Elle Devina is a South African-born performing artist with legs that go all the way up to her armpits. After a wild-romance crash on the Wild Coast, she travels to Europe with a broken heart and a dream of glittering stardom. India was never on her agenda! The ordainer who controls the fate of souls according to their prarabdhakarma was making other plans. At the age of 27, she is drawn into the psychedelic trance scene of that grand enchantress, Goa, in the early 80s. Like the sky-dancing Dakinis of Tantric and Tibetan myth, Elle Devina enters a playful, spangled world of glittering treasure and colourful delight. But in the galactic vastness of her diamond skies, demons lurk, and Elle is in for the roller-coaster ride of the century. One night at Lily's Chai Shop, favourite haunt of freaks, Diablo shows up with liquid fireworks. All hell breaks loose and the mystic beauty Elle dances in the mouth of madness. How far can she go into the labyrinth of lunacy before her mind snaps? How much can the fragile human psyche endure before the phantasmagoric claims the real forever? At once wise and insane, goddess-blessed and devil-cursed, Elle's story of love lost and found, of magical realism and surrealist nightmare, is told with exquisite tenderness and razor-sharp wit. Fearless and raw, Dakini in the Sky is an exploration of the Divine Feminine within. After 30 years in silence, the extraordinary tale is finally told. Exhilarating, harrowing and ultimately redemptive, Ushka Devi's prose takes you intimately and unsparingly into her mesmerising universe, and the unleashed mind of a Sky Dancer.
About the Author: Ushka Devi: Tantric Yogini, teacher, traveller, dancer, poet and performer of the ancient mysteries and sacred arts. Her understanding of and passion for yoga has been fostered by her fascination with sacred geometry, mythology and Sri Vidya, the Goddess in all her guises. Ushka is the author and artist of I is for Imagination, a graphic ABC for children, with 26 playfully illustrated cards and a book-a key into esoteric symbolism. The collection of symbols and mythic iconography in the "Kids' Tarot Cards" evoke inner archetypes and Nature-Spirit connection, and can be used in a variety of creative and magical ways. Together with her musician husband, Pierre Terblanche, she created the band Earthlings, a tribal fusion of nature-based ethnic instruments with Western instruments. A trendsetter, it spawned an underground cult following. When Pierre and Ushka relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town in the 90s, Earthlings transformed into Eartheart, focusing on ritual celebration with sound and dance and the recording and production of music. Albums include Earplay, Mothertongue, Dance of Bliss and Intuit. Tracks from the albums have been used in various documentaries. With Pierre and four Abyssinian cats, Ushka lives in the seaside village of Scarborough, Cape Peninsula, where their sons grew up with the wind, in a world without fences.