Lessons From Kali

Today Kali woke behind my eyes
and wrapped me in red, a dark veil,
painted charcoal over my eyelids.

She said, "You are a queen
in dark times and in light."
She said, "The jewel in your heart
is even brighter at night-time.

Do not be afraid to ride your power
like a black panther into the animal,
the primal, the sultry, the wild,
just as you fly on the white wings
of eagle in daytime, carrying your blue song
and your white pipe
and making ripples of white smoke
that shimmer like stars
from your mouth.

Your mouth: full and bold,
your voice: true and resonant,
your song: to wake the memory beyond time
and space."
​
She said, "Daughter, you are a garden.
A Universe.
Within you are seeds as luminous
as diamonds saturated with sunlight,
and as dark
as deep thick jungle on a moonless night.

Daughter, do not fear the seeds.
Do not fear to water the ground in you
which is holy.

What you have planted here you have planted
with only one intention in mind:
to learn to love what sprouts
from the ground of you.
To learn to love what is by its nature
an expression of You,
a voice
in the chorus of You.

To love every voice,
EVERY voice
in the chorus of You.

When you love every voice in you,
you will have no enemy in the world.
When you love like that,
your heart will be so tender
and so big that you will see
why all things were a part of this plan,
down to the most destructive,
the most painful
the most tragic,
the ugliest,
the vilest,
and even
the hate.

Hate cannot happen without a deep sadness
for the loss of love,
chosen to deepen
the body of love
into thicker
and heavier places.

The stone people know.
The stones and the bones.
The way the solid can anchor light
in its steady arms
and give it the taste
of specificity.

Taste.
Touch.
Melt.
Dissolve.
Ascend.
Descend.
Open your eyes
and ears, and every pore of every cell
to be saturated with the holy.

Blaze.
Speak.
Tell stories.
Shake the air.
Be the current which kills and births new worlds
by occupying itself
without shame or guilt.

Do not fear what is here
to be known
in the garden of your life.

It is all
every morsel
a pathway
for feet of the Divine.

It is all
every breath
a whisp of smoke
from the lips of the Divine.

Every sensation
a stirring
in the womb
of the Divine.

And every word
a prayer,
leading up and down
or round-about
or straight-ahead
toward Home."