For some unknown reason, I was having regular nightmares involving large hairy spiders. I had only been on my spiritual path for a few short years and I began waking in sweats, often shaking violently with fear, for a reason beyond my comprehension. These would most often appear in the form of many deadly poisonous spiders roaming in my vicinity, in dreams, while carrying on with everyday activities with my loved ones. Sometimes, I was under personal attack but mostly they were simply present, a sort of ever present possibility of death and/or eminent threat unseen by any but I in my dreams.

In time this progressed until I was being attacked by a giant spider in my dreams who was attempting to ‘eat’ me whole. One particular night, I dreamt that I was being attacked by the giant hairy spider, only this time it was much larger than before and the head of the creature had changed. Instead of the usual multi-eyed facets of an arachnid, I saw the dark face of a violently rapturous female with her tongue extended. It was a very vampiric looking sight, but one that I vaguely recognized. Having delved into modern neo-paganism over the recent past, it would be impossible for me to have not ever heard of the name Kali or see her image. This was one of the most frightening things I think I could have seen, for no other deity in any pantheon seemed so vile and abhorrent to me. In my mind, it was such archetypal symbols which had so far kept me from even considering looking seriously into neither Hinduism nor its mythology for anything relevant to my life though I was curious. Thus, at this time in my life I knew very little of Mother Kali, as I have come to know her today. At the time, I perceived her as equivalent to the male-hating women who considered their dominance of men as female empowerment, and oddly enough I have actually learnt of at least one organization which uses Her name as their guide which is also based on the BDSM scene. While I have not studied them, I cannot say if they themselves or their male initiates are guided to higher spiritual awareness or not. I am likely to encounter them once this is made public. However, I deemed Kali as the type of female that would hatefully castrate men for sheer pleasure alone as retribution for all the atrocities committed against women by men. During this dream, she was attempting to eat me bodily but was also communicating with me psychically. In this communication, she was stating what I have come to learn that her traditional image represents. Basically, Kali said, “Come to. Give yourself to me completely. Do not fear. There is no such thing as death as you think. Death is only transformation. In order to create, one must first destroy old things. Fear not, for I will guide you. Your fear is what makes me appear as you see me. Your fear is what makes this more difficult on you than it has to be. Let go, accept Me and accept the process of transformative liberation.”. While this is not verbatim, it is the basic meaning of what I ‘heard’ in my mind, in this dream. I even remember that at one time she pointed out her spinneret and informed me that she must devour me in order to create something beautiful from me. She also claimed that She had created the entire universe the same way and that She aides many beings through the same process she was now guiding me. Needless to say, I was horrified!

It took many months before I decided to accept that Kali was an energetic force that I would simply ‘have’ to contend with though I knew not what this would mean. During this time I began an attempt to locate as much information as I could find on Her, which was mostly repetition of only a few simple concepts on the Internet and books were rare and difficult to locate. Eventually, through the combination of research and personal events I came to better understand what ‘might’ be taking place. I began to see this much like a rock might witness a sculptor, hammer and chisel in hand, who pounds the rock to bring out the ‘art’ inside. The rock may initially see this as brutal and violent and fear contact with the sculptor’s instruments until it is made aware of what it will become. I believe human Awareness can be seen this way by analogy at least.

[For more information on where this has taken me, please also watch my SPIDER WISDOM site. This site is also a work in progress!]