THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
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From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.kali.astarte.inanna,alt.pagan,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,talk.religion.newage,alt.satanism
Subject: Kali!  Death of the Ego (ritual)
Date: 31 Jan 1995 22:57:26 -0800
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KALI!
DEATH OF THE EGO

by Victoria of Luna Circa (my new friend!) and the Rainbow Connection, 1994.


I. INTRODUCTION

*Action: Obtain volunteers for corners, splashing, singeing.*
*Action: Ring bell three times.*

Kali!  To the Western mind, her image is frightening: a wild, black-skinned
woman with a huge black cloud of disheveled hair, nude except for a necklace
of gleaming white human skulls, and a skirt of human heads and human arms.
Kali herself is multi-armed.  In her hands she bears a trident, a severed
head, and a bowl full of blood.  This is Kali Ma, the Great Mother, super-
ficially a figure of pure terror.

Yet millions of people worship her as a tender and loving mother.  She is
a primary Goddess of Tantra, where she is experienced as pure ecstasy.  In
some of her images, some of her many hands make mudras, gestures which
convey meaning; with her mudras, she dispenses gifts and dispels fear.
So - who and what is Kali?  That is what we will experience today.

The central altar is set as a mandala.  At its center is an image of Kali.
She is dancing upon the recumbent, passive body of her husband, Shiva.  Her
image is surrounded with decorative garlands, called mala.  The lamp is a
devotional lamp used for burning ghee.  Ghee is clarified butter.  To
Hindus, milk is itself sacred.  Butter represents a purification of milk,
and ghee is purification of butter.  The flame of the ghee is indeed a
pure and sacred fire.

It is said that the image of Kali dances in the five flames of the ghee lamp.
Skulls remind us of the ultimate reality.  The cards are from the Secret
Dakini Oracle, a Tantric divination deck similar to the Tarot.

One of Kali's greatest gifts is to enable her devotees to see the truth.
Another is to help us to heal our spiritual ills.  Today we will experience
Kali through meditation, dance with Kali, and seek insight with a divination.


II. DEDICATION OF ELEMENTS

*Blessing water:* Response: So mote it be.

*Action: Bless water.*

*Blessing earth (salt):* Response: So mote it be.

*Action: Place three scoops of salt into the water.*

*Blessing air (incense):* Response: So mote it be.

*Action: bless incense.*

*Blessing fire:* Response: So mote it be.

*Action: Light the charcoal and/or incense.*


III. CENSING AND ASPERGING

*Action: Splash with saltwater, using a shell.*
*Action: Carry stick incense around the room.*

Chant: "Air, Fire, Water, and Earth" by Aradia


IV. CASTING THE CIRCLE

Let the circle be cast as a wall of fire.

*Action: Walk deosil from South, casting circle using the sword.*

This is a time which is not a time, in a place which is not a place.
Blessed be

Response: Blessed be.


V. CALLING THE QUARTERS

Let the quarters be called, starting in the South.

*Action: Four corners are called.*


VI. INVOCATION OF THE GODDESS

*Action: Begin music: "Kali, Durge"*

Oh, Terrible Mother!  Lady of Radiant Blackness!  Come to your daughters!
Come, with your truth.  Come, with your blessings.  Come receive our love.

Come, and be welcome, my lady.

*Action: Light the ghee lamps.*
*Action: All chant: "Kali, Durge"*


VII. MEDITATION

The World

Get comfortable, and center yourselves.  If your body allows you, assume
the lotus position.  If you can, continue to chant while you let your mind
travel.  Turn away from the outer world.  Turn inward, and feel the
Kundalini that is risen in you.  The World as it is.  Let it be.

You are in India.  You have come to find illumination, but all you see is
the world.  All around you, children cry out with hunger, their chests
shrunken, their bellies bloated.  A woman lies under a leafless tree,
barely moaning, weak with fever, too weak to call out for help.  The
sickness, and the pain, and the hunger are palpable.  You begin to feel
sick.  You too are in pain.  You too are hungry.  You feel an urge to
run away from all of these people who press you on all sides, pushing on
you with their agonies.

You walk past the crying, bloated children, past the moaning woman,
through the whole throng of people.  You keep walking, further and
further away.  Now the cries and the moans are barely audible.  As you
walk, the sun falls behind the hills.  Night comes, and a few tentative
stars begin to shine.  As you watch, the moon rises.  She is a tiny silver
crescent like the horns of the sacred cow.  She is surrounded by glittering
stars.

Now you pass through empty streets.  You have no goal in your mind.  You
let the Goddess direct your steps, taking you where she will.  Ahead is a
deserted area, surrounded by a high stone wall.  The stone is dark, and
the stone wall is cold and moist, yet you feel a warmth and a light coming
from inside the walled area.  In front of you, you see a gate.

Suddenly you feel a gust of fear, as if you have been touched by an icy
cold wind.  But it is not your body that has been chilled.  Slowly, with
growing sense of dread, you pass through the gate.


Cremation Ground

You are in a cremation ground, a place where bodies are taken for burning.
All around you are partially decomposed bodies, which have not yet been
fed to the flames.  This is an ancient place, and the ground is covered 
with bones as far as you can see, countless bones, gleaming white bones,
heaps of bones, human bones.  Human skulls grin at you in the moonlight,
as if they share a secret that you do not know.

Your heart pounds as you walk slowly through the cremation grounds.  
Ancient, brittle bones crunch under your feet.  They splinter, and the
splinters pierce your skin, and you begin to bleed as you walk.  You are
only distantly aware of this.  You keep walking as if you are possessed.

Around you the night air is also pierced, pierced with the eerie cries of
feeding jackals, the throaty laugh of feasting hyenas.  The air is filled
with the soft, gentle sounds of black feathers brushing against the black
night.  The air is filled with the harsh croak of carrion crows, the cries
of ravens, the deep-throated rumbling of vultures with blood on their
feathers, blood on their bald heads.

Your gaze is drawn to one of the partially decomposed bodies, and you see
that amongst the rotting flesh, there are millions upon millions of
teeming white maggots.  The lesson is obvious, if you think about it.
The living feed on the dead.  Life feeds on death.  There is no escape
from this truth.

If you live, you live on the life force of the dead -- whether it is
another animal, or a living, respiring plant.  This is the inescapable
truth.  But it is hard to see yourself as a source of food for another
being.  These are not deer or cattle being consumed here in the cremation
ground.  They are people.  Ultimately, they are you.

How can you live knowing this?

How can you live well without knowing this?

The World as it is.  The truth is what it is.

You continue to walk through the bones.  The jackals slink away as you
approach; the hyenas threaten before melting away, the ravens look at you
with yellow unblinking eyes as they fly away into the night.  You realize
that you,and the jackal, and the hyena, and the raven are all one, are all
sisters.  They no longer seem so alien, or so disgusting, or so fearful.


The Fire

Curious, you approach a cremation pit in which the fire is still burning.
A partially burned corpse lies upon a bed of glowing red-orange coals.
Here the air is filled with the smell of burning flesh, burning human flesh.
The fire will remove the remaining physical body.  Fire is purification.
Soon only the pure white bones will remain to glisten in the moonlight.
Soon this skull will be liberated from the bounds of the flesh.  Soon it
will join the other skulls, grinning in the moonlight.

As you watch the flames, you become aware that you are not alone here.
Another woman is walking here at night, here in the cremation ground.

This woman is old.  She walks slowly, and painfully, as if cripped with
arthritis.  She is clothed in a red sari with silver trim.  Her unbound
hair is long, and as white as the gleaming bones.  She comes near you,
looks carefully straight into your eyes, and she smiles radiantly.  But
she says nothing at all.

As you watch, she turns away from you and walks straight into the fire pit.
Her bare feet step lightly over the glowing crimson coals.  As she walks,
her steps become less slow and painful.  Her steps are sure.  She reaches
the very center of the fire pit.

The woman steps on to the burning body.  You see her standing on the remains
of the corpse.  She turns back to face you.  She is still smiling.  She
lowers herself into the lotus position and begins to meditate.  The fire 
creeps up to her, eagerly, like fat little puppies wanting to play.  Little
flames begin to fondle the silver trim of her red sari.  Soon the sari
catches fire, and the little flames begin to dance up her body.  She is
still smiling, deep in meditation, deep in bliss.  The flames creep higher.
They ignite her flowing hair, and the pure white mass turns flaming red and
orange.  Flames wreathe her smiling face, for she is still smiling, still
deep in unbroken meditation.  Her skin begins to smoke, and to blaken.  Her
sari is completely consumed; she is naked under the moonlight.  A black
cloud of smoke settles around her head.  It forms a mass of black, tangled,
disheveled hair.  She lifts her arms to the night sky, and you see that she
has four.  Each hand carries a familiar symbol: a trident, a severed head,
a sword, a bowl full of blood.

As you watch, transfixed, Kali rises to her feet and dances among the
flames, dancing upon the blissful, prostrate body of her husband, the
Lord Shiva.  Watch Kali dance.  This is what you have come so far to see.

PAUSE

With an open hand, Kali beckons you to join her.  You are drawn irresist-
ibly to the Terrible Mother.  You walk forward.  Your bare foot touches a
live coal.  Pain shoots through your whole body.  But Kali is inside you
now as well as outside of you.  You find that the pain does not really
matter; it is only physical, only a limitation of this Earth, only one of
Maya's illusions.  You take another step, and then another.  You walk
straight into the burning heart of the fire.  Your own sari catches fire,
yet your heart remains calm.  Your sari burns away, and now you too are
naked like Kali, free, like Kali.  Your own hair catches fire, and turns
into smoke.  Your own skin begins to blacken.  And you know.

Now you too _are_ Kali.  Know this, and dance among the flames.  Dance
with the Terrible Mother, here in the cremation ground.

PAUSE

The dance is over.  Kali takes your hand, and together you walk out of
the fire pit.  The woman Kali is no longer old.  Her steps are easy and
light, no longer halting.  Her hair is a glossy rich black.  She is
transformed into a beautiful young woman.  You feel that Kali's fire
has transformed you as well.  What is it that you transformed into?  Do
you need a mirror to see it?  Then look deep into Kali Ma's three eyes.
You will see yourself mirrored within.

PAUSE


Slaying the Demon

In the distance you hear bells, drums, sweet music.  Women are chanting
the praises to Kali, and praises to Durga, the mother of Kali.  You are
drawn to this powerful sound.  Kali bids you to follow your heart, and
to go and seek the truth about yourself.  The Terrible Mother bids you
to go from her side and find healing.

You are loathe to leave Kali Ma, but you know that you must.  You turn
away from her radiant blackness, her terrible beauty.  You seek the source
of the chanting.  It comes from the South, from a vast temple.  As you
go closer, the music becomes louder, sweeter, the drum beats more insistent.
You feel the holy ecstasy of the chanters.

The chanters are women, dressed all in red.  Love shines out of their eyes.
Power radiates from their hearts.  They are priestesses of Kali Ma.  One of
them looks up and sees you.

"Ah, you have come at last!  Mother told us to expect you.  Sit down and
listen to my words.

"Kali deals in death, but she is not evil.  Often, it is evil which she
kills.  The severed head that she carries belongs to an evil Demon whom
she slew in battle when none of the Gods could defeat him.  Now the Demon's
head is a symbol of the death of evil.

"The severed head is also a symbol for the slaying of the human ego.  Are
these two symbols so different?  What does your ego do for you?  What does
your ego do _to_ you?  Your ego may block your spiritual evolution.  This
is when Kali steps in, sword in hand.  She is here to help you.

"But Kali seldom uses her sword herself; it is you who must pick it up and
use it.  Kali offers healing.  But her healing is not the gentle administra-
tion of herbs, not the gentle binding of wounds.  Kali is like the surgeon
facing a patient with a gangrenous leg.  The patient is attached to her leg;
she does not want to let go of it even if it is clearly rotten, even if it
is black and bloated, even if it is spreading poison and death throughout
the rest of the body.

"Letting go of such ego-bound attachment is such a difficult decision!  But
if the woman will not let go, she will die.  She will be reborn of course,
but she will not progress up the great spiral; she will merely be sent back
to the same level to try again.  How many life times will she refuse this
challenge?  How many life times will she refuse to learn this lesson?  How
many life times will she refuse to let go?

"Think!  What part of you is rotten?  What part of you is black and bloated,
spreading poison that is eating up your spirit, bit by bit, so slowly that
you do not even see it?  What is the source of the poison that courses
within you?

"Which of Maya's illusions holds you in thrall?  Is is material wealth?
Is it pride?  Is it another human soul?  Have you bound yourself to another
so tightly that your own self is lost?

"Seek the source of the poison!  Find this source!

"And when you find it, Kali's sword stands ready to heal you."

PAUSE


The Mountain

The Priestess of Kali continues speaking to you.  "Here is a lesson that
may help you.  Sit and meditate: You have decided to climb a mountain.  At
first the going is easy; the trail is well-marked and you walk over gentle,
nearly flat ground.  You walk up and up, journeying higher and higher.  As
you ascend, the trail becomes less well marked, the ground rockier, the
scenery more intense, the air thinner.  Now walking requires exertion.  You
feel your muscles cramp and protest; your lungs strain, your head aches.

"Still, the mountain continues to rise.  Still, you must continue to climb.
Now the trail has disappeared entirely and you must scramble up over the
rocks, making your own path, seeking only to go higher and higher.  Your
route becomes steeper and steeper.  You reach a place where there is only
a solid wall of rock, a steep cliff face.  Still you must climb higher.

"You feel for cracks in the rock face where you can find a foothold, or a
handhold.  Each move must be thought out; each move seems to take forever.
Though your progress is slow, and your heart pounds, you are still rising.
The rock wall looms steeper yet.  You must strain to find a space for even
a toe or a single finger to grip.  You begin to wonder: how long can I
continue upward?  Still, the mountain continues to rise, so you must
continue your climb.

"You look down.  Below you there is only space.  The ground so far below,
so lost in the gray mist that it might not even be there anymore.  You look
up.  Above you there is only rock, overhanging rock, sheer rock with no
place for you to grip with even a single finger.

"You are frozen to the rock face.  You cannot climb up.  You cannot climb
down.  For a frozen time you hang, suspended, terrified.  There seems to be
no end to this mountain.  Perhaps there _is_ no end to this mountain.

"What can you do?  Slowly, very deliberately, you let go your hold on the
mountain.  The feeling of release when yu finally do let go is pure bliss.

PAUSE

"Ask yourself: What mountain are you still trying to climb?"

PAUSE


The Dakini Temple

You are back in the temple of Kali, back with the chanting priestesses.
Your priestess motions for you to be silent, and to look around the
temple.  It is time for you to do pooja, which is personal worship.

You approach an image of Kali, a great bronze statue, huge, ornate,
well-detailed.  Kali is trimmed in gold.  Her image is nearly covered
with mounds of flowers left by other worshippers: red roses, scarlet
hibiscus, crimson opium poppies.  Brightly colored malas wreath Her
image.

The air is so heavy with the scent of incense, rose, nag champa, and
patchouli, that you can scarcely breath.  You choose an incense, and
offer it to Kali.  You lay flowers at her feet, beside an ornate sword.
ali herself is a blue so deep as to be seen as black.  All of the colors
of the rainbow are lost within her radiant blackness.  

Her three eyes stare deeply into your spirit as you light the ghee lamp
and offer the five sacred flames to the Goddess.  It is said that one of
Kali's eyes gazes upon the past, her second eye gazes upon the present,
and her third eye, the eye in her forehead, gazes into the future.  Kali
can see all time at once.  Her name itself means "time", and like time
she devours all things, and yet Kali herself is timeless.  She can see
into your heart: how you came to be, what you are now, what you may
become.  She sees what part of yourself that you offer her now, as you
pick up the sword of Kali and begin to dance.

PAUSE

Your dance done, your pooja complete, you spiral away from the center
and examine the rest of the temple.  You see that this is a Dakini Temple,
for all around Kali, the gray stones walls are alive with dancing images
of Dakinis, embodiments of female power and wisdom.  The breasts and hips
of the Dakinis are carved full and round.  Their scupltured eyes glint,
their mouths smile, their bodies seem to writhe in the fire light.  There
are 64 Dakinis here, each one an expression of an archetypal energy found
in all women, each one found in you.  You are in the Center, you _are_ the
Center.  The 64 Dakinis circle around you.  They dance and spin around
you, faster and faster still.  Their forms shimmer, and become a blur.
They dissolve into gray mist.  The Dakini temple itself dissolves.  And
you yourself dissolve.

You are back in the world.  It is daylight, and you are surrounded by
people.  Slowly, come back to this world.  

Return, and be here.


VIII. MAGICAL WORKING

Before we speak together, it is time for us to dance with Kali, here in
the flesh, or in your mind.  Let all who will stand and form a ring
around this altar.  Let us circle the altar, joining in the chant of praise
to Kali and Durga.  As you circle, look at the cards from the Secret
Dakini Oracle.  See if you are drawn to any of them.

During our dance, one by one, we may each appraoch the altar to Kali.  You
may give her flowers, or your blood.  You may light incense to her, or burn
the sacred ghee lights.  You may take up the sword of Kali and dance with
it.  You may pledge to Kali to cut out the rotten parts within you, or to
fight evil here on Earth.

Come, let us dance with Kali.

*Action: Group dance; individual pooja.*


IX. RAISING A CONE OF POWER

Let us stand and join hands and raise power.  Focus on your specific
purpose or your pledge.

*Action: Power is raised by all.*

Now ground any remaining energies.


X. SHARING EXPERIENCES

You may share anything that you would like with the group.  No one needs
to say anything.


XI. CAKES AND WINE

*Blessing "cakes":* By the power of the Terrible Mother, Kali-Ma, let
this seedcake be blessed.

*Blessing "wine":* By the power of the Lady, let this fruit juice be blessed.


XII. ANNOUNCEMENTS (SACRED COWSHIT)

XIII. THANKING THE GODDESS

Let us thank Kali for her gifts, her lessons, and her enduring love.

*Action: Allow the ghee lamp to burn out when it will.*

Farewell, my lady.


XIV. DISMISSING THE QUARTERS

Let the quarters be dismissed, starting in the East, and proceeding 
widdershins.


XV. LIFTING THE CIRCLE

Let us lift the Circle.

The circle is open, yet unbroken.  Merry meet, merry part, and merry 
meet again.

END