Creating the Container for Kali: How the Goddess Shows Up in Your Life

When I found her, Kali was waiting in the window of the Ma Shrine (a temple for female deities) at my new ashram home. I was mesmerized. She didn’t look anything like the other goddesses in the temple which was filled with examples of the feminine divine. All the other goddesses were wooden or metal, seated on a lotus or astride a peaceful looking mount. Even Durga carrying all her weapons and emanating powerful assurances sat calmly atop her tamed tiger.
In contrast, Kali was a smaller wooden statue painted in the brightest colors of the room. With jet black skin and the reddest tongue extended through her open mouth, reaching for me as if to swallow me whole, she wore a necklace of severed heads and a skirt of severed limbs.
She stood atop a resigned Shiva Lord of the Universe as a conqueror claims their prize. There was nothing peaceful about her! She was ferocious, and everything about her image should have been terrifying in my context of non-understanding. But I wasn’t afraid. I was drawn to her.
Kali was the first goddess I would ever have a relatable experience with from energetic understandings that lay beyond the perception of her form. I sat there and looked to her for what seemed like hours. Every day I would go to the Ma Shrine after our morning meditations and visit all the mother goddesses, offering Kali a flower and trying to feel what she was awakening in me: my power.
Years later, I became a mother myself. The day I became a mom, was the most beautiful experience of celebrating life and specifically that of my son, who is my everything. He is a constant source of inspiration for me still, just six and a half years along my journey into becoming a mother goddess. Love like this has no description you can place from pen to paper.
Asana Practices For Connecting With Kali
Kali is strength and perseverance. In asana practice, anytime you feel you just can’t hold a pose for one more breath or flow through a challenging sequence one more time you can visualize and feel her power flowing through you. Warrior poses, goddess pose, and lion’s breath can all be reminders of that inner resource that is our personal connection to Kali.
The ultimate experience of Kali on the mat happens at the end. When we roll from the pose of death, savasana, into the fetal position awaiting our rebirth. It’s Kali’s strength that frees us from what we have left behind on the mat. It’s Kali’s light that shines on the path forward.
Meditations on Kali
In meditation, we can cultivate the qualities we experience focusing on the representations of divinity and draw strength from their power. Meditating on Kali we remind ourselves that, “today I am strong.” I am the Ma. I can devour any darkness no matter how heavy and hard it may seem and bask in the light.
- Find an image or a statue of Kali that resonates with you. Remember, feeling a connection internally to her image doesn’t have to mean you understand it cognitively. You may also find her a little scary at first, but it’s exactly that journey through fear that she teaches us.
- Sit calmly in a quiet space and gaze at the image of Kali feeling the place in you that is harmonizing with her energy. From time to time, offer her a candle, a flower, some incense, or a sweet treat to develop a relationship with the goddess.
- Use Kali’s mantra to resonate on the same frequency as her power and feel your own inner resources grow strong. If you like, you can use a mala or prayer beads to say the mantras 108 times: Om krim kalikayai namah.
Hanuman; The Ancient Monkey-Superman

The monkey god Hanuman, was given the birth name Anjaneya (powerful, fiery). He earned this name Hanuman when he was quite young. Playing in some green, grassy fields, Hanuman looked up and saw a big, orange, juicy sun and mistook it for a giant mango. Monkeys love mangoes!
He decided to leap into the sky and steal the mango for his afternoon snack. Indra Devi, the Sky God, saw what was happening on his home turf and became quite angry at Hanuman’s imposition, so he began throwing lightning bolts every which way. One of the lightning bolts hit Hanuman in the jaw (‘Hanu’ means jaw) and propelled him to the earth where he landed with a dramatic thump, killing him.
All the deities panicked in seeing his lifeless little body. They knew Hanuman’s dad would be furious, and he was. Vayu, the God of the Wind, saw his little son lying on the ground, lifeless. He went into grief and rage and started sucking the air out of the universe. Everything started to wither, shrivel up, and die; just like young Hanuman.
The deities came out from where they were hiding and begged Vayu to restore balance to the universe, to give it back its ability to live, breathe, and exist. Vayu claimed he would only do so if they brought his son back to life. Everyone readily agreed, as each deity walked over to Hanuman’s lifeless body and touched him. Each god who touched him infused a little life back into him, and unbeknownst to Hanuman, a little bit of their power.