…As one’s breath slows and one’s eyes close under the measured rhythm of chanting, Kali is made to expand and fill the room. She is in every flickering flame and in the glinting bronze, she is in the incense and in the mounting rhythm of the chant, she is in the bodies of the people present and in those who are missing but are thought of. She is in the Sanskritic root mantras and in the ordinary English syllables, which sound so extraordinary when said with new meaning and new purpose. She is in one’s mind and in one’s body, and though she is a goddess, her body is also somehow present and tangible and real.