I have long been interested in the Black Madonna—ever since, back in my first year of my doctoral studies in France, I stood in Chartres Cathedral and saw her statue for the first time. I was amazed. Even though I had been a Roman Catholic for 27 years and studied within the Dominican Order for ten years, I had never once heard of her.
Alessandra Belloni’s book, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna, is special because the author comes from the land that holds the oldest shrines we know of to the Black Madonna.
This book is a veritable Memoir of the author’s journey of interactions with the BM including ceremonies and healings she has conducted with the Black Madonna over the years.
Why is the Black Madonna returning in such force today? Might it be because mother earth is struggling so for her own survival?
A few years ago, I was invited to do a dialog in Hawaii with a Pele expert on Pele and the Black Madonna. One thing they both have in common, in addition to their gender, is a fierceness and wildness that has often gotten covered up or tamed by patriarchy. (Kali in India has this same fierceness and reminds us that with creativity comes destruction and she is a Black Madonna of the East.)
It takes a certain fierceness to face climate change honestly, the extinction of countless species (our own included), the disappearance of rain forests, trees, soil and animals in our times and not yield to despair or denial.
There is, as the Sufi mystic Hafiz put it, a “fierce battle” going on and people need to be awakened and aroused.
This is one reason the Black Madonna is returning in our time—to wake us up from our anthropocentric (Pope Francis calls it our “narcissistic”) slumber.
This is one reason that the African goddess Isis was often pictured with a headdress with rattles in it—to wake people up and to rattle our institutions, to awaken us from slumber—which is at the essence of all spirituality isn’t it?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Forward: The Return of the Archetype in Times of Need,” in Alessandra Belloni, Healing Journey with the Black Madonna: Chants, Music, and Sacred Practices of the Great Goddess (Rochester, Vt: Bear & CO, 2019), pp. ix-xi.
See also: Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men, pp. 231-244.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: The Black Madonna of Tindari, the oldest known Black Madonna, in Sicily. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Are you reclaiming the courage and fierceness to face the truth of our times about Climate Change? Is this not a “warrior energy” that we need to survive today? How does the Black Madonna help?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
8 thoughts on “Alessandra Belloni: Champion of the Black Madonna”
Matthew, You ask today, “Are you reclaiming the courage and fierceness to face the truth of our times about Climate Change?” My answer is “Yes!” thanks to You, your books, your pedagogy, your lectures, the Order of the Sacred Earth, Creation Spirituality Communities, and the Techno-Cosmic Masses. “Dancing in the dark” of the “Urban Sweat Lodge” is what in some forms of Shamanism is called, “Dancing your animals”–referring to your “power animal.” Shamans also go down into the darkness of the earth to do “Soul Retrievals.” And yes, this is “warrior energy”. “How does the Black Madonna help?” She helps us visualize the one who is mistress of the dark, to not be afraid of the dark, and to keep walking the Via Negativa until it is time to move on…
What keeps coming up for me with regards to today’s DM is, “Be wise as serpents, yet gentle as doves.” To me, these words speak of the Black Maddonna in a fierceness that is unlike what we normally associate with this word… for it invokes the Divine Feminine aspect of the powerful energy of a warrior, that has not been tainted by the patriarchy of the unbalanced masculine. Death, change and transformation can be navigated with sacred wisdom, which helps to traverse the mystery of darkness in a more gentle, nonviolent manner… which we often underestimate the power of. This is what I sense the Black Mother is awakening inparticular within women during these times we are living in.
As women learn to move stealthily in relationship with this archetypal Dark Mother, Her very essence and presence will undulate the unfurling of the warrior woman’s wisdom ways… and Her prophetic voice will pierce the darkness within the conscience and consciousness of all those with hardened hearts… the penetrating truth will bring death, change and transformation which is necessary for the collective evolution of humanity… and the new cosmic egg will be gently birthed… and She will wrap herself around this soft vulnerable shell, nurturing the gestation… the unfolding… desiring to break free, within the hearts, minds and souls of humanity.
“Death, change and transformation can be navigated with sacred wisdom, which helps to traverse the mystery of darkness in a more gentle, nonviolent manner… which we often underestimate the power of.” Jeanette, this sentence really jumped out at me. A beautifully worded statement of something I feel the truth of in my heart. Reading it somehow made me feel a spark of hope.
Jeanette, I totally agree with what you say in your comment: “As women learn to move stealthily in relationship with this archetypal Dark Mother, Her very essence and presence will undulate the unfurling of the warrior woman’s wisdom ways…” To me, looking back to the meditations that Matthew has done on the archetype of the “warrior” vs the soldier. I remember you having difficulty with the idea of the “warrior.” I think that was because you were thinking of literal and physical fighting. The warrior as Matthew uses the term is one who “resists” injustice. More like a Martin Luther King, Jr. than a Arnold Schwarzenegger in his role as “The Terminator.” So yes, As women learn to move stealthily in relationship with this Dark Mother or The Black Madonna, she will show you the warrior woman’s wisdom ways…
Richard, the difficulty that I’ve had in embracing my own inner warrior has been incorporating the necessary balance of the “gentle as doves” aspect. It’s the mystery and wisdom of this that often eludes me, when passionately speaking truth to injustice; as I often get carried away by the desire of my passion for justice, and my words then become emotionally tainted with anger in their expression… resulting in alot of misunderstanding, rather than clear wisdom being spoken that can shift perspectives into seeing and considering other possible options to consider. I have alot to learn about the strength, stealthness and wisdom to be discovered within the mystery of gentleness, as in the past I viewed this as a weakness, due in large part to what all women have suffered from, through the misuse and abusive power over, through patriarchal and heirarchal oppression and suppression.
However, in engaging with the many teachings within these DMs as well as reading the writings of people such as TNH, Howard Thurman, and the many mystics, both male and female, I am learning to nurture and cultivate this gift of the Black Madonna to be claimed… that of the Divine Feminine warrior and the beauty and balance of becoming and being “wise as serpents, yet gentle as doves.”
Such beautifully expressed words, inspired by the fierce but gentle feminine force.
Thank you for all this rich material on the Black Madonna and the wonderful Alessandra Belloni–such a powerful voice. The story of her mother’s dream and then her saving of her family raises goose bumps.
Divine Feminine~Sacred Masculine~Divine Love~Cosmic Christ within, through, among, and around us in All Creation~Spiritual Dimensions~Cosmos in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment…. Amen 🔥❤️🙏