Kali is Love and She has a Sword.
Since the U.S. Presidential election, friends and I have talked about the relationship between compassion and conceding.
This is my reflection upon that conversation. (Kali is an aspect of the Divine from the Vedic and Hindu traditions.)
. . . . .
Kali is Love and she has a Sword.
Love is not placid. Love is fierce.
Love says the hard, uncomfortable things. Love faces things squarely. Love owns them.
Kali tells the Truth.
It is not shaming. It is not lack of compassion. It is liberation.
Kali has taken the mask from the face of America. She has revealed all the unseen, all that we’ve pushed down and away, all that we disclaim and do not think that we are.
What we are, we are staring in the face.
Kali is merciful. Kali is swift.
She does not act upon us; she acts within us.
WE are Kali.
Kali is Love, and she has a Sword.
We can love the actor and not the action. We can love the speaker and not the speech. We can love the cHoosier and not the choice.
We can love and shine light on what is hidden.
Love is not silence. It is not equanimity.
Love is discernment. It is humility. It is cleaving ourselves to Truth.
Saying what needs to be said. Not pretending.
Kali is Love, and she has a Sword.
WE are Kali, each of us.
We must cut away everything that is not Love. We must cleave ourselves to Truth.
We must speak, and we must act.
We must not yield or cower in the cold light of discomfort, in the shroud of false shame, or the ease of feigned neutrality.
Kali is Love, and she has a Sword.
WE are Kali, and we begin with ourselves.