Showing posts with label the Black Madonna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Black Madonna. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

The Return of the Black Madonna by Matthew Fox

"The Black Madonna", Lauren Raine, 2018

How the Black Madonna
Is Shaking Us Up for the Twenty-First Century

11. The Black Madonna Calls us to a renaissance of culture, religion and the city. Isis often wears a regal headdress that symbolizes her name as meaning “throne” or “queen.” Erich Neumann has written about Isis as “Throne.”

Without a balance of male/female, heart/head, body/spirit truly happening at all levels of education from childhood to professional degrees? How will a renaissance happen if education is left behind? What role will art play when the artist too lets go of the internalized oppression of the modern era and recommits himself/herself to serving the community and to serving the larger community of ecological sustainability? [31]

Thursday, August 23, 2018

The Black Madonna

 

 
I am pleased with this, the last of my "Our Lady of the Shards" series.   Over the years I've made quite a few Black Madonna images.  To me, the Black Madonna, and there are many greatly revered throughout Europe, represents the essence of the ancient sacred places that many of these images still "inhabit".  The Black Madonna is Mother Earth, the Source, the Root and Leaf and Fruit that sustain us.   She is felt  most keenly in sacred places like caves and springs.  

The one to the right  I made to install in a tree in 2005, after a numinous residency at I Park Artists Enclave.  Truly, I felt the forest there speak to me, and the "Black Madonna" became my own humble offering to the Numina of place.

The Camino is the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, a 10th century Romanesque and Gothic cathedral that supposedly houses the bones of St. James, a Christian martyr.  It also once housed a beloved Black Madonna effigy.  Thinking about the Camino, and pilgrimages to sacred places that were once considered to be inhabited by Numina, by what the Romans called "Genious Loci" I  felt like including here  this article I wrote in 2009. 


Black Madonna of Guadaloupe
Reflections on the Black Madonna 

"There was once a vast pilgrimage that took place in Europe. Pilgrims made their way towards the town of Compostella in Spain, where an ancient effigy of the BLACK MADONNA is housed. The word Compostella comes from the same root word as "compost".

COMPOST is the living, black material that is made from rotting fruits, grains and other organic matter. From this compost -- life and light will emerge. When the pilgrims came to the Cathedral at Compostella they were being 'composted' in a sense. After emergence from the dark confines of the cathedral and the spirit -- they were ready to flower, they were ready to return home with their spirits lightened." ~~ Jay Weidner
   
I can't think about European traditions of pilgrimage to sacred places without  revisiting the mysterious "Black Madonnas" found in shrines, churches and cathedrals all over Europe - France alone has over 300. These icons have been the focus of millions of pilgrimages since the early days of the church, and most probably rest upon sites that were places of prehistoric  pilgrimage long before the advent of Christianity.



Why were these effigies so beloved that pilgrims traveled many miles to seek healing and guidance? Why, in a medieval world where European peasants were unlikely to see a dark skinned person was the Madonna black?  Some of the effigy statues are made of materials that are true, ebony black. And why are there so many myths that connect the effigies with trees, or caves, or special wells, and ensuing miracles of healing? 

Many suggest that the  Madonna with Child originated in images of Isis with her child Horus (the reborn Sun God). Isis was a significant religious figure in the later days of Rome, and continued to be worshipped in the early days of Christianity. In general, when Isis arrived in Rome she adopted Roman dress and complexion, and was sometimes merged with other deities, such as Venus. The images of Isis that survived the fall of Rome were perhaps the origin of later Virgin and Child icons - temples devoted to Isis continued well into the third century. "Paris" derives from the name of Isis (par Isis). 



Whether originally derived from Isis or not, most of these images are connected in place and myth to healing springs, power sites, and holy caves. The Black Madonna is the Earth Mother, reborn as  Catholic Mary, and yet not entirely disguised. She is black like the Earth is black, fertile (and often shown pregnant) like the Earth is fertile, dark because she is embodied and immanent, as nature is embodied and immanent. 


 I really like Mr. Weidner's reference to "compost" in speaking of the great pilgrimage to Compostella.  Compost is the fertile soil created from rotting organic matter, the "Black Matter". The alchemical soup to which everything living returns, and is continually resurrected by the processes of nature into new life, new form. Mater. Mother.


There are many legends and miracles associated with Black Madonna icons.  I suggest that the sanctity of place and intention also contribute to these myths, and phenomena.
 The icon at Guadalupe, Spain, is said to have been carved by St. Luke in Jerusalem, although this is highly unlikely. It doesn't ultimately matter how old the icon actually is. The question is, what does it embody that strikes a deep chord, that speaks to those who come to contemplate the icon? And what does the icon emanate? Can it actually have healing powers, or is the site itself a "place of power", it's energies renewed by millenia of worship and pilgrimage? What resonance does it attune those who come there to? And how significant is the act of making the pilgrimage itself, the long effort to come to a sacred place, a sacred image?
Black Madonna of Czestochowskad (Poland)
In the Middle Ages when the majority of the Black Madonna statues were created there was still a strong undercurrent and mingling of the old ways. Black Madonnas were discovered hidden in trees in France as late as the seventeenth century, suggesting these were representations of pagan goddesses who were still worshipped in groves.

Black Madonnas are also found close to caves (the womb/tomb of the Earth Mother).  The earliest human paintings, some dating back more than 30,000 years,  are found in caves in France, beautiful paintings of animals and birds.  Within these caves were also found the earliest (and only) representations of human beings for many millenia, the little sculptures of seemingly pregnant women, the so-called "Venus" figures.  I agree with archaeologist Marija Gimbutas that these figures were not some form of "neolithic pornography and fertility fetishes" but represented the prime deity, the  Mother deity herself, and the caves were regarded as  sacred wombs where the animals that provided sustenance and power to ancient hunters might be thus born again.  Caves of both return and  becoming.

In medieval Christian churches, it's interesting to note that  the black Madonna statues were sometimes kept in a subterranean part of a church, or near a special spring or well.

"Again and again a statue is found in a forest or a bush or discovered when ploughing animals refuse to pass a certain spot. The statue is taken to the parish church, only to return miraculously by night to her own place, where a chapel is then built in her honour. Almost invariably associated with natural phenomena, especially healing waters or striking geographical features"

  Ean Begg


Black Madonnas, not surprisingly, are also associated with the Grail legends. The Grail or Chalice may represent the mingling of Celtic mythology. Cerridwen's cauldron was an important myth about the womb of the Earth Mother, from which life is continually renewed, nourished, born, and reborn. 

The extent to which people make pilgrimages to these sites is amazing. For example, the Black Madonna of Montserrat, near Barcelona, receives up to a million pilgrims a year, travelling to visit the 'miracle- working' statue known as La Moreneta, the dark little one.
Black virgin of Montserrat

So why am I writing all of this? Well, because it's important to know that the ancient "Journey to the Earth Mother", which exists in all cultures and times, never ended. It just transformed again. (In fact, there is a lot I could say about the black stone (the Kaaba) of Mecca, and its prehistoric origins, but I'll leave to another time.)

 


Saturday, February 22, 2014

A Hawk and the Great Mother


INVOCATION OF THE GREAT MOTHER
 

by Erica Swadley


O Great Mother Goddess, we call on you now.

We invite your presence.
Surround and encompass us.
Rise up from your roots.
Hear us, our our voices of pathos.
See our dancing feet, how we beat out your rhythms. 

With our hearts, we drum you back.
We are staggering toward you.

Will you run one hundred steps to us?
Will you spread your mantle of peace?

This is the sack of our offerings:

We give up our greed to feed the needy.
Here is our lust to restore compassion.
We release our hatred to stop the killing.
We forego our vengeance to discover balance.
We scorn our fears, to rebirth love.
We tread softly to bring back forests. 

And Mother Answers:

No more no more no more!

I have sent you shining planets to help you remember.

Mars and Venus beg you to reconcile.
From the depths of space, Sedna appears,
a planetary avatar to stop you in your tracks.

Time is ended, truth be told.

Release, forgive, restore.
Remember Me in all of My forms.
I will bring light to your shadows 
and make you whole, 
if you will call on Me.


                   April, 2004


Yesterday I had a new picture windows put into the living room, and I sat admiring them this morning.  Then I found myself thinking about the poem above, and "Restoring the Balance", the performance shaman Erica Swadley wrote her Invocation for, almost 10 years ago, and decided I would offer it again with some new work on the Equinox. 

Then a very large bird flew, wham, into my new window.  Not just any bird, but a red wing hawk.  

Fortunately, it flew off again, hopefully not hurt.  But the "Message" is well taken.  Wake up!  Pay attention! See!  Get the Big Picture!    New windows give better vision, the ability to see through them more clearly.  And no creature sees better, and has a bigger view, than a hawk or an eagle. 

I know I often write about the Dark Goddess, the One who can help us to see, integrate, and understand our shadows, but I do this because I feel, personally and collectively (along with theologian Andrew Harvey and shaman Erica Swadley) it is so very important to invoke Her help now.


  "It's quite clear that humanity  can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us."
........... Andrew Harvey

The "shadow side" Harvey speaks of is revealed in contradictions, in paradox often.  Just this morning I was also thinking about a personal revelation along these lines.   So much of the work I do, outside of my commercial masks, are really Shrines to Gaia. Over and over I feel compelled to make torsos and hands with roots and leaves.   My versions of the Black Madonna, of the creative, sacred Mother inside all  of nature's manifestations. And yet, as important as these images are to me, I tend to be apologetic about my work, not believing in myself often.

I recently had someone ask about purchasing a  "Gaia" piece,   someone I admire, who wanted to know if the humidity of a bathroom would affect it.  I had to wonder:  do I project so little sense of the worth of my  work that it has no more meaning than "bathroom decor"? Is that my shadow?  And if so, by failing to respect the impulses that become my art, am I disrespecting what is sacred to me?   What does this reveal about the loss of a sense of the sacred we're all, myself well included,  completely unconscious of?  

I think about my dismay this summer when I saw the porta potties lined up  just across from the entrance (and exit) to the Labyrinth and Ancestor Mound at Sirius Rising last year.  Leaving the Labyrinth (Center) ritual, it was what one saw coming out of the Labyrinth.  My  comments about it  got me in hot water with the community who put the ritual on, many of whom I otherwise admire.  But they did not see, or appreciate, my (quite literal)  point of view. .............What does it mean, viewed symbolically, about what me and my well meaning friends and colleagues are unconsciously responding to?
"I will bring light to your shadows
and make you whole 
if you call on me.
 The Dark Goddess, whether we call Her the Black Madonna, the hidden Magdalene, Kali, Black Tara,  or Sedna, is so much more than an idea, an archetype.  She is an active force in the world, an archetypal  intelligence working in the world through the minds of those who open to Her.   She can Restore the Balance, she can dance with us as we achieve an ever moving point of balance.

As my friend, Ann Weller, commented in 2000 after invoking the Dark Goddess for a healing ritual event for her community:

"The Dark Goddess serves the future. Her work is evolution in its fullest sense.
The Dark Goddess, who is found in many cultures by many names, is not aspected lightly.  Working with Her calls forth one's internal capacity for psychic empowerment, a transformative energy not easy to encompass. The work was larger than my concerns, and ultimately impersonal.  I was a brief vessel for an immense archetypal intelligence manifesting itself within the ritual drama we created."



So, I ponder all of this, this beautiful and important poem that Erica gifted us with 10 years ago, and share also an article by Andrew Harvey that is related.  As we move closer to the Equinox, may we find many ways and paths to Restoring the Balance.



"Black Madonna" by Therese Desjardin

BLACK MADONNA RETURNS
by 
Andrew Harvey

The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion on all levels.  It's going through an environmental crucifixion. Hundreds of species are vanishing every month. It's going through a personal crucifixion. There are two billion people living on less than a dollar a day. It's going through a crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems. Look at Enron and what it has
shown us about Corporate America. Look at the Catholic Church's scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us about authority. Look at the growing disillusionment with politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are  being exposed as illusory and fantasy-ridden, as deeply corrupt and exploitative.

There's another kind of crucifixion going on: crucifixion of purpose and hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They know that the world is potentially on the brink of  apocalypse. There's a tremendous danger that as people wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run into political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or another.

So it's extremely important that the wisdom of the 'dark night of the soul' gets across, because if people understand the necessity for this crucifixion, and understand that it's preparing a resurrection and empowerment, then they will be prepared to go through it without too much fear, trusting in the logic of the divine transformation.

The Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths shared with me his experience of the dark night of the soul. He said he was sitting outside his hut one day when he felt as if a hand hit him on the right side of his being. He had suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed what he described as his patriarchal mind and gave him access to a much deeper elaboration of
Oneness with all things.  


 He said, "It's a very strange thing, but when I thought of surrendering to the Mother I of course thought of Mary--I often say the 'Hail Mary'--but it was Mary as the Black Madonna that came into my mind. She is the mother of the earth as well as heaven, of the body as well as the soul, the mother of the subconscious, the hidden, of all those powers that the
'masculine' mind represses; the Mother of the sacred darkness. In Her the Western Christian vision of the Divine Mother and the Eastern one merge and meet; you can think of her as both Mary and Kali, both preserver and destroyer. From that time on, I have turned to Her again and again.  


Invoking Her strength and grace, I find, makes the 'birth' go so much faster and more cleanly."

The power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It's quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living
through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us.

We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the sacred in nature. We are now terminally destructive.

So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the full extent of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us up. And that is what is happening, and it will get worse. It's bound to get worse. But it is only being done to us for our own redemption.

Those who turn to the Mother in total faith, those who turn to the Black Madonna in total admiration, those who realize the mercy behind the violence will be given extraordinary protection, strength, and revelation. They will be empowered in the core of themselves to become what everybody who has a heart and a mind must now become--a spiritual
revolutionary devoting their entire life and all their resources to the preservation of the planet.

Finding the Black Madonna, in whatever form you want to find her, realizing the massive task that she's doing and turning to her for protection is now crucial to the preservation of the planet. It's extremely important that people really come to understand the feminine and turn towards it, because it's our betrayal of the feminine in ourselves and in the divine that has led to this crisis.

Copyright Andrew Harvey 2004--All Rights Reserved


 ***Footnote:

I've found it interesting that one of the most consistently read of my blog posts has to do with "Black Tara" (2010).  Truly a Tibetan manifestation of the Dark Goddess, I often wonder why so many are curious or responsive to this Goddess.