The first yoga class I attended in the new year began with Kali mudra. The teacher talked about how our understanding of Kali is limited by our narrow understanding of the concept of destruction. People automatically think of destruction as a bad thing, as if it is always negative. If pressed, we might acknowledge that death and destruction are necessary – the circle of life and all that – while still feeling like it’s the bad part of the circle.
But all change is predicated on destruction of what came before. A lot of people think of change as a negative, too, but that is just fear talking. Growth and improvement are both forms of change. Destruction is also purification, like a refiner burning off impurities from precious metal or distillation producing the holy water of life.
When my yoga teacher talked about Kali, I was suddenly reminded of the first video game I ever played. It was on a computer at my friend’s house – her family was the first one I knew that had a computer. It had a big screen that only displayed the color green. The game was simple. By clicking the mouse, you placed a small green line on the screen. A little circle shot across the screen and bounced off those lines like a billiard ball. There may have been a bullseye to hit or goalposts that you were supposed to pass the ball through. But the more times you clicked, the more the screen filled with lines, boxing in the ball until it could no longer move. Then the game was over, and the screen had to be wiped clean before you could play again. Kali provides that kind of screen-wiping reset.
Kali wrecks the boxes we build around ourselves. Kali doesn’t just transcend the bullshit. She destroys it. She can wipe out the “shoulds” and “musts” of accepted wisdom, and tear apart the tangled nets of convention and expectation that we trap ourselves in. And in the wake of her destruction, we are free to become our most true selves.
This new year, I wish for you what I wish for myself. Be a force of destruction in 2024.
