The Black Madonna and Pilgrimage to the Source

"The Black Madonna" L. Raine 2017

 Black Madonna of Einsiedeln

The mysterious, ancient, and ubiquitous   "Black Madonnas",  both paintings and effigies,  are found in shrines, churches and cathedrals all over Europe - France alone has over 300. They are also found in other parts of the world as well, notably Mexico and South America.  For a map of Black Madonnas throughout the world  visit:

 http://interfaithmary.net/locations  

These icons have been the focus of pilgrimages since the early days of the church, and they still are.  Most are found in  sites that were earlier pre-Christian  pilgrimage sites, such as sacred springs or caves,  as well as often  being  sites of former Roman temples.  

"Black Madonna"
Lauren Raine(2005)

Why were these effigies so beloved that pilgrims travelled many miles to seek healing, offer their devotions,  and perhaps hope for oracular  guidance? Why, in Medievil times when European peasants were unlikely to ever  see a dark skinned person,  was the Madonna black? Some of the statues are made of materials that are true ebony black.   And why are there so many myths that connect the Madonnnas  with springs, or caves, or special wells?

In 2005, during a residency on the 150 acres of I Park Artists Enclave, the land spoke to me, and I had time and space to speak back, to engage in a creative artistic  conversation.  One of my first "Black Madonna" sculptures  arose from that numinous time - eventually She found a home in a tree, and if she has since disintegrated into that tree through the passage of the seasons, well, that is appropriate.

Many scholars believe that the origins of the archetypal  Madonna with Child in Europe began with earlier pagan  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.  Imported from Egypt, Isis had shrines throughout the Roman Empire.  Rome was home to many deities, the cosmopolitan city of its time, and worshippers of  Isis, as well as the Christ of early Christianity, co-existed.   When Isis arrived in Rome she was sometimes  adapted to Rome with  Roman dress and complexion, and she was also occasionally merged with other Roman deities, such as Venus.  Images of Isis survived the fall of Rome,  were ubiquitous throughout the Roman Empire,  and temples devoted to Isis continued well into the third century AD. "Paris" probably derives from the name of Isis (par Isis)......."city of Isis"

fresco from the Temple of Isis at Pompeii

Nevertheless, the origins of Isis  are Egypt, where she was represented as a dark skinned deity, as were the people of that land, and no doubt many of  her images transplanted to Rome and beyond retained the  coloring  of the peoples of Egypt.  But many believe (as do I) that  there are other associations that account for the archetype of the  Black Madonna and Her enduring devotion.  She represents the  Earth Mother,  and Her black color is the color of the rich, dark, fertile soil whose Mysteries sustain the cycles of life.

An image that especially interests me, for example, is one of two (!) Black Madonnas found at the shrine of Le Puy, France, which is one of the beginning points for the great Camino Pilgrimage.* In the Le Puy  Madonna  the Christ child emerges from the area of the figure's womb, rather

than being held in her arms.  Pilgrims  gather in the church  and pray to the Black Madonna at the start of their journey to the great Cathedral of Compestela.  Christians of the Middle Ages approached the Camino de Santiago de Compostela  as an act of transformation, an opportunity to make a long contemplative journey toward a divinely inspired life.  The Pilgrimage routes themselves have very  ancient,  pre-Christian origins associated with them,  which like Pilgrimages (called Mysteries) in ancient Greece  concerned  healing and rebirth, and like the Elusinian  Mysteries, were in some way associated with the Great Mother-Triple Goddess. 

Camino pilgrimage routes 

Pilgrimages to the Black Madonna still occur throughout Europe following long traditions -a  prolific annual pilgrimage, for example,  to the Black Madonna of Czestohowa in Poland engages thousands of worshippers, and there have been many claims of miracles that were granted by the pilgrimage.   

Procession before Mass. Photo: PAP/Marcin Kmieciński.

As previously noted, there are quite a few  Black Madonna shrines  associated with the great pilgrim route of Camino de Santiago de Compostela, called "the Camino".  When Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of Rome, he also gave the Imperial blessing to the Roman "Camino"  which he re-established as a Christian pilgrimage.  Santiago Means "Saint James".  According to legend,  St. James brought Christianity to Spain, where, in his travels, the Virgin appeared to him in a vision.  When he later returned to Palestine he was martyred, but  his disciples returned his body to Spain and interred it in what became the  great Cathedral and the  final destination of the pilgrimage.  But whether Saint James is actually buried at Compostela or not,  long before the Virgin was called the Virgin people were making pilgrimages on that route to the Mother Goddess - perhaps bearing offerings, at Roman shrines, to Isis.

Black Madonna of Czestochowskad (Poland)

Isis and her husband Osiris were the deities of agriculture.  Isis was responsible for bringing the dead Osiris back to life, resulting in the birth of Horus, the Sun God.  As many suggest, Osiris may be the first "Green Man" deity - as in many other such mythic cycles, it is the sacrificial male that dies and is reborn, usually in tandem with  the female Mother Earth, and often at the time of the Winter Solstice.  This cycle is repeated in stories from Mithras to Dionysis to the Christ story.   Equally, many scholars feel that ubiquitous Egyptian statues of Isis nursing the infant Horus are possible, if not probable,  origins of the Madonna and Child images of later Christianity, embodying the Great Mother Goddess archetype that has origins  ghosting all the way back to the Neolithic.   

Since some of the shrines dedicated to the Black Madonna occur in caves or at special springs  of geomagnetic potency she was associated with healing, and the dark earth that the common people depended upon and lived with  intimately.  Within the dark dormancy of winter, fertile seeds wait underground  in the black soil to germinate, bringing the renewal  of life.  In this sense, blackness and darkness  represent fertility, as well as the endarkened  underground realms of rebirth.  

Western thought is over-shadowed by patriarchy, by our male dominant culture. Only recently have scholars such as Marija Gimbutas or Carol Christ seen many cultural assumptions through a different lens.   Contrary to the notion that animals in prehistoric cave paintings represent "hunting magic",  many feminist scholars suggest that magnificent Cave paintings, such as those in the Chauvet Cave which was made into a 2010 Documentary, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" by Werner Herzog,  were created as symbolic offerings within the great "womb" of the Mother Goddess.  One of the oldest drawings there, far in the back of the cave, is that of a woman's vulva, the only representation of a human form within the cave, and indeed, it may be the earliest known drawing of a human being.  It is generally called a "Venus" by archeologists, but my colleagues suggest that it is not painted there just as a figure of male eroticism.  A more likely explanation is that it represents the numinous source of birth.  In that light the paintings of animals are acts of prayer,  honoring their  rebirth  within the "womb" of the cave.

Vulva form from Chauvet cave, ca. 30,000 bc. 
The bull and lion forms were apparently added at a later date.

Mother Earth 

Whether originally derived from Isis or not,  Black Madonna  images are very often connected in place and myth to healing springs, power sites, and holy caves.    The Black Madonna is thus a manifestation of the primal Earth Mother archetype, transformed once more, this time  into the form of Catholic Mary.  But  She is not entirely disguised, because She is black like the rich Earth is black - dark because she is embodied and immanent, as nature is embodied and immanent. 

There are many sacred sites housing Black Madonna effigies, and quite a few of them are associated with "The Camino", of which the  Cathedral of Santiago at Compostela is the endpoint.   Scholar and film maker Jay Weidner has suggested that the earliest pilgrimages on the Camino were made to the Black Madonna of Compostela.  He comments that Compostela comes from the same root word as "compost", which is the fertile soil derived from the decomposition (and re-creation) of rotting organic matter, the "Dark Matter"  from which new life emerges.  Composting could be viewed as the alchemical soup to which everything returns, continually resurrected by nature into new life, new form.  "Mater" is Latin for Mother. (I love the poetics of this!)

"From this compost -- life and light will emerge. When the pilgrims came to the Cathedral at Compostela 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

There are many miraculous legends associated with Black Madonna icons and sacred sites. The power of sacred sites and sacred images has multiple layers of potency.  What inner significance does the image have to the devout who come before it?  What does the icon, as well as the "spirit of place" emanate?  Can an ancient statue or painting have healing powers, or is the site itself a "place of power", it's energies renewed by millenia of geomantic reciprocity,  millenia of pilgrimage? What is the power of place, pilgrimage and symbol combined to change consciousness and to effect the "miraculous"? 

The extent to which pilgrimages to such sites are made is quite amazing - the Black Madonna of Montserrat in Spain receives as many as a million pilgrims a year to the the "miracle working Madonna" called La Moreneta, the little dark one.    

Here's a commentary by Martin Gray, who documented his 20 year worldwide pilgrimage to sacred sites in his magnificent book, illustrated throughout with his photography,  Sacred Earth: Places of Peace and Power.   He is writing about the Black Madonna of Guadalupe, Spain, the object of a thousand years of  pilgrimages.

"It is important to consider the legendary description of the icon as having miraculous healing powers. How are these powers to be explained?

 The current author theorizes that the healing powers of certain icons, statues and images derive in part from their capacity to somehow function as both receptacles and conduits for some manner of spiritual or healing energy..........Perhaps, in some currently unexplained manner, sacred sites and sacred objects are able to gather, store, concentrate and radiate energy in a similar way."

And, to turn to an entirely different part of the world, yet perhaps not unrelated, I would like to mention briefly the great Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and the Black Stone of Mecca.  

It is enclosed in a silver enclosure that (although largely only feminist artists such as myself might notice)  very distinctly resembles a Yoni.  

No one really knows what significance this stone had to the pre-Islamic peoples who made pilgrimage there, except that there were ancient  traditions of honoring special stones there.  The site was a very ancient  pilgrimage site, and had a simple open air shrine in the shape of a cube,  hence, the "Kaaba", or Cube, structure of the present day shrine.   Allat  (Al-lat)  was  an ancient Goddess of the pre-Islamic people people of  Mecca.  

Her name (Al-lat) means literally "the Goddess".  Allah means "God, or Creator". This deity of  great antiquity is one of a trinity of desert goddesses, the "daughters of Allah" named in the Koran. The Moon was associated with her,  hence perhaps the stone's enclosure in a yoni shape made of silver.   These female  deities would have  been prominent  in Mecca during Mohammed's lifetime, as was Mecca.   It is interesting  to consider the Black Stone's  current housing, and also fascinating,  from a symbolic point of view, that millions of people annually circle a 4-sided building that houses an ancient black stone, which was probably originally identified with a moon Goddess, that is made of silver like the moon, and is shaped like a Yoni.  And which only men may now view.

Black stone of Mecca By Amerrycan Muslim

I have been fascinated by the Black Madonna for years.  With the ascent of patriarchy (and the descent of the Goddess) the Great Mother became hidden, buried under folk traditions, Her origins lost or co-opted by a male  deity.  That primal pilgrimage to Source may have once been represented by the great prehistoric monument of Silbury Hill, or called Isis nursing the Sun God Horus, or She may have become  Mary with Jesus.......but it never really ended.  It just transformed again.  

Resources:

Begg, Ean, The Cult of the Black Virgin (1985) 

Benko, Stephen, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology (1993) 

Christ, Carol P.,  Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (1997)

Cruz, Joan Caroll , Miraculous Images of Our Lady (1993) 

Gray, Martin, Sacred Earth - Places of Peace and Power (2005)   Sacred Sites (www.sacredsites.com)

The World Map of Black Madonnas http://interfaithmary.net/locations

Weidner, Jay  (www.jayweidner.com) 

* (in 2014 my friend Zoe made the Pilgrimage, with marvelous photographs, and here is the Blog I created for it:  https://zoescamino.blogspot.com/2014/11/camino-thirty-three-final-farewell.html)

More New Masks for my Upcoming Show

BRIDGIT

I've been busy indeed getting ready for my show in May, including finally finishing a new version of  my Book about the Masks of the Goddess Project.  

It is fun to have a chance to practice my mastery of my art.........I have not made many masks in the past few years, mostly because since I stopped doing the shows and "being out there" there have been few requests for masks.  But this is what I am good at, and it has been a great privilege for me to make these Goddess masks for others to use.  

I remember when I first started learning about the "Temple Mask" traditions of Bali, and started working with Ida Bagus Anom in Mas, which is near Ubud.  I was so inspired with the idea of sacred masks, masks that were used to "in-voke" the Gods, masks that were the "special masks" that were kept in the Temples, anointed and cleansed with holy water by the Balians, and maintained and created by a class of mask makers............it seemed so familiar to me, that concept.  Perhaps I once lived in a culture like Bali where masks were sacred, in some other lifetime............

 So when I returned to the U.S., the idea of making a collection of "Temple Masks" devoted to the Divine Feminine made sense to me.  And then my opportunity came along with an invitation to create masks for the Invocation of the Goddess at the 20th Annual Spiral Dance in San Francisco.  It seems fitting indeed that the Project should end in San Francisco as well, 20 years later.  And I am ....... happy to realize that the masks did fulfill that dream, and I have this chance to close with honor for the many people I've been privileged to share them with.

INANNA

CERES/DEMETER 

ISIS

HECATE

ERESHKIGAL

BAST

The Morrigan

I've always loved this poem, which seemed to erupt from me when I was creating a mask for the Celtic Goddess of battle, justice, and lamentation in 1999.  The Romans record that the Gauls (Celts) went to war with the certainty that the Morrigan, in the guise of a raven, would bear them to the Summerlands if they died in battle.  I could almost hear the ferocity of Her  voice, with an Irish lilt, spoken with a backdrop of drum and bagpipes, which were traditionally used to lament the dead, as well as a call to battle.

It's one of the few things I've written, in other words, that I really don't know where it came from, I provided the hand, Spirit provided the words. At that time I had a gallery in Berkeley, and was deeply engaged in working with the Goddesses - it was a time of flow and attunement.    I hope to open this channel again.   And this poem speaks to me still.  The message is about the entwinement of all experiences, a call to re-member that the real battle is the evolution of our souls into compassion and love, the understanding of that fundamental evolutionary truth, especially now.  I guess that's why, when I put together this collage while thinking about how I might make a new Morrigan mask, a mask that waits to be filled by a new storyteller, the threads of the Web had to be manifest in the drawing.

The CURSE OF THE MORRIGAN

You who bring suffering to children:

​May you look into the sweetest, most open eyes, and howl the loss of your innocence.

You who ridicule the poor, the grieving, the lost, the fallen, the inarticulate, the wounded children in grown-up bodies:

May you look into each face, and see a mirror. May all your cleverness fall into the abyss of your speechless grief, your secret hunger, may you look into that black hole with no name, and find....the most tender touch in the darkest night, the hand that reaches out. May you take that hand. May you walk all your circles home at last, and coming home, know where you are.

You tree-killers, you wasters:    May you breathe the bitter dust, may you thirst, may you walk hungry in the wastelands, the barren places you have made. And when you cannot walk one step further, may you see at your foot a single blade of grass, green, defiantly green. And may you be remade by it's generosity.

And those who are greedy in a time of famine:  May you be emptied out, may your hearts break not in half, but wide open in a thousand places, and may the waters of the world pour from each crevice, washing you clean.

Those who mistake power for love:  May you know true loneliness. And when you think your loneliness will drive you mad, when you know you cannot bear it one more hour, may a line be cast to you, one shining, light woven strand of the Great Web glistening in the dark. And may you hold on for dear life.

Those passive ones, those ones who force others to shape them, and then complain if it's not to your liking:

May you find yourself in the hard place with your back against the wall. And may you rage, rage until you find your will. And may you learn to shape yourself.

And you who delight in exploiting others, imagining that you are better than they are:

May you wake up in a strange land as naked as the day you were born and thrice as raw. May you look into the eyes of any other soul, in your radiant need and terrible vulnerability. May you know yourSelf. And may you be blessed by that communion.

                   And may you love well, thrice and thrice and thrice,
                   and again and again and again
                   May you find your face before you were born.

                   And may you drink from deep, deep waters.

Lilith, and new Book Endeavor

I began my new archival book "The Goddess Suite".  While many wonderful scholars, like Patricia Monaghan and Max Dashu, Anne Baring, Jennifer Barker Woolger, Jean Shiboda, and others have written extensively about the historical, and archetypal, importance of the "Woman with A Thousand Faces"..........still, I feel I need to archive the stories that have come from the women and men I've been privileged to know over the years of working with masks of the Goddess.  What I really want is to share are the many performance excerpts from those years, and most importantly the techniques we developed to work with masks  devoted to the divine feminine for healing, re-discovery, empowerment, and, of course,  community ritual  theatre.  A lot of magic happened, and I keep trying to pass that on.  So I may repeat myself many times in the course of this blog..........for any who may read this, forgive me.

For some reason, I began with  Lilith, and I reflect on the little garden magic going on right now, the quite miraculous repeat bloom of the "Night Blooming Cereus".  Well, surely that is Lilith's flower, because her name means (more or less)  "Night", her domain is the liminal night landscape, and her gift is  night vision. 

I found the excerpt  below, which I wrote for a short performance piece some 15 years ago, I had completely forgotten about it.  This was around the same time I did the fascinating  interview (below) with David Jeffers, an artist and musician in San Francisco  I greatly admired: 

"Lilith as Dream Guide"

This is a famous painting by the British artist John Collier.  Like Blake, I believe Collier was intuitively tuned into something not very well articulated in his time.  His sensual Lilith is unapologetic, and she is  embraced by the Serpent, which is the serpentine Kundalini force, rising from the Earth, and through her body. 

I think that painting might have been the  beginning point of my Lilith piece - unapologetic as well, she is "herself", unbroken, elemental, and sympathetic.

LILITH

There are times  I find myself drawn to him.
Or he draws me, in his dreams, his lonely sleep.

There are times
I'm pulled by a past so lost I can no longer even invent it.

We were innocent then.  Wandering a newly risen world
it's seedlings and sproutings, it's empty waters and warm sun.
He and I, I and him, one being really, in two bodies, rolling together
in the sweet and simple mud, rain and sun and light and dark

Before the words, and shapes and endless dividing of things.
The logic of fragmenting and naming,
and then breaking again, and again, and again,
each piece
smaller and harder and denser and slower.
And colder.  Colder.

You see, I grew enraptured by the ferocity of  World.

Her vast generosity, Her dangerous spiral mysteries.
Stars reflected in dark tide pools,
vines that curled eager tendrils around the curious finger,
fragrance of hyacinth and hyenas calling across the night.

But Adam wanted to make the world into his own measure.  I was his first attempt.

So I grew wings.

The more he tried to seize me,  the farther I flew into azure skies,
elemental passions, deep black waters,
empty deserts, bone yards and jungles,
the more I hungered for the moon.

He demanded his way
Or no way. 

And when his tantrums failed, he made for himself
a womanless and jealous  God
who would have no other.

I rose!  I flew!
Not for any price.....not for  bread or any ease.
Not for any price
would I be anything less than what I am,

Damned if I do and damned if I don't!

So I left  and found another lover.

Ah, Samael.....his hot wings and volcanic heart,
his sweet and terrible kisses.
Samael, who comprehends neither sin nor virtue,
only the splendor
of the ever changing moment. 

What soarings we had!
What flights, what heat, what progeny!

Adam, and his quiet,  frightened wife
placed amulets at his door
painted their bed with magic words and  self-imposed
shame, invocations to his cold-eyed God
who made of me a demon

I still remember him
when the whim  or the wind takes me
I kiss his sleeping lips
when he calls me in his dreams.