Walking with Mary Day 9 December

Today is the anniversary of the first visitation of the Virgin of Guadalupe

to the humble indigenous man Juan Diego at a place called Tepeyacac, in

what is present day Mexico City.

It was 1531, on the 9th of December.

A young woman appeared in the sixteenth century to Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill.

 As the story is told in the oral tradition recorded by John Mini, it was

at dawn that she appeared.  San Juan Diego heard singing like that of beautiful birds.   When the song ended he heard someone calling his name.   When he climbed the hill there was a woman. She was radiant with light, shimmering like the sun. He was overcome by awe and fell down on his knees.  

She said to him :

'Know my youngest child, I am the Forever Whole

and Perfect Maiden Saint Mary,

Honourable Mother of the True God,

Honourable Mother of the Giver of Life,

Honourable Mother of the Creator of Men and Women,

Honourable Mother of the One who is Far and Close,

Honourable Mother of the One who Makes the Heavens and the Earth'

                                   - The Aztec Virgin, John Mini

'There is in God, some say

A deep but dazzling darkness*

Shrine from the upcoming Mysteries of the Black Madonna tarot deck

www.hergracesacredart.com

.....It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,

Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,

After the sun’s remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days:

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,

Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy Hope! and high Humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have show’d them me

To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,

Shining nowhere, but in the dark;

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust

Could man outlook that mark! ......

If a star were confin’d into a tomb,

Her captive flames must needs burn there;

But when the hand that lock’d her up, gives room,

She’ll shine through all the sphere.

Extracts from the poems of Henry Vaughan

*The Night

They have all gone into the Light

The Black Madonna and the Black Virgin-Mother is also symbolic of the dark night

of the soul.  She can be seen as the alchemical stage of 'nigredo', the blackness

through which our soul substance is tempered and transformed.

Most traditions have a dark-night spirituality and the worship of the Black Madonna

is across all continents and all cultures.  In the Catholic tradition there is a powerful

meditation called 'The Cloud of Unknowing.'  In this meditation one

enters the path of unknowing and undoing, darkness and uncertainty.

And yet, the experience gained on any 'dark-night of the soul' tradition

is one of illumination and enlightenment.

When we enter the womb of the Black Madonna we enter the

passage of rebirth and She reflects the light in the darkness to us

as a glittering jewel.

When I created the shrine of  the Virgin of Guadulupe

in her sanctuary, the monastery of Guadalupe, near Cáceres, Extremadura in Spain

these images came to me

She is known as

Patronness of Extremadura

Queen of Hispanics

Our Lady of Silence

and reputed to be the first Guadalupe and that the famous

Virgen de Guadalupe of Mexico may or may not be a copy

of her or at least that these two melded into one.

Sutra for today

Love is sent forth from our being through our womb, our heart and

our words.  Love is the well from which all life springs forth.

It is the primal matter of the universe.  It lives within us within

the seed atom of perfection.  When we speak, our words carry our

inner light, love and power.  Light comes from within and darkness

precede the light.  We must have one with the other to truly know

and become Love.

blessings

Hettienne