It is natural at the end of the year to be eager to be done with the tough lessons of 2016, but not so quickly!
Have we learned anything? After all, the lessons have been provided, non-stop.
Have you already stepped into the light of a new year, fresh with its hope and hubris?
Stop. Don’t turn your back on the darkness—-on the shadow–your personal shadow, or that of the collective, for indeed, they are connected. They are both children of the dark goddess, Kali who has shown her face over and over this past year.
Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time, and the Hindu goddess of death, destruction, and resurrection, Kali, makes sure of that.
The true power of Kali is greatly misunderstood, when focused on physical death, for her awesome gift to us comes when she brings the death of the ego as the delusional, self-centered view of reality. The demons she kills are the ones that will destroy us if we continue to deny them—-our addictions, our attachments, our clinging to the fairy tale of being rescued by a great leader.
Last year, Kali was projected onto the Empire State Building, as an avatar of conservation by the filmmakers of Racing Extinction, a documentary about the environmental catastrophe now upon us.
The spiritual storyteller, Vera de Chalambert, was so struck by this apparition, that she wrote this fabulous truth-telling article, Kali Takes New York. The truth is, as the Law of Attraction teaches, what you resist persists! Look at what happened when the Democrats disowned the “deplorables.” We are all in this together, politics to the contrary, and when we disown parts of our personal or national selves, those parts express themselves with a vengeance.
What have we learned?
The educator, Parker Palmer, in his book Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage To Create A Politics Worthy Of The Human Spirit, calls us to develop 5 Habits of the Heart:
- An understanding that we are all in this together
- An appreciation of the value of “otherness”
- An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways
- A sense of personal voice and agency
- A capacity to create community
To this I would add, learn to love the darkness as well as the light.
As you put your arms around the darkness within yourself, you earn the right claim it as your own. Only then can you put it down and lighten your load. For this you must call on another goddess, Kwan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Great Compassion.
You will not overcome a bad habit or addiction by writing it down as a goal in your detailed plan for 2017. You could however, make considerable progress in the direction you want to go, by extending mercy to yourself for the very thing you want to eliminate. Whatever form of darkness that is, you have it because of some ancient pain. Underneath your procrastination is fear, under your over-eating is rage, under your workaholism is shame. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle,” would be a apt motto to live by in this time of rising hatred. That kindness begins with yourself.
What is that one thing, that if you faced and allowed it to die, would allow you to step into 2017 with the power and glory you know is possible?
As we wind this year down, I wish you the courage to learn from the lessons, the serenity to realize you are an expression of the Divine, and the wisdom to carry the vision of a liberated world, ’midst the darkness that is a part of it.
Happy New Year!
