Today I’m honored to share a guest post from my gorgeous friend Lone Mørch. Lone is an Award-winning author, photographer & Rebel Priestess. Enjoy!

Meeting Kali in Kathmandu

Kali, the great goddess of creation and destruction, showed up on my doorstep during my divorce. Even though goddesses and gurus weren’t my cup of tea, I’d soaked in the spirituality of daily life in Nepal throughout my 20s, and pilgrimaged to the holy Mt. Kailas in Tibet in my early 30s, in search of a more sacred relationship to life and myself. Kali may have kept an eye on me all along, waiting for me to be ready for her. During an intensive immersion in the 13 archetypes of the Goddess, I had the chance to embody Kali for our group. To my surprise I felt right at home in her energy. Kali took this as an invitation. Destruction ensued. Stripping me and my life of everything that didn’t fit any longer. Often I found myself in surrender on the floor. Kali is not for the meek. Inviting her into your life is nothing short of an initiation. She taught me about the inevitable connection between creation and destruction and the sacrifices true liberation require. Let me take you to the heart of her temple in Kathmandu…

Excerpt from Seeing Red: A Woman’s Quest for Truth, Power and the Sacred by Lone Mørch.

Red is never without meaning. This was never truer than the moment when I found myself descending into Kali’s most famous Dakshinkali Temple in a dank, dark gorge outside of Kathmandu. The Dashain holiday was in full swing. It’s a time when people flock to Kali’s temples all over Nepal to venerate the fierce goddess, and I had come to pay my own tribute to the great goddess who’d seemed to have shown up in my life, in timely fashion, to spearhead my path to liberation. Damp decay seeped into my nostrils as I stepped farther into the gorge. At the bottom of the stairs, a small shrine sat unassuming next to a putrid pond. A baldachin of four gilded snakes was suspended above, the strung-out red fabric faded and full of bird shit. In my mind’s eye, Kali dwelled in the most magnificent temple, and I couldn’t contain my disapproval.“Why don’t they make her a beautiful temple?” I asked my friend Sunil.

Dark, with a mischievous glint in his eye, he was handsome as ever. We were lovers when I worked in Nepal a decade earlier. When I told Sunil about my desire to witness the temple sacrifices, he said I was jet-lagged and half-crazy, but without any questions he insisted on being my escort. I still felt attracted to him, but thanks to my Kali affair, I was learning that the electric life force was chameleon in nature and that it could move freely through me without me having to respond, own, control, or otherwise cling to it. I felt proud of myself.

“It’s not like the Buddhists,” Sunil said, his voice gentle. “Hindus here don’t spend so much money on temples.”
Alongside women in red saris with thick red blotches of paste on their foreheads, we lined to enter the shrine. A familiar solemnity spread within me. Sunil, well-versed in puja, had picked up a bucket of offerings at one of the stalls at the parking lot—red flower garlands, coconut, incense, candles, fine red powder, rice, and more. Would that suffice?

“Only ask for one big thing—not this and that,” he reiterated as if reading my mind and left his leather belt and shoes next to the gate. As I kicked my sandals off my feet he turned to me. “I’m sorry, but you eat beef, only Hindus go inside.”
“But…” Unsure of temple etiquette, I didn’t push the issue but inched myself through the layers of people to get closer to the shrine. Thick fumes from the burning butter lamps and incense filled the air. I didn’t care that tears were running down my face. I didn’t care that I wasn’t Nepali or Hindu for that matter. I didn’t care that I was too proud to worship a goddess. I stepped closer to the iron bar fence, closer to her. I even didn’t care that I was now standing in animal blood. I kneeled and pushed my forehead against the red iron. It was cool and hard. I felt connected to the millions of prayers that had been mumbled here through time. Was I praying?

Inside a man put a knife to the exposed neck of a rooster and slit it open in one swift motion, letting the red, warm blood spill over his hands and onto the slough below.

“Jai Kali Ma, jai,” the bloodied man exhaled, handing the sacrifice to its owner through the fence.

The metallic smell filled my nose. I could hear the rattle in the rooster’s throat. My rising nausea dissipated in the yelling and yipping, pushing and prodding of the crowd of barefooted people around me. Everywhere hands in motion. Hands holding high plates with flowers, fruit, and grains. Hands lighting candles and dousing in pungent incense. Hands meeting at foreheads in private prayer and shaking worn handles of bells, large and small. Hysterical violins and vocals of Hindu music blended with an insistent rattle drum, bells, and the occasional ocean call of a conch shell. Everywhere motion. Everywhere sound. Everywhere red.

Lone Mørch

Learn about Lone
Get the Seeing Red Book
Read Shann’s review of Lone’s Book
Listen to Lone in the Divine Feminine Spotlight

 

 

 

 

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