BLACK MADONNA RETURNS

The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion
on all levels. It's going through an environmental crucifixion.
Hundreds of species arevanishing every month. It's going
through a personal crucifixion. There are two billion people
living on less than a dollar a day. It's going through a
crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems. Look at Enron and
what it has shown us about Corporate America. Look at the
Catholic Church's scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us
about authority. Look at the growing disillusionment with
politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are being exposed
as illusory and fantasy-ridden, as deeply corrupt and
exploitative.

There's another kind of crucifixion going on: crucifixion of
purpose and hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They
know that the world is potentially on the brink of total
apocalypse. There's a tremendous danger that as people
wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run into
political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or
another.

So it's extremely important that the wisdom of the 'dark night
of the soul' gets across, because if people understand the
necessity for this crucifixion, and understand that it's preparing
a resurrection and empowerment, then they will be prepared
to go through it without too much fear, trusting in the logic of
the divine transformation.

The Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths shared with me his
experience of the dark night of the soul. He said he was sitting
outside his hut one day when he felt as if a hand hit him on the
right side of his being. He had suffered a massive heart attack
that destroyed what he described as his patriarchal mind and gave
him access to a much deeper elaboration of Oneness with all things.

He said, "It's a very strange thing, but when I thought of
surrendering to the Mother I of course thought of Mary--I often
say the 'Hail Mary'--but it was Mary as the Black Madonna that
came into my mind. She is the mother of the earth as well as
heaven, of the body as well as the soul, the mother of the
subconscious, the hidden, of all those powers that the 'masculine'
mind represses; the Mother of the sacred darkness. In Her the
Western Christian vision of the Divine Mother and the Eastern one
merge and meet; you can think of her as both Mary and Kali, both
preserver and destroyer. From that time on, I have turned to Her
again and again. Invoking Her strength and grace, I find, makes
the 'birth' go so much faster and more cleanly."

The power that is doing this to us is coming towards us
simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace
and prosperity. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme
grace. It's quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can
only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow
side. And this is what we're living through, these shadow sides
exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but
betray the sacred in us.

We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the
sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the
sacred in nature. We are now terminally destructive.

So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the
full extent of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us
up. And that is whatis happening, and it will get worse. It's
bound to get worse. But it is only being done to us for our own
redemption.

Those who turn to the Mother in total faith, those who turn to
the Black Madonna in total admiration, those who realize the
mercy behind the violence will be given extraordinary protection,
strength, and revelation. They will be empowered in the core
of themselves to become what everybody who has a heart and a
mind must now become--a spiritual revolutionary devoting their
entire life and all their resources to the preservation of the planet.

Finding the Black Madonna, in whatever form you want to find her,
realizing the massive task that she's doing and turning to her for
protection is now crucial to the preservation of the planet. It's
extremelyimportant that people really come to understand the
feminine and turn towards it, because it's our betrayal of the
feminine in ourselves and in the divine that has led to this crisis.

-by Andrew Harvey, in an interview with Colleen O'Connor
on the Grace Cathedral website at http://tinyurl.com/3avtf6
Copyright Andrew Harvey 2004--All Rights Reserved

For more information about Andrew Harvey, see his website at
http://www.andrewharvey.net