In yesterday’s DM we meditated on a “revolution in values” that is symbolized by moving from Patriarchy’s preoccupations with power-over to a Biblically grounded power-with, that is to say, compassion and a justice-based value system.
Such a revolution is found with the prophets of Israel and with the teaching and example of Jesus and also in the work of the Divine Feminine. The “Magnificat” of Mary articulates well the “routing of the proud of heart,” the “exaltation of the lowly,” and more (Lk 1:46-55), as I discussed in the DM for January 31.
Carl Jung says that archetypes return when we need them, and the archetype of the Cosmic Mary and the Black Madonna are very much in need today when the face of fascism and patriarchal privilege is showing itself in many guises. Today’s appeals court decision turning down an attempt to declare that any president is immune from prosecution rejects an extreme effort to assert one individual’s power over that of the people and the common good.
Two questions arise:
- Are the gospel values and the values the Divine Feminine represents just an aspiration–or are they real?
- Does compassion represent mammal values of kinship and compassion that are needed to restrict the values of reptilian brain dominance?
Human creativity is so powerful that it needs to be steered and directed by values like justice and compassion, which urge our caring about future generations and peoples and species other than ourselves. All this because we belong to a “web of creation” as Hildegard called it.
We are part of a larger whole, a sacred cosmos, a “common good” that Aquinas says is “more divine” (divinius est) than just the good of an individual or a particular tribe.
All this is symbolized by the archetype of the Cosmic Mary, the Divine Mother, as well as within the arena of the Black Madonna. One cannot remember the strength of Mary and the prayers attributed to her in the Gospels without remembering the Black Madonna who is undergoing a resurgence in our time.
To be continued.
See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors To Awaken the Divine Feminine, pp. 231-244.
And Fox, “Our Mother is Dying,” in Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance, pp. 11-34.
See also Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet.
Banner Image: The Black Madonna of Częstochowa and Christ Child with rainbow halos, similar to designs from Pride Parade in Częstochowa. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Meditate on the two questions posed in this essay. How do you respond to them from your deepest center?
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
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
_-_James_Tissot.jpg){kind=link}
6 thoughts on “The Return of the Divine Feminine & the Revolution It Represents”
Gospel values do not exist in the minds for those ignorant of them, asleep to them, or for those whom choose another agenda / live under another paradigm. However Gospel values are an ever-present and eternal reality that never go away and are always looking to ‘steer us back’ to living them. We live the reality that we know, accept and choose. Love, truth and wisdom have the power to change that for us. Discovering, being exposed to ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’ especially when ‘the turbulent seas of life’ are battering us down, always remains an optimal starting point as lowness, lack of enduring values and humility, are sure to get our attention. We all need ‘saving’ and the ‘saving grace’, and the sustainable and enduring vitality of Life that we may be missing out on. — BB.
It’s as if humanity has been inhaling one long breath for centuries; that being the hope of achieving the values within the gospel message and those of the Divine Feminine.
Then there was a time of pause, a kind of holding pattern, that inbetween space of the inhale and the exhale; in which humanity began to awaken to the embodiment, the incarnation of these values.
Now it’s the moment for humanity to exhale and bring forth from within, the birthing of these values, manifesting them into reality; in creative, imaginative, intuitive, revolutionary and diversely transformative ways.
There will be labour pains involved, as the reptillian brain dominance contracts and the values of compassion and kinship; the consciousness of the Sacred Human expands. We are not alone in this active season of labour, for the archetypal Cosmic Mother and the Black Madonna will respond to midwifing humanity through this process of death, change, transformation and rebirth, as we call upon the spiritual reality of Her living essence and presence; through the prayers, rituals and ceremonies laid bare upon the altar of all that we experience and encounter within our daily lives.
Here is a powerful example of the divine feminine at work in Gaza with an American woman pediatrician who worked with dying children. Her witness is deeply moving. She embodies the fierce compassion and passion for justice to which you are pointing. Thanks.
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/6/pediatric_gaza.
Mary is the. Patroness of the Americas and embodies the Divine Feminine and Masculine in her Magnificat. Throughout her life she exemplified a deep faith and trust in God and in her Son, Jesus. She was faithful in all the joys and sufferings, misunderstandings and hopes as a mother and kept pondering all things in her heart and only then acted in accordance with God’s word to her.
My prayer is asking Mary to intercede for all of us through her Son, Jesus and to bring peace and unity, wholeness and compassion, faith and love into all our hearts, minds and actions.
The values of the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine are both essential and complimentary since they represent the balance and ONENESS of our Source and Creator (Mother & Father Energies of DIVINE LOVE beyond our human genders) within us.
Personally this means that we must be aware/conscious of integrating both spiritual energies and values on our spiritual journeys of our Eternal Souls with our unique human bodily/emotional/mental/spiritual selves in our present incarnations. The mystics call this spiritual integration the mystical marriage within us, and also COSMIC CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS….
The painting of Jesus modeling compassion for humankind, “Jesus Wept” shows me that the Christ is truth, and truth is oneness, interconnectedness, and aliveness. Aliveness to the oneness. Alive to all our sensory (physical and nonphysical) experience. What wounds one, wounds all. Christ is alive to that because Christ is alive. Christ is Mary, Mary is Christ. We are all Mary, we are all Christ. Reptilians don’t express this aspect because they don’t feel everything yet, and they don’t feel the oneness yet, and they don’t exist in truth yet. They don’t want to look at their pain, and they inflict pain blindly on others. They have not built up the bravery or strength to ACT on LOVE yet. So they build false empires on fear, and they call this “power.” I used to be like this in my youth…everyone has been like this at some point. Maybe we do not go to the extremes of fascists…but we all have built false realities which LOVE had to come and shatter.