Soul Wisdom is a weekly newsletter. Please feel free to share parts of this letter that connect with you, or send to someone you love. A special shout out to all the new subscribers who joined since the last newsletter. Thank you for valuing my work when there are so many things that can take your attention online. I appreciate you. It means everything. 🖤
Work 1:1 With Me
As an Intuitive Life Coach I guide you on the most sacred pilgrimage you’ll ever go on—from your head, to your heart, to your soul.
I support you in navigating your inner world as you move through the complexities of life.
Souls come to me when they’re feeling stagnant and yearning something deeper from life.
Soul Circle
Soul Circle is a monthly group space I’ve created where you’ll connect more deeply with me and other like-hearted souls.
I’ll teach on different soul-led topics,
do live Q&A with you,
and share some poetry.
Next one is Wednesday 26th June at 6PM BST (replay will be available).
How She Found Me
Note: I am not a scholar, historian, or expert on this topic. I am simply a humble seeker sharing my journey as best I can.
I was in a medicine ceremony.
I looked down at the altar and saw four oracle decks.
One of them was about Kali.
Initially I wasn’t drawn to her.
For whatever reason a part of my being wasn’t ready to pick up that deck and review what was inside yet.
Maybe subconsciously I was afraid.
The next day I decided to randomly shuffle the deck and picked one out.
Surprise surprise, it was just what I needed to hear in that moment—a solution for a problem that had been troubling my soul was being provided when I couldn’t see it myself.
“This oracle guides you to allow divine intervention to support you during the battles taking place in your life or your mind. If you feel that darkness is gaining higher ground, and your ability to trust in the face of the unknown is being challenged, fear not. Durga Kalika arises when we have an unusually difficult challenge and the ways we usually support ourselves are insufficient to deal with these circumstances effectively.”
I exhaled.
It was nice to know I was being held by her. I didn’t have to do this on my own. There was an invisible guiding hand.
She’d found me.
Maybe I was ready to be found.
Maybe I was ready to accept help and she’d been waiting for me all along.
Maybe she’d been helping me the whole time and I just wasn’t ready to understand yet.
Either way, I didn't need to be afraid anymore.
I could feel the seeds of deep devotion and a new faith rising.
Who is God?
“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” - Rumi
My definition of God has certainly evolved and shifted over time.
I grew up in a Hindu home and it was normal to have statues of Ganesh, Krishna, Hanuman, and Amba Ma (a form of Durga popularly worshipped in Gujarat). I initially thought these were beings sitting up in the Sky judging our every move. I was confused as to why there were so many and not just one.
Why did others only referred to God as “him”?
Why did we have males and females?
Why were they here?
Who created them?
What did it all mean?
I didn’t really get any clear answers to my questions. My curiosity continued to heighten as I entered my 20s.
After years of reading, meditating, doing plant medicine journeys, and speaking to lots of people, this is where I have currently landed:
The Gods and Goddesses are a manifestation of an energy in a higher dimension. There is only ONE source of energy from which all emanates. However, it goes by many names and faces in order to provide multiple paths for the variety of souls who incarnate on this planet. We each have different tendencies and attitudes toward life based on past lives. One approach might work for one person and not for another. One approach may work in one chapter of your life and then you may be drawn to another later on in life. I have been drawn to different manifestations of God based on what energy I needed to call into my life at that time. God can manifest in infinite forms because it is ALL OF THEM.
There are multiple dimensions to reality.
We are currently perceiving the one that our five senses allow.
There are many realities beyond this one.
Its like a fish swimming in water—it doesn’t know that its in water because it is so natural and yet there is a whole world that exists outside of it.
Masculine and feminine energy is what the world is made of.
The masculine is the still empty form—Shiva. The feminine is the movement, the power, the force, that brings still matter to life—Shakti. She breathes vibrancy and life into stagnant creation. She creates something from nothing.
Together they form the perfect unity.
In my book Searching in Silence I wrote this poem:
the boy sat quietly on his bed one evening
and reflected on the concept of god.
it seemed everyone thought of god as a man
sitting in a room upstairs in the sky watching over us
at all times from birth to death,
and then we either go to meet him or
we go to meet his enemy, the devil,
but the boy felt this idea was rather odd,
If there was a man in the sky why could no one see him?
and why is he called “him” and not “her”?
then a thought entered his heart;
what if god wasn’t a person after all,
but an experience inside each of us?
a great feeling of joy gushed into his veins
as he tasted a glimpse of who he really was.
—page 34, Searching in Silence
The Divine Mother
“Kali provides the experiences through which we can grow the courage confidence, and skilfulness we need to acknowledge the underlying pain and heal it. In clearing that pain, our hearts become freer, and our minds more open. Access to divine wisdom can become more effortless as a result. So, Kali makes the path to awakening more direct.” - Alana Fairchild
Ma Kali is an ancient Hindu Goddess.
“Ma” means Mother and “Kali” means Darkness/Time/Death.
Although I grew up in a Hindu house, Ma Kali was never spoken about. Whenever she was, it was always with a feeling of caution and fear. We certainly didn’t have any statues or images of her. No one really understood her, they assumed she was violent because she looked so fierce so they kept a distance.
If you take the picture on face value it does look violent and gory, but there is a spiritual significance to what it represents.
One story about how Kali came to be is this:
Goddess Durga had faced a particularly tough demon called Raktabija. Each drop of his blood created another demon, so if you tried to kill him he would reproduce. Durga had to create a particularly fierce and wild manifestation of her energy to defeat this demon. The fierce Kali was born. Her long tongue swallows and wipes all the demon’s blood before it hits the ground.
In the last 12 months I felt a divine reverence growing within me—a lotus slowly blossoming.
A divine truth can be revealed at any time in your life.
What you learn from your parents, society, teachers, media, isn’t necessarily true. They are inherited thoughts, beliefs, and actions based on the past. Unless someone pauses and reflects on whether they want to do things differently, the same cycles will continue over and over.
Kali is the one who can break these cycles.
The path of a true seeker is one of curiosity. They naturally feel drawn to discovering their own truth. They want to make sense of this world in their own way.
She is a Tantric Goddess.
Tantra is a Sanskrit term which loosely translates to “technique”. It is a technique of worship said to be ideal for a time in humanity that is heavy. Where darker forces are present and the battle between light and dark is intensified.
This battle isn’t necessarily just an external one, but an internal one.
What goes on inside of us, will eventually manifest outside of us. It is a Universal Law.
“As within so without.” - Hermes Trismegistus, The Kybalion
Tantra is the path of self-purification—the process of removing false identities within yourself.
It is a daily battle between toxic and unhealthy behaviour patterns within ourselves and others. We must break free from the shackles of the past and be born again into a space of love. Each time we transcend to a new version of ourselves we’re moving a little more closely to love and deepening our connection and presence of the divine on Earth.
The above image is the typical image we mostly see of Kali. However, she does have multiple forms. Her other most popular forms are the Dasa Mahavidya “The Ten Wisdom Goddesses”. They are extremely potent portals of change and transformation.
This is the spiritual significance I feel Kali represents:
She is an alchemist. She can transform the dark into light. She can digest anything and everything.
Her tongue out represents being intentional about what you say and what you eat. Being aware of what goes in and out of your body and your life.
Her wild hair represents the untamed and authentic beauty of expression.
The skulls around her neck represent all the past and future versions of you that are dying and being reborn.
Kali is standing on a form of Shiva because the masculine and feminine need to connect to create unity. She is the force, the power, the life, that is breathed into the material. Without her, the world would be stagnant. She is the overflowing, ever-changing, life force.
The demon head in her hand shows her ability to cut off the life from negative power structures in society and within ourselves.
In hindsight, I felt she may have had her hand on my shoulder the last 12 years as I feel like I have been in a portal of transformation.
Since my medicine journey last year I bought a copy of Alana Fairchild’s Kali Oracle deck and have been working regularly with it on most days.
I believe it was her grace that carried me safely to my next destination each step of the way. Its like she drops in on the part of the battlefield where you’re worn out, exhausted, and have used all your existing weapons and nothing is working.
A fierce devotion began to arise in my heart towards her in a way that I have never felt before. A divine reverence and trust. Fear began to be tamed. I have noticed how my faith has levelled up in life.
I now see obstacles placed on my path as divinely placed by her.
Why?
Because it gives me a choice to place my faith in her.
As I lean into her it deepens my connection and closeness to her.
She is teaching me to surrender in new ways. To learn to trust life fully. To be absorbed in the flow so that I become a vehicle for her. The more I open myself to her the less I see a difference between me and her. I am her and she is me. We are one. Any Shakti (power) I am blessed with through her raises my consciousness and uplift those around me for the highest good. In this way, by working on myself, I am working on behalf of others too.
As Ram Dass once said, “Suffering is grace.”
I get it now.
Maybe I started this journey withe her in some past life, who knows. But I feel I am continuing a journey I started long ago.
Deep Surrender
The nature of surrender means being put into situations where your faith will be tested, grown, expanded, and stretched. You cannot really learn to truly surrender unless you’re put into a position where you have no choice but to rely on faith. To believe that something can happen from nothing.
I’ve had many instances where I’ve had to let go of where I currently was at the time to trust that the way will be shown because I had no idea of what to do.
Letting go is hard because we don’t want to leave the familiar. We will only do so to the extent that it feels safe. We control how we let go, for how long, and in what way, and in what areas of life.
To fully surrender though, the ego must be entirely suspended.
This is the deep spiritual practise of dancing with the divine. You must recognise that it is by Her grace that these things are unfolding in your life to bring you closer to Her.
The more you practise surrender, the easier it gets to trust that you’re being held.
Surrender is a spiritual muscle that has to be exercised. If you’re able to master it you will be able to hold a bigger and expansive life in your mind, body, and spirit as She has more space to flow through you.
Surrendering is in this way is a spiritual art.
Prayer
If you’re going through a struggle right now where you can’t see your path ahead clearly then you may find some solace in the words I spontaneously wrote below for myself:
Ma Kali I give you, I gift you, all of my worries and fears about how things will work out and what will happen. You have chosen this path for me because it is meant to deepen my faith. If I always had something to rely on I would not have my faith tested, stretched, or expanded. You are doing this to bring me closer to you. There is wisdom in everything that is unfolding even when I don’t see it in this moment. I trust you can see everything so you are doing what is for my highest good and for the good of all. I trust you. I love you. Jai Ma Kali!
Next week on Soul Wisdom…
If you suffer from overthinking or anxiety, this will be for you.
Here’s a snippet:
You know what I’ve realised recently?
Happiness is a perspective—it is a choice I make every single day.
It sounds so silly and simple.
But as my spiritual mentor once said, “Simplicity is the best form of sophistication.”
One love 🖤
V
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