SHE DRUMS the Women's Community Drumming Circle

Kali has begun her dance in your life to tell you it is time to face your fears.

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In the sacred tale Devi Mahatmya, Kali is the fiercest manifestation of the beautiful & powerful Goddess Durga, in Her triumphant battle against the forces of evil. Durga is the Goddess of power, the destroyer of negativity,

Kali is one of the most well known & worshipped Hindu Goddesses. The name Kali is derived from the Hindu word that means "time", & which also means "black". Kali in Hinduism, is a manifestation of the Divine Mother, representing the female principle. Frequently, those not comprehending her many roles in life call Kali the Goddess of Destruction. She destroys only to recreate, & what she destroys is sin, ignorance & decay. She is equated with the eternal night, is the transcendent power of time, & is the active power behind Her consort of the god Shiva, Lord of the Dance. It is believed that Shiva is the one who destroys the world, & Kali is the power or energy with which Shiva acts. Therefore, Kali is Shiva's shakti, without which Shiva could not act. Kali receives her name because she devours kala (Time) & then resumes her own dark formlessness. This transformative effect can be metaphorically illustrated in the West as a black hole in space. Kali as such, is pure & primary Reality (the "enfolded order" in modern physics); formless void yet full of potential. Kali is the Holy Paradox, like the wild fire that destroys, thus giving birth to the forests anew.

Kali's blackness symbolizes her all-embracing, comprehensive nature, because black is the color in which all other colors merge; black absorbs & dissolves them. 'Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names & forms disappear in her' (Mahanirvana Tantra). Or black is said to represent the total absence of color, again signifying the nature of Kali as Ultimate Reality. This in Sanskrit is named nirguna (beyond all quality & form).

Kali's nudity has a similar meaning. In many instances she is described as garbed in space or sky clad. In her absolute, primordial nakedness she is free from all covering of illusion. She is Nature (Prakriti in Sanskrit), stripped of 'clothes'. It symbolizes that she is completely beyond name & form, completely beyond the illusory effects of maya (false consciousness). Her nudity is said to represent totally illumined consciousness, unaffected by maya.

Kali is the bright fire of truth, which cannot be hidden by the clothes of ignorance. Such truth simply burns them away. She is full-breasted; her motherhood is a ceaseless creation. Her disheveled hair forms a curtain of illusion, the fabric of space/time which organizes matter out of the chaotic sea of quantum-foam. Her garland of fifty human heads, each representing one of the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes the repository of knowledge & wisdom. She wears a girdle of severed human hands... Hands are the principal instruments of work & so signify the action of karma. Thus the binding effects of this karma have been overcome, severed, as it were, by devotion to Kali. She has blessed the devotee by cutting him free from the cycle of karma. Her white teeth are symbolic of purity (Sans. Sattva), & her lolling tongue which is red, dramatically depicts the fact that she consumes all things & denotes the act of tasting or enjoying what society regards as forbidden, i.e. her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's "flavors".

Kali's four arms represent the complete circle of creation & destruction, which is contained within her. She represents the inherent creative & destructive rhythms of the cosmos. Her right hands, making the mudras of "fear not" & conferring boons, represent the creative aspect of Kali, while the left hands, holding a bloodied sword & a severed head represent her destructive aspect. The bloodied sword & severed head symbolize the destruction of ignorance & the dawning of knowledge. The sword is the sword of knowledge, that cuts the knots of ignorance & destroys false consciousness (the severed head). Kali opens the gates of freedom with this sword, having cut the eight bonds that bind human beings.

with which she is able to observe the three modes of time: past, present & future. This attribute is also the origin of the name Kali, which is the feminine form of 'Kala', the Sanskrit term for Time.

Kali's dwelling place, the cremation ground denotes a place where the five elements are dissolved (Sanskrit: pancha mahabhuta). Kali dwells where dissolution takes place. In terms of devotion & worship, this denotes the dissolving of attachments, anger, lust, & other binding emotions, feelings, & ideas. The heart of the devotee is where this burning takes place, & it is in the heart that Kali dwells. The devotee makes her image in the heart & under Her influence burns away all limitations & ignorance in the cremation fires. This inner cremation fire in the heart is the fire of knowledge, which Kali bestows. (Sanskrit: gyanagni)

The image of a recumbent Shiva lying under the feet of Kali represents Shiva as the passive potential of creation & Kali as his Shakti. The generic term Shakti denotes the Universal feminine creative principle & the energizing force behind all male divinity including Shiva. Shakti is known by the general name Devi, from the root 'div', meaning to shine. She is the Shining One, who is given different names in different places & in different appearances, as the symbol of the life-giving powers of the Universe. It is She that powers him. This Shakti is expressed as the i in Shiva's name. Without this i, Shiva becomes Shva, which in Sanskrit means a corpse. Thus suggesting that without his Shakti, Shiva is powerless or inert.

Kali is a particularly appropriate image for conveying the idea of the world as the play of the gods. The spontaneous, effortless, dizzying creativity of the divine reflex is conveyed in her wild appearance. Insofar as kali is identified with the phenomenal world, she presents a picture of that world which underlies its ephemeral & unpredictable nature. In Her mad dancing, disheveled hair, & eerie howl, there is made present the hint of a world reeling, & careening out of control. The world is created & destroyed in Kali's wild dancing, & the truth of redemption lies in our awareness that we are invited to take part in that dance, to yield to the frenzied beat of the Mother's dance of life & death.

Kali & Her attendants dance to rhythms pounded out by Shiva (as Lord of destruction) & his animal-headed attendants who dwell in the Himalayas. Associated with chaos & uncontrollable destruction, Kali's own retinue brandishes swords & holds aloft skull cups from which they drink the blood that intoxicates them. Kali, like Shiva, has a third eye, but in all other respects the two are distinguished from one another. In contrast to Shiva's sweet expression, plump body, & ash white complexion, dark Kali's emaciated limbs, angular gestures, & fierce grimace convey a wild intensity. Her loose hair, skull garland, & tiger wrap whip around her body as she stomps & claps to the rhythm of the dance.

Many stories describe Kali's dance with Shiva as one that "threatens to destroy the world" by its savage power. Art historian Stella Kramrisch has noted that the image of kali dancing with Shiva follows closely the myth of the demon Daruka. When Shiva asks his wife Parvati to destroy this demon, she enters Shiva's body & transforms herself from the poison that is stored in his throat. She emerges from Shiva as Kali, ferocious in appearance, & with the help of her flesh eating retinue attacks & defeats the demon. Kali however became so intoxicated by the blood lust of battle that her aroused fury & wild hunger threatened to destroy the whole world. She continued her ferocious rampage until Shiva manifested himself as an infant & lay crying in the midst of the corpse-strewn field. Kali, deceived by Shiva's power of illusion, became calm as she suckled the baby. When evening approached, Shiva performed the dance of creation (tandava) to please the goddess. Delighted with the dance, Kali & Her attendants joined in. This terrific & poignant imagery starkly reveals the nature of Kali as the Divine Mother.

Kali's human & maternal qualities continue to define the Goddess for most of Her devotees to this day. In human relationships, the love between mother & child is usually considered the purest & strongest. In the same way, the love between the Mother Goddess & her human children is considered the closest & tenderest relationship with divinity. Accordingly, Kali's devotees form a particularly intimate & loving bond with her.

But the devotee never forgets Kali's demonic, frightening aspects. They does not distort Kali's nature & the truths She reveals; they do not refuse to meditate on Her terrifying features; they mention these repeatedly in their songs but is never put off or repelled by them. Kali may be frightening; the mad, forgetful mistress of a world spinning out of control, but She is, after all, the Mother of all. As such, she must be accepted by her children; accepted in wonder & awe, perhaps, but accepted nevertheless.

Kali's boon is won when we confront or accept Her & the realities She dramatically conveys to us. The image of Kali, in a variety of ways, teaches us that pain, sorrow, decay, death, & destruction are not to be overcome or conquered by denying them or explaining them away. Pain & sorrow are woven into the texture of our life so thoroughly that to deny them is ultimately futile. For us to realize the fullness of our being, to come into our potential as a human being, we must finally accept this dimension of existence.

Kali's boon is freedom, the freedom of the child to revel in the moment, & it is won only after confrontation or acceptance of death. To ignore death, to pretend that one is physically immortal, to pretend that one's ego is the center of things, is to provoke Kali's mocking laughter. To confront or accept death, on the contrary, is to realize a mode of being that can delight & revel in the play of the gods. To accept one's mortality is to be able to let go, to be able to sing, dance, & shout. Kali is Mother to her devotees not because She protects them from the way things really are, but because She reveals to them their mortality, & thus releases them to act fully & freely, releases them from the incredible, binding web of pretense, practicality, & rationality.

She is the power of time which devours all. She destroys ignorance, maintains the world order, & blesses & frees those who strive for knowledge of the divine. Om Kali Ma

The wild goddess Kali dances the dance of life...

Hail
Dark Goddess
Knower of Mysteries
Mother who is Life & Death
Dancer adorned with Skulls
Destructive as Fire
Spark of Creation
Sacred Devourer
Sacred Creatrix
Kali Ma
She