All Things Must Pass

Decades of daily dancing with depression have enabled me to develop coping skills that can be turned to many purposes. Skills like rage containment, and hope.  On Monday, January 20, 2025 both skills were in constant use.  Not only to stay focused on my own values, but also to keep despair at bay.

Growing up very religious and inquisitive has led me to explore other faith traditions besides Christianity, which I aspire to (but I have too many coats (Luke 3:11)), including Hinduism.  Thanks to progressive nuns in Catholic schools from 1st grade through college, I have a decent grounding in major world faith traditions. Given the paucity of strong female characters who made it into the Christian canon (grudgingly, there are some warriors among the saints but darn few - Joan of Arc comes to mind, but she probably was afflicted by moldy bread and her legitimacy is being undermined by the establishment), I’ve looked elsewhere for strong female divinity.

And I encountered the Hindu goddess Kali.

Here is her image:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja_Ravi_Varma

She is revered as the universal mother.

Yes. The universal mother is a badass destroyer with serious rage issues.  Because nothing can be born without something else dying to make way for it.  Conservation of mass and energy and so forth.  Arabia gave us trigonometry and India gave us physics. 

I have been thinking about Kali in cultivating hope.  The New Deal and Great Society structures meant to ensure even the least among us is cared for are no longer working enough or at all. Maybe we need a Trump to break them down to make room for something new and effective, something that incorporates technology, and takes climate change into account.

A photographer named Keerthana Kunnath is photographing a small group of women bodybuilders in Kerala State, southern India, defying social norms. With the stories of violence against women in India we see, it’s small wonder.  The women in these photos are muscular, beautiful, confident and poised. They smile, they gaze into the camera lens. We see their depth, strength and power. 

There are other places to look for female power, for the energy that builds things up and tears them down to make room for the new. Goddesses are among us. Maybe they are us.