March 17, 2003

  • On the verge of war, I now feel personally so fortunate in having forsaken a promising military career some years ago. Given my training and the unit I was with, the chances would be better than excellent that I’d now be a senior NCO in the midst of desert action had I remained …and survived until today.





    …”the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air”



    I’ve never liked that verse (up there). I abhor morbidity and consider the tools of destruction antithetical and uncelebrative, although sometimes necessary. I’d lump the glorification of “the rockets' red glare” along with “ring around a rosie, a pocket full of poseys” (a ‘rosie’ being smallpox) and “rockabye baby…when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby…” (ouch).



    And then there’s MOAB—(massive ordinance airburst bomb)—which has been grotesquely feminized as the ‘Mother of all bombs’. Wasn’t it Saddam who was doing the dehumanizing ‘mother of’ thing (‘mother of all wars’, ‘mother of all battles’, etc.) just a while back? Must we become akin in rhetoric to him?



    And yet…Kali is the dark goddess of cosmic dissolution and total destruction. Look into her wild eyes, taste her protruding tongue, feel the point of her bloody sword, pray that your skull doesn’t become another ornament on her belt of severed heads. Learn the lesson of Kali, for soon she takes to the battlefield once again:





    In Hindu mythology, the gods could not kill the demon Raktabija. Every drop of his blood that touched the ground transformed itself into another demon. Within a few minutes of attacking this asura with their weapons, the gods would find the entire battlefield covered with millions of demon clones.

    In despair, the gods turned to Shiva. But Shiva was lost in meditation, so they turned to his consort Parvati. The goddess immediately set out to do battle with this dreaded demon in the form of Kali.

    She rode into the battleground on her lion, and Raktabija experienced fear for the first time in his demonic heart. Kali ordered the gods to attack Raktabija. Kali then spread her tongue to cover the battlefield preventing even a single drop of Raktabija's blood from falling on the group. Thus preventing Raktabija from reproducing himself.

    Drunk on Raktabija's blood, Kali ran across the cosmos killing anyone who dared cross her path. She adorned herself with the heads, limbs and entrails of her victims. To pacify her, Shiva threw himself under her feet. This stopped the goddess. She calmed down, embraced her husband, and shed her ferocious form.



    -the story of Kali

    …Ground Control to Shiva, Ground Control to Shiva. Shiva, are you there? Over.



    This is Shiva to Ground Control
    I'm stepping through the door
    And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
    And the stars look very different today



    For here
    Am I sitting in a tin can
    Far above the world
    Planet Earth is blue
    And there's nothing I can do



    Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
    I'm feeling very still
    And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
    Tell my wife I love her very much she knows…

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