‘There is in God, some say
A deep but dazzling darkness*
…..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 Goddess is 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 Guadulupe and that the famous
Virgen de Guadulupe of Mexico may or may not be a copy
of her or at least that these two melded into one.
Today is the second day of the Twelve Days of Mary and it also relates to the second day of the Epiphany of 27 December.
On our wheel of colour-astro we are dealing the second card for
Taurus (April 21 – May 22)
Colour orange
The planet Venus
The tarot card The Hierophant of the Mysteries
the second house of beauty and wealth
the sacral chakra; (orange)
and the spiritual center of the throat and the colour blue
The colour of the sacral is Orange , its complementary colour is violet
and its higher spiritual colour is blue
This card has bearing on the time period of Taurus 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.
If you have placed your 12 cards onto your wheel, turn over
the second card.
How does this card act as Hierophant of the Mysteries in your soul and psyche?
Meditation and contemplation on the second chakra (sacral)
and its higher spiritual centre (throat)
and its higher spiritual centre (throat)
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
