Mysticism & Zen for Women – The Black Madonna – The Golden Madonna – Zen Monastery

The Black Madonna - The Golden Madonna

The desire for perfection rejects life. The Black Madonna works paradoxically: She destroys and brings you to the brink of death, only to then appear in human form to heal you. Something must be destroyed to abandon the narcissist's plan for perfection. You must abandon the golden spirit world of perfection. The Black Madonna must break you to make room for the true feminine (the Golden Madonna) and the true masculine. And the same applies to traumas; you can cover them up, but sooner or later you must be strong enough to endure the influence of the imagination, intelligence, and feeling of the Whole (God, the Father in Heaven).

The Black Madonna - Genuine Feminity

The Black Madonna prevailed through the power of love, compassion, empathy, and personal involvement in people's sorrows. She is empathetic and receives people's grief; therefore, as a compassionate mother, she is worthy of healing. She represented not only the earth, but especially water, which possessed sacred qualities (life arises from chaos). She represents depth and darkness. For the depth of things is dark.

The depth of the soul is dark. (Meister Eckhart)

She calls us down into the dark abyss; she represents the lower spheres. These are closer to the earth and so important to us, especially because we have lived in our heads for so long that we easily neglect our relationship with the earth. And, of course, it's about creativity, for as Carl Jung says, "Creativity comes from the realm of mothers," and that is part of the Black Madonna's encouragement: to give birth in many different ways. As Hildegard of Bingen says, wisdom is found in all creative works; The Black Madonna can be found in all creative works.

The Belly of the Beast - Queen of Hell

The Black Madonna also represents grief; she is deeply involved in the world's suffering. In the dark night of the soul, we often encounter the Black Madonna when there is great brokenness and suffering. The Black Madonna is called the Queen of Hell and the Underworld—that "power of pure suffering, of mystical love, that destroys evil at its root and conceives the Child Jesus in the very depths of the soul, even as the world burns."

Confronted with savagery, the Black Madonna is sometimes depicted wearing a skull necklace to remind us that the feminine is not about being a doll—it is about dealing with the difficulties and even horrors of life and destruction, as well as creation. So, she is savagery, relentless, and beautiful.

The Golden Madonna - Healing

But she also calls us to joy, to celebration, and to dance, and this is made very clear in the Sophia writings and the Wisdom Books of the Bible:

Draw near to me, all you who desire me, and enjoy my fruits, for the memory of me is sweeter than honey. To inherit me is sweeter than the honeycomb. Whoever eats me will hunger for more; whoever drinks me will thirst for more. Whoever listens to me will never blush.

So celebration is also part of the Dark Mother, and she naturally calls us to compassion, to imitate the care that the Black Madonna herself carries. She is the mother of all, especially the marginalized, the addicted, and the sick.

Liberation of the Heart - Responsibility

In our culture, it's so important to recognize that our root is power. As much as we try to hide it, if we're honest, we need to go back there. Work on your journals and recognize when we've helped someone or made certain plans—we had other intentions. The subconscious picks up on those other intentions and disrupts the relationship. To show how deeply this permeates us, just turn on a soap opera, and you'll hear a whiny beauty or a whiny little girl say, "Oh, I love you so much, darling. I love you, I love you. You'll do what I want, won't you, darling?" And I just wish a man would say, "No, I won't." That would wake them both up, because that comes from power. It's despicable that two adults can fall for such a relationship, but there's the shadow of power in both of them.

Projection

Another way to check this is projection. In your dreams, you can recognize how you project onto others. For example, you might say, "Why does the person I don't like keep appearing in my dreams? There she is, and I can't stand her." It's crucial that you look at yourself and your behavior, allow this projection, and say, "Yes, I can behave like that." Ask your friends who is telling you the truth. Some friends don't tell you the truth—that can also be power.

But you need to know that you're putting energy into others that belongs to you. And it's not just your worst side, but also your best. So pull that back and recognize your power, or whatever it may be. If it's your best side, you might be projecting your ability to write, your ability to sing—whatever that divine counterpart is within you, you're projecting. You're placing a terrible burden on the person you're projecting onto. He's not a god, and you're not a goddess. And you know, men have said to me, "I give her beautiful gifts, and she looks at me. She never says anything. She says 'Thank you very much,' but I know I missed something, and I don't understand."

What he doesn't understand is that she's projected a god onto him, his perfection, and he's not living out that perfection she's projecting. She also doesn't take the responsibility to relate to that inner god and open the relationship so that two people can truly love each other—not through the miasma of projections, but as they are: human beings. It's about recognizing at the end of your life that you were able to preserve divinity and the relationship with divinity in its demonic and creative forms, and recognizing that you had a wonderful human relationship.

Daddy Issues

That you stayed in your own body, lived your muscles and your own breath, and were part of that reality. Otherwise, if you engage with that divinity and it turns against you, which it inevitably will, then you begin to crave that demonic lover, and that demonic lover will lure you out of life. And that fits right in with your projection onto Dad—either he was so perfect that you couldn't live up to him (he was God), or he transitioned into the demonic, and you did everything you could to escape him and ran right into it. Yes, it's painful.

Liberation of the Heart

Von Franz says, "We have spent years liberating our sexuality, and now the next steps are about liberating our hearts." That's where we are. The pain is immense, because living our own lives isn't easy, but that's the direction we're headed. And in the end, after going through it, we can also recognize God's hand." (Marion Woodman)