Day Five of Thirty Days with Mary

The Black Madonna by www.iconfusion.com


We contemplate the darkness as we wait for the
Gate to the New Dawn

Black is the colour of night and the shade of soil.
It cloaks midnight and blankets the depths of caves
and grottos.  In previous cultures, the most
popular totem for a chief male divinity was the sun and,
by extension, light;  goddesses have been
associated with the moon and, by extension, night.
                                -Leonard Shlain (The Alphabet vs the Goddess)


Many medieval churches, extending in a wide arc from
Russia across Europe to Spain, had as their most sacred
object a statue of Black Mary.

Like the black, abiding earth, her simple being is so vastly 
present that we have not noticed it.
           - Caitlin Mathews


In a quest for a mother who will accept us when we can't quite
make peace with our errors, or with ourselves, it is easier
to turn to a simple mother acquainted with the darkness of life
than to the lovely Virgin, perfectly obedient and always
pure.
In the heart of our dark mother, love for us endures without
judgement or pretense.  She helps us deal with the undeniable
fact that we live in a world we can neither control nor
comprehend, a world with which we often cannot cope -
in which we can at times only endure.

She is the silent companion who stands at our elbows
as we toil ..... daily grappling with humanity's
problems ...... striving to reflect the light of the
spirit in our world.
                    - Caitlin Mathews

In the Gnostic book of the Apocryphon of John it is written
that we are never alone as the  power of the mother, the shakty
in Hindu terms, the Epinoia in Gnostic terms, kundalini
in tantric terms and Mary in my own personal experience,
 is here with us and within us.

the blessed One, the Mother-Father, the beneficientand merciful One, had mercy on the power of the mother .........
And he sent, through his beneficient Spirit and his
great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which
comes out of him, who is called Life.
And she assists the whole creature,
by toiling with him and by restoring him to
his fullness ........ and be teaching him about
the way of ascent.

And thus we ponder the dark Madonna within ourselves -
the unknown who springs into action during
an emergency, or who rises to the occasion as need be
without thought or hesitation.
We also have the queen within who wants everything perfect
and who, when not treated just so, can take offence
unnecessarily.
Disciple, 'know thyself'
We are she.

These polarised appearances - as Hag or Queen of Heaven -are the two sides of the coin, one archetypal power.
Just as coal and diamond are both carbon - that
basic substance of life - so dies the Goddess of Wisdom
manifest her power through seemingly opposing appearances.
The Goddess of Wisdom is seeded in us all.
  -  Caitlin Mathews

However, the Great Mother of Wisdom, in all her
many aspects, are the One, only perceived
in polarity and duality.  By the darkness of night
we perceive her as the moon and in the
brightness of the day, as the sun.
But there is only One Light
and we come to know this through detachment.


blessings
Hettienne