Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:00]:

Have you ever wished you could just burn it all down? Blow it up, the job, the relationship, the perfectly curated life that's quietly suffocating your soul? Or maybe, maybe it already has blown up and you're left wondering, what did I do to deserve this? That, my friend, is when the goddess Kali comes back for you. And she always comes back. As humans, we desire safety and security, and we often create pretty little prisons for ourselves. But while our human body seeks safet, our soul seeks to expand. In this episode, we're diving into the wild, liberating and sometimes destructive energy of Kali, the Hindu goddess of transformation and breaking through the status quo. You'll learn her myth and how to recognize her in your own life and how to work with her energy without having to wait for total collapse. Let's dive in.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:59]:

Hello, beautiful ones, and welcome back to the Goddess School podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Marie Rankin. Today I'm diving into the wild, liberating and often destructive energy of the goddess Kali. Now, if you've ever had your life ripped apart, and we'll be talking about this more throughout this episode, like through divorce, job layoff, health crises. But somehow, despite everything you've went through, you actually emerged freer, maybe a little bit more wild and definitely more aligned with self then you've already met the goddess. Now, over the next few weeks, I'm doing an exploration of the Hindu goddesses. Last week we explored Lakshmi. She's the Hindu goddess of beauty, love and abundance and she brings in a lot of that.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:48]:

Like, yes, more. Thank you, energy. But today, today we're going to meet the goddess who comes when you are ready to burn it all down. That's really Kali's realm. And if you are enjoying these goddess explorations, I want to invite you to join us in my substack, this Enchanted Life. And this winter, we're going to be reading Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton, which is all about the Hindu goddesses. It's a great exploration, really looking at their myths, their energetics, their quote qualities, mantra. So if you want to go even deeper into this work, I invite you to join us in substack and there is a link in the show notes.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:29]:

But for now, take a breath, maybe close your eyes. Of course, if you are driving or operating heavy machinery, don't do this. And just take even a moment to imagine what would it feel like to feel free. What if you had the chance to start over, Maybe burn it all down and begin again. Just notice what comes up in your body.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:55]:

You can open your Eyes. And I want to talk a little bit about freedom and the qualities of Kali. Now, most of us wouldn't just burn everything down that we have worked so hard to create, whether that's a relationship, a career, or community, because it's too disruptive, it's too messy. But sometimes these structures that we have worked very hard to build no longer serve us. We're no longer growing, we're no longer evolving. And sometimes they even make us into caricatures of ourselves. And it's time to break free. We might not be able to do it on our own.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:03:36]:

So this is when the goddess Kali comes in. So when big crises want, big things happen. Or I should say, when big things start to tumble down, like divorce, job loss, maybe it's a health diagnosis, maybe it's a breakdown. That just might be the goddess. And no, she's not trying to destroy you. And this is where it gets really interesting, exciting. But she's tearing it down to free you. She uses her beautiful sword of discernment to cut away what no longer serves you.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:04:08]:

So. So you can begin again. So who is Kali? Kali is the Hindu goddess of transformation and breaking through the status quo. She's often depicted as dark blue. She has disheveled hair. There's blood dripping from her mouth. She wears a garland of skulls around her neck. She has a belt of severed arms, and she has a bunch of different weapons.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:04:31]:

She also has baby skeletons hanging from her ears. Now, you might ask, what kind of goddess is this? And she's the one that loves you the most. And she will fight fearlessly for your freedom. So let me tell you a well known Kali myth. According to Hindu mythology, there was a demon named Drakti Bija, who is half buffalo and half demon. This demon had amassed too much power and he was wreaking chaos across the earth and heavens. The three gods of the Hindu trinity, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, couldn't stop the demon because Rakti Bija was immune to all men's powers. Fortunately, however, he was not immune to the power of the goddess.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:05:18]:

So the three gods called upon a powerful warrior, Goddess Durga. But even Durga couldn't defeat him. So she summoned Kali. She summoned her right from her third eye. Kali appeared wild and fearless. She was pure. Unleashed feminine power. Shakti.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:05:40]:

Now, one of the reasons that Rock D Bija could not be defeated was because every time a drop of his blood hit the ground, more demons would arise. So when Kali appeared, she charged at the demon, sliced off his head and drank his blood before it could touch the Earth. She stopped the cycle of replication, and she stopped the chaos. But then, after she defeated the demon, she started dancing. She was dancing wildly, stomping everywhere. She couldn't stop dancing, but her wild stomping was destroying the world. Until Shiva, her consort, her beloved, lay down at her feet. Only then, when she realized that she was about to trample him, did she stop.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:06:24]:

And she went back into Durga's third eye. So that is Kali. She is destruction, but destruction in service of love and freedom. Now, as I mentioned before, for many of us, we don't usually call on Kali when everything is going well, right? That's kind of Lakshmi's territory. When we're looking to optimize and we're looking to cultivate that sense of beauty, love, generosity, she's the one that we start to call upon when we are feeling stuck or when things seem too big, too insurmountable, that we don't even know how we're going to move through. It seems like it's safer just to stay in place. Place. In fact, she comes when safety has actually become a cage.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:07:06]:

And let's be honest, sometimes we craft very pretty prisons for ourselves. Like, do any of these sound familiar? You stay in a relationship because you fear being alone. You stay in a job that is uninspiring because the pay is good. You hold back your creativity because you're afraid of being judged. Now, I don't know about you, but I've answered yes to all of those. But Kali will say, enough. And not in a gentle whisper, but in a roar. And if you don't take matters into your own hands, she's going to do it for you.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:07:41]:

And that's when we see these sudden breakups, layoffs, and health scares. Really puts a lot in perspective for you, right? So when you are going through the muck of it, really thinking what door is opening, what do I have the freedom to do to that I didn't get to do before? What is my higher self calling me? How am I looking to expand? So I want to share a story of how Kali showed up in my life. This is a bit of a vulnerable story, but for me, Kali showed up in the ruins of my marriage. So my marriage had been devolving for years. And I knew it. He knew it. But we stayed for the kids, for stability, for appearances, and just, you know, it's. It's challenging to move on from a marriage, as anyone who has gone through a divorce knows.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:08:33]:

And at the time, it didn't help that I was the sole earner. So I was. I was the breadwinner, the sole financial provider. So I didn't even feel like I had a choice that I couldn't leave. Now, this manifested as a lot of numbing on my part. I would drink wine after work. There'd be late night shopping sprees, these, like, little tiny rebellions to distract me from the unease that I felt in my marriage. I was becoming disconnected from self, anxious and resentful.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:09:03]:

But I felt like I was stuck, that there was nothing I could do. And in fact, I remember sometimes going out with friends for a glass of wine during this time. And we would commiserate together. It was almost like commiseration, connection. And we would share stories about how bad our marriages were. And then it's like, oh, well, maybe nobody's marriage is that good. So we kind of desensitized ourselves to it. And that's actually not good, right? We don't want to desensitize.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:09:28]:

We don't want to settle. We really want to expand and imagine what's possible. But at this time, I was very much in a numbing phase, feeling that I was stuck. And that's when Kali entered the picture and she came in the form. I like to think of it as a catalyst. It is a man who helped me remember what passion felt like and what a relationship could actually look like. This showed me that I couldn't just think about change. I actually had to make a change.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:09:59]:

So my husband and I separated, and we were soon divorced. And you know what? Even though that was one of the more challenging times of my life, almost immediately, the house felt lighter. My kids and I would dance and sing in the kitchen. I started to reclaim my spiritual practice, my rituals. I became a yoga teacher, a writer, a guide, but first had to all fall apart. Honestly, my life looks completely different from what it did 10 years ago, and yet it feels infinitely more aligned with who I am and how I want to move through the world. And that's because of Kali. Now, I sincerely hope that your encounters with Kali don't need to come in the form of divorce.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:41]:

But that's how I experienced her in my life. So that's really what I wanted to share with you. But she does come in these big events. That seems like things are trying to destroy you. But when we change our perspective, we actually see that they are coming to free us, to give us that opportunity to rebuild. So she tears down structures that might be safe, but they're outworn. They're no longer supporting our ultimate evolution. And Kali Though she looks scary, she's the Goddess that loves you the most.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:11:14]:

And she's going to do whatever she can to see you free. And one way that we can prevent these really, really big shifts, like divorce or a big health diagnosis, is to notice how these structures might not be supporting us along the way. So we can be making shifts all of the time, whether it is with our health or with our relationships. But if we don't do it, Kali will come and she will do it for us. So how do you work with Kali energy without having to wait for everything to explode? So I wanted to share a few ways. Now, the first is through rituals and meditation, you can meditate on the Goddess. So if you go online and you do a Google search for Kali, you will see lots of images, lots of iconography, and really take a look, take in her presence, take in that sense of fierceness, and start to see, like, what comes up in your body when you gaze on an image of the Goddess. And as you're doing this and as you're kind of getting this sense of power, freedom, fearlessness, start to consider what in your life needs to be torn down.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:25]:

Where are you looking to have more freedom? And how would that fail? So really spend some time in quiet contemplation, thinking about the energy of the Goddess, the quality of the Goddess, and where you would like to see see those energies percolate in your life. You can spend some time journaling, considering, like, what does freedom mean to me?

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:49]:

Where am I choosing safety over growth?

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:53]:

And what would I do if I wasn't afraid? And I think that these are really big questions to start asking ourselves. But when are you choosing the safety, the status quo, the safe zone over the growth zone? Because, you know, our human bodies, they like to say safe, but our souls really want us to evolve and also pay attention to the chaos in your life. What is going on? Are you having repeated fights in your relationship? Do things keep happening at your job? And really start to ask yourself, could this be Kali clearing space? What is this asking of me? So we find Kali, and that's kind of the feminine as well, is this wild chaos. So look at the chaos in your life. That's where the Goddess is. What is she telling you there? Now, Kali doesn't want your obedience. Actually, that's a concept that I've been working with a lot lately. So stay tuned.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:13:50]:

More on sacred disobedience. But Kylie doesn't want you just to follow the rules. She wants your liberation. She wants freedom. She wants you to step out of the box and approach life in a way that's your soul is calling for. So if your life is burning down and old structures are crumbling, don't panic. You can thank the Goddess and really consider who might I become if I no longer had to hold it all together. So thank you for listening and I hope this episode gave you a lot to think about.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:14:24]:

About maybe about times in the past when things seem to have been crumbling and when what space that actually created for you and even now in the present where you are seeking, desiring more freedom. And again, if you are enjoying this exploration of the Hindu Goddess, I invite you to join us inside this Enchanted Life, my substack community, where over the next few months we're going to be reading Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton and really exploring these energies a bit further in community. So the link for that is in the show notes. And until next time, beautiful ones. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Goddess School podcast. I hope it sparked your imagination and expanded your vision for what's possible. If you're ready to explore these concepts more deeply, reclaim your personal myth and live with greater creativity and enchantment, I know invite you to join me inside Enlivened my Divine Feminine Mystery School and Sacred Community where we bring these teachings to life through ritual, story coaching and of course, real world action. You can find the link to learn more in the show notes.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:15:38]:

And remember, the Goddess isn't a deity outside of yourself. She's an aspect of your highest self. You are the Goddess. Until next time, Sam.