Black Goddess

03/02/06 Gennaro Foco Brooks-Church

Copyright Gennaro Brooks-Church May 1998

Shedding Light on the Dark Goddess In this paper I will walk into the darkness with open eyes and attempt to reveal the Goddess in her dark form. First I will briefly look at several dark Goddesses such as Kali, Tara, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and some Black Madonnas of Europe. They are all deities with darker skin than their worshipers, meaning that the skin color is not just a physical reflection of the populace. She’s black for a reason; what is it? Leonard Moss asked an Italian priest why his town’s Virgin Mary was black. The priest replied, “My son, she is 1

black because she is black” . Galland got the same reply from a Swiss priest. Why was 2

she black, Galland asked. “For no reason,” was the answer . Despite what these priests might lead us to believe, there’s more to the picture. Not to say they are wrong; as 3

Galland writes, “There are many reasons and there are no reasons” . After all, this is God we are talking about. In the eyes of the priest, where the infinite rules, she is what she is. For scholars, looking through their finite academic eyes, there are many reasons. This essay will discuss the infinite and the finite of the Black Goddess, not, however, from a textual , historical, or social-scientific standpoint, but from the more interpretive psychological and theological viewpoint. Marshaling a number of traits which many dark goddesses seem to have (associations with transformation, protection from danger, and the dualisms of cyclic change), I will argue that such dark goddessses answer a psychological need in all of us. My interpretation will show how the Black Goddess, in her many different names and forms, exists in every bodies’ lives for the same purposes. From birth, to death, our lives change and grow, and like our mothers in infancy, the

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Gennaro Foco Brooks-Church

Black Goddess is the transformative and guiding force in this process. But before I speak of the universal, let us first look at the goddesses individually.

The Black Goddesses Kali th

The Hindu goddess Kali is black. In the 6 century Devi-Mahatmya text, where Kali makes her “debut” in Sanskrit literature, she is seen springing from Ambika’s 4

forehead when it “became black as ink in anger” . Once formed, she precedes to help Ambika slaughter the attacking enemies, taking great joy in killing and drinking the victims’ blood. In this aspect she is the Great and Fearful Destroyer, exterminating all that gets in her way. She is dangerous, and few can stop her except Siva, her sexual consort. He is often pictured with her in cremation grounds, lying like a helpless child at 5

her feet . Anybody who tries to resist her in a confrontational way, however, is killed 6

violently, as seen in the Devi-Mahatmya . This distinction is important; confront her and risk destruction, lie helpless at her feet and she will not harm you. Although she was brought about to destroy, such destruction was to save and protect the Gods from the attacking demons. Her blood-sucking warrior character is there to protect, and because of this she is really seen as a Fierce Protectress. In tantric practices the confrontation of Kali’s power does exist, but as McDermott noticed in Bengal, most followers approach her as the helpless child, hoping for her motherly protection. Her fierce destructiveness is not perceived as directed at the follower, but at the follower’s dangers. S inberg writes, Kali “embodies dark inertia (tamas (tamas), ), is shiny black as the color of collyrium, and carries a sword, shield, and blood-filled skull. Her darkly inert nature indicates that she is

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difficult to move or pass, as is a strong fort (durga), and alludes to her role as a protectress. Her weapons reinforce this notion and also indicate her role as demonslayer”. The blackness of her skin evokes this protective rage. She is not a white knight in shining armor with civil rules of warfare, but an enraged mother who will commit any sin to protect her children. Tara

Although popular in other parts of the East, Tara’s home is Nepal, and she is 8

believed to be a cross-fertilization of Buddhist and Hindu origin . Although her connection to Durga (Kali’s alter ego) is ve ry strong, the story of their origins differs 9

greatly . Tara was born from a lotus that floated in a lake of tears, tears that gathered from compassion for all suffering sentient beings. Durga, however, came into existence to destroy the Buffalo demon Mahisa, and is described as “warlike, bloodthirsty, 10

insatiable, and cruel” . Durga was created for destruction; Tara, however, was formed as the embodiment of compassion: two very different reasons for coming into being. However, Durga and Tara’s similarities cannot be overlooked. The first Tara was golden in color, like Durga, and carried many of the same attributes as protectress and giver of prosperity, especially agricultural prosperity. Tara’s later colors are white, red, and eventually blue/black and green. In the blue/black form she takes on a fierce 11

countenance, and her main role is to protect, often guarding the entrances of temples . 12

Like Kali’s association with tantrism, Tara’s black form is also tantric , evoking the more mystical aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism. Black Tara’s main attribute is that of 13

“destroying all obstacles and is supreme in dispelling danger” , and when in this “dark, wrathful” state she often takes on the name Ekejata, just as the fierce Durga takes on

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Kali’s name. Furthermore, Tara is closely associated with the dark night and with water, making her the protectress of nocturnal dangers, and saving people from water or healing with water. Sinberg traces these attributes back to the sixth, seventh and eight centuries when sailors asked for Tara’s blessing on their sea voyages from India to Burma. They 14

sailed at night, using the stars as guidance . This connection with the night and water accentuate her link to the darker aspects of life and the unconscious, but this is not seen as negative, though, since her presence ultimately protects and guides you through the darkness. Lady of Guadalupe

The Dark Lady of Guadalupe came as a vision to a poor Mexican farmer in 1531. She told him she wanted a Catholic church built for her on the same spot where people 15

had formerly worshipped the Aztec Goddess, Tonansti . The local peasants embraced this idea because they saw her as the reincarnation of their Aztec goddess, and the Spaniards accepted it because they felt she was their Dark Virgin of Guadalupe from west 16

central Spain . The characteristic that allowed this melding of two deities was primarily their black skin, and also their shared association with the moon and fertility. Likewise, the apparition of a saint claiming the Americas as her home metaphorically cut Mexico’s 17

umbilical cord to Spain , a move many locals craved, and from then on she was closely connected to liberation politics, especially anything to do with the emancipation of the poor and underprivileged. Any gain on this front was credited to her, such as the Civil War of 1911, which snubbed the elite’s power and gave increased rights to peasants. Her followers often carried her image into battle, and her bust boasts several medals proclaiming her status as a general. Understandably, her image fits well with the more

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recent development of Liberation Theology, where priests work directly with the people, sometimes on a revolutionary scale, for a better life. Her popularity grew quickly, as she was dubbed “Queen of the Americas” in 1945, and her shrine is now acknowledged as 18

“one of the holiest in Christendom” . Upper level religious leaders, however, have met her rise to fame with occasional resistance, but the incredible devotion on the grass roots level has made her growth unstoppable. The followers of Guadalupe are a popular movement, based on a deep emotional and spiritual human need to acknowledge a black female deity. Her character traits (pure, self-sacrificing, and protective) are that of the perfect Mexican mother, and according to Preston further explain Virgin Guadalupe’s popularity. Her still popular Aztec name, Tonansti, literally means mother, and according 19

to Galland her original apparition was in the form of a pregnant woman . Because of this, according to Bushnell as pointed out by Preston, she satisfies “a deeply felt need in 20

the lives of many adults for a mother figure” , somebody who will protect them and cure their ills. Black Madonnas of Europe

Black Goddesses fill the religious theatre of Europe, and according to Redgrove 21

“well over 200 famous” shrines of Black Virgins exist in Western Europe alone . The tremendous cross-cultural pollination, combined with the appropriation and renaming of old Goddesses as politics and religions change, has caused a rich and long history, almost all with pagan roots. The Black Virgin and Child in Chartes, France, for example, officially dates back to the fourth century, but her shrine was built on the age 22

old altar of a black mother and child, probably of Druid origin . Likewise, Santa

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Maria, patron of Lucera in southeastern Italy, has a complex web of roots, and is a good example of the multi-layered amalgamation that takes place. In 975 BC the King of Etolia landed in the Lucera region and built a temple to Ceres (goddess of grain) on the 23

old temple of the goddess Minerva . Minerva, also known as Athena, is a warrior 24

goddess, associated with wisdom, protection, and the arts . Ceres, as seen in Ovid’s poems, looses her daughter, Prosepine, to the god of the underworld. Grief-stricken, the mother begs him to let Prosepine return. They compromise, and Prosepine spends six months of the year in the underworld and six months with her mother. The effect on Ceres is a cycle of joy and sadness, death and rebirth, as seen in the changing seasons. There is a bountiful spring and summer when Prosepine rises from the underworld, and a barren autumn and winter when she must return. In the same area as Ceres’ shrine, Greek invaders superimposed temples to Cybele or Rhea on the sites of former Phoenician temples to the goddess Ma or Ammar that dated from the tenth century. From Cybele came the Goddess Demeter (also known as Ceres), associated with grain, fertility, the earth and its cycles. Around 400 BC seagoing natives introduced the Egyptian goddess Isis into the region, and like all the priviously mentioned goddesses, she is black. Called a 25

“beneficent sorceress” by Carey , Isis is strongly associated with death and 26

resurrection . During the height of the Roman Empire Ceres and Persepina became 27

dominant in the area ; with the Empire’s fall some 450 years later, a Catholic church was erected on the exact spot the Romans worshiped. The church was dedicated to the Madonna della Spiga (Madonna of wheat), the connection with Ceres some ten centuries earlier still well intact. But this did not las t, and Muslims eventually invaded, building a mosque on the site in 1225. Their reign was also short, less than half a century, and the

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mosque’s stones were used to build the present day cathedral of San Francesco, where the Black Virgin was reinstalled in 1300. The Madonna della Spiga is credited with many 28

miracles, from liberation from the Muslims to helping the peop le survive epidemics . Here she plays the role of protectres. Preston also notes that she does not get the veneration (dulia) or adoration (hyperdulia) accorded to the white Virgin Mary and Saints. They have “grace”, but the Black Madonna does not; she has “power”, and for 29

this reason they give her another, stronger form of respect. She is worshiped (latria) . They shower her with corn, wheat, earth or other sacrificial offerings, especially during 30

the days of planting and harvesting . This is just a sample of one goddess’s complex history. Intricately interwoven to almost every other Black Goddess, history changes her, but the same thread of similar characteristics emerge each time, weaving together the past with the present. Anything to do with the changing (sometimes painful) cycles of the earth is in her tapestry, as is the process of fertility and healthy protection of people, animals, and vegetables.

Another interesting Catholic Virgin is the “black servant maid” Saint Sara of the 31

Sea in southern France, Patron Saint of the Roma . As a photographer making a book on Roma, I had the chance to do a story there in 1993. Sister of two white Virgin Marys who inhabit the ground level of the church, Black Sarah stands alone in an underground crypt below the church. She is surrounded by hundreds of burning candles. Behind her rest canes and crutches discarded by those who hobbled in seeking her miracles and walked out cured. Every year in May, Roma gather from all over the world for a few weeks of festivities, culminating in a ceremony that carries S ara into the sea, symbolically welcoming her sisters who wait in a boat farther off shore (Saint Sara was rumored to

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have been found washed up dead on the shore). In this aspect she acts as the bonding icon for the Roma pilgrims, who come from many different places.

The Roma also refer to Saint Sarah as Sarah-Kali; there are two possible reasons for this. It is now commonly believed that the Roma originated from India, leaving in waves between the sixth and thirteenth centuries. Because of this heritage, their language, Romaneea, is very similar to an old form of Sanscrit from the northwestern region of India. One reason for the name Sarah-Kali could be that the y are simply referring to her color, since kali means “black” in their language, as it does in Hindi today. Another reason could be that they are actually worshipping a form of Kali herself mixed with Christian influences, not an impossible theory since they did come from India around the time of the Crusades. Birnbaum has this to say: Of the three [sisters], it is the small black figure called Santa Sara (identified with the black woman divinity Kali of India) who is the most powerful figure. Gypsies, according to Barbara G. Walker, are the last active worshipers of the goddess in Europe. They believe that “the earth is our mother, and so is woman. The secret life comes from the ground.” Among their millions of Jewish, and other, victims, 32

the Nazis murdered more than 400,000 Roma . Walker’s work is very interpretive and not strictly academic, making her statements hard to back up with factual evidence. But it is still interesting to note her claim that Sara-Kali is a form of Kali from India. Although I can’t b ack it up with evidence, my exposure to both Indian Kali worship and Black Sarah in France gives me a strong hunch that they are connected. Granted, a hunch doesn’t prove anything, but the possible connection is worth noting since its existance would further expand the Goddess

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tapestry. Another interesting aspect of Birnbaum’s quote is the statement that Sara-Kali is the most powerful of the three sisters. Like our unconscious, she lives hidden underground, and is ultimately much more powerful than our conscious, as represented by the white Virgins above. Later in the book, Birnbaum connects Roma with sibyls. Sibyls are soothsayers, known for, among other things, the Delphi oracles (“Know yourself”) and for helping 33

Aeneas pass through the underworld . Birnbaum writes: Sibyls are connected to Gypsies by Paulo Toschi: both were believed to be able to tell the future. In Christian interpretation, Gypsies were co ndemned to wander for this sin of pride. Sibyls, because they believed they were bearers of the word, were condemned to stay in the subterranean world of grottoes (e.g., la Sibilla di Norcia). Gypsies, according to contemporary scholars were originally from Egypt 34

and are identified with the dark Eritrean sib yl . I include this quote to show the connection between Sarah-Kali’s place in the grotto (as opposed to her less powerful white sisters’ place in the upper church), and the condemnation of the sibyls to the same underground world for their power. Furthermore, it is tied together by the connection of Roma with sibyls because of their prophetic ability and origin from Egypt. Crowe amply proves that Roma originated from India, but they still spent time in Egypt, picking up local customs. Both Roma and Sibyls were punished for their power, but the difference is that Sibyls are myth and Roma are not. Roma, like Sarah Kali, are delegated to the grotto of our society. But unlike Sarah Kali, who is taken out every year and honored, the Roma are kept as hidden as possible. Is it so surprising, then, that Roma/non-Roma relations are so tense? Kali, when not honored, is a dangerous

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being. Likewise, so is anybody else in our society who is n ot given the respect they deserve.

Suffering and the Dark Goddess In describing these various goddesses, not once have I mentioned aspects of the heavenly, the shining white light, the looking upwards, and I often refer to the earth, the lower, the night, and looking inwards. The black goddess is about going in, going down, leaving the light and entering the darkness. It is not that they don’t have the “striving to go higher” aspects in them too, but it is only as a duality, a reflection of their darker side that strives to go down. The dark goddess has always existed in our society, despite many scholars’ references to the “re-emergence” of the goddess, as if she had disappeared. But like the darkness she embodies, her presence is less visible than the shining white light of other deities. She lives in the grotto of our lives. Matthews, when speaking of Sophia the black goddess of wisdom, says, “she is black b ecause she is primal…she keeps her glory 35

veiled” . She has not been kept alive in the external world of the power elite, but in the hearts of the anonymous under dog, the downtrodden. Matthews quotes C.S. Lewis’ story of Psyche, where the Queen asks a peasant woman in a church why she continues to worship a black stone (the Greek Ungit goddess) when the queen just had a beautiful statue built beside it. Even though the new statue is “tall and straight in her robes…the loveliest thing our land has ever seen,” the peasant woman feels the new goddess “wouldn’t understand my speech. She’s only for nobles and learned men. There’s no 36

comfort in her.” The black stone, however, “has given me great comfort” . The black goddess is there for the dispossessed, to lead them through the hardship.

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On the previous page I quote a paragraph by Birnbaum, where he mentions the Roma, the Holocaust and the Black Madonna all in the same breath. His association is not a coincidence, and other authors make the same connection between tragedies and the black goddess. In the middle of her book on the Black Tara from Nepal, China Galland devotes a whole chapter to the concentration camps in Krakow, Poland. No connection is directly mentioned. What does Hitler have to do with the Black Tara of Nepal? Galland goes to Texas and tells us of the Black Madonna there, and also describes in detail the local US Immigration treatment of South American refugees, comparing the US agents to 37

Hitler's Third Reich . She writes about the South American Black Goddesses, also describing the horrific acts of the Shining Path death squads from Guatemala. She goes to Poland, where the country is in the throes of doubt and revolution, to see the Black Madonna. She goes to the Dalai Lama and talks with him of Tara and the atrocities China is committing to the Tibetans. Most importantly, she speaks of her own alcoholism, and of how Black Tara made her acknowledge that she was destroying herself, and helped her heal. This is the connection: whenever there is darkness, whenever there is hardship, the black goddess helps you to accept there’s a problem inside yourself and helps you heal, ultimately leading you through. Whenever there is crisis, there exists the most possibility for change. The metaphor of the Black Goddess is what fascilitates this transition, just as a mother helps a child through the growing pains of childhood. Recently a black saint has emerged in Guatemala for the victims of the death squads. She is called the Madre de los 38

Desaparecidos, the Mother of the Disappeared . The Black Goddess is the ultimate mother, more of a mother than a white goddess is. Her blackness connects her to deeper suffering, deeper emotions, deeper compassion.

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It is the comforting blackness of the womb, of the earth’s insides, but it is also the blackness of Hitler’s heart, of atrocities. Accepting this blackness is the first step to recovery, and accepting the blackness is what will eventually lead you out of it. Nobody knows this more than those who have nothing to loose. As Redgrove says, “Indeed, it is among the outcasts and outsiders that the Black Goddess has lingered through recorded 39

history” .

The Mystic’s Journey Black is the color of change. I’m a Human Design Analyst. The Human Design System is a composite of the Ancient Wisdom (Astrology, I-Ching, Cabala, Chacras) and modern science. In it there is an aspect that discusses change and growth, as portrayed in 40

the I-Ching hexagrams number 3- Difficulty at the beginning and 60- Limitation . Hexagram 60 is about the pulse to mutate. This pulsating energy exists to iniciate mutation or change. It is not a constant flow but an “on and off.” When “off”, there is darkness, confusion, limitation, when “on” there is light, breakthrough and growth. But as the musician Miles Davis said, the mystery of music is in the space between the 41

notes . The darkness is actually when everything happens, and the light only shows us what has happened. If we can accept our times of limitation, if we can lay ourselves helplessly at Kali’s feet during the darkness, then we will be guided through the transformation. In the terms of nature, this “off” stage is the barren winter when the seeds are in the darkness of the earth, and the “on” stage is the harvest time in summer. Kevin Sauve, researching

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Physiological Neuroscience and Philosophy at NYU, describes the developmental process of the brain in the same fashion. The brain bounces in a rhythmic pattern from settled to unsettled, and it is in the moments of chaos that change happens. Like pages of a book being flung into the air, the mind purposefully jostles information into confusion. The chaotic moment of freefall is when the possibility for change becomes greatest, creating a broad range of possibilities to mutate into. The change is disturbing, though, because it destroys all previous existence, throws you into confusion, and transforms you into a new, and unfamiliar, way of being. Likewise the resettling back into a new pattern cancels out all the other possibilities, creating a sense of loss for what you had or could have had. Creation and destruction through chaos and confusion; does this sound familiar? The dual aspects of Tara and Durga as creator and destroyer as stated earlier; the death and birth cycles of Ceres; the duality of Sara living underground and her sisters aboveground, each year meeting in the waves that gave birth to her and killed her; the connection with the cycles of the moon, of the menstrual c ycles, of fertility. It all starts in darkness, and it ends in darkness. In Buddhist terms, Columbia Professor Robert Thurman describes the stages of the enlightenment experience as four different colors. Galland paraphrases Thurman thus: White is the first color encountered in the layers of the subtle mind... This is the stage of luminescence, described by the Tibetans as moonlight. Then comes red, radiance, described as sunlight. Next comes black, which he translates as imminence, described as the starless midnight before enlightenment. Enlightenment is referred to as the “clear light,” translated as translucence or

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transparency, which comes just before dawn and is beyond color, beyond dark 42

and light . Going from luminent moonlight to radiant daylight, then back into imminent darkness, eventually coming to the predawn translucence, the self progresses. Out of darkness comes growth. Black is about getting in touch with the deep subconscious where all is unknown and unseeable, before being able to see, and comprehend, the light of a new day. Redgrove says, you “must pass through the Cloud of Unknowing, the 43

blackness, the depression where all the senses se em closed” . Only then can the unconscious and conscious, the known and unknown, the down and up, merge and make sense again in a new higher consciousness. Mystics call this transformative darkness the “Dark Night of the Soul”, a moment when things are at their lowest, deepest, most intense. These are the dual aspects of the Dark Goddess, where destruction and construction work simultaneously. The self, on its path of growth, comes to a point where things cannot progress as they are, and either change or destroy, or both. The self, in order to survive, must leave behind the old and take on the new. Underhill writes: “Thou hast been a child at the breast, a spoiled child,” said the Eternal Wisdom to Suso. “Now I will withdraw all this.” In the resulting darkness and confusion, when the old and known supports are thus withdrawn, the self can do little but surrender itself to the inevitable process of things: to the operation of that unresting Spirit of Life which is pressing it on towards a new and higher state, in which it shall not only see Reality but be real. Psychologically, then, the “Dark

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Night of the Soul” is due to the double fact of the exhaustion of an old state, and 44

the growth towards a new state of consciousness . Surrendering oneself to the “inevitable process of things” is like Ceres making a compromise with the underworld, or like Hindus laying at Kali’s feet, submitting to her power, the same power that brings on the darkness in the first place. This is not always a pleasant process, but it is the most primal one we have. It is the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life and death, both inside and out. On the mundane level it is our biological mother withholding the breast so that we grow up. Once we become adults our spiritual mother inherits the job of making this growth happen in the next level. All the Black Goddesses I’ve mentioned have these very strong motherly characteristics. As stated earlier, Bushnell claims that the Virgin of Guadalupe simply satisfies people’s need for a mother figure. He’s putting it very mundanely, and I think it goes much deeper than this. Her overwhelming popularity cannot mean every South American still craves their mother’s breast. For many of the people, their biological needs have been satisfied amply and their relationship with the Virgin has nothing to do with their mother. I, for example, did not have fully satisfying relationships with women until I discovered the existence of my spiritual side. Up until then I was looking for the Goddess in earthly women, an unfair expectation that led to disappointment. I was asking mortals to fulfil a godly role. Once I found this godly source inside myself, however, I did not seek it from others, and my relationships became much more realistic and deeply satisfying. The Goddess fulfils this for people. There is no way the mortal South American mother could satisfy what the Virgin of Guadalupe satisfies. It is like askin g your baby sitter from childhood to be your graduate advisor. Yes they both look after your wellbeing, yes they protect and nurture,

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but they operate on very different levels. The Goddess is a spiritual mother, and all references to her as biological are metaphorical. Having said this, however, as I wrote at the beginning: this is god we are talking about, and of course it is ultimately all connected and infinite. On the infinite level she is our spiritual mother as well as our biological mother. She is also our father, brother, sister, and pet dog. Ramprasad’s poems of Kali talk to her as a child who needs scolding, 45

a mother to be adored, and also a person’s worse enemy . But first and foremost, the Black Goddess is a mother. Why? Because everything comes first from the womb, from darkness. Genetic research at the University of California has traced the whole worlds’ 46

human genetic gene pool back to one black woman in Africa some 300,000 years ago . This is perhaps a fact of little practical value, but it is nonetheless significant when speaking of the infinite whole. Again we are back to Thurman’s stages of enlightenment, back to the Dark Night of the Soul, back to that helpless moment we all wailed through when emerging from the darkness of our mother’s womb. Our evolution comes from darkness. This is why Galland and Birnbaum connect tragedy to the Dark Goddess. The transformative power of the black goddess is always strongest in the dark of the night. Woodman and Dickson attribute the “Age of the Black Virgin” and the simultaneous Black Plague in Europe to a new consciousness in humanity. The epidemic was of such destructive magnitude that “in today’s terms, it would be the equivalent of a nuclear holocaust”, and because of this, it effected the psyche of the Western world acordingly. Quoting Tuchman, they say:

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If a disaster of such magnitude, the most lethal ever known, was a mere wanton act of God or perhaps not God’s work at all, then the absolutes of a fixed order were loosed from their moorings. Minds that opened to admit these questions could never again be shut. Once people envisioned the possibility of change in a fixed order, the end of an age of submission came in sight; the turn to individual conscience lay ahead. To that extent the Black Death may have been the 47

unrecognized beginning of modern man . The authors’ reasoning is that only a shock of such magnitude could have wrenched the Western world’s outdated existence into the next stage of growth. Without this wrench, we would not have progressed to the next level and would have stagnated into oblivion. The Black Goddess destroys to then create. As Caitlin says, “The Black Goddess wastes 48

nothing, but reprocesses all” .

Seeing the Light The themes of all the Black Goddesses discussed are that they are all mothers on the most universal level. They are connected to the rhythm of change, whether that be through destruction and creation like Kali and Tara, or the earth cycles (moon, menstruation, fertility, seasons) like the European Madonnas and the Virgin of Guadelupe. They all have a dual aspect of crisis and saving, or protecting, from this crisis. They are the power that brings on the catastrophe, and, if you submit to them, they are the power that brings you forward, saving you from it. We see this in the menacing aspect of each deity. Kali, Tara, the Lady of Guadalupe, and the European Goddess all have a military, destructive aspect. Yet if you trust them in this power, they will use it to

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fight for you and your troubles. Likewise they have power , sometimes above and beyond the divine grace that white deities posses, as seen with the European Virgins. This power is frightening and needs to be kept under control. Shiva tempers Kali by dancing with her or lying at her feet, and Saint Sara is placed in an underground crypt like the powerful sibyls. Uncontrolled, this power becomes overly destructive, like Hitler, the death squads of South America, or the Immigration Officers in Texas. Likewise, in these same times of crisis the power is at its highest, and the potential for positive transformation also maximizes; once again, the duality. Finally, she is a duality to the white male god. She is the voice that says NO to Plato’s ideal of absolute, unchanging beauty; she says that change must happen, even if it initially seems ugly, or painful. Never say never, for that too will change. Likewise, as seen by the Goddesses discussed, she is deeply connected to the past, and it is from there that she makes us look in order to see where we will go. The energy of Dark Goddess makes us go in, to the roots, to the womb, to really see our deepest heritage, so that our growth will be from the strongest base. Like Sarah-Kali who brings together the Roma each year, the Black Goddess is the bonding force of our common roots. I would like to finish with an early Christian Gnostic hymn of the Black Goddess Prunikos: For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one… I am the one whom they call Life And you have called Death.

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I am the knowledge of my inquiry, And the finding of those who seek me… I am the substance and the one who has no substance. What is inside you is what is outside of you And the one who fashions you on the outside 49

Is the one who shaped the inside of you .

Works Cited Birnbaum, Lucia Chiavola. Black Madonnas. Boston: Northeastern U. Press, 1993. Caitlin, Matthews. Sophia Goddess of Wisdom, the Divine Feminine from Black Goddess to World-Soul. London: Mandala, 1991. Carey, Gary M.A., ed. Cliffs Notes on Mythology. Nebraska: Cliffs Notes, Inc, 1973. Christ, Carol P. Rebirth of the Goddess, Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997. Coburn, Thomas B. Encountering the Goddess, A Translation of the Devi-Mahatmya and a Study of its Interpretation. New York: State U. of NY Press, 1991. Crowe, David. A History of the Roma, Eastern Europe and Russia. New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1994. Galland, China. Longing for Darkness, Tara and the Black Madonna. New York: Penguin

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Books, 1990. Ironbiter, Suzanne. Devi Mahatmaya, Song to the Mother Goddess. 1987. Kinsley, David R. Hindu Goddesses, Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1988. McDermott, Rachel Fell. “Popular Attitudes Towards Kali and Her Poetry Tradition: Interviewing Saktas in Bengal” in Wild Goddesses in India and Nepal. Eds. Axel Michaels, Vogelsanger and Wilke. Bern: Peter Lang, 1996. Ovid. “The Rape of Prosepine”, Metamorphosis. Melville, A.D., trans. Oxford: Oxford Press, 1986. Preston, James J. Mother Worship, Theme and Variations. Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina Press, 1982. Ramprasad. Grace and Mercy in her Wild Hair. Nathan, Leonard, Clinto Seely, trans. Boulder: Great Eastern, 1982. Redgrove, Peter. The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real. New York: Grove Press, 1987. Sauve, Kevin. Dual doctoral program, Physiological Neuroscience and Philosophy, NYU. Phone conversation, 4/28/98. Sinberg, Susan Amy. Tara and the Tara-mula-kalpa: the Tara cult’s formative period in India. Doctoral Dissertation in Philosophy, Columbia University, 1995. Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism, the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness. Rockport MA, 1994. Uruhu, Ra. The Book of Letters. Ibiza: New Sun Services, 1990. Woodman, Marion, Elinor Dickson. Dancing in the Flames, the Dark Goddess in the

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Transformation of Consciousness. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1996.

Notes 1

Preston, 53. Galland, 139 3 ibid. 4 Coburn, 61. 5 Kinsley, 121. 6 Coburn, 67. 8 Sinberg, 82. 9 Ibid, 80. 10 Ibid, 81. 11 Ibid, 17. 12 Ibid, 65. 13 Ibid, 32. 14 Ibid, 14. 15 Preston, 6. 16 Ibid, 7. 17 Ibid, 8. 18 Ibid, 9. 19 Ibid, 248. 20 Ibid, 17. 21 Ibid, 138. 22 Ibid, 58. 23 Ibid, 62. 24 Carey, 44. 25 Ibid, 19. 26 Preston, 62. 27 Preston, 63. 28 Preston, 63. 29 Preston, 63. 30 Preston, 62/63. 31 Birnbaum, 84. 32 Ibid, 85. 33 Carey, 140. 34 Birnbaum, 162. 35 Matthews, 11. 36 Ibid, 6. 37 Galland, 264. 38 Ibid, 276. 2

22

39

Redgrove, 117. Uruhu, 98. 41 Ibid. 42 Galland, 370. 43 Redgrove, 123. 44 Underhill, 386. 45 Ramprasad, 35/40/41. 46 Redgrove, 118. 47 Tuchman, 31. 48 Caitlin, 30. 49 Redgrove, 139. 40


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