The Black Madonna of Montserrat
Spain
In Christianity the goddess is personified by the Black Madonna
In Montserrat, in the Middle Ages, the Benedictine monks
saw their craggy mountain, lush with flowers,
as an image of the Virgin herself.
Referring to this shrine, Marina Warner writes :
‘While Mary provides a focus for the steeliest ascetism, she is also the ultimate
of fertility symbols. The mountain blossoms spontaneously;
so does the mother maid.
The old significance of the moon and the serpent as divine attributes
survives in such sanctuaries as Montserrat,
for there she is venerated as a source of fertility and delight ….
The Virgin of Montserrat presides especially over marriage and sex,
pregnancy and childbirth
– Alone of all her sex
For a woman without a positive mother, this ‘dark’ side of the Virgin
can bring freedom, the security of freedom, because she is a
natural home for the rejected child.. The child born from the rejected side
of the mother can bring her own rebel to rest in the outcast
state of Mary.
The fact is the domestic world alienates her.
She is an outcast, a gypsy.
There is no room for her in the inn.
Saving the abandoned child within her is the woman’s own version
of the Virgin and Divine Child.
Her virgin is the other side of Mary,
‘the ultimate of fertility symbols.’
In loving the abandoned child within herself,
a woman becomes pregnant with herself.
The child her mother did not nourish, she will now nourish,
not as the pure biblical Virgin who knew no Joseph,
but as the dark Montserrat Virgin who presides over marriage and sex,
pregnancy and childbirth.
extract from The Pregnant Virgin by Marion Woodman
Today is the third day of the Twelve Days of Mary and it also relates to the third day of the Epiphany of 28 December.
On our wheel of colour-astro we are dealing the third card for
Gemini May 22 – June 22
Colour Yellow
The planet Mercury
The tarot card The Lover
The Third house of communications and duality
The solar plexus chakra
complementary colour is violet and third eye chakra
spiritual centre are located in the hands
This card has bearing on the time period of Gemini for your personal year in 2020
but also to the area of that house, the chakra, the spiritual centre etc.
At the end we will look at and explore all 12 cards.
Meditation
Visualise the hands as centres of healing, peace, love and wisdom.
Be still and listen. Focus on the in and out breath.
Profound peace comes over me in the stillness.
Be still and know that the I Am in you is really the I Am in all.
All is one life, one Spirit, one magnificent AM uniting all, creating
a matrix of divinity.
The I Am of each one is the I Am of Me.
All is in Me and I AM in all.
My body is in your body and your body is in my body.
My soul is in your soul as divine love, will and wisdom.
I am a channel of my greater divine self and through my hands
I create beauty and healing and communicate
acceptance and compassion.
I am here as I am required to express my soul and her creativity
into this world.
blessings
Hettienne
