Exploring the Feminine Divine: Who is the Black Madonna? | Bonney Says, Feminine Divine | DONNE TEMPO
Exploring the Feminine Divine: Who is the Black Madonna?
March/01/09 10:24 PM Filed in: Bonney Says
| Feminine
Divine
By Bonney Rega, Special to Donne
Tempo Magazine
“Once upon a time there was the Goddess. She was actively involved in the life of Her children. She ruled the earth for many cycles. Then she slept for eons.
She is now awakening, demanding recognition. She is the Eternal Feminine…Creatrix… Mother of all. She is the veiled One. She has been venerated in many forms by her earth children. As Rock. As Cave. As Ocean. As Sky. As Sun. As Moon. As Earth. As Animal. As Air and Fire.
She has appeared in many guises on all
continents in all cultures over the eons. She has
been called by many names...Gaia, Anu, Innana,
Ereshkigal, Okanaga Earth Woman, Kunapipi, Nut,
Spider Woman, Oma, Demeter, Persephone, Anat,
Asherah, Eve, Lilith, Isis, Astarte, Sekhmet,
Hathor, Hel, Hecate, Ishtar, Kali, Diana, Tiamat,
Bridget, Morrigan, Tara, Pele, Cybele, Athena,
Hera, Aphrodite, Sophia, Venus, Minerva, Medusa,
Juno, Shekinah, Baubo, Mari, and many more.
While the ancient Goddess slept, the patriarchal Gods emerged. Goddess worship receded. She was superseded. Yet her earth children dimly recalled her. She continued - and continues - to influence us still, lightly touching us in our dreams, our reveries, and our meditations, appearing in one of her triune aspects, as Maiden, Mother, or Crone.
She appears as Healer, or as Destroyer. She appears as Anima, or Shadow, cloaked in multiple disguises. There are signs that She is re-awakening.”
This thought is not original – others, including modern psychologists, artists, scholars and mystics, have come to the same conclusion.
The Black Madonna (or the Black Virgin), one of the many archetypal manifestations of the Goddess, represents the deeply hidden aspects of the psyche. She is the cauldron that contains all that we fear, and also all to which we aspire – She is the unconscious repository of all that is potential in our being, all that is waiting to "bubble up," whether positive or negative.
Like the Hindu Goddess Kali, She is the great Giver of Life, and the great Destroyer, who both begins and ends cycles. She is the Goddess of Fertility and Procreation. She is the place where all possibilities exist. She contains all the seeds of pre-birth, whether they are animal, vegetable, or mineral.
She is pregnant with the ideas existing in
the human mind that give birth to creative
products. She is the Creative Unconscious, the
place where art is conceived, new scientific
ideas emerge, and joyful play originates. And She
exists in each of our psyches, whether we are
male or female.
Mary, known as the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, the Black Madonna, and the Black Virgin, is a comparatively recent, but particularly potent expression of the ancient Goddess.
She has insisted upon recognition, gaining more divinity and divine power over the past 2000 years. But whether or not the Church recognized her, she was held sacred in the psyches of individual Christians, women and men, and around her the cult of Mary was formed.
Over the centuries, she has grown from being “merely” the mother of Christ to becoming the Queen of Heaven. Statues and paintings of Mary in her guise of the Black Madonna appear all over Europe, South America, and more recently, in North America.
The face and hands of Mary and the infant Jesus are invariably painted black, although their clothing is often multi-hued. The statues are usually frontal, while Jesus is represented as child-sized, with adult features.
There has been a lot of speculation about why the Black Madonnas are black. Some say that statues of Isis suckling Horus were brought back by the Crusaders from the Holy Land, and that statues of Isis and the infant Horus were placed on home altars as images of the infant Jesus and Mary.
Others aver that the Black Madonna originally was brought from India through the old trade routes, and that the Goddess Kali was absorbed into the cult of Mary, hence her dark coloring.
In my travels, I’ve discovered that the French people are much more forthcoming than other Europeans both in conversation, as well as in church literature, as to these and other possible origins of the Black Virgins housed in their churches. Perhaps this is because the French resisted the Inquisition, while Spain and Italy joined wholeheartedly in silencing those who might have been more knowledgeable about these matters.
Wherever the truth lies, what is certain is that the love and devotion to Mary, in her guise of the Black Madonna, has grown over the centuries. She is an archetypal symbol of the Dark Mother, the cauldron containing all that is unknown, all that is potential in our individual and collective psyches.
All that we can become is held in Her
sacred vessel. She is the mysterious container
for what is waiting to be born in us and from us.
Visiting Her sacred sites is magical - the Divine
Mother archetype is a felt presence that
continues to influence our psyches, consciously
or unconsciously, whether we are male or female.
In France, the Black Madonna’s (or la Vierge Noire’s), numerous shrines can be found in modest local parish churches, as well as in the most glorious Gothic cathedrals, epitomized by the Chartres Cathedral, whose spires, stained glass windows, and flying buttresses elevate the spirit.
Her sacred, loving, compassionate presence is immediately felt in many churches, particularly in the cathedral of Le Puy en Velay, situated in verdant hill country. The area, dotted with huge, millennia-old volcanic plugs, houses several churches dedicated to Mary, and St. Michael, the dragon-slayer. They are built over ancient sacred Goddess-worship sites. (The slain dragon in this context can be seen as the feminine symbol – St. Michael symbolizes the church’s conquest over the Goddess traditions.)
The cathedral devoted to Mary, perched on a grand hill, contains an abundance of beautiful Black Madonnas. Legend has it that Mary appeared atop a dolmen (a triple stone monument probably originally built by Druids) to an extremely ill, feverish woman who was miraculously healed. Mary instructed the woman to inform church authorities to build a cathedral honoring the Divine Mother. It was done, and the dolmen stone, known as the “fever stone,” was incorporated into the church's architecture. It has continued to heal people who have slept upon it over the centuries.
Sitting atop a more modest volcanic plug is another much smaller, more intimate church dedicated to St. Michael. It contains a diminutive, exquisite, Black Madonna. The church’s builders, finding another ancient dolmen when they approached the site, also added its remnants into the chapel’s architecture.
The 200-plus steep stairs leading up to this chapel hasn’t been graced by a plumb-line. The dizzying upward journey is worth the necessary effort to experience the peaceful chapel and the view from its ramparts, which offers a breathtaking panoramic view of the valley below. From this vantage point one can see a large statue of Mary looking toward a large statue of Joseph across the valley. Joseph appears to be waving to Mary, calling across the millennia, “Hail, Mary.”
Traveling to Mary can be external, and/or interior. She exists in the landscapes of the soul, as well as in the outer chapels. Invite Her in. And expect the unexpected.
Mary appears in profoundly funny ways. For example, I’ve been writing a book about my experiences with the Black Madonna and other Mothers, both divine and human. While writing the chapter on Le Puy, Mother Mary gleefully intruded herself into my life. I worked on the chapter for one full weekend, immersed in her essence.
On Monday, I was at my computer looking for Swami Beyondananda's web page, because that morning I’d gotten an email with his very funny Ten Rules for Life, which I had accidentally deleted. When I found his web page, although there was a link to his Ten Rules, it wasn't operational.
Disappointed, I returned to his home page, idly scrolling through to see what else was available. My hand slipped (accident?) and the screen linked up with Annie’s web page. Annie claims to be channeling information from Mother Mary. She describes her meditations, saying that she “…heard Her voice throughout my whole being.”
This is much how I would describe my own experiences, except that I have visionary experiences, seeing Her in my mind’s eye. Annie tells Mary she’s got the wrong person, that she is not Catholic. Mary replies, saying neither is she! Mary tells her Annie she wants her to get Mary’s message out to the world.
Annie goes on to describe Mary’s predictions, which are beyond the scope of this article. Mary’s very persistent with Annie. She doesn’t care a whit whether Annie’s Catholic - just that she’s a fitting vessel to spread Mary’s message.
It seems so simple: in order to avoid global catastrophe, we just have to work on ourselves to get rid of unresolved anger and fear, and to learn to love ourselves. Then the love will ripple outward, encompassing more and more people.
But that kind of work takes conscious effort, and a will to change. Mary’s advice to Annie sounds good to me. Annie’s experiences parallel mine in many ways - I, too, was raised Jewish, and still honor that part of my being.
Mary, too, intrudes in my life, and reads
my mind and my thoughts.
Because the information is being filtered through two distinctly different people, it comes through in different ways. The Divine Wit that permeates the Divine Mother’s messages to me is almost a byproduct of Annie’s communications.
But Divine Wit is central to mine. What's important is that Mary's message is coming through in multiple ways, because it needs to reach as many people as possible.
After clicking off Annie’s web page, I stayed at work grading projects because I taught an evening class from 5:00 to 7:30. Afterward, I rushed to meet my Ad Club students at Peoria’s Five Dragons Restaurant.
I had arranged for the students to help the restaurant owner, Elaine, with an ad campaign, so she'd invited us to a seven-course Chinese meal, which introduced the students to her new chef's artistry.
When I arrived, Elaine said, "They're not doing Karaoke. Why don't you sing? If you do, it'll break the ice, and the kids will start singing, too."
"Are you kidding? I'm in no mood to sing right now." I was exhausted. But insistently, she grabbed my arm, pulled me up onto the platform, handed me a mike, and said, "Sing."
She had put a Beatles song up on the video screen. Randomly chosen. I found myself singing (I had to control my laughter):
“When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me
Singing words of wisdom, let it be,
Let it be, let it be, let it be,
Singing words of wisdom, let it be.”
Elaine was right. The kids did start to sing. And Mary, you can see, has a keen sense of humor.
At least when she’s dealing with me. Working with archetypes can be fun!
Captions:
1. Black Madonna of Częstochowa
2. The Fedorovo Virgin, a Black Madonna icon of 18th century Russia
3. Wooden statue of the Virgin and Child, supposedly carved by St. Luke; in the Benedictine monastery of Santa María de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain. Art Media/Heritage-Images
4. In the Abbey Church of the Benedictines, OL of the Hermits, Die Schwarze Madonna, Madonna in the Dark Wood, Our Dear Lady of Einsiedeln (hermits), c 1466, wood.Island of Mainau, Lake Constance
Donne Tempo Magazine welcome Bonney Rega, a resident of Chicago, Illinois who seeks to find and understand the ancient Feminine Divine in our modern lives. Welcome Bonney!
.
“Once upon a time there was the Goddess. She was actively involved in the life of Her children. She ruled the earth for many cycles. Then she slept for eons.
She is now awakening, demanding recognition. She is the Eternal Feminine…Creatrix… Mother of all. She is the veiled One. She has been venerated in many forms by her earth children. As Rock. As Cave. As Ocean. As Sky. As Sun. As Moon. As Earth. As Animal. As Air and Fire.
While the ancient Goddess slept, the patriarchal Gods emerged. Goddess worship receded. She was superseded. Yet her earth children dimly recalled her. She continued - and continues - to influence us still, lightly touching us in our dreams, our reveries, and our meditations, appearing in one of her triune aspects, as Maiden, Mother, or Crone.
She appears as Healer, or as Destroyer. She appears as Anima, or Shadow, cloaked in multiple disguises. There are signs that She is re-awakening.”
This thought is not original – others, including modern psychologists, artists, scholars and mystics, have come to the same conclusion.
The Black Madonna (or the Black Virgin), one of the many archetypal manifestations of the Goddess, represents the deeply hidden aspects of the psyche. She is the cauldron that contains all that we fear, and also all to which we aspire – She is the unconscious repository of all that is potential in our being, all that is waiting to "bubble up," whether positive or negative.
Like the Hindu Goddess Kali, She is the great Giver of Life, and the great Destroyer, who both begins and ends cycles. She is the Goddess of Fertility and Procreation. She is the place where all possibilities exist. She contains all the seeds of pre-birth, whether they are animal, vegetable, or mineral.
Mary, known as the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, the Black Madonna, and the Black Virgin, is a comparatively recent, but particularly potent expression of the ancient Goddess.
She has insisted upon recognition, gaining more divinity and divine power over the past 2000 years. But whether or not the Church recognized her, she was held sacred in the psyches of individual Christians, women and men, and around her the cult of Mary was formed.
Over the centuries, she has grown from being “merely” the mother of Christ to becoming the Queen of Heaven. Statues and paintings of Mary in her guise of the Black Madonna appear all over Europe, South America, and more recently, in North America.
The face and hands of Mary and the infant Jesus are invariably painted black, although their clothing is often multi-hued. The statues are usually frontal, while Jesus is represented as child-sized, with adult features.
There has been a lot of speculation about why the Black Madonnas are black. Some say that statues of Isis suckling Horus were brought back by the Crusaders from the Holy Land, and that statues of Isis and the infant Horus were placed on home altars as images of the infant Jesus and Mary.
Others aver that the Black Madonna originally was brought from India through the old trade routes, and that the Goddess Kali was absorbed into the cult of Mary, hence her dark coloring.
In my travels, I’ve discovered that the French people are much more forthcoming than other Europeans both in conversation, as well as in church literature, as to these and other possible origins of the Black Virgins housed in their churches. Perhaps this is because the French resisted the Inquisition, while Spain and Italy joined wholeheartedly in silencing those who might have been more knowledgeable about these matters.
Wherever the truth lies, what is certain is that the love and devotion to Mary, in her guise of the Black Madonna, has grown over the centuries. She is an archetypal symbol of the Dark Mother, the cauldron containing all that is unknown, all that is potential in our individual and collective psyches.
In France, the Black Madonna’s (or la Vierge Noire’s), numerous shrines can be found in modest local parish churches, as well as in the most glorious Gothic cathedrals, epitomized by the Chartres Cathedral, whose spires, stained glass windows, and flying buttresses elevate the spirit.
Her sacred, loving, compassionate presence is immediately felt in many churches, particularly in the cathedral of Le Puy en Velay, situated in verdant hill country. The area, dotted with huge, millennia-old volcanic plugs, houses several churches dedicated to Mary, and St. Michael, the dragon-slayer. They are built over ancient sacred Goddess-worship sites. (The slain dragon in this context can be seen as the feminine symbol – St. Michael symbolizes the church’s conquest over the Goddess traditions.)
The cathedral devoted to Mary, perched on a grand hill, contains an abundance of beautiful Black Madonnas. Legend has it that Mary appeared atop a dolmen (a triple stone monument probably originally built by Druids) to an extremely ill, feverish woman who was miraculously healed. Mary instructed the woman to inform church authorities to build a cathedral honoring the Divine Mother. It was done, and the dolmen stone, known as the “fever stone,” was incorporated into the church's architecture. It has continued to heal people who have slept upon it over the centuries.
Sitting atop a more modest volcanic plug is another much smaller, more intimate church dedicated to St. Michael. It contains a diminutive, exquisite, Black Madonna. The church’s builders, finding another ancient dolmen when they approached the site, also added its remnants into the chapel’s architecture.
The 200-plus steep stairs leading up to this chapel hasn’t been graced by a plumb-line. The dizzying upward journey is worth the necessary effort to experience the peaceful chapel and the view from its ramparts, which offers a breathtaking panoramic view of the valley below. From this vantage point one can see a large statue of Mary looking toward a large statue of Joseph across the valley. Joseph appears to be waving to Mary, calling across the millennia, “Hail, Mary.”
Traveling to Mary can be external, and/or interior. She exists in the landscapes of the soul, as well as in the outer chapels. Invite Her in. And expect the unexpected.
Mary appears in profoundly funny ways. For example, I’ve been writing a book about my experiences with the Black Madonna and other Mothers, both divine and human. While writing the chapter on Le Puy, Mother Mary gleefully intruded herself into my life. I worked on the chapter for one full weekend, immersed in her essence.
On Monday, I was at my computer looking for Swami Beyondananda's web page, because that morning I’d gotten an email with his very funny Ten Rules for Life, which I had accidentally deleted. When I found his web page, although there was a link to his Ten Rules, it wasn't operational.
Disappointed, I returned to his home page, idly scrolling through to see what else was available. My hand slipped (accident?) and the screen linked up with Annie’s web page. Annie claims to be channeling information from Mother Mary. She describes her meditations, saying that she “…heard Her voice throughout my whole being.”
This is much how I would describe my own experiences, except that I have visionary experiences, seeing Her in my mind’s eye. Annie tells Mary she’s got the wrong person, that she is not Catholic. Mary replies, saying neither is she! Mary tells her Annie she wants her to get Mary’s message out to the world.
Annie goes on to describe Mary’s predictions, which are beyond the scope of this article. Mary’s very persistent with Annie. She doesn’t care a whit whether Annie’s Catholic - just that she’s a fitting vessel to spread Mary’s message.
It seems so simple: in order to avoid global catastrophe, we just have to work on ourselves to get rid of unresolved anger and fear, and to learn to love ourselves. Then the love will ripple outward, encompassing more and more people.
But that kind of work takes conscious effort, and a will to change. Mary’s advice to Annie sounds good to me. Annie’s experiences parallel mine in many ways - I, too, was raised Jewish, and still honor that part of my being.
Because the information is being filtered through two distinctly different people, it comes through in different ways. The Divine Wit that permeates the Divine Mother’s messages to me is almost a byproduct of Annie’s communications.
But Divine Wit is central to mine. What's important is that Mary's message is coming through in multiple ways, because it needs to reach as many people as possible.
After clicking off Annie’s web page, I stayed at work grading projects because I taught an evening class from 5:00 to 7:30. Afterward, I rushed to meet my Ad Club students at Peoria’s Five Dragons Restaurant.
I had arranged for the students to help the restaurant owner, Elaine, with an ad campaign, so she'd invited us to a seven-course Chinese meal, which introduced the students to her new chef's artistry.
When I arrived, Elaine said, "They're not doing Karaoke. Why don't you sing? If you do, it'll break the ice, and the kids will start singing, too."
"Are you kidding? I'm in no mood to sing right now." I was exhausted. But insistently, she grabbed my arm, pulled me up onto the platform, handed me a mike, and said, "Sing."
She had put a Beatles song up on the video screen. Randomly chosen. I found myself singing (I had to control my laughter):
“When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me
Singing words of wisdom, let it be,
Let it be, let it be, let it be,
Singing words of wisdom, let it be.”
Elaine was right. The kids did start to sing. And Mary, you can see, has a keen sense of humor.
At least when she’s dealing with me. Working with archetypes can be fun!
Captions:
1. Black Madonna of Częstochowa
2. The Fedorovo Virgin, a Black Madonna icon of 18th century Russia
3. Wooden statue of the Virgin and Child, supposedly carved by St. Luke; in the Benedictine monastery of Santa María de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain. Art Media/Heritage-Images
4. In the Abbey Church of the Benedictines, OL of the Hermits, Die Schwarze Madonna, Madonna in the Dark Wood, Our Dear Lady of Einsiedeln (hermits), c 1466, wood.Island of Mainau, Lake Constance
Donne Tempo Magazine welcome Bonney Rega, a resident of Chicago, Illinois who seeks to find and understand the ancient Feminine Divine in our modern lives. Welcome Bonney!
.
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