Irreverent Bio
Devananda Virginia Vargas is a compelling force of the light. She hesitatingly entered her 299th incarnation here on earth three weeks past her scheduled arrival. She was named in honor of her father’s spiritual leader, Father Bede Grifitth, aka Swami Deyananda, who was known for his dedication to contemplation on the intersectionality of western and eastern religious philosophies. And as such, her fate for a significant spiritual path was sealed. Despite her attempts to minimize her effect and hide from her soul’s purpose, Devananda, whimsically and sensationally bears and shares her light as her soul is directed to the spaces, places and sentient beings who need it most. Even as a tow-headed toddler, she tried to employ her mystic ways using telepathy to communicate, but to no avail, which landed her in speech therapy, thank god!
She is the steadfast, grounded witness, and intuitive accomplice of necessary transition, often arriving as quickly as she departs and always leaving conditions better than she found them. As an astute astral projector who began her ventures in childhood seeking refuge in more peaceful and beautiful worlds outside of the volatile one she experienced at home, she’s developed an insatiable yearning to create a more symbiotic and equanimous world here on earth. As a child she spent her days traversing the sandy dirt roads, mesas and arroyos of New Mexico, capturing tarantulas and bats, holding seances, and playing hide-n-seek in the dark under the starry night skies. Summers spent with the dolphins in California refreshed and nourished her soul as the salty waters of endless days at Zuma beach washed away the burdens of others she so naively accumulated at home.
School offered a sanctuary and sacred playground for Devananda, with endless souls to engage in banter, plentiful subjects to explore, and rules and established systems for approval; she blossomed, excelling in her classes, always exceeding expectations. She was known for her French braiding skills, crafting and scrapbooking supply collection, and state fair award winning Italian pizzelle cookies. As a first generation college student her leadership skills bloomed as she served as a New Student Orientation Leader, Student Ambassador, and President of Student Programming Council. She graduated a semester early and debt free while working three, sometimes four jobs. She effortlessly and knowingly charmed everyone she came into contact with through her engaging and witty observations, compassionate and accepting heart, and energetic presence.
After having escaped the land of entrapment as she used to call it, Devananda struggled as a young professional to align her heart’s desires to explore the world in contrast to the cultural normative indicators of success. She settled in a heteronormative domestic partnership, flitted through numerous corporate organizations, assembled a menagerie of friends and acquaintances, and manifested a life bigger than she believed she was capable or worthy of. Devananda beautifies and enlivens through alchemizing stagnant, disordered, and misguided oppression held in fear by infusing love; therefore diffusing the energies into harmony, balance and peace. She crafted magical experiences for everyone but herself, an illusion of success that cursed her soul and caused it to dispense a smoke signal. When her grandmother, with whom she shares her middle name, passed, Devananda became the long-distance guardian of her grandfather, and suddenly things began to unravel. For the first time in her life she was fired from a job, after only ever having received the highest reviews of exceeding expectations, and thus was initiated into a dark knight of the soul.
Years would pass, in deep depressive soul searching, while externally masquerading as a dutiful employee, life-partner, guardian, daughter, sister, friend. Then, time began to accelerate, and quantum leaps in learning and growing became possible as she initiated herself into her first healing portal via Yoga Teacher Training in a far off sub-tropical land. Upon returning from Cambodia at the onset of a global pandemic, Devananda commenced an intentional assessment and re-alignment of her values and began creating portals for individuation. This sorcery led her to and through Kundalini Yoga, consciousness work, yogic selfless service (seva), ashram life and the ghastly revelation that she is queer. Here she stands now, back home in the Land of Enchantment, just one year in recovery of re-connection with her truest self; countless monstrous, internalized, unconscious programming has been removed, and a new blueprint is syncing. As she continues the work of summoning her authentic self, her life force energy is returning and intensifying in its vibrant and soulful expression.
As a potent healer she is in service to mother Gaia in pursuit of empowering humanity for social change to alleviate suffering and usher in abundant interrelational and reciprocal equanimity for all. Her words and perceptive observations eloquently offer seeds of truth that initiate transformative action. Devananda believes it all begins with the introspective self-healing and mastery which creates that space for unconditional — abundant — radical — self love, and allows for the wholesome, sovereign, individual to contribute to a copious future.
