Welcome to Day 9 of the Thirty Days of Walking with Mary
for September
Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows.
We recognize her blackness in the prima materie of nigredo
in the alchemical process of transformation.
We also see her in the blackness of the Black Madonna.
Who has ever been stronger than Mary?
Anyone then who wishes to live in the valley
of humility must conquer
All the power of great love
– Hadewijch of Antwerp
She will take the racked treasure of our suffering
on her knees and place it beside the
tortured relic of Christ’s body.
Her arms contain all the suffering of the whole of humanity,
the countless ever-growing number of wounds
of a human race which is continuously crucified.
– Edward Schillebeecks
We continue with the Immaculate Practise for the full thirty days.
The discipline of a daily repetitive spiritual practise
contains the mind and frees the soul to explore the other realms
of Divine Love and Wisdom
Today I add a special prayer for the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows
I enter the Underworld as you pull me into your embrace,
in every waking moment of living.
Contemplating on your Presence in the world,
opens me up to the poignant beauty and suffering
of all life in order and my heart breaks open
over and over, over flowing with compassion.
As my rigid mind dissolves in your
presence, all boundaries between myself and all living creatures
and the earth disappears and we are all one.
In my research and pilgrimages to the Black Madonna, I found that one of Her most important messages can be summed up by these words of Albert Einstein :
A human being is part of the whole called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
The stories of the Black Madonnas are some of the oldest that we have. Many of these statues were hidden for hundreds of years to escape destruction by the many rulers and patriarchs that passed through the lands. But she has a consistent story and message to tell.
Images from the forthcoming Black Madonna Tarot Deck
www.hergracesacredart.com
The Black Madonna deck is a deepening of the Mysteries of Mary as a spiritual path of being devoted to the Blessed Mother in Her many manifestations and aspects. I am hoping that this deck will offer another layer and level of spiritual insight and clarity into the personal journey of initiation, consecration, dedication and commitment to Mary as the reflection of the One in many and many in One.
It is part of my vision that one will be able to use these two decks, the Mysteries of Mary and the Black Madonna, concurrently and together; both for readings for spiritual insight and as a guidebook and map to the journey of spiritual unfoldment and ultimately union with the divine self.
Mystery surrounds the Black Madonna and her symbolism. There are as many theories as there are Black Madonnas. We no longer have any writings about her and very few stories still exist. But that is exactly where I am looking for my insight about the Wisdom of the Black Madonna : in folk tale and the stories that have been carried over down the generations and in my own personal experiences and insights into the collective unconscious and the womb of light.
The blackness of the Black Virgin is obviously a problem for the patriarchal religious structure known as the Roman Catholic Church. Various explanations are given for the dark colour of the statues and the past few years many Black Madonnas have been whitened in renovation projects in the cathedrals and churches. Slowly the ancient tradition of the Black Madonna is disappearing. I see this ‘whitening’ reflected in many of the New Age teachings and sentiments and short cuts are promised to the holy grail of inner peace whilst at the same time many ancient practises are denigrated and even declared illegal (as in the use of herbs and plants).
However, what a blessing that She is being kept alive in these beautiful cathedrals and basilicas and that communities are still devoting themselves to her ritually and in festival.
The dark colour of the Black Madonna reflects the inner darkness that we have to wade and find our way through if we want to find long lasting satisfaction and happiness. This is not an easy process and without a community to support your struggles, it is even more difficult. When you turn outwards towards mainstream thinking, you will be met with a deluge of alternative solutions offered through capitalism, designed to replace your inner connection to yourself and the Universe.
When one closes one’s eyes, you see the colour of the Black Madonna. Sitting in contemplation and meditation for long periods of time can be overwhelming and frightening to the ego-mind and the constructs of the psyche. We spend an inordinate time to create our mental constructs and to line up our belief systems to give sense and meaning to our world. We also all have personalities that has been shaped and created through our personal conditioning and experiences and from there we continue the personal ‘training’ of the mind. In other words, we are heavily invested in who we believe we are and in maintaining this illusion for ourselves and the world. So obviously change will not come easily.
Millions of people struggle with insomnia and use exercise or drugs to subdue the mind into submitting to sleep. A regular meditation practise may look like a peaceful and inactive pastime, but the truth be told, it takes the lid off Pandora’s box and lets the ‘good, the bad and the ugly’ out from your subconscious mind into the awareness of the conscious mind. And this It is far easier to live in ignorant bliss and have no ills blight the landscape of your awareness.
All spiritual practise leads to a psychic and emotional detox and when you do not know what is happening, it can be very fearful and off-putting and retreat would seem like the most sensible thing to do.
An initiation into a spiritual practise and path can come to you in various ways. Often one is catapulted and initiated through personal experience and a catastrophic event in your life into a deeper exploration of one’s inner reality. With the New Age explosion in the West many spiritual teachers have appeared but it also created a watered-down form of spirituality with the teachings made more meek and acceptable and palatable to the masses. If you are serious about your spiritual unfoldment you need to dive deeply into the womb of black light that resides within you and within which you reside.
There is also a lopsided focus on ‘love and light’ with the result that those who understand that the shadows and the living black light is an integral part of the divine matrix, split off into their own sub-culture of new-paganism, wiccan, witchery and other labels. Unity and union with the divine means that these two worlds have to be married and embraced as one, both within oneself and within the projected world of our divine mind. Otherwise we are falling back into patriarchy and dual based religions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and all that grows from there. – an extract from the introduction to the Black Madonna tarot deck on www.patreon.com/thefrenchmadonna
blessings
Hettienne
