I thought personal growth meant becoming less of the parts I didn't like. What I didn't understand is that those parts weren't asking to be removed. They were asking to be seen.

I was living on a mountain in Spain with no running water when Kali appeared in my meditation. She told me she wasn't destruction — she was liberation. Five days later, everything I knew was gone. And it was exactly right.

I thought it was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. Tapping on your own face while saying out loud how bad you feel? But I was carrying something I couldn't put down any other way — so I tried it anyway.

I stood near a tree in the Vondelpark, living in Amsterdam at the time, not knowing what I was doing. Then something happened I still don't have perfect words for. I felt held — by something ancient and unhurried that the tree was part of.