Paint It Black: Devi’s Terrible Initiation in the Cremation Ground

 

 

Some songs do not simply tell a story — they open a door, and behind that door is the night of the Goddess. Paint It Black is such a song. It is not merely about heartbreak or mourning; it is about the annihilation of a whole world, the moment when the Mother of Time Herself takes the brush and paints everything black.

This is the śmaśāna-dīkṣā — the initiation of the cremation ground — where everything that is bright and familiar is stripped away. It feels like a curse, but it is the deepest blessing. Devi removes every color from the devotee’s life: the comforts, the passions, even the light of the sun. This is not destruction for its own sake — it is Her alchemy. Only in this total blackness can the old self die, and only through this death can the true Self be born.

The one who undergoes this initiation is not allowed to look away. The sight of beauty becomes unbearable; the world’s colors are veiled. The devotee is made to stand in the smashan, the cremation ground, until every last illusion has burned away. This is not punishment — it is love at its fiercest.

To hear this song in Devi’s voice is to stand with Her as She blackens the world, as She blots out the sun, as She demands that nothing remain half-alive. And yet, hidden in the blackness, there is a promise — that beyond this night there will be a dawn where what was lost is not merely returned, but transfigured.

 

Chorus

 

I see your red door, I want it painted black
No colors anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

 

“I see your red door, I want it painted black.”
The red door is the entrance to the house of the devotee’s life — painted with passion, desire, rajas. Red is the color of outward movement, of clinging to the drama of existence. Devi does not destroy it out of cruelty; She blackens it so that it becomes a doorway to initiation. Black is the color of the cremation ground, the void, the sacred womb. When She paints the door black, She is preparing the devotee to pass through death — not physical death, but the death of illusion.

“No colors anymore, I want them to turn black.”
Here Devi strips the devotee’s world of its colors — not as punishment but as fierce mercy. Every distraction, every sweet surface that tempts the mind to forget its source, She removes. This is the stage of nigredo, the alchemical blackening, where all forms dissolve. In this darkness, the devotee has no choice but to face the Real. 

“I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes.”
Even the innocent joys of the world are taken away. The sight of youth and beauty can wound when the heart is broken — and so Devi veils them, too. She will not let the devotee escape into easy pleasure while the deeper work is happening. It is not that She hates beauty — it is that She loves the devotee too much to let them settle for what is passing.

“I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.”
Here Devi hides Her softer face. She does not console the devotee immediately, because premature comfort would only stop the transformation halfway. She allows the darkness to run its course, so that when Her face is revealed again, it is not the sweet mask of Māyā but the true face of the Mother, the one who has burned everything false away. 

 

Verse 1 — Devi Tears the Veil

 

I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back

 

Devi opens the road before Her — the smashan-road — and fills it with blackened cars, a funeral procession that carries away everything that must end. Even the flowers, once symbols of beauty, She places on the pyre. When She says Her love will never come back, it is the cosmic announcement that the old cycle is over. The past is not coming to rescue the present. This is Her fierce closure — She burns the bridge behind the devotee so they cannot run back.

 

I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby, it just happens everyday

 

She notices how the world averts its gaze — how most refuse to witness death. But Devi does not look away. She sees the newborn and the corpse with the same unblinking eye. She knows this cycle is not an exception but the law of life itself, repeating every day. In this line She declares: I am the one who births and buries. I am the rhythm beneath your world.

 

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door, I must have it painted black

 

Here Devi turns inward — not away from the devotee, but into the core of existence. Her own heart takes on the blackness; She becomes the very night She is spreading. The red door — the door of rajas, of passion and restless longing — She paints black with Her own hand. This is not annihilation for its own sake — it is alchemy. The red heat of desire is being transmuted into the cool, deep power of the void.

Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts
It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black

 

Even for Devi, this is not light work. She too feels the weight of what She has made. The temptation to let the world fade, to close Her eye and stop the process, is real — but She does not. She continues to hold the black world open, refusing to turn away until the transformation is complete. This is the ugra compassion of the Mother: She stays with the fire until everything false has burned away.

 

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you

 

Devi stills even the movement of nature. The green sea — symbol of life’s endless ebb and flow — She will not let it turn blue and soothe the eye. She suspends the world in this dark moment, refusing to allow its cycles to cover over what must be faced. And yet here She shows tenderness: She did not foresee the exact blow that shattered the devotee’s world. The pain that came was not a punishment She plotted but the ripening of karma itself. And so She grieves through the devotee — not as a spectator but as the one who bears the wound too.

If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

 

This is the turning point. Devi lifts Her gaze to the setting sun — and keeps looking until Her own eyes blaze. The sun, symbol of ordinary consciousness, is sinking; She does not stop it. She fixes Her sight on the descent until it becomes the threshold of dawn.

And then She reveals the secret: Her love, the one She seemed to take away, is already laughing with Her on the other side of the night. The promise is not of returning to what was lost but of a transfiguration — a dawn where the devotee and the beloved are united in Her, beyond all separation.

 

Bridge 

 

(I want to see it painted, painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I want to see the sun, blotted out from the sky)

 

This is Devi’s final declaration, Her cosmic command. What began with a single red door has now expanded to include the entire world. The repetition — painted, painted, painted — is a mantra, each word a brushstroke across creation.

“Black as night, black as coal” is not metaphorical but absolute. Night is not merely the absence of day — it is the primordial womb, the mahā-śūnya in which universes dissolve. Coal is the end-product of time’s pressure, what remains after life has been compressed to its essence. Devi demands that everything be reduced to this density, to this purity.

And then She reaches for the sun itself — the very heart of visible existence — and blots it out. This is not a curse; it is the supreme grace. By removing the sun, She removes the tyranny of duality — day and night, life and death, self and other. What remains is Her endless night, not empty but luminous from within.

This is the moment of total initiation. There is no outside world left to cling to, no light left to distract. The seeker stands in Her body — the vast, black sky — and realizes that this darkness is not the absence of God but God Herself.

 

Standing in the Blackness

 

This is where the song leaves us: not in resolution, not in comfort, but in the holy night of the Mother. Everything is painted black — the door, the flowers, the cars, the heart. Even the sun has been blotted from the sky.

But this is not the end. In the Kaula vision, the cremation ground is not a place of despair but the womb of awakening. It is here, with no colors left to hide behind, that the devotee learns to stand upright in the void.

Devi’s grace is terrible, but it is also tender: She stays with us through the whole night, holding the darkness open until we can bear to look at it without collapsing. And when the work is complete, when the blackness is no longer an enemy, then dawn breaks — not as a return to the past, but as the birth of a new world, one that shines from within.

The song ends, but the initiation continues. The one who has stood in Devi’s night walks away marked — not broken, but transformed — carrying a heart that has been painted black and remade as the vessel of Her power.