Fierce Grace: Discovering the Boons of Kali

September 12, 2011 by Sally Kempton

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For Annie, that meant seeing into the fear that lay behind her politeness, and then finding that in her which could stand up both to her fear and to her siblings. At one point, I had her imagine herself as Kali—strong, fearless, holding a sword aloft, and to notice how she felt in this role.

Her response was a huge "NO!" shouted to her siblings, but also to her own passivity. She started doing an asana that she called Kali Pose: half a squat, raised arms, tongue stuck out, vocalizing: "Maaaaa!" or "Nooooo!" and finally, one day, a strong, triumphant "Yes!" That was the day she managed to talk her siblings into putting her mother's money in trust, under a lawyer who was answerable to all three of them.

That was also the day that Annie's siblings started, for the first time, treating her not as a little sister, but as someone worth listening to.

Every one of us, at some point will be brought face to face with the need to discover and integrate Kali. Integrating Kali does not mean giving way to tantrums or violent impulses—in fact, people who have tantrums are people who are out of touch with the truth of Kali, because the liberated Kali energy will always bring consciousness to the unconsciously angry parts of ourselves, and allow them to transform.

However, it is also true that we are often drawn to look for Kali in those moments when our social face is breaking down, when suppressed anger or fear is threatening to overwhelm us, or when we're faced with a crisis in which someone else's anger seems to threaten our survival or sense of justice. For me, the impetus to investigate Kali started during a health crisis. I had intuited that illness had something to do with suppressed aspects of myself, and so I decided to start a process of dialogue with what I, like Annie, saw as my own suppressed Kali energy. It often happens this way: we seek Kali at the moment we realize that we are living in dissonance with parts of ourselves which we may not fully understand or know

Sometimes people do this kind of shadow work out loud; I did it as a written dialogue. I began by writing, with my right hand, "I'd like to speak to Kali", and then taking a pen in my left hand. As I did so, I felt a leaping in my heart, and saw these words flowing through my pen, "I am anger, I am power, I'm the girl in the corner, I'm the wild dancer, I'm you, I'm you, I'm you!" "What do you want?" I wrote. "I want out," wrote my other hand, "to be free! To be wild! To be in control!"

The process went on for several hours, and ended only when I got a cramp in my hand that finally made it too uncomfortable to write. In the process, I could feel myself swinging from wild exhilaration to resentment and back again, but always with a feeling of mounting energy and excitement.

After a few weeks of this process—which I have periodically come back to in the years since—I began to notice that near-miracle that occurs when we begin to tune into any divine archetype, and especially to allow it to consciously speak through us. I began to find that positive Kali qualities—a natural kind of assertiveness and freedom—were coming back into my life. My health improved, but more to the point, I began to be able to speak my truth in the moment in ways I hadn't in years.

This was one of the processes I recommended to Annie. I didn't suggest that she look into the reasons for her passivity in the face of others' aggression, though often that kind of psychological help can be useful. Instead, I asked her to talk to the Kali energy inside, and see what it had to say to her. She has been dialoguing with Kali ever since. I notice that she's a bit sharper than she used to be, but that there's a freedom in her stride that wasn't there before. More to the point, she's beginning to be comfortable with confronting people—not just her siblings. Her friends find her more authentic, even though Annie doesn't always know how to express her newfound clarity. "I'm actually learning that when I let myself feel my anger, I can usually figure out how to say it in a way that doesn't blow up the conversation. I actually think I'm learning how to manage conflict."

This is one of Kali's great and secret boons. In pointing you towards those parts of yourself that you have rejected, feared or ignored, she inspires you to transform your identity and transform it again, letting go of rigid ideas of who you and others are, stretching your emotional range, your mind and life itself in delicious and liberating ways.

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9/12/2011 4:00:00 AM

Hindu

Meditation for Life

Kali

Yoga

Hinduism

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About Sally Kempton

An internationally known teacher of meditation and spiritual wisdom, Kempton is the author of Meditation for the Love of It and writes a monthly column for Yoga Journal. Follow her on Facebook and visit her website at www.sallykempton.com.

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