An autumn new moon tonight! It’s a gray day already, and the sunset is creeping earlier and earlier into my afternoon each day. With a dark moon tonight, and the knowledge of winter looming, I am indeed feeling quite dark. Could it be the sudden contrast, just coming home from a gorgeous beach vacation in the sun to a cooler, darker climate? Definitely. But this time of year seems to always bring out more of the darkness in me. I start to feel like closing in as the leaves turn and fall, I spend more time indoors and less time adventuring. I've turned the heating system on in the studio, blankets appear on the back of the couch in my living room, and I start wearing socks again (which I loathe).
Both autumn and new moons are appropriate times to channel the energy of Ma Kali, a Hindu goddess who represents one's dark side. Ma Kali appears with a bloody tongue jutting out of her mouth, her multiple arms holding weapons, and a violent sneer on her face. She is often standing proudly atop the body of a man, sporting a necklace made of human skulls and a headdress made of bones. Kali resides in the dark moon, symbolizing our own shadow selves. She embodies the energy of death and destruction, a force which clears room for new beginnings and burns down the old to make room for the new. In this way, she is a destructive mother, just as nature embodies both death and birth equally.
Kali is not evil, but asks us to take a good, hard look at the darkness that can and does exist naturally within ourselves. Sometimes your power resides in your ability to do hard things, to look directly into your own pain and trauma, to burn yourself down and recreate your life again and again. Dealing with darkness means recognizing parts of yourself that are harmful, angry, violent, and sad, and then hold a light up to these emotions so you can deal with them directly; a cleansing by fire if you will. Kali abhors repression; she is a wild, feral energy that does not hold back, hide, or perform. She does not apologize or make excuses. New moon times are times to ask yourself, “what am I hiding from, afraid to admit, or lie about?” so that you can start a new cycle with more honesty and authenticity.
This morning, in honor of my inner shadows, I picked red flowers from my garden and offered them to Ma Kali on my altar, lit a red candle, and meditated on my shadow self. When I looked into my heart of hearts I found resentment and anger towards people who have wronged me. I found a desire for revenge. I also found grasping and attachment in the form of fear. I sat with these feelings for a while, even allowing my imagination to run wild, conjuring up images of what I should have done or said, and imagining what revenge would look like, how I could hurt people back. I pictured myself saying cruel things, and wished I had been brutally honest instead of polite.
However, by the time the red candle was nothing but a pile of drips, a weight had lifted from my heart, as I remembered that the source of the negativity was gone now and that those lingering dark feelings were based off of something that didn’t even exist anymore. People who treated me badly in the past aren’t even a part of my life today. I am happy and free. Only by looking directly at my anger did I realize my liberation from it. This is the beauty of Kali energy - looking your dark bits directly in the eye is the only way to excise them.
When Kali's violence reached a frenzied pitch, as she danced on a mountain of corpses of her own creation, and she was on the verge of destroying the whole world, Shiva came to her and laid himself down under her feet. His love soothed her angry heart, and she tore out her own bloody tongue in embarrassment, a symbolic self-liberation from dark thought patterns. On the next new moon, allow yourself liberation as well. Sit in the darkness with a candle and call on your inner Kali to examine the parts of your heart and mind that you keep hidden from yourself. Don’t shy away when you encounter something uncomfortable. Loving every part of yourself includes the parts that you’d rather not admit to. Love all of yourself and begin again.
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