“The Black Madonna is the ancient earth-goddess converted to Christianity.” Stephen Benko, The Virgin Goddess
When writing this book, I began really thinking about darkness and how maligned it is in western culture. In a dualistic system, light and dark may seem to oppose one another, but like all opposites, they can be understood as a spectrum. Darkness might be seen as inherently good if we weren’t so afraid of death. Seeds don’t germinate in the light. Creativity comes from the unconscious, a form of darkness. Night follows the day in equal measure. If we don’t surrender to the dark in sleep, we become psychotic. So, how can the darkness be all bad?
When I was in Einsiedein, Switzerland I happened to visit the famous cathedral on the day the priests take out their Black Madonna and sing to her. I was transported. The nave was hung with oil paintings and thank you letters to her that dated back to the middle ages. I became obsessed with the Black Madonna, also called the Black Virgin. She is believed to miraculously answer the direst of prayers.
Benko, in The Virgin Goddess, argues that since many of the oldest gods were depicted as black, “among them Artemis of Ephesus, Isis, Ceres, and others. Ceres, the Roman goddess of agricultural fertility, is particularly important. Her Greek equivalent, Demeter, derives from Ge-meter or Earth Mother.” And of course, black soil is the richest and most fertile.
For this story, I began to think of the dark of the moon as a fourth phase, a powerful time of creation. Demetria Melaina (Black One) became a representation of this time when no moon is visible. She is the eldest, wisest and therefore most valuable of crones.