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Subject: Kali, Goddess of Destruction
To: omkali@portal.com (OmKali Elist)
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 11:46:26 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <199502131838.KAA23567@netcom14.netcom.com> from "Sharon Fisher" at Feb 13, 95 10:38:40 am
From: nagasiva@yronwode.com (nagasiva)
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Kali Yuga 49950213 [cc'd to OmKali from private email]

|> [quoting me previous - tyagi]

|>...She is also the goddess of diseases and storms.  It is not so
|>much the 'outcome' which is associated with Her, but the energy of
|>entropy and dissolution, the breakdown of what we consider valuable
|>as living humans until we've seen a bigger picture.
 
|>...nor is Kali's interaction with us always 'supportive'.
|>Sometimes it directly opposes us.


|Does Kali have a goal, then?  

Does Nature, does our planet have a 'goal'?  Personally I doubt it.
I gather that She does protect Herself in some fashion, so perhaps
in the sense of self-sustenance She has a limited goal.  I'm not
convinced that She really cares what type of organism/being She
becomes, however.  Perhaps it is just inertia and equilibrium
playing at bones.


|Or is she sort of a 'trickster' like some other entities, who likes 
|to create trouble?

Trouble?  Trouble is relative to the individual.  What was that about
the same Chinese ideograph for 'danger' is 'opportunity'?  I don't see
Kali in the same way I see various Trickster divinities, no.  I mean,
while I do revere such gods as Coyote and Loki, I think that for me and
most others Kali encompasses much more than this Jester-evolutionary
function.  For all I know the Trickster-gods did too, but I am far from
them in space-time and mind.

Kali is more often associated with a dual-aspect (or a single pole of
that polarity, depending upon one's preferences and needs).  She is
either seen as a Mother Goddess, the active and protective agent of
Durga whose compassionate and generative concern inspires in Her a
very powerful Refuge for Her children/devotees, or as the Mad Destroyer,
whose rage and insanity are unmatchable and ultimately dissolutory.

I really do think that the connection between Babalon within Thelemic
tradition and Kali within the Indian is undeniable, and their main
similarities (thirst for blood and dance/sex) are indicative of very 
potent and subtle mysteries which are impossible to describe through 
not too difficult to experience.
 

|I guess if she governs entropy, that would make sense...

I don't see it so much that She 'governs' anything.  It isn't, as I see
Kali, as though She were 'delegated' certain things over which She is
to have power.  More that She *is* 'Mother Nature', but that we are used
to looking at this mother with a confused and biased eye, focussed upon
the cleft and teat which give us birth and suck rather than the sword
and head which give us pain and death.  Entropy is a facet of Her
unquenchable thirst, not some power over which She has dominion, as I
see it.

I am cc'ing this to the OmKali Elist. (email omkali-request@portal.com if
you would like additional information about that).

nagasiva, nagasiva@yronwode.com