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When Things Fall Away
Kali: Goddess of Life and Death
 When I first became interested in Tantric mysticism and Hindu mythology years ago,
I quickly developed a deep and resounding affinity for the Goddess, Kali. To the western mind, Kali is one of the most misunderstood
deities of Hindu culture. Yet, in her homeland of India, she is revered as the "Great Mother" with a temple built in her name in Calcutta, and the beloved feast of 'Kali Puja' held annually during the middle of October.
During Kali Puja, there is dancing and celebration in honor of this goddess who asks that we unify with all Life. In essence, it is a celebration of 'Letting Go' because to fully embrace Life, we must also fully embrace Death. And while it may be an uncomfortable reality that Death is the inseparable counterpart of Life, as we shift our focus to the awe-inspiring beauty, power and intelligence of nature, we then see the greater purpose and flawless design of the ever-changing Life/Death/Life cycle.
Clay. It's rain, dead leaves, dust, all my dead ancestors. Stones that have been ground into sand. Mud. The whole cycle of life and death.
- Martine Vermeulen
Wild Female Spirit
Wild" - just the word alone can conjure many distorted images, but add Female and even more so! In dominant patriarchal cultures, a women wielding her instinctual power has long been viewed as being mad, out of control or hysterical. But in Hindu mythology, the Wild Feminine Spirit of Kali is both the All-Giving and the All-Taking Mother; inconceivable to the collective western psyche, yet self-evident in the incontestable forces of nature.
There is an inherent wildness in woman that cannot be contained or controlled. Her deepest pain is
her separation from this essential essence;
her sweetest joy is when she is simply being, united with the seasons' awakening, earth's nourishment
and the moon's phases.
- Sophia Breillat
Kali is often depicted dancing with a necklace of skulls which represents the great ocean of "wisdom blood" at the beginning and end of all life. As women, we bleed as we enter Maidenhood
 (menstruation), we bleed when we enter Motherhood (childbirth), and we hold our "Wisdom Blood" when we enter Cronehood (menopause). Wild Female can also be "bloodthirsty" when she has to be. She has no use for bloodless activity, bloodless thought, or bloodless relationships. She has no room in her life for dishonesty or self-deception, and certainly Wild Female is not always "nice". To be complete, the authentic elemental feminine must honor the Life/Death/Life cycle. She is both wrathful and playful, a dynamic and awakening quality that is all too often misunderstood in the sophisticated west. She can be one of man's greatest helpers on his own path of discovering his deeper nature. Rather than something primitive or crude - this wild and undomesticated spirit within us represents a deeper kind of consciousness and "knowing".
What a real man or woman is always remains inconceivable since their reality lies in nature, not the verbal world of concepts.
-Alan Watts
As winter envelopes us with colder days and longer nights, insects burrow deep within the earth, birds fly south and another year's cycle turns around. It is the season when things fall away. To truly know the Kali archetype, is to carefully examine what we are holding on to, to strip away false pretense, to surrender old ways of being that clear the space for new energy and new growth. It is in the very act of Letting Go that we are graced with new perspectives and new life.
What will you let go this New Year?
From my heart to yours,
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