03/02/06

Gennaro Foco Brooks-Church

Copyright Gennaro Brooks-Church May 1998

Shedding Light on the Dark Goddess

In this paper I will walk into the darkness with open eyes and attempt to reveal the
Goddess in her dark form. First I will briefly look at several dark Goddesses such as Kali,
Tara, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and some Black Madonnas of Europe. They are all deities
with darker skin than their worshipers, meaning that the skin color is not just a physical
reflection of the populace. Shes black for a reason; what is it? Leonard Moss asked an
Italian priest why his towns Virgin Mary was black. The priest replied, My son, she is
black because she is black1. Galland got the same reply from a Swiss priest. Why was
she black, Galland asked. For no reason, was the answer2. Despite what these priests
might lead us to believe, theres more to the picture. Not to say they are wrong; as
Galland writes, There are many reasons and there are no reasons3. After all, this is God
we are talking about. In the eyes of the priest, where the infinite rules, she is what she is.
For scholars, looking through their finite academic eyes, there are many reasons. This
essay will discuss the infinite and the finite of the Black Goddess, not, however, from a
textual , historical, or social-scientific standpoint, but from the more interpretive
psychological and theological viewpoint. Marshaling a number of traits which many dark
goddesses seem to have (associations with transformation, protection from danger, and
the dualisms of cyclic change), I will argue that such dark goddessses answer a
psychological need in all of us. My interpretation will show how the Black Goddess, in
her many different names and forms, exists in every bodies lives for the same purposes.
From birth, to death, our lives change and grow, and like our mothers in infancy, the

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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 feet 5. Anybody who tries to resist her in a confrontational way, however, is killed
violently, as seen in the Devi-Mahatmya 6. 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 demonslayer. 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 harvesting30. 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 Reich37. 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 luminent moonlight to radiant daylight, 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 next level. 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 have power, 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:
Interviewing Saktas in Bengal in Wild Goddesses in India and Nepal. Eds. Axel
Michaels, Vogelsanger and Wilke. Bern: Peter Lang, 1996.
Ovid. The Rape of Prosepine, Metamorphosis. Melville, A.D., trans. Oxford: Oxford
Press, 1986.
Preston, James J. Mother Worship, Theme and Variations. Chapel Hill: U. of North
Carolina Press, 1982.
Ramprasad. Grace and Mercy in her Wild Hair. Nathan, Leonard, Clinto Seely, trans.
Boulder: Great Eastern, 1982.
Redgrove, Peter. The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real. New York: Grove Press,
1987.
Sauve, Kevin. Dual doctoral program, Physiological Neuroscience and Philosophy, NYU.
Phone conversation, 4/28/98.
Sinberg, Susan Amy. Tara and the Tara-mula-kalpa: the Tara cults formative period in
India. Doctoral Dissertation in Philosophy, Columbia University, 1995.
Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism, the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness.
Rockport MA, 1994.
Uruhu, Ra. The Book of Letters. Ibiza: New Sun Services, 1990.
Woodman, Marion, Elinor Dickson. Dancing in the Flames, the Dark Goddess in the

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Transformation of Consciousness. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1996.

Notes
1

Preston, 53.
Galland, 139
3
ibid.
4
Coburn, 61.
5
Kinsley, 121.
6
Coburn, 67.
8
Sinberg, 82.
9
Ibid, 80.
10
Ibid, 81.
11
Ibid, 17.
12
Ibid, 65.
13
Ibid, 32.
14
Ibid, 14.
15
Preston, 6.
16
Ibid, 7.
17
Ibid, 8.
18
Ibid, 9.
19
Ibid, 248.
20
Ibid, 17.
21
Ibid, 138.
22
Ibid, 58.
23
Ibid, 62.
24
Carey, 44.
25
Ibid, 19.
26
Preston, 62.
27
Preston, 63.
28
Preston, 63.
29
Preston, 63.
30
Preston, 62/63.
31
Birnbaum, 84.
32
Ibid, 85.
33
Carey, 140.
34
Birnbaum, 162.
35
Matthews, 11.
36
Ibid, 6.
37
Galland, 264.
38
Ibid, 276.
2

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39

Redgrove, 117.
Uruhu, 98.
41
Ibid.
42
Galland, 370.
43
Redgrove, 123.
44
Underhill, 386.
45
Ramprasad, 35/40/41.
46
Redgrove, 118.
47
Tuchman, 31.
48
Caitlin, 30.
49
Redgrove, 139.
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