One of 10,000 Reasons Why I Love the Poetry of Mary Oliver

Because I was talking yogic philosophy with a student the other day, fleshing out the notion that the world is as we see it. And then I happened upon this M.O. poem. With apologies to lovers of the Upanishads, I have to say, I think Ms. Oliver says it better!!!

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Look Again

Mary Oliver

What you have never noticed about the toad, probably,

is that his tongue is attached not to the back of his mouth but

the front--how far it extends

when the fly hesitates on a near-enough leaf! Or that

his front feet, which are sometimes padded, hold three nimble

digits--had anyone

a piano small enough I think the toad could learn

to play something, a little Mozart maybe, inside

the cool cellar of the sandy hill--and if

the eyes bulge they have gold rims,

and if the smile is wide it never fails,

and the warts, the delicate uplifts of dust-colored skin, are

neither random nor suggestive of dolor, but rather are

little streams of jewelry, in patterns pf espousal and pleasure,

running up and down their crooked backs, sweet and alive in the sun.

(published in Why I Wake Early, 2004)

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Why Am I Still Talking About the Goddess?

We realize that we...are participating members in the vast community of life, whose sacredness we must embrace if we are to survive. If we are ever to arrive at this expanded consciousness, we will have to surrender our ego desires to the wisdom of the Self. Masculine and Feminine will have to learn to cherish eachother. --Marion Woodman & Elinor Dickson, Dancing in the Flames

The last three decades of the twentieth century ushered in a remarkable awakening of “goddess spirituality.” The roots of this awakening reached back to the upper Paleolithic worship of the earth as Great Mother. While five thousand years of patriarchal history had suppressed the notion of the feminine as an archetype of wholeness, during this period, thousands of people discovered (or recovered) the feminine face (and faces) of God.

This revolution of the goddess, what I think of as “Mother Wisdom,” challenged the great myth of patriarchy: that a hierarchical (and often violent) male-dominated social structure is inevitable, eternal and divinely ordained. Mother Wisdom made a radical claim: that there is another way. That if the planet is to survive, the awareness that all life is sacred and inter-dependent must replace the patriarchal ethos of man over woman, mind over matter — of a father god creating and holding dominion over the earth.

Mother Wisdom is the force behind the broad spectrum of social movements that arose during those final decades of the century: mind/body medicine; humanistic and transpersonal psychology; the development of women’s health care; attempts to transform the top-down business management paradigm and humanize the workplace; the Ecology movement; the Recovery movement; the proliferation of women as clergy and spiritual teachers; the ongoing questioning of traditional male and female roles; and the growing interest in meditation, creativity, and healing. Our collective yearning to restore soul to modern life, to re-enchant our world, rose up from the body of the sacred feminine.

However, the masculine principle as the dominant mode of being remained tightly woven into the deepest structures of our consciousness, altering the natural balance of the psyche. So that while the outer walls of patriarchy were crumbling, the inner walls, the patriarchal structures of consciousness, remained embedded in our ways of thinking, acting, and sense of self.

As the force of individuation, action, and logos, the masculine principle serves a vital function. Connected to a strong and healthy feminine, it provides focus, strength, stamina, curiosity, and the structure of the word. This psychic foundation is the key to building creatively fulfilling lives, to discovering our right livelihood, to walking our most exalted talk. Without firm grounding in Mother Wisdom however, the masculine principle becomes the “inner patriarch.” Lonely, bloated, disconnected from its female source, this out-of-balance masculine slowly destroys the natural ecology of the psyche, suppressing, distorting, and wounding the pure energies of sacred masculine and feminine.

This is an underlying cause of many pathologies that continue to plague us as a society and as individuals. Giving rise to a dangerous sense of separation, the inner patriarch is a misogynistic (and often, especially in women, unconscious) energy that produces fear, anxiety, isolation, alienation, cruelty, numbness, greed, and the need to control. From these come the addictions, compulsions, obsessions, and abuses that have destroyed life for centuries and now seriously threaten the entire planet.

In America, patriarchal pathology found full expression during the presidential reign of George W. Bush. While the Obama administration appears grounded in the principles of Mother Wisdom, we still have a long way to go. The impulse towards patriarchy is firmly rooted in our collective unconscious. The outer forms may be crumbling, but if we don’t rebuild from the inside out, the old systems will reconstitute themselves.

Only a strong, vital feminine can meet and transform the patriarchal masculine. In this balance, feminine being and masculine doing work in perfect harmony. This crucial shift restores the natural order the psyche and is the key to creating sustainable life on this planet.

Kali's Sword

I wrote this piece for the Winter 2004 issue of Ascent Magazine.


It began innocently enough. It was 1983 and at a routine physical my doctor noticed a slight swelling on the right side of my neck. It turned out to be an enlargement of my thyroid gland, otherwise known as a goiter. At first, it was not that pronounced; the only people who noticed it were health-care professionals. Once cancer was ruled out, I opted for annual checkups, alternative healing, and learning to live with the goiter.

Some physicians I saw suggested surgical removal but throat surgery, with its attendant risks to my voice, was out of the question. I am a musician. Singing is my lifeblood and my joy, the way I channel inspiration and process all the twists and turns of daily life. At the time of my diagnosis, my career as a kirtan singer and workshop leader was beginning to take off. I was getting a lot of praise for the beauty and power of my voice. There was no way I was going to subject my throat to a surgeon’s knife.

While I do not subscribe to the notion that we create our diseases, I do see illness as both a messenger of the body, alerting us to something within that needs attention, and a metaphor, loaded with information about the hidden terrain of the soul. While no physician or healer I saw could diagnose my goiter’s root physical cause, at the subtle energy level, it sure seemed to suggest an obstruction in Vishuddha, the throat chakra gateway of the human voice.

I did copious amounts of inner work -- painting, music-making, movement, chanting and -- to unravel the blockage. This produced a wealth of insight about myself, but no matter what techniques or medicines I tried, no matter how many mantra repetitions, shoulder stands, or art and healing sessions, the goiter continued to grow. It was as if all the words not spoken and songs not sung were lodged there, held together with impulses squashed so as not to offend, needs ignored so as not to seem weak, questions not asked so as not to appear lacking in knowledge.

The goiter embarrassed me. From the perspective of sheer vanity, there was no getting around the fact I had a physical deformity that was, to put it mildly, unattractive. Worse than that, it belied my image of myself as a woman who spoke and sang from a ground of truth. How much of that precious authenticity, I had to wonder, was actually getting through this jammed-up portal at the center of my voice?

By the time I surrendered to surgery, nearly twenty years after a doctor first noticed the problem, my thyroid had defied a full range of Eastern, Western, traditional, alternative and creative arts healing modalities, growing large enough to make a very prominent bulge on the right side of my neck. I never felt I made the decision to remove the goiter. One day, I simply knew it was time, called my physician and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland that sits over the vocal cord nerves in the middle of the throat. At our first meeting, the surgeon drew a diagram, explaining that if he accidentally severed one of these nerves, my life as a singer was done. Then he asked if I was sure I wanted to go through with the procedure. I choked back tears in his office and drove home sobbing, but I knew there was no turning back.

In the weeks leading up to surgery, I tried to make my peace, grieving the possible end of my life as a singer. I scheduled kirtan gigs all over town and sang as if every performance would be my last. Singing felt like the most precious gift and I seesawed between that sublime awareness and worst-case scenario fears that I would suffocate during anesthesia or wake up in the ICU without a voice.

Of all the deities I’ve studied, it is the warrior goddess Kali with whom I feel the most rapport. One way I think of “her” is as a blazing sword of light, liberating innocence an truth from the choking darkness of fear. I once had a startling vision of Kali. She wore a mask and veil, but I recognized her instantly, sensing that her face was covered, not to hide, but to protect me from burning in her fire. She was calling me into herself and I knew singing was the way, but when I opened my mouth, no sound came out. Terror froze my voice.

This vision haunted me for years. I might feel a subtle Kali presence, but nothing so graphic or dramatic ever happened again. I wondered if I’d ever have another chance like that. Then, the night before surgery, making my best effort to keep things light but actually filled with trepidation, I heard that Kali voice loud and clear, saying ever so sweetly, but with just a bit of consternation, “What have you been so worried about? Did you think I’d let you go through this one alone!” That was when I realized this surgery was not just a routine thyroidectomy. It was downright shamanic. This was Kali’s sword, in the form of the surgeon’s knife. I knew then, there was nothing to fear.

Twenty-four hours later, after nearly two decades of living with my goiter, it was gone. As it turned out, the right lobe had grown to the size of a grapefruit, wrapped itself around my throat and was beginning to strangle me. But the biggest shock of all, buried where no diagnostic test or exam had ever seen it, my goiter held a secret: thyroid cancer. Years of inner work had been ineffective in healing my thyroid gland. But the instinct to remove it had been exactly right.

Within ten days I was singing again. My voice felt wide open and people who came to my classes and kirtan programs said my music had touched them more deeply than ever before. With the goiter and its hidden tumor gone, I assumed that the throat chakra blockage must also have cleared. As it turned out, physical surgery was just the beginning.

I now discovered the energetic form of my goiter. It felt like a demon that had been weaving a snare around me for a long, long time, tightening its hold every time fear, unworthiness or pride tricked me into silencing my own voice.

During the year and a half post-surgery, my entire life seemed to fall apart as every structure and relationship caught in this sticky web was dismantled and pulled down. This was certainly nothing my thoracic surgeon had warned me about. But how could he know the mysterious ways of Kali? How could he know that removing my thyroid would open psychic space for the master surgeon of the soul and her infamous sword to get to work?

Unlike physical surgery, there was no anesthesia for this procedure. I had to stay wide awake. The less I struggled, the easier it was, but I often felt I no longer knew who I was. Friendships gone. Belief systems shattered. Work in ruins. Standing in the rubble of my former life, I began to see how much of my identity had been bound up in a secret longing for fame and fortune, and how much of my persona as a wise yogini at peace with herself was also a cover for pride and desire. I had to face the myriad ways my unfulfilled (and unexpressed) ambition had seduced me into giving my power away.

It was very painful to admit to myself and to others how many layers of self-deceit I’d woven around myself. There was no demon. I was the one who wove those snares. I now saw how asleep I had been, believing my spiritual practice, my teaching, my devotion all kept me on a sattvic path.

The ways of healing are so mysterious. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand how it was that living with the goiter kept me from discerning what in post-goiter reality became so completely clear. I’d always seen fear and unworthiness as my chief inner demons. But they were actually second tier. It was envy and pride that had been choking me for years. During that long, shattering dark night of the soul, I came out from behind the facade. And much to my amazement, discovered I was standing in the Light. And even more amazing, discovered that the Light in which I stood was simply me.

Kali, Kundalini, and the Dance of Self

This article was originally published in Holistic Living Magazine.

I stumbled onto the spiritual path while sitting at the piano. After years of classical training, I was tired of playing other people’s music. I wanted to find my own. Then improvising late one evening, soaring in the music of my heart, something deep inside me cracked wide open, the top of my head seemed to split apart, and the next thing I knew light was pouring through me. Four years later I would learn I’d had a kundalini awakening. At that point I had no idea what had happened or what the mysterious kundalini energy even was. This was the rather dramatic beginning of my spiritual journey. It was 1973.

Over the next few months I marveled at the way this light — which came now every evening when I sang and played the piano — was changing me. Although I did not yet fully understand it, I knew I was experiencing a process of transformation and found the guiding passion of my life: studying the relationship of spiritual transformation, inner healing, and the arts — first in the laboratory of my own body and later, in all the people I would come in contact with through my work. The reality of spiritual transformation hit me like a brick. That such a thing was really possible, that it could be activated through the arts, and that it seemed to be happening to me, was sheer magic.

Since improvisation had been the vehicle of my awakening, I embraced it completely, exploring myself and my world in the mirror of creative work. I wanted to make art that uplifted artist and audience. I wanted my art to be a conduit for the divine. I suspected that artists could be the shamans, priests, and priestesses of the modern world, but understood that simply making art was not enough. There had to be a spiritual component to the work, some force that would continually temper the artist, clearing out all the psycho-emotional stuff that clogged the inner pathways, so that great shining light could blaze.

A few years later I discovered the dark goddess Kali. I had found my way to the Indian spiritual master Baba Muktananda, whose work would guide me though the next long leg of my journey. It was from him that I first learned about the mysterious kundalini and finally understood what had happened to me.

In the Indian yogic tradition, kundalini is envisioned as the supreme energy of transformation. It can be awakened through yogic practices, contact with certain spiritual masters, and as I had discovered, through the creative process of making art. Upon awakening, kundalini reveals itself as a great shining inner light. Like a fire, it burns through the blocks and obstructions that keep us trapped in suffering and opens us to the blissful well that yogis call, the “inner Self.” Kundalini supplies the fuel for the inner journey and because it is regarded as a female energy, it is often referred to as a goddess.

I took to the Indian goddess tradition like a fish to water and from the first time I ever chanted the name, Kali Durge Namo Namah, I was smitten by the dark one, Kali, the black goddess of transformation. Kundalini had claimed me many years before this and I sensed that Kali and kundalini were really one, two aspects of the same dynamic field of energy, the supreme darkness and the supreme light. It’s important to point out that when I speak of goddesses, I am speaking of energy fields. Mythology can be very confusing, creating the idea that gods and goddesses are either made-up storybook characters or divine beings separate from ourselves. Of course on one level, all the myths are stories, but these are stories filled with spiritual power. When we learn how to read them, myths become maps of the inner realm.

One of the most famous myths of the Goddess tells us how Kali comes into the world during a violent battle with a terrible demon army. The gods have been rendered powerless and Durga, the Great Goddess, has been summoned to save the day. The battle is fierce and at a certain point, things get out of hand. This is when Kali appears, leaping from the brow of Durga and demolishing the entire demon army. Kali is the most potent force of the Sacred Feminine, absolutely one-pointed in her task. She exists to restore dharma, the path of righteousness. In the battle that ensues, nothing and no one can stop her. She is the force of truth, perfection in motion, divine symmetry. Victory over the demon army is assured.

The battlefield of course is really the field of our own psyche. The demons are the obstacles to our growth. We know them as fear, doubt, unworthiness, greed, rage, and addiction. They travel with us all of our lives. Kali is the force that devours them, releasing their essential energy, destroying their potential to do harm. She is the alchemical fire, transforming our lead-heavy souls into molten gold. On the surface, the iconography of Kali is terrifying. She is often pictured holding a strange-looking sword in one hand and a severed human head in another. She wears a garland of human skulls, a belt of human arms, and her tongue lolls out from her mouth. Apart from her gruesome adornments, she is quite naked, primal blackness, dancing on the supine corpse of her lover. This outer appearance however is a veil.

Kali is the supreme force of inner healing. Understanding the nature of her radiant blackness is the key to transformational work. We have to trust in the terrifying darkness, surrendering to it in order to receive its many gifts. We have to understand that only by diving into this seeming blackness, will we receive its incredible light. It takes everything from us, then gives it back, tenfold. And one of its most accessible gates opens to us through the realm of the arts.

Most any form of intuitive creative process work can lead us down, into the belly of the goddess. Wandering through this rich and fertile darkness we encounter the demons and the gifts — obstacles, terrors, painful memories, creative insights, healing images, songs of self. This is where the art that heals us comes from.

Kali’s sword is the sword of discrimination, cutting away layers of false self and clinging ego, all the sticky stuff that clogs our way. It also cuts the gems of healing from her garden, offering them to us as gifts for making the descent. The severed head she holds represents those parts of ourselves that keep us down — the caustic inner tyrant, complaining victim, damning judge. Her garland of skulls symbolizes the power to speak the truth, her belt of arms, the power to serve that truth — more gifts for those who make the inner journey. Her lolling tongue grounds her as she dances and the corpse is not a corpse at all. It is her consort, the god Shiva. In their sacred union he represent the state of utter stillness. Kali is the power, the shakti, rising from that stillness.

The sacred syllables of Kali’s name are filled with power. “Ka,” the sound of “ah” opens the heart; “li,” the sound of “ee” opens the third eye. When we repeat the name Kali, we clear the pathway between our head and our heart. So entering the realm of Kali, we enter the mysterious playground of our inner world. Everything we need for healing and transformation is stored there. The sword of our discrimination. The wisdom to know where to place the blade. The courage to stand strong in the face of the battle. The blazing lights — the healing gifts — that guide our way. All the displaced pieces of ourselves are also down there, waiting to be found once again. Our artist self, youthful innocence, carefree lover, wild adventurer, perfect craftsman, all the many aspects of ourselves we’ve stashed away. All of these, the gifts of our life, the gifts of the Self are resting underground, waiting for us to find them in the womb of the dancing goddess, the black one.

We call her Kali. Her name means “time.” We know her by diving into the fire of our own great heart. She lives there singing. Yes! Singing and dancing, singing and dancing, singing and dancing, the force of truth in which we shape our lives. Kali Durge Namo Namah, Kali Durge Namo Namah, Kali Durge Namo Namah. Salutations again and again to Kali, the force of transformation that turns our mundane lives into radiant works of art.

Kali and the Hibiscus: The Dark Goddess in the Pruning Shears

This article was originally published in SageWoman magazine in 1997.
Since then, it's been posted on various websites and had thousands of hits.

Black as the petal of a blue lotus at night, black as the night touched by the light of the moon,
Kali is the essence of Night.... Daughter of the Ocean, wet nurse to invincible warriors,
though they say that death lingers in the waters of Her womb, those who worship her with
full heart receive all that they desire. For... when the Yuga [life cycle] finds its natural end,
Kali shall be there to gather the seeds to create the new Creation.
–Merlin Stone, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood

There was a time I earned my living teaching music and that was when the hibiscus, a gift from a student, came into my life. It was small and to my eyes, a rather plain-looking plant, set in a green plastic pot. I had no idea it was a hibiscus, the plant whose large red blooms are sacred to the goddess Kali, the fierce sword-wielding goddess of the Indian tradition.

I set it in a sunny spot, watered it once a week, and gave it a bit of plant food now and then. Beyond that I didn’t pay it much attention. To tell the truth, the plant bored me. It didn’t have the lacy elegance of the asparagus fern, the lush foliage of the ficus, the sexy glamour of the gardenia. It grew slowly, rather humbly, and for two years never showed a bud. Until by chance, I happened to transplant it.

I was re-potting some other plants that day and thought I’d transfer it from its little green container into one of my newly emptied large clay pots. This was an aesthetic decision. I preferred the look of red clay to green plastic. The plant looked way too small for the pot however, within a week, it doubled in size. Soon after that the buds came.

There was clearly a lesson here about room to grow, benign neglect, and not seeing what is right before one’s eyes. Nevertheless, the plant forgave my triple sin of omission. Within three weeks of the transplant, it greeted me with an incredible flower, brilliant red, five perfect petals opening to the morning. It was only then that I realized this plant was a hibiscus. And that it had something to teach me about tending living things.

We lived in rural New England and those beautiful red blooms were a treasure during the cold dark days of winter. The hibiscus accompanied us when we moved from a house by a river to a house by a field and finally, in a most unexpected change of lifestyle, to a house in a subdivision in central New Jersey.

New Jersey is something like a crowded pot. A small state crammed with people, automobiles, condominiums, corporate parks, and shopping malls, there is too much of everything man-made here. The land is so fertile it is called the “Garden State,” a cruel irony as family farms, lush wetlands, open fields and woodlands all give way to “commercial development,” a benign-sounding phrase for the mindless destruction of the earth. New Jersey is a seriously overcrowded pot with all the problems of overcrowding and it was here in New Jersey that disaster struck the hibiscus.

In the beginning it was just a couple of tiny white flies. The plant had lived through many seasons. It was strong, vital, and so good-natured I was sure it would peacefully co-exist with these little specks of insect life. This was not to be. Little by little the white flies took over and I could see it weakening. I tried everything. Natural remedies. Toxic remedies. Everyone had a suggestion. Nothing worked. The bugs multiplied. The plant diminished.
My heart broke as I watched my beautiful hibiscus slowly wither and start to die. I could barely go near it, feeling I had failed—that by allowing this plant to die I had broken a promise to it and to myself—to be a careful nurturer of life.

March, April, May. We brought all the houseplants outside for the warm season. By now, the leaves of the hibiscus were shriveled and dry, the white flies circling all around it. I knew it was dying, but since I could not bring myself to toss it into the weed pile, I set it outside with the others. That was when I heard the voice, clear, direct, without a trace of pity. Cut it back. Remove everything but the lowest stumps. Leave only one leaf. Do not wait a moment longer. Do it now.

It felt like certain murder, but I know this voice. I think of it as my Kali voice. Over the years I’ve learned to pay it serious attention. I got my pruning shears and started cutting, singing a chant from the Indian goddess tradition, the Hymn to the Great Mother, with each cleave of the blades.
Salutations to you in the form of Consciousness, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Intelligence, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Power, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Forgiveness, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Peace, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Beauty, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Good Fortune, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Compassion, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Contentment, cut. Salutations to you in the form of Mother, cut.

The deed was done. I looked at my beautiful hibiscus, shorn of her leaves and branches and remembered the old Sumerian story of Inanna’s descent to the Underworld. She must leave behind her crown, beads, breastplate, gold ring, measuring rod, and royal robe, until she is “naked and bowed low.”

The hibiscus, like Inanna, was “naked and bowed low.” With nothing left to feed on the white flies disappeared. The hibiscus sat for about a month, a few dead stumps rising from a large clay pot. Every time I looked at it, I too felt “naked and bowed low.” Then one day in mid-June, I saw a tiny spot of green pushing out of the central stem. By July the stumps were covered with small green leaves. The hibiscus lived.

By August it was rounder, fuller, lusher, than ever before. It seemed to have a new vitality, like it knew something it hadn’t known before. Or maybe it was me who knew something I hadn’t known before. Something about roots and the power of darkness. Something about how even when we think nothing is happening, something is happening. Then the buds began. Whereas before, the hibiscus might put out five or six blossoms at a time, now it was covered with flowers. It had come back, glorious, an explosion of red vermilion. That was when I gleaned the truth of Kali—come to teach me about death as a doorway to life, about the power of descent, about the wisdom of the sword when we wield it with the compassionate touch of the Mother. A gardener might say it was simply a matter of proper pruning. For me it was more than that. I’d watched the hibiscus return from the mouth of death, radiant, resplendent, alive.

The story goes that Kali comes into the world during a war between the gods, who represent what we might call our innate truth, and the demons, who represent everything that keeps us from living in that truth. The battlefield is really the psyche. The demons are winning until the Great Goddess Durga comes on the scene. At the peak of the fighting she calls on her most potent aspect, Kali, who leaps from Durga’s brow and charges onto the killing ground, destroying the demon army.

Much as I delight in this image of the fierce feminine, ridding the psyche of troubling demons, my favorite part of the story comes at the end. Kali has won the battle however, she is so immersed in her dance of destruction—she is after all on a mission—she is unaware the job is done. This is a problem because if she continues dancing, she will destroy the entire world. At this point, her consort, the god Shiva steps in and taking the form of a tiny baby, lies down on the battlefield. When Kali sees this tender infant, she stops and cradling it to her breast, begins to nurse. Death gives way to new life.

Cutting back my hibiscus was a fierce act. I had to let go of blame and self-pity, heed a powerful inner voice, take a chance on a bunch of dead stubs in a pot. I had to trust in the mysterious darkness. This is the Kali work, cutting away that which is dead, diseased, bug-ridden, finished, blocking our way—severing the ties that bind us. Ultimately of course, all is Kali, all is the Mother. The hibiscus, the white flies, the gods, the demons, the beautiful, the terrible, the eternal cycle of life, death, and transformation. She spits us out of her womb and eats us back inside it, over and over again.

When we don’t know how to see her, Kali can be quite terrifying. In Indian religious art she is often pictured wearing a garland of skulls and skirt of severed arms. Her hair is wild, her tongue sticks out, she holds a severed head in one of her many hands. She is the embodiment of the fierce feminine, protectress of the heart, come to wrest us from all that keeps us from our Truth. Some say there is none who is more compassionate. I have learned much from my journey with the hibiscus. That things are rarely what they seem. That the plain and simple is often a mask for beauty and power. That one should never underestimate the power of roots. That we animal folk are not so different from plants.

We need room to grow. We need fresh air, warm sun, good food, clean water, and most of all, we need love. Sometimes that love is fierce, rising up to safeguard our time or creativity or purpose, our loved ones or community. When the white flies start buzzing around, zapping our vitality and strength, covering us with a veil of torpor and forgetfulness, that is the time to call on Kali.

Kali is the fierce energy of the psyche, the light of discrimination, the sword of wisdom, the power to recognize what must be done and to do it. Kali’s sword shapes and refines our lives, honing and sculpting us, making order out of chaos, showing us the meaning, beauty and purpose of our lives. The sword in the hands of Kali is good and just. It is not the sword of violence and cruelty. Kali’s sword is the compassionate blade of the Mother. Kali is also the fertile darkness, the deep dark void, the ever-changing cycles of time. She teaches us through every phase, if we will only open up our ears and hearts and eyes and really listen.

I like to imagine myself and the hibiscus as one. I close my eyes and feel my roots reaching down into the earth, spreading out deeper and deeper, holding me in the embrace of rocks, dust, sand, loam, peat, mold, clay, earthworms, leeches, ants, beetles, lice, underground fertility, feeding me its life. I see my leaves and branches rising from the ground, covered in red and green profusion, each of my flowers an offering to the same life force that has pushed me up from itself and will pull back me back down into it again. I feel the warmth of the sun, sweet touch of the earth, fresh taste of water, and know that all of this, earth, water, fire, and air, is all of me. The tea I drank for breakfast, soup I ate for lunch, all the plants that made it, heat that cooked it, all of it is Her becoming me and me becoming Her. So tending my hibiscus, I tend it lovingly, as I try to tend myself and all with whom I come in contact, remembering that we are all one living presence of the Goddess, who is everywhere, in everything, the very stuff from which this universe is made.

Lady of the Plants, they say you are in everything and I know this is true because when I close my eyes and really listen, I hear your deep song singing from my heart, holding me through countless seasons, from seed to bud to bloom and back to seed again.

Saraswati: She Who Sits on the Tongues of Poets

This article was originally published in the Winter 2000 issue of Ascent
and reprinted a few years later in Yoga Chicago.

Glory to you, O Mother, You are creative sound and sacred speech.
You play on the vina and are the supreme goddess of the world.
O Saraswati, make my throat your dwelling place.
Bless me with the strength of wisdom and the power of knowledge.
The seven musical notes and all mellifluous speech are the sacred
water flowing from your feet. goddess of creative art and its embellisher;
you dwell on the tongues of poets and minstrels. Glory, all glory to you.

There were once three sister goddesses whose names were Ganga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Perfect equals in every way, their radiance shone throughout the three worlds. When they came of age, all three were given in marriage to Lord Vishnu. Whereas their sister Lakshmi was content, Ganga and Saraswati wanted to be free. Vishnu however, was quite attached to all of his wives. Without some trickery there was no escape. The three devised a plan. Ganga and Saraswati would feign a bitter feud between them. Lakshmi would try to mediate and fail. Vishnu, in a fit of rage would send away his warring wives. The plan worked. Lakshmi remained in the realm of the gods where to this day, she showers radiance, abundance, and good fortune upon the earth. Ganga and Saraswati took the form of rivers, flowing from the heights of the heavens to the depths of the seas. Ganga still flows today as Mother Ganges, the great holy river of India. As for Saraswati, most say that sometime around the year 3000 BCE, her waters began to recede until they dried up and disappeared. But others tell it very differently. Out of her great love and compassion for the human race, the mighty Saraswati transformed herself from a river of water into the river of inspiration, flowing through the human heart and soul.


The goddess Saraswati has always held a fascination for me, but for many years it was mostly intellectual. That changed about ten years ago when I was on retreat at the ashram where I spent the formative years of my sadhana. I came into the meditation hall one morning and was greeted by a most amazing sight. A magnificent statue of Saraswati had been installed on one side of the room. Carved from a huge block of sandalwood, the goddess came alive before my eyes. I sat there spellbound, riveted to the form, realizing that in my life as a musician and composer, Saraswati had always been there, singing from deep within me, yet I’d somehow never recognized this before. It was like meeting a mysterious stranger who had supported me since my birth and was finally revealing herself to me. Then tears came, long and deep, as I faced the many ways I took my musical gifts for granted. In a moment of exquisite and excruciating pain, the reality of this mysterious goddess broke open inside my heart.


In India, the worship of Saraswati begins in the ancient Vedas where she is associated with the Saraswati River, which flowed through northwest India during the second millenium BCE. As a river goddess she was worshipped for the fertilizing, purifying, and life-giving powers of her waters. Even during this early stage, when she was still primarily a river goddess, the hymns of the Rg-veda describe Saraswati as the “inciter of all pleasant songs and gracious thought.” As the early Vedic religion grew into the Hindu tradition, Saraswati came to be equated with Vac, the Vedic goddess of speech.


In time, Saraswati’s river nature merged with the three key powers identified with Vac — truth, sacred vision, and language — and Saraswati became the great goddess personifying the highest faculties of human creativity. She has ever since been lauded as the supreme patroness of music, the inventor of language, and the source of insight and wisdom.


Saraswati is a vast constellation of archetypal energy. In her transcendental aspect, she is considered the shakti or power of Om, the sacred sound from which creation springs. Some tantric sources equate Saraswati’s riverbed aspect with sushumna nadi, the central channel and repository of the major chakras, while others equate her flowing waters with kundalini, the supreme light of consciousness. Saraswati is also praised as the elemental force that gives mantras their special power and she is strongly identified with the Gayatri mantra, revered by many as the sound form of light.


In his book Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine, David Kinsley writes that from the tantric perspective “the deities are thought of as aspects of the cosmos that correspond to aspects of the human organism.” He says that “the aim of tantric sadhana is to establish identity with the deity worshipped [and] to awaken that deity within oneself.” For me, the brilliance of the tantric system is in this teaching. Sadhana is not about outer worship of a god or a goddess whom we perceive as separate from ourselves. Ideally, we establish identity with a deity to awaken the energy stream personified by that deity within ourselves. While outer worship has its place, if we don’t work to embody our chosen deity, we risk falling into the trap that Tibetan Buddhist teacher Trungpa Rimpoche called “spiritual materialism.”


Over the years I’ve developed practices to awaken my inherent Saraswati energy, working with mantras and visualizations and contemplating the myths, iconography, and scriptural references surrounding her. All of this makes wonderful food for body, mind, and soul, but the truth is, when Saraswati comes, it as a grace, unexpected and unabashedly divine. As a musician, I often feel her presence when I sing. I also feel it when I’m teaching and performing. For me, the challenge has been in learning to get out of the way. I find that a steady diet of meditation, chanting, and hatha yoga does wonders in this regard.


Saraswati energy pulsates with the power of revelation, creativity, and the Word. Like water, it has the capacity to cleanse and refine. Once awakened, the Saraswati impulse slowly washes away the clutch of ego and wrong understanding and in the open space that is created, reveals the knowledge of the Self. Saraswati is elusive and mysterious. Her gifts of insight and inspiration are not so freely given. As everyone knows, water is slippery. To keep Saraswati’s waters vital and flowing, we have to work hard to hold them. Discipline, purity, and noble thoughts are a crucial key. As the force of inspiration, Saraswati is present at the beginning of any creative project, however, the way in which we shape the initial vision seems to determine how much of her light will infuse the finished work.


Saraswati’s nature is completely sattvic. She personifies the purest of the pure. Visualized in white, holding a vina, a mala of crystal or pearls, and a book, her mount is the white swan. The Sanskrit word for swan is hamsa and in India, those beings who have attained enlightenment are called paramahamsas, “Great Swans.” One might say they have become vehicles able to carry the full weight of Saraswati. Needless to say, those of us who wish to court the energy of this goddess do well to study the ways of these great swans.


The other day I was contemplating the painting of Saraswati that has held a special place in my studio for many years. I’d always seen her vina as symbolic of Saraswati’s identification with music and sound, but suddenly I realized, that vina is me! That vina represents each one of us who longs to merge with her. It was one of those moments when something we’ve taken for granted suddenly breaks open and we see it in a whole new way. I sat down to meditate and began to feel her waters streaming through me. I gave myself over to the experience, letting it move my upper body in graceful, fluid motions. My fingers flowed into mudras. I felt my trunk expand until my head and heart both seemed to touch the sky. My lower body, though feeling weightless, stayed rooted to the earth and I was enveloped in what I can only describe as the most beautiful music. I couldn’t actually hear this music, but I felt myself becoming one with it. There was no separation between me, Saraswati, and the song. There was only music spilling out from every cell of me, as me.


My teacher always told us that the mantra, the deity of the mantra, and the one who sings the mantra are the same. Although I understood what he was saying, it was only intellectual. Now I grasped it with my entire being. Ever since, I have felt a deeper sense of oneness with Saraswati than ever before — and a quiet inner knowing that even when I cannot feel her presence, she is always here, singing the eternal song of the Self and playing on the strings of my heart.


Welcome Saraswati. Make her your friend. Discover that of all the energies of consciousness, Saraswati is the force that can transform everything you do into art. And you will come to know yourself as music in the cosmic symphony of which we are each a small and glowing part.