~May 25
She is so beautiful: naked, black and terrible,
Naked, black and terrible: naked as life and death;
her skin as blue as a shadow, her hair black
and tangled in the wind, drifting like time.
Naked, and black, and terrible: crowned
with skulls, drinking demon blood.
But she is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
She is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
—Hindu saint Sister Nivedita, of Kali
Naked and terrible-and yet beautiful. How can the goddess be all these things at once? The same way that life can be magnificent, even when crippling disease strikes. The same way that love can flower under the most impossible of circumstances. The same way that spring is our favorite season, even when storms tear through the land
There is nothing contradictory in this image of the goddess, for beauty is not simply absence of things that make us feel dread or fear or discomfort. Nothing reminds us more vividly of life’s urgent beauty than the awareness of death. When we forget that death looks over our shoulder at every moment-and over the shoulders of those we love as well—we can grow sleepy and unaware. But by meditating upon the countenance of this fierce and brutal goddess, Kali, we can become gifted with the great happiness of living in the precious, sensual moment.
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