black goddess

8/10/2019 Black Goddess

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Gennaro Foco Brooks-Church2

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

The Hindu goddess Kali is black. In the 6th

century Devi-Mahatmya text, where

Kali makes her debut in Sanskrit literature, she is seen springing from Ambikas

forehead when it became black as ink in anger4. 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

her feet5. Anybody who tries to resist her in a confrontational way, however, is killed

violently, as seen in the Devi-Mahatmya6. 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

Kalis 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 followers dangers. Sinberg writes,

Kali embodies dark inertia (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 demon-

slayer. 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, Taras home is Nepal, and she is

believed to be a cross-fertilization of Buddhist and Hindu origin8. Although her

connection to Durga (Kalis alter ego) is very strong, the story of their origins differs

greatly9. 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,

insatiable, and cruel10

. 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 Taras 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. Taras later colors are white, red, and

eventually blue/black and green. In the blue/black form she takes on a fierce

countenance, and her main role is to protect, often guarding the entrances of temples11

.

Like Kalis association with tantrism, Taras black form is also tantric12

, evoking the

more mystical aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism. Black Taras main attribute is that of

destroying all obstacles and is supreme in dispelling danger13

, 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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Kalis 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 Taras blessing on their sea voyages from India to Burma. They

sailed at night, using the stars as guidance14

. 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

had formerly worshipped the Aztec Goddess, Tonansti15

. 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

central Spain16. 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 Mexicos

umbilical cord to Spain17

, 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 elites 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

one of the holiest in Christendom18

. 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 Guadalupes

popularity. Her still popular Aztec name, Tonansti, literally means mother, and according

to Galland her original apparition was in the form of a pregnant woman19

. Because of

this, according to Bushnell as pointed out by Preston, she satisfies a deeply felt need in

the lives of many adults for a mother figure20

, 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

well over 200 famous shrines of Black Virgins exist in Western Europe alone21

. 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

old altar of a black mother and child, probably of Druid origin22

. 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

old temple of the goddess Minerva23

. Minerva, also known as Athena, is a warrior

goddess, associated with wisdom, protection, and the arts24

. Ceres, as seen in Ovids

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

beneficent sorceress by Carey25

, Isis is strongly associated with death and

resurrection26

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

dominant in the area27

; with the Empires 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 last, 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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mosques 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

miracles, from liberation from the Muslims to helping the people survive epidemics28

.

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

this reason they give her another, stronger form of respect. She is worshiped (latria)29

.

They shower her with corn, wheat, earth or other sacrificial offerings, especially during

the days of planting and harvesting

30

. This is just a sample of one goddesss 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

Sea in southern France, Patron Saint of the Roma31

. 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 Sara 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 they 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,

the Nazis murdered more than 400,000 Roma32

.

Walkers 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 cant back 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 doesnt 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 Birnbaums 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

Aeneas pass through the underworld33

. 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 condemned 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

and are identified with the dark Eritrean sibyl34

.

I include this quote to show the connection between Sarah-Kalis 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 not 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 dont 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 because she is primalshe keeps her glory

veiled35

. 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 robesthe

loveliest thing our land has ever seen, the peasant woman feels the new goddess

wouldnt understand my speech. Shes only for nobles and learned men. Theres no

comfort in her. The black stone, however, has given me great comfort36

. 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

Hitler's Third Reich

37

. 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 theres 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

Desaparecidos, the Mother of the Disappeared38

.

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 earths insides, but it is also the

blackness of Hitlers 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

history39

.

The Mystics Journey

Black is the color of change. Im 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

the I-Ching hexagrams number 3-Difficulty at the beginning and 60-Limitation40

.

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

notes41

.

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

Kalis 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 cycles, 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

and light42

.

Going from luminentmoonlight to radiantdaylight, 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

blackness, the depression where all the senses seem closed43

. 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

the growth towards a new state of consciousness44

.

Surrendering oneself to the inevitable process of things is like Ceres making a

compromise with the underworld, or like Hindus laying at Kalis 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 nextlevel. All the Black

Goddesses Ive mentioned have these very strong motherly characteristics. As stated

earlier, Bushnell claims that the Virgin of Guadalupe simply satisfies peoples need for a

mother figure. Hes putting it very mundanely, and I think it goes much deeper than this.

Her overwhelming popularity cannot mean every South American still craves their

mothers 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 asking 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. Ramprasads poems of Kali talk to her as a child who needs scolding,

a mother to be adored, and also a persons worse enemy45

. 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

human genetic gene pool back to one black woman in Africa some 300,000 years ago46

.

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 Thurmans 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 mothers 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 todays 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 Gods 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

unrecognized beginning of modern man47

.

The authors reasoning is that only a shock of such magnitude could have wrenched the

Western worlds 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

nothing, but reprocesses all48

.

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 havepower, 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 Platos 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

Is the one who shaped the inside of you49

.

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

Martins 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:

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Notes

1Preston, 53.2

Galland, 1393ibid.4Coburn, 61.5Kinsley, 121.6Coburn, 67.8Sinberg, 82.9Ibid, 80.10Ibid, 81.11Ibid, 17.12Ibid, 65.13Ibid, 32.14Ibid, 14.15Preston, 6.16

Ibid, 7.17Ibid, 8.18Ibid, 9.19Ibid, 248.20Ibid, 17.21Ibid, 138.22Ibid, 58.23Ibid, 62.24Carey, 44.25Ibid, 19.26Preston, 62.27Preston, 63.28Preston, 63.29Preston, 63.30Preston, 62/63.31Birnbaum, 84.32Ibid, 85.33Carey, 140.34Birnbaum, 162.35Matthews, 11.36Ibid, 6.37Galland, 264.38Ibid, 276.


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39Redgrove, 117.40Uruhu, 98.41Ibid.42Galland, 370.43Redgrove, 123.44Underhill, 386.45Ramprasad, 35/40/41.46Redgrove, 118.47Tuchman, 31.48Caitlin, 30.49Redgrove, 139.

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