Black Madonna

"I salute you, Black Virgin, each day that I see you and that I live."
----chant in honor of the Black Virgin of Biarritz


She’s here and there all across Europe. There are many explanations of what brings her shining black face to the West. Is she Isis come out of Roman North Africa? The religion of Isis was widespread in the later days of the Empire and it was carried by the army into the new northern territories. Many European Isis shrines are sited at ancient holy sites, by sacred wells and springs, all of which once belonged to Brigit, the Celtic Triple Goddess. It’s perhaps a case of one religion supplanting another, and then, in its turn, being supplanted by the militant tide of Christianity. So, instead of Isis carrying her son Horus, these dark ladies were viewed as an African Mary carrying her son Jesus.

An alternate explanation may be that today’s Black Madonna is yesterday’s Goddess of the Dark Moon. After all, in the old religions, the Triple Goddess who ruled the earth was symbolized by the moon, and the moon has phases. New Moon represented the maiden, Full Moon, the Mother, while the Dark of the Moon represented the Crone, the original version of a divinity which was “three in one and one in three.”

Southern Italy was colonized early on by Greeks, named by them Magna Graecia. Intermarrying with the Etruscan people, they worshipped the Goddess, Demeter, or Cybele—the earth mother who regenerates every spring—in their temples. Sometimes, this lady is known as “The Ancient Spider.” This goddess weaves and spins, as do the Fates, and many powerful goddesses in many different traditions, from Athena to. She also possesses her devotees with the bite of her creature, the tarantula, and then frees them in a restorative dance which is sacred to her, and which still survives: Tarantella.

In later societies where men ruled, women were deprived of all rights and of their ancient sacred status as givers of life. Then Tarantella provided a form of emotional release for the frustrated, depressed and frequently abused “lesser sex.” Perhaps this explains its survival and practice into the present.

In Puglia, in the Basque region of Biarritz, in Barcelona, in France,in Calabria, and in Montserrat in Spain, all ancient bastions of the Roman empire, Black Virgins are still found. Their festivals are devoutly celebrated, for each Virgin has been the object of veneration, longing and pilgrimage for well over a thousand years.

“I come a long way to salute you, Maria. I come to ask for a miracle, and I won’t leave until you grant it to me. Perform this miracle, Maria! Perform it out of your mercy.” –Canto della Madonna Di Montserrato as sung by Alessandra Belloni in her CD, Dance of the Ancient Spider.
http://www.alessandrabelloni.com/music.php

http://www.julietwaldron.com

The Dance of the Black Madonna

Dancing with the Shadow Beings

I became a Dolphin

leaping in the Ocean

leaping in the Sea

twisting and flying in the air

Fast, fast, past reefs of colours

bursting red, yellow, blue

 

 

Hauled back to dance again

on the white sand

to dance at the feet of

the Black Madonna

to be welcome inside Her mantle

to swallow a silver key in the darkness

that I may gather tears of all those who bring them

and lay them at Her dusky feet

 

 

For She has the Power to transform sorrow

into a purple veil dance

Dance of brown feet

on the timeless white sands

of the Lower World

 

 

White shore, sand and ocean

day becomes night

in the purple veil dance of the Madonna,

Who sees and knows all things

I am drained of my sorrows

and all my dark teachers come

dancing with me upon the sands

 

 

There is healing in the darkness

All pain is bearable

All pain is transformed here

to dance and stars and sand

Where God is Bhairava

and Goddess every Dark Mother

compassion is deep and violet

He is here and She is here

dancing, dancing

And as I reluctantly go

the shadow stretches out in farewell;

I kiss its graceful fingers

As they recede down the passage of dark joy