I've been quite taken with this particular rendering of Hindu goddess Kali for some time. It took me over, and I wasn’t sure why until today.
It was showing me myself. Kali’s strength in this image cannot be denied. And I suddenly understand why. She is a fully integrated being, and there is nothing more powerful than that. At first glance, she is dark and fearful. At first glance, she is gruesome, with her necklace of severed heads and belt of severed arms. But, for the first time, I really see her.
It’s said that the heads and arms represent aspects of ego. She destroyed illusion. But she did not leave it behind on the battlefield. She did not discard it and move on. She did not throw the remains away as though they didn’t mean anything. She instead wears them proudly for all to see. They are what made her. In them lies her strength. In them lies her fierceness. They are her flaws, her mistakes, her ignorance, her misgivings. They are her torment, her pain, her humanity.
She does not try to get away from them, or to outrun them. She does not hide them in shame. Maybe she did once. But rather, she met them — face to face — on the battlefield. She destroyed them. But instead of tossing them aside, she integrated them into what she now is.
She is the Relative world — the world of form, change, movement, duality. She stands assuredly upon the chest of her consort Shiva: the Absolute. The formless. The place from which all things arise. Together, they are all that is.
Kali runs from nothing. She discards nothing. She ignores nothing. She hides nothing. Now seeing her own illusion for what it is, she wears it proudly for all to bear witness to. And in that, lies her unshakable strength.
I see now why her image is feared. There is nothing more terrifying than meeting one’s own illusion. And nothing more courageous.
