Kali traditionally lives in the cremation grounds. Outside of society, because society can't handle her. She is too uncontrollable to be acceptable in society, she would bring it down. She's pushed the boundaries because she's a threat. She is uncontrollable engery that destroys what it touches. The world and society has to be protected. She is unacceptable in society because she is too dangerous. Often Kali has been associated with the "unacceptable" and the dangerous in society. Tugs, brigands who would attack people for sacrifices to Kali among other things, and the origin of our word "thug," were worshippers of Kali. Lower caste people might go to Kali. Kali has undergone a great widening of her power. She has been slowly moved into cities, acceptable society can worship her now. Calcutta has become "her city," they love Kali. Kali can now be Kali Ma, the mother. She may be a ruthless mother, she may be a harsh mother, but she is a mother. She is the mother that is just a little crazy (or a lot), and can be very harsh in her punishments. She is the destructive mother, the harsh mother, the disiplinatian, the vengeful mother. She is the mother who needs to destroy to create, devouring to create a new world. Indians understand the necessity of replenishment. Nothing comes from nothing, it has to have come from somewhere. Nothing new can be created without destroying the old, and this mother knows that intimately. In her destroyer aspect she is still a creator, even if it is a creator of chaos. Kali is emaciated, always creating, always hungry, always needing more to keep up with her creations. She can never be full. She always needs more.

Lilith was also too dangerous to be in society. When she left Adam she flew away to the Red Sea, a place of ill repute, inhabited by demons. She is also said to have an underwater home, which she returns to when she wishes. She is the ultimate outsider, having declined to become mother of the human race she is shunned from it entirely. She is also dangerous, she visits humanity, but when she does so she does so to cause trouble. She kills children, births demons from men, preys upon women and men alike in her won way. Lilith's motherhood is of an entirely different sort, she is mother to demons. She does not seem to care for her children, a hundred of them are doomed to die each day in exchange for her ability to prey upon humanity and herself keep living. She is not tied to her children, she does not care for them. They are just the byproducts of her own enjoyment. Lilith is also undergoing a change, and being accepted more in society, especially in feminist circles.

Lilith and Kali were too dangerous to be allowed in society. But we are seeing our own societies becoming more dangerous, and so we think we can accept them. They are more like us. They fit into our new world more than the tame goddesses acceptable in the past. We see ourselves reflected in them, so we have to ask them into our homes.



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