Devotion During Upheaval

Why I turned to Kali when everything else fell apart

When life unravels all at once, there’s a part of you that either clings or surrenders. I didn’t have the option to cling—not when everything I knew was dissolving.

My long-time relationship ended. A deep fracture pulled me away from a friend group I once trusted. Two close friends died—one in a drive-by shooting, another from lymphoma within six months. I closed my company of eight years. I was let go from a non-profit role in a way that felt neither kind nor correct.

I could have given up. I thought about it, but what would that even mean? What else could I do but lean into the fire?

Kali had already been whispering to me. Two years ago I had gone to Nepal, I knew things were set to change. A Kali priestess found me the day before my birthday, "Do you want to meet Kali? She is waiting for you." she said. For my birthday, I met the divine mother as the priestess dragged me—literally—into a hidden centuries-old Kali cave on the river ganga near the charnel grounds of Pashitputinath. In the depths of the ancient cave she looked at me and told me about my life, in detail. Then she told me that my life was going to unravel so that I could have a more spiritual existence. “Kali has always been with you.” She said as she looked me in the eyes. I could feel her there—fierce, unrelenting, and yet, strangely compassionate in her clarity whisper, “Burn it all away.” What had I been so afraid of with Kali? I realized there had been a part of me that turned away from her, from my divine rage, the ecstatic embodied of my dark feminine. Why? It was time to go deeper. A teacher of mine, Paul from Tantraya, a Kali priest with deep lineage, offered me a Sadhana—a 49-day devotional practice to Kali Ma. Simple. Clear. Daily. And utterly life-altering.

That was the moment I stopped running. I gave myself to the fire.

My rage, grief, and darkness became sacred to me. I stopped silencing them. I let them move. My body got lighter. I started noticing the ways I’d always tried to bypass what I was feeling—food, social media, TV, overstimulation. Anything to not feel. Anything to stay busy. I was always busy doing something I felt was right, for the cause for the pupose, for the business, all my excuse, were laid bare and in the end, I was still not sitting with myself in my darkness and my truth. Who was I in my pain and sharp edges?

Once I stopped, everything changed. People came and went. Some left quietly. Some burned out on their way. It felt like I’d swept the trash, dust, and cobwebs from my mind—if only for an instant.

And then, the descent again.

What am I creating?

I kept asking Kali.

Why did I create this?

My dreams were filled with others’ suffering—visions of poverty, illness, pain. And I remembered a trip I took to India in 2015. I was a successful sommelier in San Francisco, but deeply depressed. We were in Kolkata. I saw children running barefoot in the streets, joyful and radiant with nothing.

What was I sad about when I had everything?

That moment came back. My grip on the material loosened. My attachment to outcomes, to productivity, to money… it softened.

I dis-created my life.

I rested.

I stopped working so hard.

I lived simply.

I let the void hold me.

And from that stillness, I began to recreate, to find peace.

Many people witnessed the shift in me after that year. The way I spoke. The way I moved. The weight I no longer carried. And more than once, they asked me what I did.

I didn’t give them a program. I gave them the Sadhana.

I invited them—quietly, gently—to step into the fire.

Doing this kind of work alone is possible, but it’s hard and many people didn't finish. And we weren’t meant to hold it all by ourselves.

This is why I’m offering a 7-week devotional period. A way to walk with Kali through your own season of change. With prayer. With structure. With support.

Not to be saved—but to stay present with what’s already burning.

If that’s where you are, you’re welcome to join. Read more here.