Kali's Kindness

[ramadevi]

Your grace comes camouflaged
to devastate my heart,
and swiftly rip apart
resistance.

Gaping holes, now exposed,
bleed tears, expel shadows.
Dim soul glows luminous
and buoyant.

You crack ego’s hard shell;
smash pride, extinguish lust;
steer my soul to trusting
cruel kindness.

Your sword, beheading me,
cuts inner spirit free.
Your laughter roars fiercely—
I am released.


* Kali is the fierce form of the Goddess (Devi) in the Hindu Pantheon. She carries a sowrd and trident, wears a garland of human skulls and a skirt of human arms. her tongue is sticking out and dripping with blood. Her role is to kill the ego, and she feeds on our negativities, transofrming darkness to light. She is much misunderstood by western culture.

Anyway, this poem is actually about my guru, Amma, whose role as a spiritual master is to facilitate progress on the path by helping us to recognize and overcome negativities. Amma is famous for her loving, compassionate hugs...and most of her "children" see only her smiling aspects. but disciples get the fierce treatment at times...and thus this shocking poem from me....just to show another side...since many may think i write of serenity!~ lol~

[alfredo]

Lotsa passion - nice . Consider
,
and swiftly rip (apart) away

[MichaelFirewalker]

I see Kali as the Hindu Dark Mother, like the Mesopotamian Ereshkegal, and many others----she allows the duality of the third dimension to manifest in third dimensional space and time----without her, there could be no third dimension...

I first learned of her in 1992, when I began my study of Earth's many spiritualities----at first, she terrified me and fascinated me, simultaneously----then the terror left, and the fascination remained, and surprisingly, love began to grow...

have also had many painful Kali lessons, but, like you, could always feel the rightness in them, behind them, even then----am quite sure the lessons are not over, either...

the poem is elegantly gentle, a good contrast to how many see Kali, as violent and sadistic----it is my belief that the elegant gentleness is her real truth----she is a true parent----I do not believe her to be sadistic, as many do----feels to me like she aches with all of our pains, is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, as Jesus is, but she knows, with an infinite knowing, how necessary they are...

in stanza two, "dim soul glows luminous and buoyant" speaks to me of the your subjective viewpoint of what is happening to you during chastisement----most likely, the truth is that your soul in those times is at its most brilliant, but your awareness of it has dimmed, only for a time...

love stanza three, and am living that along with you too, gratefully, as you also are...

stanza four is both killer and giver of life, at the same time----never thought I would be able to even begin to understand that release----but that's exactly what it is, sprung free, broken, covered in tears, never to be the same, and filled to overflowing with a gratitude you know will only grow as time does...

so happy you shared this, sister mine,
michael

[sandpiper]

Love everything in this Rama, especially the beheading, which likens for me to the absence of thinking and just being... I would suggest possibly looking at the bleed tears again and see if there's another way to say that by still getting across everything you're trying to get into those two words. I think it's just a twitch I get when I read those two words together, so, it's probably just me.

very strong, though, and very well done!
-piper

[mfwilkie]

rama,

A thought on these lines.

Gaping holes, now exposed,
bleed tears, expel displacing/erasing shadows.

Maggie

[MichaelFirewalker]

Mags... why not use expel?----what do you find wrong with it?----is seems so much clearer, and more concise, than displacing or erasing...

mick

[Jonathan Morey Weiss-Namaste47]

Bringing to life, substance most are unable to experience.

"Great is the guru, and great the good fortune of the disciple"

Kabir