Context-- "Body Art"

Daisy created a work of art that “represented the goddess of Kali” (88). Below you will find pictures of the goddess Kali and information about what she represents. After reading this, I think you will find it both interesting and ironic that Daisy places Kali in a “17th century birthing chair, below which, under the hole into which the baby would drop, was a transparent plastic box full of a jumble of plastic infants and plaster mothers . . .” (88-89).

The name Kali comes from the word "kala" or time. From my personal inquires, I found that there are varying views for what Kali truly represents. Some feel that Kali is the Hindu goddess symbolizing sexuality, dissolution, and destruction. This version portrays her as rather fearsome with baleful eyes, a protruding tongue, and four arms. In her upper left hand she wields a bloody sword and in her lower left hand she holds the severed head of a demon. With her upper right hand she makes the gesture of fearlessness, while the lower right hand confers benefits. Draped around her is a chain of severed human heads and she wears a belt made of dismembered arms.
Taken from www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/5229/kali/kali.html

Others feel it is partially accurate to say the Goddess Kali Ma is a goddess of death. However, she brings the death of the ego as the delusional self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the “scriptures” is she seen killing anything but demons nor is she associated exclusively with the process of human dying like Yama the Hindu god of death.
Out of all the Devi forms, Kali is the most compassionate because she provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva. They are the destroyers of unreality. When the ego sees Mother Kali it trembles with fear because the ego sees in her its own eventual demise. An individual who is attached to his/her ego will not be able to receive the vision of Mother Kali and she will appear in a fear invoking or "wrathful" 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 made of 52 skulls and a skirt made of dismembered arms because the ego comes out of identification with the body. In fact, we are beings of spirit and not flesh. So liberation can only prevail when our attachment to the body comes to an end. Therefore, the skirt and garland are trophies worn by her to represent the liberation of her children from attachment to the finite body. In two of her hands, she holds a sword and a freshly severed head that is dripping blood. This represents a great battle in which she defeated the demon Raktabija. Her black (or sometimes dark blue) skin represents the womb of the unmanifest from which all of creation is born and into which all of creation will eventually return. Goddess Kali Ma is depicted as standing on a white skinned Shiva who is lying beneath her. His white skin is in contrast to her black or sometimes dark blue skin. He is showing a blissful detached look on His face. Shiva is pure formless awareness sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while she represents "form" eternally sustained by the underpinning of pure awareness.
Taken from www.goddess-kali-ma.com/


For more information:
http://www.kalimandir.org/homepage.asp