Black Madonna

I had a hammer-to-the-head moment today. This last couple of weeks since the house went on the market have been insanely crazy, and I've really struggled to keep my focus on what really matters to me.

One of my new Sisters in the Community of Solitude has a real passion for the Black Madonna. As we've been getting to know each other, we've begun to talk about the Black Madonna as an ancient route of the divine feminine to bridge into our world, and I started to read up about these ancient manifestations: icons, statues, and the devotional practices and legends that have grown up around them. The "hammer to the head" was that the statues of the Black Madonna traditionally are seated on the Seat of Wisdom, and many of the writers I've read so far make a clear link between Sophia and the Black Madonna. She is the darkness, the fecundity of the earth, the richness of the shadow, the dark night of the soul.

I need to find out more about her. She symbolises the power and strength of the earth, the darkness of knowing God, the depths of the night, the courage to be and to endure. I've always had a connection with Mary and sensed that there was great strength in her, but finding her this way is a whole different experience.