirly image of a scroll, read: "Lucianus"
Hmm...curious...
She continued to show us the deck as we were all sitting around a picnic table type setting. As she tried to take the cards out from the box, the box suddenly lit up in a glorious beam of white, bright light, the kind you would imagine an angel to be engulfed in. Out from the brilliant burst of light from this box jumped out a person! As the light faded and this figure took form, I started to notice that he had blue skin, an interesting braided-locks texture for hair, and tons of long, intricate necklaces hanging around his neck. Something within me immediately just said: he is a god. My intuition just knew.
He also had some type of tattoo bands around his biceps, he was shirtless and very fit and strong-looking, and he wore a type of loin cloth. In the dream, my internal thoughts were that he was a Hawaiian or Polynesian god because he reminded me of Maui (the Hawaiian demigod).
We all stared at the magnificent blue man standing in front of us as he walked slowly over to our picnic table. He announced the following, in very clear words, and words that I will never forget for the rest of my life:
"I am going to show you what the highest vibration feels like...The highest vibration is pure love."
I felt my breath hitch and my heart race as I took in the words he was saying. Before any of us were ready, we felt his (energetic?) hand reach out and tap us all on the shoulder and we beamed into bursts of pure light. All of us. Just suddenly poofed from physical forms into simply...purely...light.
I looked around me and all I could see was incredible, bright light, and I knew that I was in the ether now, I was HOME, and at the same time I WAS the aether. I made up the ether. I was the light. And I also FELT like I was literally the light, because I felt as light as a feather, extremely floaty, with not a single thing weighing me down. I felt like I was simply made of air, simply made of light. Light and love - it all makes sense now.
And with that image burned into my mind, I fluttered my eyes awake.
Within just a few moments of slightly fervent researching the words: "blue god" later, I discovered the magnificent god who had come to me in my dreams to deliver a life-changing message was none other than one of the most worshiped and important gods of Hinduism: the supreme god, Shiva.
Here is a description of his typical physical traits:
Shiva is believed to exist in many forms. His most common depiction is as a dark-skinned ascetic with a blue throat. Usually seated cross-legged on a tiger skin, Shiva’s hair is matted and coiled on his head, adorned with a snake and a crescent moon. ... A garland of skulls, rudraksha beads, or a snake hang from his neck. Shiva also wears snakes as armlets and bracelets...He wears a tiger or leopard skin around his waist, and his upper body is usually bare, but smeared with ashes, as befits an ascetic. - sivasakti.com
Does that entire description not sound exactly like what I described him to look like in my dream?
That's because he looks exactly like the images I found during my google search shortly after my dream:
I truly do not believe my mind is capable of creating this insane level of synchronicity. How would my brain have known what a specific god looked like when I had never truly seen a clear image of him before, let alone really pay attention to the details of it?
And another small detail that I find extremely interesting...recently, when I discovered my non-binary gender identity (I consider myself to be genderfluid, or fluctuating between two genders), I discovered this description of Shiva shortly after my personal revelations:
"All that is made, every generation of life, all the wondrous forms that fill our world, all flow from his dancing loins. He is not male, nor female. He is neither human nor inhuman. He has four arms, and he has none. Shiva’s nature at once transcends and includes all the polarities of the living world." - sivasakti.com
Immensely interesting, right? The synchronicities just keep coming!
At the end of the day, all that matters is this: I am grateful that I have such a profound and deep connection with Shiva, and after this experience, I know that everything I intuitively know to be real, is quite literally, real, because there is just no way my mind can make this stuff up and there's no way it can all just be a coincidence.
I am extremely grateful for the experience and the connection, and I feel so Divinely guided, protected, and mentored. I hope to continue to connect with Shiva and to learn more and more from his infinite wisdom.
Shiva, thank you for teaching me what the highest vibration is, and thank you for allowing me to know what it feels like to literally live in light and love. I'll never forget it.
Unconditional love,
Lynna