When I gather graveyard dirt, I first spend some time at the entrance of the graveyard. I leave nine pennies for Oya and offerings of rum. A quick pour from a flask is good for this, especially if there are other people going in and out of the area who may be curious about what you are doing. I mentally ask permission to enter the area for the purpose of gathering dirt and honoring the dead. At times I will get a negative feeling, unease, or other emotions that signal it’s either not a good time or this is not a place I should be taking earth from. If you get that feeling, listen to it and go. When I feel the offering has been accepted, only then do I enter. A breeze or gust of wind can be taken as a favorable response from Oya. Spend some time walking and talking to the spirits here. Leave more pennies and rum at any place you take dirt from, and only if you feel you have permission to do so. When you leave, give another offering of rum to Oya at the entrance. It is also thought that it is a good idea to make at least three stops before returning home and to take a different route home than the way you came, in order to confuse any spirits who may have tried to follow you.31
Once you have obtained your dirt, keep it in a sealed jar or bottle. You can mix your dirt with herbs if you wish or add it to other mixtures when you are ready to use it. Mullein is also connected to Oya, and you can mix some of this crushed herb in with the dirt as well.
Oya Powder
Use this powder to call on Oya in any kind of battle or struggle. Graveyard dirt can be used in this, but to overcome battles I like to use dirt collected from a courthouse if possible. Leaving offerings to Oya when you collect it is also a good idea.
You Will Need:
Mullein
Graveyard dirt (or dirt collected from a courthouse)
Juniper berries
Magnolia leaves (bay can be substituted)
Salt
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and then hold your hands over it, seeing Oya as a whirling tornado. Say,
Oya!
Storms come at your call
Whirling, fierce warriors
Bring me victory
Oya!
Lady of the winds and storms
Oya, aid me in my own battles!
Store the mixture in a jar until you need to use it.
Oya Protection Talisman
Magnolia cones (the seed pods shed from the tree like a pine cone) are thought to have protective qualities. It is thought you can put them under the bed to attract love as well. Tied with red thread along the stem, they can be used as a protective charm for a home. If you are from the South where the tree grows, you are more than likely familiar with these cones, though if you live in the North, you may want to substitute another item for the cones if you cannot locate one from a store or purchase one online.
You Will Need:
Dragon’s blood oil
Purple or dark-colored candle
Oya powder
Magnolia cone
Paper plate or newspaper
Red string
Rub a few drops of the oil on the candle. I like to use dragon’s blood oil for extra energy in protection work, but you can substitute another oil if you wish. Make sure the candle is covered, and then roll it in the Oya powder. Light the candle on Oya’s altar and leave an offering to her, asking her to protect your home. Leave the candle on the altar and light it for a few minutes each night for nine days. When you are ready, on the ninth day take the candle from the altar, light what is left, and drip it on the magnolia cone. Be sure to do this over a paper plate or some newspaper to avoid a mess. Move the cone around so that wax covers the whole surface with a light layer. Set it down to dry. Wrap the stem of the cone with red string or fabric and hang near the doorway of your home.
Spell to Oya for Protection against Storms
You Will Need:
Rum
9 pennies
You can burn a candle if you wish but do not need to do so. I might do this before I travel, when I’m traveling and there is bad weather, or when a particularly bad storm is on its way. Pour the rum in an offering bowl or vessel you have designated for Oya. Before you pour it, taste a tiny bit of it, signifying you have made sure the offering is good enough for the gods and not bad in any way.
See Oya standing before you. See her holding her hands up to the storm; where her hands move, the winds move. She controls the storm. Say,
Oya! Lady of the winds!
Lady of the storm, hear me!
See the storm clearly in your head. I like to visualize a weather map, like the ones you would see on the news, and imagine the storm either dissipating into nothing or moving in another direction away from me. Hold that image of it moving or dissolving clearly in your mind. Say,
Oya!
Move the winds!
They still and calm at your command
They blow away from me and mine at your command
I am safe from the storm
Those I love are safe from the storm
It is no more
She who tears
Tear the storm apart!
It is no more!
End with moving your hands in a cutting motion, seeing Oya ripping apart the energy and power fueling the storm.
Leave Oya the nine pennies as an offering.
[contents]
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30. Stephanie Rose Bird, Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo & Conjuring with Herbs (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2004), pp. 114–15.
31. Denise Alvarado, Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook (San Francisco: Red Wheel, 2011), p. 223.
10
Kali
You find yourself on a wide, parched plain. All around you the ground is dry and split where the dirt is particularly hard and devoid of water. Sparse trees dot the landscape here and there, their branches dried and bare. There are others with you, though you do not have time to look to see who they are. All you know is you are tired to the bone, and you are losing. A battle is being fought. You and the people around you take turns rushing and then backing safely away from a horrible creature that stands defiantly in the center of the wasteland. It is a demon, its skin red as fire, its eyes sunken and fangs protruding from its mouth like tusks.
It is your turn to rush the creature, and you take a few hurried steps forward with your sword raised. The demon seems to sense how unsure you are of yourself and laughs at you, taunting you to strike at it. And you do, sword extended before you, take an angry swing at the creature. You, like the others, are only willing to get close enough to wound one of the demon’s many limbs, but not close enough to deliver a deathblow. It laughs again when the sword slices through an arm and a long line of blood stains the ground. You back away to where the others circle, knowing what will happen next. The blood no sooner hits the ground than it begins to transform. It bubbles and steams, and figures soon begin to grow and grow from each droplet of blood. The new demons waste no time in attacking you and the others who fight with you. You fight alongside the others until the new demons lay lifeless on the ground. Their blood may not spawn more of their own kind, but the great red-skinned creature before you will. You are not sure how many times you or the others have wounded him, but no matter how many cuts you make, you are worn down by the attack of the creatures spawned by it. If only someone would dare to strike without hesitation, then perhaps a true deathblow would destroy the creature. But neither you nor the others with you are willing to risk how many demons would be unleashed with such a deep bloody blow. Keeping the demon surrounded and at bay is all you can hope for it seems.
Another steps forward and delivers another slash across an arm, and the cycle continues. But this time the red-skinned demon does not stand still, content to watch as the smaller demons attack. Perhaps it has become bored, or maybe it was playing with you the entire time. Whatever the reason, the demon begins to attack the others who have been helping
you with ruthless abandon. And you realize that soon you will be standing alone, that this creature has just been toying with you and will annihilate everything you care about.
Fear begins to change into anger, a bright fury that rises up from the very soles of your feet and begins to fill you. This ends here. This ends now. No more fighting and then backing down. No more mercy or compromises. You will win this time. Because there are no more alternatives. You will win, because you have to. Somehow this certainty negates all the fears you had before. And you realize it has not been the fear of the demon that has been holding you back, but your fear of losing and what it would cost you. Now there is no choice left. You must succeed at any cost, or you will lose everything. And there is something liberating about that thought. No more holding back.
As you think that, you feel your very skin ripping and pulling away. It is not painful, but it is as if that swelling, brilliant, defiant rage has taken on a life of its own. And it is too large to be contained by your own form. The old you slides off you like a snake shedding a skin, and you find you begin to grow and grow. You have many arms, all holding weapons, and your skin is as black as the night sky. The rage swells up within you but it comes pouring out of your mouth as laughter.
This makes the demon pause and look in your direction. You do not hesitate as you did before. Lightning fast, you are upon the demon, swords and many arms slashing and fighting with a force of determination you have never felt before. And you see the slightest bit of fear in the demon’s eyes. Drops of his blood flow to the ground, but you continue to fight both him and the smaller demons that his blood summons. Then suddenly you know how you can beat him.
You bend your head down, almost as if you embrace the demon or kiss it. But instead you sink your teeth into the skin of his neck. It screams for the first time, trying to get away from you. But you hold the demon close, your many arms embracing it in a macabre hug. And you drink and you drink. You drink in the demon’s blood and with it its power. It grows smaller and smaller as you do so, until you drink the last drop and it vanishes.
The demon defeated and gone, you begin to dance and stomp the ground in a wild, mad dance. But soon you feel the shape of your old self returning. The skin you shed before battling the demon comes back around you. You blink, looking at your hands and finding yourself back to normal, but before you still stands the black-skinned, tall, many-armed being that your rage summoned forth. She looks at you and smiles. She is naked save for a garland of skulls around her neck. Her skin is as black as the night sky devoid of stars, and her lips are crimson red, still stained with the blood of the demon. She is awe-inspiring, terrifying, and beautiful at the same time. And you realize that the power you called forth was something divine. The spark that ignited in you called forth Kali, just as Durga and others have summoned the fierce goddess from the depth of their souls.
“I am destruction, I am release. I am joyful and terrible in my dance, for I am without fear. I have no bridle holding me back from doing what is necessary. When we allow fear to rule our hearts, we cripple our ability to achieve our goals. Fear of action prevents action. We fight with one hand tied behind our backs and wonder why we fail. Do not fear. Let your rage and will fill you, and I will come.”
She begins to dance, and as she does, the carnage around you begins to change. The barren landscape begins to grow green and lush again and all traces of the demon vanish.
“Do not limit yourself, do not hold back. Dance and rage, and I will dance with you.”
Kali inspires both terror and awe. She is portrayed holding a severed head in one hand, a sword in another, and her tongue sticking out dripping with blood. She wears a leopard skin with the severed arms of her enemies as a skirt, and destroys demons the other gods cannot vanquish. In some depictions her skin is ink black, her face and eyes sunken, and body gaunt. Kali means “dark-colored” and is related to kala, meaning “time” in Sanskrit.32 Given her connection to death, battlefields, and the cremation ground, she becomes the inevitability of time, the one thing no one can escape.
In the Hindu tradition the earliest references to Kali come from the sixth century CE, where she is associated with battlefields as well as the fringes of Hindu society. In Southern India there is a story told about how Kali terrorized a wood, and the people asked Shiva to protect them. Shiva began to dance and the two engaged in a dance contest, which Shiva won. This could possibly represent Shiva’s dominance over a local goddess cult. Later in the eighth century Kali is identified with Shiva’s consort Parvati. In one story Shiva calls her Kali (“the black one”) because of her dark complexion. Upset over this, Parvati undertakes austerities in order to get rid of her dark complexion. The dark “sheath” she sheds turns into Kali, while Parvati is renamed Gauri (“golden one”). Kali is better known as springing forth into existence from the forehead of the goddess Durga, being a manifestation of her divine wrath. The myth of her springing from Durga’s forehead may have been an attempt to integrate one form of the goddess with another. As different sects evolved they may have tried to attract these devotees by associating Kali and Durga with their sects. In both stories Kali emerges from another goddess, hinting that her power is something within us all, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
While Kali has many epithets, the most telling about her nature is Kali Ma, Ma meaning “mother.” She drinks blood, and more than any other aspect of the Divine Feminine in Hinduism, she stands up and refuses to be ignored. Yet she is still a mother: scholars note, “Whatever her appearance, Kali’s devotees look to her as a Mother. She enables them to face up to their innermost fears of death and disorder and by overcoming their fears they progress further on the path.” 33 While two of her four hands (at times she has as many as eighteen) hold weapons, one is usually held out, palm up, in a gesture of blessing while the other forms the mudra “fear not.”
As the divine personification of Durga’s wrath, Kali is essential to killing one demon in particular. When the demon Raktabija was wounded, his blood created more demons. Although Durga and the other gods had no trouble wounding him, they were soon overwhelmed fighting the demons spawned from their efforts. The tale is included in the Devi-Mahatmya in verses 8.57–60:
Then Kali drank Raktabija’s blood with her mouth. …
The blow of his club caused her not even the slightest pain. And from his stricken body wherever blood flowed copiously, there Camunda [Kali] swallowed it with her mouth. The Camunda devoured those great asuras who sprang up from the flow of blood in her mouth, and drank his (Raktabija’s) blood.34
Kali became drunk on the demon’s blood and began a mad killing dance. There are various versions of how Shiva was able to calm her. In one Shiva lay prone on the battlefield until she stepped on him. When she danced upon him, she recognized him as her husband and her madness ceased. In another version Shiva transformed into a child, snapping her out of her bloodlust at the sound of his cries, and she picked up the child to comfort it.
Similarly, there is a story of a band of thieves whose leader wanted to make a saintly monk a human sacrifice to Kali. When he brought the monk before a statue of the goddess, it began to burn, and the goddess emerged from the statue, killing the thieves and drinking their blood while sparing the monk. In both stories Kali is the destroyer of evil, taking quick action against those who threaten the stability of order. They also point to her fondness of drinking blood and being offered it by her followers.
Divine Rage
Kali, more than any other aspect of the Divine Feminine within Hinduism, personifies power and rage. She is at times gaunt, her eyes sunken in, blood covering her tongue. Yet she still glories in the inevitability of the destruction she brings with her, unashamed of her fierce appearance. The rage she unleashes on the battlefield is without equal among the gods, and it is only she who can defeat the demons they fail to slay. Despite all the bloodlust, and her madness from drinking demon’s blood, she
is still a mother, her destruction ending when she hears a child’s cry. While we tend to think of rage and anger or really any show of force to be a negative thing, Kali shows us that sometimes rage can be divine. Sometimes it is needed to win our battles.
We are taught to keep our emotions in check. For women, expressing anger is frowned upon and usually chalked up to being a “bitch” or being unfeminine. Unless it is an emotion that is within the realm of “nurturing,” it is often unacceptable. On the other end of the spectrum, men are taught to show no emotions at all, which can be just as harmful and unrealistic. We are all human. We all have emotions that run the gambit from love, rage, hate, and happiness to everything in between. Kali’s untamable abandon in all she does reminds us that femininity is not limited to passive emotions. She is rage, battle, and destruction. She is divine rage.
That rage can be a healthy emotion, a divine one even, can be difficult to embrace. Some of my first magickal teachers always stressed that magick should never be done when you felt angry, that you were off center in such a state. Every situation is different, but when you have a real reason to be angry, when you are truly pissed off, there isn’t a moment that you aren’t more completely in your skin and powerfully focused on a goal. It’s in those moments that our focus is razor sharp; our will has a force behind it as strong as Kali’s blade. It is also not the kind of anger that blinds us from thinking critically or rationally. Kali is born from Durga’s divine rage, her wrath that knows that only through unleashing that most destructive part of herself can she save all that she loves.
Dark Goddess Craft Page 13
