Smashana

She shines her blessing of divine deconstruction, clearing away that which undermines your confidence and inhibits your activity on your life path. With the courage born of unconditional trust, you can accept her fierce intervention in your life with openness to the positive changes that shall emerge as a result.

Smashana Kali is fierce. Her presence indicates radical divine intervention. It may at first be experienced as a shock and some form of upheaval. She dwells in the taboo lands of the cremation grounds. Hers is the teaching that divine timing must prevail, and sometimes, certain involvements or circumstances must end. We cannot control the workings of destiny, but we can choose how we respond to the essential ending of a chapter in our lives.

Smashana can appear when we are in difficult times due to the loss of a loved one or the failure of something we had counted on, or even a more subtle, inner experience of an ending we cannot link to an external event. Her presence is an indication that life as you have known it will change radically. This can be a welcome release from difficult times and prolonged cycles of suffering. Smashana is not quiet and subdued in the cremation grounds. She is wild and vital. She brings energy and aliveness to situations where there would otherwise be none. She brings about an end to stagnation that has been depleting your life force.

An upheaval can give rise to uncertainty about how to manage the transition and what will come next. We must remember that in the tantric teachings, cremation grounds are not only places of death but of liberation. Kali teaches that sometimes, what we have loved needs to be released so a greater love can manifest in a new form. We cannot always know why that needs to be, but we can trust Kali is acting for our benefit.

We may have a fear around letting go, just as many beings fear the ultimate act of letting go – the release of the body into death itself. Kali is not a goddess of actual death. She is the goddess of the spiritual and symbolic death of the ego. Her presence is about endings that lead to beginnings. Her presence is not about death, but transformation. She not only brings to an end that which obstructs our spiritual fruition, she also manifests the path from re-emergence. Dwelling in the lands of the dead, she is the sacred feminine chariot that carries the soul beyond the threshold of one life cycle or chapter into the next. If you know you have come to the end of the road in some significant way and are awaiting clarity on how to cross the threshold toward whatever is next, her presence will make the path known to you.

Her appearance is the portent of powerful change. Although we may not welcome it at first, we can know that because it is initiated by her, wild wisdom and divine love are its underlying purpose. As we move with the changes taking place within and likely also around us, we will eventually recognize the blessings that have transformed our lives for the better.

Invocation Ritual

Take a moment to connect with your heart, perhaps by placing your hand at your heart for a moment. Say the following invocation:

Beloved Ma, Smashana Kali, Vama Kali, you raise the sword of divine truth in your right hand. My heroic heart, yearning for freedom, truth and love beyond all else, leaps with joy at the sight of you! The lotus flowers of compassion fall, reminding me that your ferocity is divine love in action. You wield the swords of severing grace. Obstructions and defilements submit to your blade. I hear the loss that follows your intervention with dignity. I offer to you all pain and fear that may arise through this process. My heartfelt offerings are testaments to my loving trust in your wisdom. May your power bring freedom to all beings. Jai Ma Kali!

In whatever way is appropriate for you, prostrate yourself before her wild essence. That may mean bowing your head to your hands in prayer, imagining and intending that you are bowing before her divine will. It may involve laying your entire body facedown on the floor, forehead to the ground, completely surrendered to her. Do what feels authentic and sacred for you at this moment.

Then be seated, or stand once more and raise your hands, palms open and facing upward, as if offering all your attachments to her. She knows which to accept and which to sever at this time. Do so with trust in your heart.

You have completed your ritual of invocation.