All the demons escape upon her arrival. The ghosts disappear. The toxicity evaporates. When Kalaratri – the form of the goddess celebrated on the 7th day of Navaratri – shows up, the shaming, the minimizing, the oppression, the bigotry, the hatred, the tyranny, and all the demonic forces that we battle and struggle with soften. 

She is fierce. She is unapologetic. She is wild. She is beautiful. She is badass and bitching and brings blessings of breakthroughs. Kalaratri is no joke. 

She is that rageful scream that comes out of you when you are just DONE with how hard things are. She is the rolling tears that wash down your face when you look at the world and the grief tears you apart. She’s fearsome and fabulous and she scares you and she loves you and she’s intense and you’re drawn to her and she cradles you and she takes no bullshit.

Kalaratri rides a donkey. Smart and stubborn and hard working and ridiculed. She honors the animal nature as the energy that has been made fun of, put down, the one who has been enslaved, the one who has been dishonored. 

Kala means time in Sanskrit. The goddess Kali is time herself; the way that time devours us, and feeds us, creates and destroys us, heals and breaks us down, digs grooves of wrinkles and traumas into our bones, and also cleanses, clears, and quiets down some of the voices that may whisper poison in our ears.

Ratri means night. (Navaratri means nine nights)

This goddess is the necessary darkness of the night. She meets the shadows in their own arena, she looks like a demon because they need a divine representation. Her ferocity is needed, because life is fucking hard sometimes, and we need fire to melt the metal that keeps us locked and blocked and stuck, so that we can forge new tools with the very material that we are unwilling to take shit from anymore. She is resourceful. 

Her ferocity can be super sexy. She is not apologizing for it. She’s not keeping it away to make you comfortable. She’s the explosive energy of an orgasm. She’s in her body. She IS her body. And she’s the call to be embodied. She’s the way in which the darkness of the night surrounds you with whispers and screams you’re not quite sure you can hear. She’s the spirituality of sensuality and the ways that sex is sacred because it creates life. And therefore creates death. 

She wears skulls and bones as ornaments because death is how life sustains itself. She is the soul that is the soma, the body that is the breath, the heart that is the home, the wisdom of the wild.

She’s the delicate space between attraction and aversion, between pleasure and pain.  

Kalaratri has two arms or four arms, and fiery eyes, she wears a red sari and tiger skin, and holds the Vajra – the thunderbolt – in one of her hands.

The thunderbolt is Indra’s weapon. The king of the gods actually acquires  this famous powerful weapon from a sage, who sacrificed his own spine to give the gods a chance against some horrible demon.  

She holds the power of showing up for ourselves and more than ourselves. The joining together of forces. The power that keeps us upright and connected. She is connection itself. Dark matter. Deep soil. 

Kalaratri’s darkness is absorbent. All can be assimilated into her. She is the capacity to assimilate every aspect of our being. With her we destroy the demons, we eat the toxicity, and digest the terrible parts of us and of the world. We want to get rid of the demons, but we can’t, so we must find a way to make them part of us. 

Kalaratri chews on the bones of the demons. She drinks their blood and gets drunk on it. She turns them into earrings. She finds a way to make the demon a part of her. Because the demons are never separate from us. And we must find ways to integrate the pieces we want to abandon. 

This process of integration is so important! It helps us become more well rounded and authentic and healthy and whole – the more willing we are to be with and not turn away from our brokenness and fucked-upness, the more we connected and grounded we are. 

Yoga is a process of integrating every part of us, and the continuous weaving of ourselves into a greater whole. Yoga comes from the verb root Yuj in Sanskrit, which means to yoke. 

Yoke yourself to your life, to your heart, to your mind, to your body, to your creativity, and join us for Bond With Your Life – an educational, experiential, somatic, and mythic journey that weaves together ancient technology and modern knowledge to support you through the challenges and struggles of this day and age. 

Bond With Your Life is a creative tapestry of practical tools for nervous system regulation, strengthening of body and mind, expansion of vision, and enhancement of life.

All the details for Bond With Your Life are here. 

Check out this video to explore Kalaratri further.

XOXO

Hagar