Lord Shiva and the Goddess Kali

For whatever reason, the only Hindu gods that ever appealed to me personally, and on some very profound level, whether or not I comprehended why, were Lord Shiva and Durga, a form of Kali, the Great Goddess.   The image that I recalled first and the one that continues to stay with me, is that of the Goddess Kali dancing upon the body of her Lord, Shiva.  In fact, when I was attempting sculpture as an art form, I made a sculpture of Kali with Lord Shiva prone beneath her, utterly submissive while she brandished her weapons and skulls.

I know that many people are attracted to Krishna but to me, he was too much of an unprincipled rake and libertine, off dancing with the gopis endlessly.  Shiva on the other hand, was so devastated by the suicide of his first wife that he retreated to the Himalayas and could not be roused until he was persuaded that she would return in another form. 

In a sense, Shiva is closest to Attis, Adonis and even Christ in that he was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the universe by drinking the poison that threatened all with total extinction.  That is why his throat is blue.  Although he could not die, being immortal, he was in utter agony until the Mother Goddess, his spouse, gave him her milk to drink.  This brings us to the eternal mystery of the Great Goddess with her Consort who is her Son as well, as Shiva became a child in order to suckle at her breast.

There is an old Greek rite wherein grown men crawled through the legs of a woman and then nursed at her breast.  I believe it was a rite of adoption but it mirrors a far more ancient mystery wherein the spouse temporarily acknowledges that he is the child/son of the Great Mother.

Both Shiva and Kali are portrayed in the act of the Divine Dance of Life, Death and Rebirth.  Portrayals of Shiva are far more common than those of the Goddess in this form.   I suppose one of the reasons I like these two so much is that, like the Goddess Freya, they embrace both Love and Death, are great Warriors and yet are associated with Love as well.  Freya in her own guise never is portrayed as a Mother or Wife, but Frigga definitely is and it is thought that both are one and the same ultimately.

Kali is depicted often as the Terrible One with tongue hanging out, filled with an insatiable thirst for blood, much like the old Canaanite goddess.  And yet, this thirst was summoned by the Gods in order to save the world and she ultimately is calmed by her spouse, because he steps into her path and when she begins to dance upon him to annihilate him, she recognises him as her Love and desists. 

A thought just occurred to me.  Perhaps this dance or trampling is related to the method by which the grapes are pressed into wine.  Certainly many of the mystery religions (of which I consider devotion to Shiva and Kali one) are involved with the mystery of intoxicants, whether wine or soma and the 'dance', albeit an action with far greater significance than simple wine-pressing may have been associated with that and with the agricultural actions that transform grain into bread.

The old Canaanite myth of Mot, Lord of Death, includes a description of his death and transformation by the Great Goddess who 'winnows' him and performs all the other acts associated with the harvest of grain. 

One can perceive therefore, two very distinct acts of Sacrifice by Lord Shiva.  The first is the act of draining the sea of the poison that appeared WITH the elixir of Immortality and threatened the entire universe.  The second is his Sacrifice at the hends of his consort and mother, the Great Goddess Kali.

It is interesting to note here that we have two very different forms of the Eternal Sacrifice.  One is the transformation of the Sacrifice in the form of Grain or Grape and the other is the Sacrifice by hanging.  There is a Sacrificial Pole in Hindu tradition but I have not found any associations with Lord Shiva yet.  His association with Death, like that of Kali, is the cremation grounds.

To know whether Kail is in her benign aspect or her terrible one can be as simple as paying attention to the foot that is raised and the hand that brandishes the curved sword.  If her left foot is raised and the sword is in her right hand, she is the Terrible Mother of the cremation ground.  If, however, her right foot is raised and she holds the curved sword in her left hand, she is the Bountiful and all-nurturing Mother.  As a woman who is left-handed, I find this personally interesting...

Despite the fact or perhaps because of the fact that I spend part of my childhood in Nepal, and was personally acquainted with many aspects of Hindu worship and festivals, I tended to steer clear of anything that reminded me of that religion until recently.  I definitely was very conscious of the raw power that inhabited the temples and the power in the bloodletting rites.  There was great beauty and joy in the festivals as well.  I miss those garlands of fresh flowers and the music that pervaded the atmosphere during any festival. 

One of the reasons I kept my distance from all this after returning to the West is because I did not LIKE the massive pilgrimage of Westerners to India and Nepal to gain 'wisdom'.  I felt that wisdom could be found in our own heritage and when people treated me like some sort of enlightened guru (at the tender age of 13) upon my return from Nepal, I was disgusted by it all.  Coincidentally, it was the same time that the Beatles visited India to soak up the culture and music and 'wisdom' of the East.  Sadly, it turned me off and I slammed the door basically on everything associated with Nepal. 

Looking back, I probably would have done well at the London School of Oriental and African Studies and I would have enjoyed the immersion in ancient Nepalese culture if I had not become so conflicted emotionally.  I was a child and there was no one to help me disentangle the threads of hurt and betrayal from everything positive and golden about Nepal.