Kali Dreamer
Serena Kali Devi
As I exhaled my bong load I melted to nothing warped into another dimension. I had no thought or life. I was no longer human. My life no longer existed, I had forgotten everything I've ever know. Gone... Once I was quickly and completely out of body, transported into hyperspace, Hindu goddess, Kali, the 'Dark Mother', took me on a magical vivid journey of colors, textures and mystical places. Everything was very colorful, and vibrant. She seductively gestured me to follow her, I followed with pleasure. She was mostly woman as she guided me, but as scenary changed so did her shape. From tigress to serpent she had me hypnotized showing me a world more beautiful than words can describe. Colors were exploding, dripping and splashing I could feel them and taste them. There was a distinct sound, a buzz, a vibration. I interpenetrated this vibration as the words "look", "see" and "follow" comforting me and rapidly repeating. There was a melting feeling, a melting feeling that took over my body made me feel wet, soaked. Not that my solid body matter was wet (because I was 'out of body'), but that I was water, a liquid matter. I flowed, following her though the universe, though her temple and I also flowed through her as blood in her veins. Vision after vision I fell deeper and deeper into her trance. But, once I hit my absolute peak, when I felt as if I reached the point of no return, a thought finally arose in my head. I slightly remembered physical self and without words questioned "wtf is going on?". Once I asked myself that i kinda remembered that this journey started because I took a drug. Then I remembered that I'm in a room of people being completely silent, patiently waiting for their turn, carefully watching me go through this experience. Once I recognized, realized and remembered my existence, the vivid images began to fade and an upside down triangle appeared. I tunneled though the portal of triangles back into reality. Finally I was somewhat able to see the real world around me. I looked up at my friends and all I could say was "wow" and also asked if i had pee'd myself (cuz of the wet feeling LOL). Slowly coming out of my trip, I laid back down to enjoy the rest of what she had to show me. The ceiling was now visible, but I could still see thousands of Kali's in patterns kaleidoscoping in my vision. The kaleidoscopic of her was rhythmically circling/ moving side to side as if it were a dance and wave goodbye. The intricate patterns began to blur and the colors blended as energy in the air. I finally stood up to let someone else take my place on the air bed for their trip. My body high was fading but I could still see and feel the pink, purple, blue and green energy pumping though the room and the friends accompanying me. This lasted for several more minutes after i had awaken.
My friends told me that I laid there in my trip for about 12 minutes. They also said my eyes were wide open the whole time. I sat there trying to answer their questions of what I saw or remembered, but at that moment my brain was still barely processing the experience. Even today, I'm still mentally downloading what happened. There is so much more that I saw which I cant find the words explain and still don't even understand. But each minute that has passed since my trip, I've been able to better understand what was being shown to me. The most interesting part about my trip is that, before this experience I had no knowledge of Kali. Ive been doing my research on her and the more I'm learning about her, the more in love with her I fall and the more pure and true my experience with her becomes. I now feel a nurturing protection of her watching over me. I've gained a sense of enlightenment and a more free spirit. In my real world, life has been hard, but I suddenly feel at peace with the world. My experience with her has so much meaning in my life, I decided have her symbol, the Kali Yantra, tattooed on my back. Here is some more info on Kali and the Kali Yantra:
* Kali the Goddess: Gentle Mother, Fierce Warrior
"Kali is one of the most well known and worshipped Hindu Goddesses. The name Kali is derived from the Hindu word that means "time", and that also means "black". Kali in Hinduism, is a manifestation of the Divine Mother, which represents the female principle. Frequently, those not comprehending her many roles in life call Kali the goddess of destruction. She destroys only to recreate, and what she destroys is sin, ignorance and decay. She is equated with the eternal night, is the transcendent power of time, and is the consort of the god Shiva. It is believed that its Shiva who destroys the world, and Kali is the power or energy with which Shiva acts. Therefore, Kali is Shiva's shakti, without which Shiva could not act.
Kali receives her name because she devours kala (Time) and then resumes her own dark formlessness. This transformative effect can be metaphorically illustrated in the West as a black hole in space. Kali as such is pure and primary reality (the "enfolded order" in modern physics); formless void yet full of potential.
Kali is a great and powerful black earth Mother Goddess capable of terrible destruction and represents the most powerful form of the female forces in the Universe. Worship of the Goddess Kali is largely an attempt to appease her and avert her wrath. The Goddess Kali constantly drinks blood. She has an insatiable thirst for blood. As mistress of blood, she presides over the mysteries of both life and death. Kali intends her bloody deeds for the protection of the good. She may get carried away by her gruesome acts but she is not evil. Kali's destructive energies on the highest level are seen as a vehicle of salvation and ultimate transformation. Kali is the central deity of Time. She created the world and destroys it. She is beyond time and space. After the destruction of the Universe, at the end of the great cycle, she collects the seeds of the next creation. She destroys the finite to reveal the Infinite. This Black Goddess is death, but to the wise she is also the death of death. This can only be revealed through the worship of Kali, and meditation on her mysteries. To her worshippers in both Hinduism and Tantra she represents a multi-faceted Great Goddess responsible for all of life from conception to death. Her worship, therefore, consists of fertility festivals as well as sacrifices (animal and human); and her initiations expand one's consciousness by many means, including fear, ritual sexuality and intoxication with a variety of drugs.
Her three forms are manifested in many ways: in the three divisions of the year, the three phases of the moon, the three sections of the cosmos (heaven, earth, and the underworld), the three stages of life, the three trimesters of pregnancy, and so on. Women represent her spirit in mortal flesh.
The Goddess Kali is represented as black in color. Black in the ancient Hindu language of Sanskrit is kaala. The feminine form is kali. So she is Kali, the black one. Black is a symbol of The Infinite and the seed stage of all colors. The Goddess Kali remains in a state of inconceivable darkness that transcends words and mind. Within her blackness is the dazzling brilliance of illumination. Kali's blackness symbolizes her all-embracing, comprehensive nature, because black is the color in which all the colors merge; black absorbs and dissolves them.On the other hand, black is said to represent the total absence of color, again signifying the nature of Kali as ultimate reality. This in Sanskrit, the color black is named as Nirguna (beyond all quality and form). Either way, kali's black colour symbolizes her transcendence of all form.
Despite Kali's origins in battle, she evolved to a full-fledged symbol of Mother Nature in her creative, nurturing and devouring aspects. Some groups of people, unfamiliar with the precepts of Hinduism, see Kali as a satanic demon probably because of tales of her being worshipped by dacoits and other such people indulging evil acts.
As Kundalini the Female Serpent, she resembles the archaic Egyptian serpent-mother said to have created the world. It was said of Kundalini that at the beginning of the universe, she starts to uncoil in "a spiral line movement, which is the movement of creation." This spiral line was vitally important in late Paleolithic and Neolithic religious symbolism, representing death and rebirth as movement into the disappearing-point of formlessness, and out of it again, to a new world of form. Spirals therefore appeared on tombs, as one of the world's first mystical symbols.
Kali is considered to be the most fully realized of all the Dark Goddesses, but even though Kali was originally worshipped as a warrior goddess, and her followers gave her offerings of blood and flesh, her followers still found her greatest strength to be that of a protector.Kali is not always thought of as a Dark Goddess; rather, she is also referred to as a great and loving primordial Mother Goddess in the Hindu tantric tradition. In this aspect, as Mother Goddess, she is referred to as Kali Ma, meaning Kali Mother, and millions of Hindus revere her as such.
Kali is also associated with intense sexuality. Myths tell of the Yoni (vagina) of Kali (when she existed as Sati - wife of Lord Shiva) falling down to the Earth on the sacred hill near Gauhati in Assam (India), the same place where the Temple of Kamakhya is now located. The temple's outer walls are highly decorated with carvings showing Kali as a Triple Goddess: squatting, and exposing her Yoni (vagina); as a mother suckling Her child; and as a warrior woman drawing back Her bow. While these carvings show Kali as a sexual being, they also show her as a protective and motherly woman, full of compassion."
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* Kali - Hindu Goddess who liberates souls
"Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. In Tibetan Buddhism Her counterpart is male with the Kala. Mother Kali is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses. The Encyclopedia Britannica is grossly mistaken in the following quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love.
It is partly correct to say Kali is a goddess of death but She brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). It is true that both Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego.
Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds. Of all the forms of Devi, She is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva the destroyer. They are the
destroyers of unreality. The ego sees Mother Kali and trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. A person who is attached to his or her ego will not be receptive to Mother Kali and she will appear in a fearsome form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children.
Ma Kali wears a garland of skulls and a skirt of dismembered arms because the ego arises out of identification with the body. In truth we are beings of spirit and not flesh. So liberation can only proceed when our attachment to the body ends. Thus the garland and skirt are trophies worn by Her to symbolize having liberated Her children from attachment to the limited body. She holds a sword and a freshly severed head dripping blood. As the story goes, this represents a great battle in which she destroyed the demon Raktabija. Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum unmanifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve. She is depicted as standing on Shiva who lays beneath Her with white skin (in contrast to Her black or sometimes dark blue skin). He has a blissful detached look. Shiva represents pure formless awareness sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while She represents "form" eternally supported by the substratum of pure awareness.
By not understanding the story behind Mother Kali it is easy to misinterpret Her iconography. In the same way one could say that Christianity is a religion of death, destruction and cannibalism in which the practitioners drink the blood of Jesus and eat his flesh. Of course, we know this is not the proper understanding of the communion ritual.
Attaching the idea of sexuality to Mother Kali has no basis in Her at all. There is nothing that associates Her with sexuality in the Hindu stories. In fact it is just the opposite. She is one of the few Goddesses who is celibate practicing austerity and renunciation!
The notion that She is the goddess of death, sex and violence is simply utter nonsense. When we study the life of the great saint Ramakrishna or the great poet saint Ramprasad (both famous Kali worshippers), or listen to the traditional Hindu devotional songs to Kali, there is no hint of this death-sex-violence notion. This can also be confirmed by going to any of the Hindu websites such as www.hindunet.com and reading about Mother Kali. Also recommended is the book Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth Harding. Also there is a beautiful and genuine Kali temple in Laguna Beach, California and it may be visited on-line at www.kalimandir.org. Kali is the goddess of enlightenment or liberation."
___________________________________________________________________________________
* Meet Kali, the Dark Mother Diety of Hinduism
"The love between the Divine Mother and her human children is a unique relationship. Kali, the Dark Mother is one such deity with whom devotees have a very loving and intimate bond, in spite of her fearful appearance. In this relationship, the worshipper becomes a child and Kali assumes the form of the ever-caring mother.
Who is Kali?
Kali is the fearful and ferocious form of the mother goddess. She assumed the form of a powerful goddess and became popular with the composition of the Devi Mahatmya, a text of the 5th - 6th century AD. Here she is depicted as having born from the brow of Goddess Durga during one of her battles with the evil forces. As the legend goes, in the battle, Kali was so much involved in the killing spree that she got carried away and began destroying everything in sight. To stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself under her feet. Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her homicidal rampage. Hence the common image of Kali shows her in her mêlée mood, standing with one foot on Shiva's chest, with her enormous tongue stuck out.
The Fearful Symmetry
Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world's deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, "fear not"! She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing. Her tongueprotrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.
Awesome Symbols!
Kali's fierce form is strewed with awesome symbols. Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature. Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: "Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her". Her nudity is primeval, fundamental, and transparent like Nature — the earth, sea, and sky. Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or "false consciousness." Kali's garland of fifty human heads that stands for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes infinite knowledge. Her girdle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma. Her white teeth show her inner purity, and her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature — "her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's 'flavors'." Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bonds that bind us.
Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali ('Kala' in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator of Tantrik texts, Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, "Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness. Kali's proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or "Pancha Mahabhuta" come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death. The reclined Shiva lying prostrate under the feet of Kali suggests that without the power of Kali (Shakti), Shiva is inert. "
______________________________________________________________________________________
some more good stuff on wikipedia too: Kali - Wikipedia
My friends told me that I laid there in my trip for about 12 minutes. They also said my eyes were wide open the whole time. I sat there trying to answer their questions of what I saw or remembered, but at that moment my brain was still barely processing the experience. Even today, I'm still mentally downloading what happened. There is so much more that I saw which I cant find the words explain and still don't even understand. But each minute that has passed since my trip, I've been able to better understand what was being shown to me. The most interesting part about my trip is that, before this experience I had no knowledge of Kali. Ive been doing my research on her and the more I'm learning about her, the more in love with her I fall and the more pure and true my experience with her becomes. I now feel a nurturing protection of her watching over me. I've gained a sense of enlightenment and a more free spirit. In my real world, life has been hard, but I suddenly feel at peace with the world. My experience with her has so much meaning in my life, I decided have her symbol, the Kali Yantra, tattooed on my back. Here is some more info on Kali and the Kali Yantra:
* Kali the Goddess: Gentle Mother, Fierce Warrior
"Kali is one of the most well known and worshipped Hindu Goddesses. The name Kali is derived from the Hindu word that means "time", and that also means "black". Kali in Hinduism, is a manifestation of the Divine Mother, which represents the female principle. Frequently, those not comprehending her many roles in life call Kali the goddess of destruction. She destroys only to recreate, and what she destroys is sin, ignorance and decay. She is equated with the eternal night, is the transcendent power of time, and is the consort of the god Shiva. It is believed that its Shiva who destroys the world, and Kali is the power or energy with which Shiva acts. Therefore, Kali is Shiva's shakti, without which Shiva could not act.
Kali receives her name because she devours kala (Time) and then resumes her own dark formlessness. This transformative effect can be metaphorically illustrated in the West as a black hole in space. Kali as such is pure and primary reality (the "enfolded order" in modern physics); formless void yet full of potential.
Kali is a great and powerful black earth Mother Goddess capable of terrible destruction and represents the most powerful form of the female forces in the Universe. Worship of the Goddess Kali is largely an attempt to appease her and avert her wrath. The Goddess Kali constantly drinks blood. She has an insatiable thirst for blood. As mistress of blood, she presides over the mysteries of both life and death. Kali intends her bloody deeds for the protection of the good. She may get carried away by her gruesome acts but she is not evil. Kali's destructive energies on the highest level are seen as a vehicle of salvation and ultimate transformation. Kali is the central deity of Time. She created the world and destroys it. She is beyond time and space. After the destruction of the Universe, at the end of the great cycle, she collects the seeds of the next creation. She destroys the finite to reveal the Infinite. This Black Goddess is death, but to the wise she is also the death of death. This can only be revealed through the worship of Kali, and meditation on her mysteries. To her worshippers in both Hinduism and Tantra she represents a multi-faceted Great Goddess responsible for all of life from conception to death. Her worship, therefore, consists of fertility festivals as well as sacrifices (animal and human); and her initiations expand one's consciousness by many means, including fear, ritual sexuality and intoxication with a variety of drugs.
Her three forms are manifested in many ways: in the three divisions of the year, the three phases of the moon, the three sections of the cosmos (heaven, earth, and the underworld), the three stages of life, the three trimesters of pregnancy, and so on. Women represent her spirit in mortal flesh.
The Goddess Kali is represented as black in color. Black in the ancient Hindu language of Sanskrit is kaala. The feminine form is kali. So she is Kali, the black one. Black is a symbol of The Infinite and the seed stage of all colors. The Goddess Kali remains in a state of inconceivable darkness that transcends words and mind. Within her blackness is the dazzling brilliance of illumination. Kali's blackness symbolizes her all-embracing, comprehensive nature, because black is the color in which all the colors merge; black absorbs and dissolves them.On the other hand, black is said to represent the total absence of color, again signifying the nature of Kali as ultimate reality. This in Sanskrit, the color black is named as Nirguna (beyond all quality and form). Either way, kali's black colour symbolizes her transcendence of all form.
Despite Kali's origins in battle, she evolved to a full-fledged symbol of Mother Nature in her creative, nurturing and devouring aspects. Some groups of people, unfamiliar with the precepts of Hinduism, see Kali as a satanic demon probably because of tales of her being worshipped by dacoits and other such people indulging evil acts.
As Kundalini the Female Serpent, she resembles the archaic Egyptian serpent-mother said to have created the world. It was said of Kundalini that at the beginning of the universe, she starts to uncoil in "a spiral line movement, which is the movement of creation." This spiral line was vitally important in late Paleolithic and Neolithic religious symbolism, representing death and rebirth as movement into the disappearing-point of formlessness, and out of it again, to a new world of form. Spirals therefore appeared on tombs, as one of the world's first mystical symbols.
Kali is considered to be the most fully realized of all the Dark Goddesses, but even though Kali was originally worshipped as a warrior goddess, and her followers gave her offerings of blood and flesh, her followers still found her greatest strength to be that of a protector.Kali is not always thought of as a Dark Goddess; rather, she is also referred to as a great and loving primordial Mother Goddess in the Hindu tantric tradition. In this aspect, as Mother Goddess, she is referred to as Kali Ma, meaning Kali Mother, and millions of Hindus revere her as such.
Kali is also associated with intense sexuality. Myths tell of the Yoni (vagina) of Kali (when she existed as Sati - wife of Lord Shiva) falling down to the Earth on the sacred hill near Gauhati in Assam (India), the same place where the Temple of Kamakhya is now located. The temple's outer walls are highly decorated with carvings showing Kali as a Triple Goddess: squatting, and exposing her Yoni (vagina); as a mother suckling Her child; and as a warrior woman drawing back Her bow. While these carvings show Kali as a sexual being, they also show her as a protective and motherly woman, full of compassion."
__________________________________________________________________________________
* Kali - Hindu Goddess who liberates souls
"Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. In Tibetan Buddhism Her counterpart is male with the Kala. Mother Kali is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses. The Encyclopedia Britannica is grossly mistaken in the following quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love.
It is partly correct to say Kali is a goddess of death but She brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). It is true that both Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego.
Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds. Of all the forms of Devi, She is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva the destroyer. They are the
destroyers of unreality. The ego sees Mother Kali and trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. A person who is attached to his or her ego will not be receptive to Mother Kali and she will appear in a fearsome form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children.
Ma Kali wears a garland of skulls and a skirt of dismembered arms because the ego arises out of identification with the body. In truth we are beings of spirit and not flesh. So liberation can only proceed when our attachment to the body ends. Thus the garland and skirt are trophies worn by Her to symbolize having liberated Her children from attachment to the limited body. She holds a sword and a freshly severed head dripping blood. As the story goes, this represents a great battle in which she destroyed the demon Raktabija. Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum unmanifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve. She is depicted as standing on Shiva who lays beneath Her with white skin (in contrast to Her black or sometimes dark blue skin). He has a blissful detached look. Shiva represents pure formless awareness sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while She represents "form" eternally supported by the substratum of pure awareness.
By not understanding the story behind Mother Kali it is easy to misinterpret Her iconography. In the same way one could say that Christianity is a religion of death, destruction and cannibalism in which the practitioners drink the blood of Jesus and eat his flesh. Of course, we know this is not the proper understanding of the communion ritual.
Attaching the idea of sexuality to Mother Kali has no basis in Her at all. There is nothing that associates Her with sexuality in the Hindu stories. In fact it is just the opposite. She is one of the few Goddesses who is celibate practicing austerity and renunciation!
The notion that She is the goddess of death, sex and violence is simply utter nonsense. When we study the life of the great saint Ramakrishna or the great poet saint Ramprasad (both famous Kali worshippers), or listen to the traditional Hindu devotional songs to Kali, there is no hint of this death-sex-violence notion. This can also be confirmed by going to any of the Hindu websites such as www.hindunet.com and reading about Mother Kali. Also recommended is the book Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth Harding. Also there is a beautiful and genuine Kali temple in Laguna Beach, California and it may be visited on-line at www.kalimandir.org. Kali is the goddess of enlightenment or liberation."
___________________________________________________________________________________
* Meet Kali, the Dark Mother Diety of Hinduism
"The love between the Divine Mother and her human children is a unique relationship. Kali, the Dark Mother is one such deity with whom devotees have a very loving and intimate bond, in spite of her fearful appearance. In this relationship, the worshipper becomes a child and Kali assumes the form of the ever-caring mother.
Who is Kali?
Kali is the fearful and ferocious form of the mother goddess. She assumed the form of a powerful goddess and became popular with the composition of the Devi Mahatmya, a text of the 5th - 6th century AD. Here she is depicted as having born from the brow of Goddess Durga during one of her battles with the evil forces. As the legend goes, in the battle, Kali was so much involved in the killing spree that she got carried away and began destroying everything in sight. To stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself under her feet. Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her homicidal rampage. Hence the common image of Kali shows her in her mêlée mood, standing with one foot on Shiva's chest, with her enormous tongue stuck out.
The Fearful Symmetry
Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world's deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, "fear not"! She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing. Her tongueprotrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.
Awesome Symbols!
Kali's fierce form is strewed with awesome symbols. Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature. Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: "Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her". Her nudity is primeval, fundamental, and transparent like Nature — the earth, sea, and sky. Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or "false consciousness." Kali's garland of fifty human heads that stands for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes infinite knowledge. Her girdle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma. Her white teeth show her inner purity, and her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature — "her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's 'flavors'." Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bonds that bind us.
Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali ('Kala' in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator of Tantrik texts, Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, "Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness. Kali's proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or "Pancha Mahabhuta" come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death. The reclined Shiva lying prostrate under the feet of Kali suggests that without the power of Kali (Shakti), Shiva is inert. "
______________________________________________________________________________________
some more good stuff on wikipedia too: Kali - Wikipedia
