Retreat in November, Kali Power

Give yourself the gift of time and attention

My gal Kali

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

-Wendell Berry, “To Know the Dark”

Greetings, writers,

The equinox just tipped us into the darkening season, and I am trying to let go of the light so that I might, as Wendell Berry says, find that bloom and sing that can be the gifts of these proto-wintery seasons. It’s only mild, lovely autumn at the moment, the gentle balance of Libra, but by early November, we will be full-on within the season of Scorpio, which is Kali time for sure. Scorpio is about going deep; it’s about death; it’s about psychological probing, turning inwards, meeting our deepest fears about being unlovable, not good enough, not having enough. And, when we bravely go “down there” and meet these fears, sit with them as if they weren’t monsters until they cease to be, we rise like the phoenix, or the Scorpion Golden Eagle, and we are given the gift of sight.

Sign up for Kali Retreat!

Kali, unlike some of her Hindu goddess colleagues, is not a lovely vision of refinement and beauty. Instead, she’s rather grotesque, usually depicted with the blue face of death, her tongue sticking out and a necklace of skulls around her neck. As my yoga teacher and dear friend Sara Rose explained, “She wears her insides on her outsides.” (In the fall of 2016, I came to think of her as the original “Nasty Woman.”)

She’s the goddess of death, of dissolution, of decay. She’s the goddess of time, too, and when we see deeply, we see how beneficial she is. Think of the leaves of Autumn, which fall to the ground, preparing the soil for new growth of the Spring.

I get that if there were no death, this planet would be even more hopelessly overpopulated than it is now, though knowing this in theory doesn’t make it any easier when we lose someone we love. And while I struggle with my perennial story––there’s never enough time––in truth, our time limitations are tremendous gifts, because they force us to make choices. It’s within the framework of these choices that we see what really matters to us. It’s within this construct that we live our lives.

So, during the weekend of November 3-5, I invite you to spend your time at Little Blue (or in the quiet of your own house if you want to attend virtually) at my Autumn Retreat. We will write together, bringing forth our inner Kali, and forge the kind of bond you only get when you are brave enough to share deeply. You will emerge refreshed and renewed and reminded again about how much you love to write.

(If you come in person, I will also feed you delicious, healthy, writer-sustaining food).

This is just what the NaNoWriMo writer and/or the 30 Poems in November poet needs to get ready for the big month of writing. More below! I hope to see you here, and if not in November, in January, when we’re doing a five-day New Year’s Retreat to kick off 2024.

Much love to you all. Brave that darkness.

Nerissa