Killing the gods that don’t serve

March 11, 4:54 PMLA Religion & Spirituality ExaminerKurt Barstow

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Richard B. Godfrey, The Goddess Kali, 1770.

I hate Kali. Kali is the Hindu dark goddess of death and destruction. She is depicted in art with a pointed tongue, holding on to severed skulls, stepping on a man playing music.  She is supposedly the divine energy that opens us up to transformation.  In their book In the Darkness Beyond Reason, Felicia Norton and Charles Smith tell us, “Her action stretches us beyond the boundaries of our present consciousness. She tears us apart, devours us, throws us into infernal regions. Can we have patience and endurance, knowing that pain and disorientation can transform? Can we suspend our judgment, our disappointed expectations, knowing that a painful "little death" ushers in new being, new life? This is what is at stake in inner initiation.” This kind of positive spin on the negative can grow tiresome. Of course, pain and disorientation can transform. The murder of a child could conceivably be transformative to a parent in a way that is life-affirming and creates new consciousness. Out of the Holocaust came survival and dignity. The dissolution of any or all relationships would prompt a new direction of energy. School shootings can bring together the community in pain and healing. I suppose. All tragedies have their positive side from some bizarre spiritual point of view. But that doesn’t mean we should court the old bitch. She’ll be present when the planet is destroyed, and one imagines something good will come out of that, death making a place for new life and all. But before they decide to play Kali, so to speak, before they decide it is their right to interfere in destructive ways in the lives of individuals, communities and institutions should think twice. May anyone who takes such a role upon themselves be forced to feel the force of Kali in unexpected ways if being cast into infernal regions is so to be admired. And let them do it with a smile.