Kali Ma

First, this entry started out about one of my BFF’s, Storm Large, as she just slayed on AGT and is back on again on Peacock tomorrow.

But my equally awesome friend Elizabeth Grey covered it so well already that it feels unnecessary to add anything else, so this entry morphed.

Liz’s piece is here, read it, you won’t be disappointed: STORM WATCHING

Okay, let’s get on with it…

My current life is somehow copacetic, joyful even. It’s a new feeling.

I have discovered that the more I focus on my own inner healing and awareness, the more the outer smooths itself out with little or no assistance. It’s like learning how to drive: when you first get behind the wheel you keep looking at the front edge of the car and it wobbles back and forth, then you learn that if you change your focus past the front bumper and onto the road, things straighten out.

I am not the first person to figure this out; we hear it all the time. But no one ever mentions that it takes forever. It’s taken me decades to see results, starting from the 90’s when I realized I was fucked and got a therapist and bought and slogged through every self help book available (“Women Who Love Too Much”, anyone?).

But maybe no one sorts anything too well until later in life? Who are these people who have their shit together in their 20’s? It’s infuriating. I feel like I’ve been navigating a dark room with a lighter for much of my existence, and I’ll take clarity wherever and whenever I can get it.

I’ve spent much of my teenage and adult life focused on romantic relationships. I can’t even look at my teenage diaries, they’re so cringey and obsessive over boys and relationships. Wanting them, gaining them, falling in love, falling out of love, losing them, fighting within them, feeling bad about my behavior around them, feeling mad about other people’s behavior in them, throwing them away, losing them, mourning their loss, trying to get them back, etc. Obsession has been my best frenemy and the murderer of so, so much sleep. It has been all-consuming of both heart and brain; it has caused me the most pain, drama and embarrassment in my life. And it has taught me much, so much about myself.

When I lost my ex, or rather made it too difficult for him to stay, I took it very hard. It wasn’t as much the loss of romance as much as the loss of the person altogether. If the one person who is supposed to be THE person decides to never speak to you ever again, then the logical conclusion is that you must be the worst person on the planet. And I always assume everything is my fault anyway. So I blamed myself for all the bad stuff, exonerating him in an unrealistic way that made it impossible for me to feel okay about myself. I mourned that loss deeply and with great confusion, and with it I mourned the loss of the hope that I could be a good, healthy partner to someone. I mourned the dream of happiness in one special person. And mostly I questioned my own value to anyone anywhere in any capacity.

I have always fought a battle between what my brain knows I should do and what some deeper part of me insists I’m gonna do regardless of that acuity. I have stood at the edge of many metaphorical cliffs saying to myself, don’t jump, it’s gonna hurt, don’t jump, PLEASE don’t jump.

But I always jump. And then as I’m plummeting downward toward the inevitable crash I think, “Christ. Here we are AGAIN. You ASSHOLE.”

I hate falling, but I can’t stop from jumping. I hate change, but I make sameness impossible. Why? Why can’t I just BE GOOD? Clearly this must be due to being a deeply flawed human; why else would I choose to love terrible people, choose to behave in destructive ways, choose chaos over peace? I have felt a great shame and sadness over my own craziness, real and imagined.

But I finally get it. And I’m finally at peace with all of it. And losing that relationship was the leap that put me here. Not because not having that person in my life brings me happiness, but because I learned through that chapter that I did not come here in this body and life to master the perfect relationship with one other person or even a series of persons. I am here to master the relationship with my spirit. My soul has shoved me past logic so many times because those lessons/tools/information were not going to come any other way. Of course I prefer to learn and evolve through joy, and sometimes I do. But for whatever reason I, like most people, usually need a little hard experience to get the point.

When I was in the throes of my deepest sadness and regret I got some therapeutic energy work done and the woman working on me said, “I keep hearing the words ‘I’m sorry’.” I burst into tears and said, “Those words are a mantra on repeat in my head all day and night.” Those words were too small to convey the oceans of sorrow coursing through my system, so they just looped around through my being 24/7, like the blood in my veins.

She closed her eyes and took a moment and said, “But I also just got a clear image of Kali dancing in your heart.”

Ooh, that’s fancy! I liked that, although didn’t immediately feel better. But the work did help and the image of Kali has remained with me. Kali Ma, the fearsome great mother who destroys to create and heal–gotta shout out a big thank you to my friend Carla Kali Ma Salls for first informing me about this amazing Hindu goddess well before I was paying real attention to the spirit realm and its archetypes. If you aren’t currently aware of Kali, do a bit of googling, you won’t be disappointed.

So I knew that vision was to inform me that my heart was strong and knew what it was doing even when the rest of me was not yet on board with the plan. And that I had made some painful, life-breaking choices to burn shit down, burn that baggage from this life and probably others, to release dense energy that needed to go in order for me to become more whole, more self-forgiving, more forgiving of others, lighter, and closer to my divine nature.

Some people reading this will say that this is grand talk from someone who has a boyfriend. To that I will say that this information doesn’t change depending upon whether anyone is in a romantic relationship or not, it just happens to be the particular theme for me in this lifetime. Everyone has those places in their lives that lessons seem to revolve around–money, jobs, health, children, friends or romance. It’s all relationships anyway.

But to answer anyone with curiosity on my personal details – Sam and I have been able to create a trusted support system for one another. He is solid in ways that I’ve not experienced before and I believe he came into my life to help me propel and heal during a time when I needed a soft place to land. It is a safe place for both of us. But because we are at opposite ends of the adult spectrum, our connection is by no means a traditional partnership. We both make a lot of allowances for each other’s freedom and we both know that eventually we will have to make some kind of shift to accommodate the differences in our ages and trajectories.

That’s fully okay with me. I want him to have all the good and bad experiences in life that he’s meant to have, like falling madly in love with someone his own age and running wild with it. It’s hard for a 20-something rock star to run wild with his 50-something girlfriend who is currently obsessed with caftans and prefers a nice glass of champagne on the patio to partying with bands til the sun comes up. I’ve already had all those crazy rock and roll adventures that are new to him and at this stage in life I aspire to Lisa Vanderpump, not Sable Starr.

Although who are we kidding? Maybe more Dixie Wetsworth?

Whatever the outcome I know that my happiness is not dependent upon a relationship status. This is somewhat new for me.

Personal details aside, this is what I wish to impart: those parts of us that are most flawed and cause us the most pain are meant to be there because they are our greatest teachers. We are here in this life and body to learn and experience, but we have to pay attention and listen for the messages if we want to move forward. Sometimes we are pushed to operate in uncomfortable territory and it is dreadful. When we are in the middle of the pain or upheaval it’s difficult to get the information and it always seems to take far longer than we’d like.

In the case of my ex it has taken me years to get clear on what that was all about, to forgive myself and forgive him, and to see how perfectly our imperfections operate in order to bring us closer to our deepest selves. Which is, in my opinion, the true version of God: divine law, divine nature, divine energy, divine love– where we can reside in peace and wholeness.

Forgive yourself. Forgive them. Listen to your intuition. Let go of expectations. Love your present as best you can. Don’t cling to your past or get boxed into a corner by your past stories. Do the work and it will get better. I promise.

Oh, and get fucking vaccinated if you haven’t already. Don’t be a dick.

I bow to you, my friends.