Like nature, she has a destructive side as much as a benevolent one. Kali and other early female goddesses were the expression of nature. Male gods have a single side-with the exception of Shiva, who has a complex nature because he contains both female and male natures-but, Singhal says, “you wouldn’t have a goddess standing for just one thing.” Duplicity and multiplicity was a trait associated with female divinity in antiquity, she explains. She is spiritual and bodily, erotic and sexual and as such, courageous: in the Tantrik cults that revolve around her, eroticism is primarily a way of confronting one’s deepest fears.Īrundhuti Singhal, the co-founder of the Mythology Project, a platform for analysis of mythology and folklore, notes that Kali’s ambivalent, and at time contradictory, nature is in line with her being an early female deity. She emerges as an independent goddess around 1000 BCE and evolves as a controversial character: she is a scary, bloodthirsty embodiment of destruction, and the ultimate protector against evil.

Kali is the quintessential embodiment of shakti, female power. She isn’t the kind of deity that will easily be found sitting on a drawing room’s shelf, or hanging from a wall, with marigold garlands around her frame-and that’s just fine, for she’s got to slay. She isn’t afraid of her force, and if you are, that’s on you.

Kali, look at her, couldn’t care less if she is likable or not. She is a true monster, in that she is both frightening and awe-inspiring, beautiful in a way that isn’t in any way pretty-not shallow, not manageable, not comfortable.

Shiva trance images