Hymn to the Dark Mother

This is a real dream I had. It starts in the dark but ends in the light. Keep the faith.

I walked down an empty dirt road at twilight, straight and steep. There was a dead man lying in a roadside ditch. He wore a pristine black suit and a white shirt. He had a curious flatness, like a man in a Magritte painting. I knelt and peered into his pale face. “Definitely dead,” I thought.

At the far end of a grassy field was tent draped in camouflage netting. Soldiers and guardians were inside giving a presentation on an old-school overhead projector. One pulled aside the white screen for me. I ducked behind the veil.

I entered a courtyard in a land filled with coral sunlight. I swam and leaped in the waves of a sparkling pool. I got out of the water, looked over the courtyard, and felt something strange rise up in me.

“You are starting to look like her,” someone next to me said. I was unsure what that even meant, but it frightened me.

“Oh, shit,” I said. Then it all went black. Silent. There was only the dark void for too long. Until the light poured in.

I opened my eyes to find myself reborn, deep blue-skinned from head to toe. Even my hair was deep purple-blue. From the waters, I stood up, naked and streaming, with blue snakes hennaed around my wrists and ankles. I looked at my blue self from the outside.

It was all so clear to me now. I was beautiful, even though I was not as I was before.

I awoke from the dream knowing something major had shifted. I couldn’t shake the dream. The next day, in a book store, I stumbled upon a book with my blue dream-self on the cover. I held a book about the Dark Goddess, Kali, about whom I knew almost nothing. She had more arms than me in the dream, but the semblance scared me. She even held the head of a curiously flat dead man, white skin, black hair.

She had come for me, claimed me. I devoured the book and began my journey to loving the Dark Mother, Kali.

An ancient Hindu goddess, Kali sprung from another goddess, Durga, to fight the demons of desire. Kali is oft-misunderstood as an evil harbinger of death. This heavily armed (haha, get it?) goddess wears a necklace of skulls and holds the decapitated head of a dead man. Kali brings destruction.

But the destruction of what? What Kali severs are the heads of the attachments and desires that keep us bound in darkness. When we become unbound, we are free to be reborn. Kali’s fierce love guides us through the darkest places and births us into the light on the other side. In my dream, I walked past death, crossed the threshold, faced the black, and was reborn: beautiful and whole.

Kali, the Mother of Creation, brings new life, rebirth, and revolution. Kali clears away our endless empty desires so that we might find true freedom and fulfillment. She flows through life, with countless changes that feel like endings…

….until they become beginnings. Kali rules this place in between the cycles of life, death and rebirth. She is the cause of the inexorable march of time that will inevitably transform all things. She destroys our limited egos and worldly desires on a path to complete freedom.

Looking back, I could see Kali sustaining me through the fears of my life. When my college boyfriend died in a car crash, she cradled me and made it safe to fall apart, so that I could be rebuilt.

Later, after a breakup, I unknowingly painted myself burning in her transformative fire, alight with strength inside a blue, blossoming flame. She’s shepherded me through unemployment and illness and death and doubt and heartbreak and loss. Her love reminded me that in life, we must endure in order to become whole. Without my trials, I would not be here, lovingly worshipping at the feet of the Goddess.

After I wrote the first draft of this article, I left a good man, left our dogs, and left town. I pretty much bolted. When the dust settled, I realized how vital those changes had been to my soul. Kali’s grace made space for me to find my teacher, fall in love again and again, and create a new life. This new life supports my spiritual growth with a dedication to practice and newfound magic.

I’m even a little nervous as I revise this article for submission. I am literally asking to have negative and worldly attachments severed. It’s all karma I’ll have to burn through one way or another, so I might as well get on with it. Geronimo!

Transformation sounds awesome, of course. But the destruction of your ego won’t be comfortable. You may have to surrender your job, a cherished dream, or a relationship. You may find your soul’s purpose to be at odds with your old, comfortable life. Something ends and something else begins.

Kali is best called upon when you are ready for change. Sometimes drastic, often uncomfortable, but always required for progress down your soul’s path. Kali’s radical love brings us closer to home.

The Mother of Time, who causes time, who is beyond time, does not mindlessly destroy all in her path. This wise force at the end of all things discerns what can be salvaged and what must be sacrificed. What should we fight for? What honors our soul-work? And what must be burned off to move forward?

Welcome the destruction of those old stale ways of living, being or crawling. Sometimes endings are cataclysms. Sometimes they are slow fades to black. Sometimes you leap of the edge yourself. Sometimes you must be pushed.

Things cannot stay the way they are. You, my love, are meant for more than inching along the ground. You are meant for scarier, lovelier heights. You cannot go back; you cannot stay bound. You were born to endure, transform and become free.

Experiencing pain doesn’t mean you’ve failed at manifesting your beautiful reality. Life’s inevitable tragedies are Kali’s instruments of alchemical change. Dream, hope and manifest your sweet heart out. Keep praying, chanting, dancing, meditating, and creating your truth.

In the midst of all the miracles you generate, pain will arise. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. When challenged, do you choose to crumple in defeat? Or do you transform, evolve, and rise?

You must endure the trauma of being born into a new mode of living. In the chrysalis-crucible-womb of life, you have been remade. You are bloodied with the life-blood of creation. You are magnificent with those golden wings that cost you so dearly. Use them! Create yourself anew. Create your life anew. Unfold.

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.” ~Rumi

Come out of your bondage and join the cosmic play, the lila. You are broken but re-forged. Your old life has fallen away, cracked and blackened. The universal terror-joy of being human unites and frees us all, leaving us more real, more whole.

So, rise! Play! Dance through hardship. Dance through these cycles of life and transformation. Dance in your blood.

You are made new. You are beautiful, even though you are not as you were before.