Tirza Schaefer: Romance Author & Goddess Facilitator
Radha
I love to explore the Divine Feminine and write about Goddesses. For a list of those, click on the link: Goddesses. In order to become more balanced within ourselves and, through that, to bring greater balance and harmony to the world around us, we must find greater balance between the masculine and feminine energies within ourselves that each one of us possesses, regardless of physical gender or any other ways of self-identification.
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Goddess of Joy & Love
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Radha is the Hindu Goddess of love, tenderness, compassion and devotion. She is the beloved and consort of God Krishna. In scripture, she is known as the avatar (reincarnation) of the Goddess Lakshmi (happiness, fortune, wealth, prosperity, beauty, fertility, sovereignty, and abundance) and the feminine counterpart of the masculine divine energy, also known as shakti, the internal potency of Krishna. She has a dual concept, one as the lover, the other as the married consort of Krishna. The term hladini shakti means energy of bliss and in this, Radha is associated with the Primordial Divine Mother.
Her name is Sanskrit, the ancient language in which all traditional Hindu scriptures are written, and means prosperity, success, perfection and wealth. In earlier texts, her appearance is elusive, which is in some traditions explained by her being the secret treasure hidden within the sacred scriptures. It was only in the 16th century that she became more widely known when her extraordinary love for Krishna was highlighted.
In the most popular traditions that worship Radha and Krishna as divine couple the most, Radha is often seen as the more powerful of the two. She is seen both as consort and as conqueror of Krisha. Whereas Goddess Sita, God Rama’s wife, is aware of her social responsibilities, Radha is celebrated as the divine lover of Krishna, a playful adventurer, as opposed to Rama who is a serious, virtuous man.
In mythology, Radha is described to have been floating on a lotus in the River Yamuna as a baby for nine months, until Krishna was born. She only opened her eyes for the first time when Krishna appeared before her for the first time. There are many stories of her childhood that show her growing into divinity. When she was a young milkmaid (gopi), she was singled out by Krishna as his beloved. They are often depicted together as dancing with the other milkmaids or standing side by side with Krishna playing the flute.
In one of the Puranas, sacred Hindu texts, she is associated with Mulaprakriti, the Supreme Goddess, Maker of the Universe, or Goddess of All, whose name means the root nature, which implies the original seed from which all material forms evolved. Here, Krishna and Radha relate to each other like man, spirit or universal soul (purusha) relate to the body, the material world. Here Radha is both maya, the material energy, and prakriti, the feminine energy. On the highest, mystical level, Radha transcends the material and exists in the form of pure consciousness.
Radha is the fulfiller of all desires as the personification of Krishna’s love. He has three powers: intelligence (the inner world), appearances (the external world) and forming the individual souls (the differentiated). He opens the heart and creates joy. Once this power becomes settled in the heart of the devotee, it creates a state of pure bliss and joy, which is, in its highest form, Radha. When the bodies of Radha and Krishna are merged into one, Radha becomes the left side, a perfect balance to the masculine Krishna. Thus, Radha is part of Krishna, his counterpart, but also an intense, solitary, proud figure who is addressed with titles of devotion, making it clear that her status is way more than a mere playmate or passing carnal lover. She is equal partner in a mature and exclusive love relationship.
Radha is a woman who is not afraid of social consequences, defying caste, social norms and etiquette in favour for her love of Krishna. She is strong, bold and fearless. In her love for Krishna, she even turns her fair skin colour into the dark one, Krishna has, which is why he is always depicted in blue, a hue to an almost black skin colour. As archetypal lovers, they are connected forever, temporary separations notwithstanding.
Radha and Krishna, being both lovers on a divine level, as well as physical, play an important part in some of the Tantric traditions as well. Tantra is the teaching of attaining spiritual enlightenment through physical, sexual practices supported by spiritual and emotional connection. Many festivals in India are devoted to the celebration of Radha (with Krishna).
When Radha came to me, in early January of 2026, as one of the Goddesses whose call I had longed and hoped for, for a very long time, I was overjoyed. Not only because she had finally appeared to me, but because her presence felt like joy itself. She is joy.
The Lovers
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It was the day before I started teaching my course “Create Birth Yantras” for the first time, and as I deepened the numerological interpretation of these magickal squares based on a person’s date of birth, I also combined it with the added layers of the Major Arcana cards of the Tarot and their Goddess associations, a project I had started in my Tarot diploma course some years prior as part of my ongoing study of the mysteries of both the Tarot and Goddess archetypes. Radha, there, is associated with Card VI (6) of the Major Arcana in the Tarot, The Lovers, and part of me had always been tempted to do a short cut and write about her from an intellectual level.
I know better than to force something I am not yet ready for, I wait for a Goddess to come to me and let me know when it’s time to write and connect, but with Radha (as well as a couple of others), I feel impatient to finally do so, wanting my list of Goddesses to be complete and, likewise, their Tarot associations. It is one thing for a Goddess to come through telling me which particular Tarot card she wishes to be associated with, but another to actually connect more deeply and write about her for publication on my website. At this point, it had been quite a while since I had been called by a Goddess to do so, and although I was very busy in my life with both personal development and healing and building and working on my spiritual business, knowing fully well, I needed this process to reach a certain level before it was time to continue to connect with Goddesses for this purpose again, I felt a level of frustration that things didn’t move forward.
Of course, things moved forward all the time, it just didn’t come in the way and sequence my ego wanted them to. But on this Sunday morning, I was filled with joy, sitting in the sunlight, a thin coat of snow blanketing the garden with the longer grass blades poking through while the snow was slowly melting, and everything shone is bright, radiant light. It filled my heart, sitting warmly wrapped up on my patio, my eyes tearing up with the brilliance of the light, and at the same time, my heart was opened and blissful joy flooded my being.
That was when Radha came to me. There are no coincidences, so the appearance of the Goddess of Joy coming to me in the moment of intense joy is none, either. I was in the frequency of alignment with her and my heart sang when I felt her beautiful, joyous and loving energy. She told me that it was time and that she was happy that I had made the decision to allow myself to be filled with joy, finally being receptive and a match to her archetypal frequency.
The reason I choose Radha for the card of The Lovers isn’t merely because she is presented as lover in Hindu mythology. For those who know about the Tarot, you’ll also know that The Lovers have the meaning of making an important choice between two very different options. Both can appear appealing and “the right one,” but circumstances will only permit you to go with one. And because Radha defied all social conventions and risked being judged and punished for it even, she chose her love for Krishna over the safety of socially acceptability. Here, Radha shows us what the result will be when we step outside of our comfort zone and follow our heart, our inner guidance and intuition over playing it safe. To make real changes, we must take real steps to follow this path consequently and resolutely.
Communion
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When I communed with her outside on my patio in the cold, I was uncomfortable because the cold seeped into my and my feet felt frozen, but I didn’t interrupt this communion because of the discomfort. I felt it, accepted it, and chose to remain consciously. My reward was being filled with feelings of such intense, blissful joy, so much unconditional love, that it was the most intense and beautiful I had ever felt in my life. This is not to say other Goddesses are less loving, but that I had healed enough in the past year especially to allow myself to open up to and experience this level of love. Yes, I am taking full and radical responsibility for this, for myself.
It was as if my heart expanded, opened wide and was filled with bright white glittering light, which started to spin at the centre, then spread out from there to fill my entire being and beyond. When I thought my nervous system couldn’t take anymore of this, it subsided. The light dimmed to a warm glow, I was back in mundane reality, and I felt it was high time to get my body back inside and warm it up in my bed. Once there, I opened my laptop and started to write.
After I had done more research on mythology and history on Radha, I asked her for a universal message, and this is what she said:
Message from the Goddess
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Beloveds of the Divine, dearly beloved of Me, I bring you joy in times of radical shifts and profound change. The seeming chaos in the world as you know it is a rearranging of energies, of values and of consciousness. The forces of evil fight hard for survival and seek to draw you into the frequency of fear, hate, division and polarity. But I tell you, do not let yourself be sucked into this emotional abyss that has no bottom. Instead, rise in consciousness, cultivate joy and love through meditation, appreciation, gratitude, singing, laughing, dancing and whatever other activities give you a profound sense of fulfilment.
This is not spiritual bypassing. I am not telling you to remove yourself from the world and exist in some illusory little bubble, but instead, cultivate these feelings and seek connection not only to yourself but carry this divine fire of inspiration and light out into the world for it will affect others by divine law. The more you reach out and connect to others, the more positive impact you will have. But choose wisely between true connection and connections of convenience and social safety. Connect in the spirit of true authentic expression – yours and another’s – not through fear of loneliness or need of belonging and social safety.
Let yourself not be diverted from the path of true, unconditional love by the lower frequencies that seek to dismantle your progress and draw you back down. You can help and have a positive impact on the world through energy, empathy and actions, and all are valuable and needed. However, you must decide to embody this higher state of consciousness in all you do and act from there, rather than suffering with others out of misunderstood empathy.
Let me tell you a story. There once were some people out in the fields when the earth rumbled and a wide trench opened into which they fell. It was too deep for them to climb out by themselves and in their fear of meeting their death down below, they started to panic, jumping up, clawing at the soft earth and not getting anywhere until they were exhausted.
Then one man had an idea. He told his wife he dearly loved to climb onto his shoulders and asked another man to go on his hands and knees, so he might step onto his back, thus getting high enough to enable his wife to climb out of the abyss. They all did as he had asked, and the wife was able to climb out. Once there, she started to cry and wail that she didn’t know how to help her husband out. He told her to go and seek help, but she was too afraid to lose her way, and that the earth should tremble again in her absence and swallow her husband for good. In her despair, she jumped back down to him because she would rather die with him that live without him alone.
Another woman observed this and said that if she were helped out, she would go and seek help. The stronger men helped her to climb out of the trench, and she went in search of anything or anyone she could find to help the others she had left behind. When she had walked for several hours, she found a high tree covered in vines. She looked up and decided, it was easier to get some vines lose and thread them into a rope, rather than trying to break of a big branch. So she tucked and pulled and finally had enough vines for a rope. With that, she ran back as fast as she could and reached the trench on her last breath. However, there was nothing she could tie the rope to, and she was too weakened to be able to pull anyone up and out of the gaping cleft in the earth where her people remained. Crying, she threw herself on the ground, asking to die because she wasn’t able to help and her efforts had been for nothing.
The Young Girl
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The other people in the trench were so exhausted, injured and in pain by then that they couldn’t lift anyone else out. But then a young girl stepped forward. She was eleven years old, of slight built and looked very frail.
“Lift me out and I will save you,” she said with determination in her large almond eyes. Everyone shook their heads. The girl would never be able to help them. She was far too small and weak to do anything useful. But she insisted and so, just to die in peace and be rid of her, the strongest men lifted her out with their last strength, then everyone settled down to die in peace.
The young girl didn’t start walking like the woman before her. Instead, she looked around on the ground until she had found plants and roots she could eat to hydrate and nourish herself, so her strength returned and she had some she could carry for the journey, feeling deeply grateful at the sun warming her face, the wide sky and the earth nourishing her. Only then did she start to walk in the direction the other woman had come from. She rested on the way, ate and found a little stream to drink from to sustain herself. Finally, she reached the tree the other woman had pulled the vines from. The girl looked up and saw a few low-hanging branches that looked sturdy, but she had nothing to cut or break them off with. So she made another rope from vines, taking care to rest, eat and drink at regular intervals. Then she used this rope as a pulley, slinging it over a couple of other branches to create more force and when she finally pulled at the loose end, she was able to break off a big branch from the tree.
Because she was quite tired, she lay down to sleep and started to work on another branch in the morning after she had found some fruits and water to nourish herself. With fortified strength, she managed to break the second branch off. Then she rolled one after the other in front of her after determining that trying to pull even one across the uneven terrain would drain her of energy so quickly that nothing would be accomplished. Her progress was slow, she had to take breaks to rest, drink and eat often, but eventually, she managed to reach the trench.
Everyone was very weak and no one said a word or moved. The young girl didn’t give it any thought and started to use her own rope, as well as the one the other woman had made to create rungs between the long branches like a ladder. Then, with an enormous effort, she pushed the ladder over the side of the trench, so that it stood leaning against the wall.
When the people caught below saw this, they mustered their last strength to climb up the ladder and started to push each other out of the way, injuring even more because everyone wanted to be out first, afraid their strength gave out before it was their turn. Instead of fretting and calling to them to calm down and go in an orderly fashion, the girl walked off to gather what food she could find for those who made it out of the deep trench. When she returned with the second load, those that had managed to reach the top and climb out were now fighting over the little food she had left from her first round of gathering.
The Grandmother, the Little Boy & the Mother
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Instead of telling them to share it equally or wait, the girl only gave them what food she had gathered on her second round and left again, walking to the stream to drink, but because she didn’t have any vessels to hold water, she couldn’t bring any back with her. So when she returned from her third outing to gather food, she found another child, a little boy and an old woman who sat quietly and didn’t engage in the fights and arguments all the others were involved in. The girl went over to them and told them of the stream and the nearby forest with plenty of food and fresh water to be found.
The old woman rose from the ground and slowly started walking into the direction the girl had pointed out, but the little boy ran to his mother and tried to pull her away from the group. She only swatted him away because she was too busy arguing with the others and the boy sat back down with a deep sigh, waiting for his mother while his mouth was parched. When his thirst became too great, he decided to head to the stream without his mother and return when he had had enough to drink.
Exhausted from fighting, the mother stopped arguing for a moment and discovered that her son was gone. She started to search for him and saw him as a small figure on the horizon. Following her child, she made it to the stream after him and saw the girl walking towards the direction of the forest. She walked slowly because she was supporting the old woman who leaned on her.
“They will never make it to the forest and they will both die,” she said in spite to her little son. But he shook his head.
“She had a piece of wood in her pocket, and the grandmother showed her how to take a sharp stone she found and make a bowl of it. They walk as far as grandmother can go, then she drinks. The girl returns here, drinks herself, gathers some food and refills the bowl. On the way, the grandmother shows her plants and tells her about their healing properties.,” he explained.
The mother lowered her head, ashamed of her selfishness and her neglect of her little son because she had been too busy arguing and expending her energy for nothing. She drank her fill, made sure that her son had had enough to drink and then took him by the hand to walk towards the forest. She now ignored the people who were still arguing over who had been or should have been first up the ladder, who had had the first or most of the food the young girl had provided, and no one realised they were dying of thirst.
On the way, they met with the grandmother and young girl. The mother asked the grandmother to describe to her how she had made the wooden bowl and then went ahead with her son, gathering fruits and fashioning a bowl for the old lady and young girl, so they would both have a drink and food on their much slower pace to the forest. The mother was strong again, brought water and food in regular intervals until the other two had finally made it to the forest together. In the end, these four were the only survivors.
This story tells you how life works. Most are drawn to fighting and struggling, then to self-sacrifice. It is only when you realise that you need to be well and strong, steady and consistent in your vision, intent and determination to reach your goal that you can then help others, but only those who actually want to be helped. You cannot safe everyone. But you can help those along the way that are willing to make the effort to walk the path, even if it takes them longer than others, but they will repay you with gratitude, appreciation and their gifts they can share with you. These connections bring you joy. And when someone as strong as you works with you as a team and you attain much greater results as a consequence, you have tapped into the power of the collective which is even more powerful when directed with high energy and a commitment to mutual support and collective achievement.
Do you see where the people in the story listened to their inner guidance and followed their path despite of the social group being on a completely different path or even stagnating?
What will you choose today, tomorrow, this week, month, or year?
Radha closed her message to the general public, assuring me that we will be working together more often from now on. “Feel me whenever there is joy in your heart,” she said. “When there is none, choose joy and bliss. Then you will feel my presence. It is always your choice.”
Tarot Card
Crystals
Rose Quartz, Emerald, Ruby, Garnet, Moonstone, Rhodochrosite, Aventurine, Carnelian, Opalite
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