Black Madonna as Dark Goddess
art by J. Jeffrey Minzey minzeyart.com
Perched on my mantle is a stunning Black Madonna, painted by a good friend and Vodou practitioner. The glowing whites of her eyes seem to say,“Take absolutely no crap, I will protect you.” For me, she is a placeholder for the Dark Goddess. Her energy is palpable.
As Ezili Danto, a formidable loa of the Vodou pantheon, she is a fierce mother, who will stop at nothing to protect her children. She made herself known to me at a very dark time. I did not even know who she was, at first. She will always have a special place in my heart. Her fierce grace illuminated my “dark night of the soul.”
Tuning into the archetype of the Dark Goddess puts us face to face with hidden healing forces in the unconscious. Matrix of all creativity and renewal, her presence informs us that we can, and must embrace the darkness of the unknown. She fulfills a collective need within the psyche, and her energy transcends any one belief system.
Symbolized by the Black Madonna, she is the great cosmic Mother on whose lap all creation exists. She embraces and mothers the universe itself. She can make us conscious of our relationship to the whole, instead of just parts, be they nation parts, ethnic parts, religious parts, or private parts. Ignoring the darkness has made us susceptible to negative traits such as racism and sexism, and has led us to the environmental crises we are now facing.
The Black Madonna is a symbol of political liberation. She stands for justice for the oppressed and lower classes. She sees things in terms of the whole, and does not countenance oppression or exploitation of the many for the sake of a privileged few.
The return of the Dark Goddess to the forefront of consciousness coincides with the need in our society to integrate sexuality and religion- the coexistence of sexual pleasure with sacredness. The Black Madonna is seen as something more than the submissive image of the Virgin Mary. Her energy represents spiritual gains attained while inhabiting the body instead of transcending it.
For so many generations, our society has been haunted by the Madonna/Whore split. This has disempowered so many, especially regarding gender and sexual norms. Black Madonnas, like other dark divinities, offer the possibility of healing this split. They can inspire women, and men, too, to voice emotions their families, cultures, and religions have deemed unwelcome.
We are only now becoming conscious of this side of the feminine archetype, the Dark Feminine- Dark meaning hidden or unknown, not evil or bad. She cannot, nor does she desire, to fit into limiting social structures. The Dark Goddess compensates for the cultural one-sidedness which values intellect and reason above intuition, the mysterious, and the soul.
The magical healing powers of nature herself are an aspect of the Divine Feminine. She embodies the earth, and an ancient past when the feminine was venerated. The Pre-Christian goddess was simultaneously light and dark, beneficent and malevolent, creative and destructive, a combination of harlot and nun. She embodied all aspects of nature. Ample harvests and the resources of the earth, storm, drought and famine were all seen as Her, without the false division of good and evil. This division has caused a lack of grounding, a loss of soul, and disconnection from the nurturing energy of Mother Earth.
In many religions, darkness itself is seen as evil, something to avoid. This sacred darkness is not at all evil, just the other half of our being. If we deny the darkness we deny who we are. Our society’s fear of the dark half of nature’s cycles–winter, aging, death, etc. reflects this. By “embracing the darkness,” honoring cycles, and accepting those parts of ourselves we have hidden or denied, our soul’s truth becomes accessible. Shadow work and mining our “shadow gold’ fall under the domain of the Dark Goddess.
Encountering the Dark Goddess can be a life enhancing experience, a spiritual as well as physical journey. Sometimes she becomes an aspect of our dreams, connected to the realms of the dark moon, and the creative depths from which new light is born. Her blackness represents the creative chaos or void in which everything exists in potential, the darkness from which the light emanates.
To experience a greater wholeness, create a connection to Her. Receive the energy contained in Her energy field and store it in your own energetic body. Interlace the earthly and spiritual dimensions. You will perceive a sacred union of darkness and light, a world permeated by a living force, a holistic energy.
This same energy is available whether you resonate with the Black Madonna, or different Dark Goddesses. Kali appeared to me in a dream. At first I saw a black snake with two golden eyes. Instead, it was Kali’s dancing arm, the eyes were her rings. Her face appeared and she looked at me in an amused way, as though she knew things were about to get intense. When I awoke, for a moment I saw the Black Madonna’s eyes glowing gold instead of their usual bright white. She will often “glow” at me when I am tuning in to my beloved Isis or even Hekate, both Goddesses of dark and light. Kali is the most resonant for me, however.
Interestingly, Sara-le-Kali (Sara the Black), a version of the Black Madonna, became the patron saint of the Roma people. They elect their gypsy queen at Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, in the sepulchre where her statue rests. I can’t help but imagine the gypsies traveling from India, and bringing Kali with them. Sara-le-Kali was the perfect guise to continue their devotions covertly in the West.
The myths of the Dark Goddess are multi-vocal. They come from different sources, and different points of view. It has been shown that Christianity’s origins may lie in the religion of ancient Egypt, particularly the worship of Isis. Scholars suggest that Mary Magdalene may have been a priestess of this religion, and thus there are connections between Mary Magdalene, Isis, and Black Madonna.
Though the Black Madonna is syncretized with Ezili Danto, Kali, Isis, Sekhmet, Baba Yaga, Morrigan, Lilith....and so many more, She is an archetype of holistic wholeness. The Dark Goddess is the missing element in our current worldview. I would say that as an aspect of The Great Goddess, (there is no actual separation, it’s simply easier to tap into aspects rather than the whole sometimes) we can draw upon her energy to restore our personal holism. . . an excellent place to start.