The Luminous Dark Mother
By Leslie McIntyre
Drawing by Deborah Le Sueur
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The Luminous Dark Mother
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Drawing by Deborah Le Sueur |
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The Luminous Dark Mother
by Leslie McIntyre
It has been several months now since I have returned from my pilgrimage to Malta, Egypt and Crete on the trail of the African Dark Mother who was carried in the hearts and minds of very early peoples migrating from the African continent into other parts of the world. It seems I have been experiencing a yearning for the Dark Mother for a very long time -- from vision quests on mountain tops, augmented by the ingestion of sacred hallucinogens, to studies of numerous Goddess cultures from around the world. My longing for this communion was further deepened last year when I attended a conference in San Francisco on the Goddess at the California Institute of Integral Spirituality, honoring the work of Marija Gimbutas. There I met Lucia Birnbaum, whose work for the last decade has been on the origins of Goddess culture and spirituality. Her passion for educating people about the Dark Mother ignited something deep within me.
I had been fascinated by the discovery of dark matter (the word "matter" comes from "mater", or "mother") by astronomer Vera Rubin. Dark matter comprises about 90 % of the matter in the universe (which I like to refer to as the "yoni-verse", as "uni" is a cognate of "yoni") and yet, is invisible. It is thought by astronomers and physicists that the gravity of dark matter shapes galaxies and holds them together. I had begun to think of this as metaphor, and to consider what sacred meaning this metaphor might hold for humanity as a reflection of macrocosm in the microcosm. In other words, what is the correspondence between the Dark Mother of space and the Dark Mother in our human experience?
Lucia's work sheds light on this mystery. Her work cites research by noted geneticists revealing that African DNA is found in all races of people, and that humans, our species homo sapiens, originated in Africa. Her research has revealed that the worship of the dark mother "accompanied African migrations after 60,000 BCE -- first into west Asia, then into the rest of the world." (Lucia Birnbaum, Godmothers -- African Origins, forthcoming) From this evidence, supported by archeologists and other cultural historians, she boldly asserts that we are one race of people, originally African -- and that we are all people of color!
Evidence of early African migration can be be seen at the site of the oldest religious sanctuary in the world, Har Karkom, created in 40,000 BCE in the Sinai Peninsula, later known as Mt. Sinai. This ancient site is known as the geographic origination of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, yet long before the emergence of these recent religions, in paleolithic times, the site served as "an open air museum of a sacred place with altars, megaliths in alignment, and a cliff art record of peoples who have lived there." (Lucia Birnbaum, Godmothers--African Origins) Millennia before the rise of patriarchy, their religion was centered on a female divinity, which would have been African and black.
My interest in learning about the Dark Mother has grown like a glowing ember, fanned by the wisdom of people like Lucia Birnbaum, who has inspired me to think of the implications of being originally African, and to find sacred meaning in the microcosmic experience of the Dark Mother. The first homo sapiens mother passed her mitochondrial DNA to her children and her daughters passed it to their children, and their daughters to their children. The mitochondria in DNA is the "powerhouse" of the cell -- that organelle which is the center of enzyme activity producing the storehouse of chemical energy, the power molecule ATP, or the vital power the cell needs to live. This mitochondrial DNA, shaped in the form of a double helix, is only passed by the mother. There is no corresponding genetic material which is passed from father to child. Therefore, the vital cellular energy of all people on the planet came from the first African homo sapiens mother -- the original Dark Mother of our current human species; she holds us all together!
Mitochondria comes from "mitos" meaning "thread." This thread relates to the "superstring" in modern astrophysics' theory, which asserts that subatomic phenomenon are actually manifestations of vibrations of fundamental, one-dimensional strings. As emanations of consciousness in form, humans are connected to a primary source through our cellular threads. Just as dark matter in space shapes galaxies and holds them together, we are shaped and held by the African Dark Mother who has given us her life force, and resides in the very depths of our being, where the macrocosm is literally reflected in the microcosm. Geneticist L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza refers to the helix as "the symbol of the evolution of the universe...the unlimited possibilities of becoming." (L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, History and Geography of Human Genes).
The darkness holds all possibilities. It is not something to be feared, but rather a mystery to be lived. Understanding the meaning of being held and shaped by the invisible Dark Mother can give us insight into the true nature of our being, and can help us remember what we have lost when we have strayed too far from her embrace. That the notion of different races is a serious mistake. We are all one race with a common ancestor.
What Lucia and others are telling us is that, contrary to modern belief, human nature has not always been violent. There is no evidence of warfare or weaponry, either in artifacts or art, in any of these early civilizations. The work of the late archeomythologist Marija Gimbutas has shown the peaceful and creative nature of the early cultures of Neolithic Europe. In her monumental volumes, Language of the Goddess and Civilization of the Goddess, her discoveries about the peaceful and matrifocale Goddess cultures are exquisitely detailed. Now Birnbaum's work reveals the origins of European culture in a single source, the African Dark Mother, whose worship conveys peace, justice and compassion; She inspired the creation of cultures of beauty and celebration on all continents. As the very early African rock carvings and paintings show, life was celebrated and enjoyed by our early ancestors.
Birnbaum's work demonstrates that at the heart of Goddess spirituality is the Dark Mother herself - -which is the living soil/soul of the earth and the spinning matter/mother of the yoniverse -- source of us all -- peaceful and beautiful. It is my belief that when we remember who we really are, and from whom we come, peace will once again reign as our birthright. When women are returned to our proper place of respect in the greater scheme of things, it will be very difficult to imagine a world full of violence, hatred and war. When women are loved, all life is loved, and from this organic flow, people will naturally revere life, as they did so many millennium ago.
Since a culture is reflected in its art, this is an important discovery to pass on to our children. In these very difficult times, we are witness to a collective desperate longing of our souls to come home. I see this desperation reflected in the violence our society perpetuates against women and children, and now, children against children -- usually males against others. It is no wonder that our children at this time are experiencing a devastating despair and loneliness, fueled by an insatiable hunger for violence and destruction. The only culture they have known is founded on premises that promise equality for all -- if you happen to be male and white.
This kind of arrogant exclusivity is taking a psychic toll on all of us, as well as the planet. Our so-called founding fathers modeled much of their constitution on the Iroquois Federation. However, I feel they left out the most important premise on which the Iroquois based their agreement -- that the council of grandmothers was the governing body that determined who embodied the virtues of female wisdom enough to become chief -- the virtues of peace, compassion and kindness! This council had the power to remove any chief who did not hold these values sacred . The Iroquois placed the highest authority into the hands of women -- of wise grandmothers. To me, these grandmothers were the embodiment of the Dark Mother, and were respected as such. The Iroquois knew that human life comes through women, and so women must be revered in order for all life to thrive. We have forgotten this. And when a people forgets this very basic truth, there is a high price to pay for their amnesia. It is the wisdom of the grandmothers that needs to govern our lives once again. When the wisdom of the Dark Mother is denied, we spiral downward into a deep abyss of carelessness, confusion, violence and a profound sense of separation from the living earth. I feel it is imperative to bring to our children the truth about our real history -- perhaps herstory -- in order for them to find a positive life experience that allows them to look forward to growing into their wholeness.
In Malta and Gozo I felt the presence of the African Mother in the fantastic megalithic temples, the first one constructed over 5000 years ago, and in the Hypogeum, a labrynthian carved structure in the limestone earth some thirty feet deep, with curved and round, egg-shaped niches for burial. The hypogeum felt to me like a large womb, once holding the remains of about 7000 people. There is evidence that a temple once stood on top of the ground, indicating that rituals of life and death, as well as perhaps healing were all enacted in a sense of wholeness/holiness. The Maltese structures are the oldest free-standing structures in the world, pre-dating the pyramids by about 1,000 years. The megalithic temples are built in the shape of a large-bodied woman, so that upon entrance, one enters the body of the Mother through her yoni/gate. They are "double temples", with two shapes of the female body, side-by-side, indicating perhaps, shared leadership, mother-daughter relationship and/or lesbianism.
The temple-builders were migrants out of Africa, apparently first arriving in Siciliy. I was amazed at how some of the rock construction of these temples reminded me of the natural rock formations in Philae in southern Egypt surrounding the Temple of Isis, the black African goddess. Was there a memory of these amazing rock formations in the minds and hearts of the Africans who migrated to Malta?
Philae in southern Egypt, home of the Temple of Isis, was, itself, a very popular pilgrimage site in the millenium preceding Jesus on into several centuries following his death. Isis was a female deity with origins in central Africa, or Nubia, and was known as a compassionate mother. According to Lucia, William Y. Adams, leading nubiologist and archeologist, considers Isis worship to be the beginning of "one of history's most important ideological transformations." Adams states that Isis worship became "the first truly international and supra-national religion" (Nubia) because pilgrims of all classes and nationalities, including Meriotes, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and desert nomads alike flocked to her temple for healing and spiritual guidance. Isis veneration spread as far east as Afghanistan, to the Black Sea, as well as to what is now western Europe in Portugal and as far north as England. It is her legacy that has been inherited by Christianity as revealed in the icons of the Black Madonnas found all over Europe; Isis and her son Horus suckling at her breast are most likely the prototypes for Mary and Jesus.
The Dark Goddess of Africa is the same Dark Goddess of India and the Far East -- all with different names, but with the same power. Kali is a well-known name from India, though we often hear her name associated with the aspect of destruction. She was actually the Dark Goddess of India in all her aspects -- creation, preservation and dissolution. Why is it we only hear of her destructive aspect? It seems to me associating the Goddess or Dark Mother only with destruction instills fear in people, and yet this is common. We have learned to fear her power, the dark and death, with men in particular fueling this fear because of their own separation from the Dark Mother.
This separation is a result of the fear of the power of the Goddess that grew in men for some reason, over time. The vast creative power of the Goddess, the Sacred Feminine, began to be taken as a threat by the male mind some 5000 years ago, and because of this fear, the need to "conquer" became the chosen acceptable heroic behavior for men in order for them to become "real men." To me, however, these men suffer from "PMS", or the Patriarchal Mind Set, which has only served to cause further separation for men from their source -- the vast watery womb of the Dark Mother, who cannot be controlled.
The obsession to control and dominate has created a deep psychic split between mother and son which is the only reason why rape exists. At the core of rape is a monstrously distorted compulsion to control. The projection of the fear of the sacred feminine onto women has created devastating destruction to the earth and to all her living children. It is this destruction we must address, which is the Dark Mother's message to us -- to face our huge shadow that has been created by denying her. The shadow is that which has been split off in our psyche that longs for attention and is often rarely seen. People act out what is in their shadow; that's what we have seen in Littleton, Colorado.
When a society idealizes and romanticizes war and violence, how do we expect our children will behave? We don't need scientists, sociologists and psychologists to hypothesize about whether or not violent media affects our kids. How could it not affect the open bright minds of our children? Imagery is a powerful force -- the root of "magic" is contained within it. We must be responsible for the magic we give to our children. If we give them glitzy Hollywood movies like "Star Wars", then they will grow up thinking violence is a neat adventure -- full of excitement and power. Most of these kinds of movies are imagined in the minds of men, from Walt Disney to George Lucas. The visions in the minds of women are very different indeed, as is evidenced by early matri-focaled cultures.
We often refer to the negative experiences in our life as "dark". As a sweat-lodge facilitator for women, I have learned that the dark is not a fearful place. In a sweat lodge, it is so dark inside that one cannot see one's hand in front of one's face. What I have come to experience sitting in this dark womb space is the incredible light that emerges from the deep dark -- at times so bright, so luminous, that I couldn't tell that I was even sitting in the dark. I would like to offer that the dark is actually a nurturing place -- just like the dark earth surrounding the tender seed, encouraging it, in full darkness, to sprout. If the seed is exposed to the light too soon, it will die. If the seed is not rooted in the dark, damp, rich soil, it will die. The darkness is necessary for life to take root! In that context, I would like to reclaim the dark, and refer to our negative experiences as something else -- perhaps just "negative" -- and let the dark emerge for us as the Dark Mother who holds us together and shapes us, just as a potter shapes her clay. The dark place of growth, her womb, holds us and keeps us safe while providing us with nourishment.
Women carry the dark womb space within our bodies. To be in touch with our womb-wisdom is to know the wisdom of the Dark Mother. In my recent journey to Egypt, I encountered the temple of Sekhmet, the fierce lion-headed goddess considered to be an aspect of Isis or the goddess Hathor. She was carved in black granite, and from her emanated a profound sense of the Dark Mother. A solar disc rested on top of her head, and she held in her hands a staff topped by a lotus, which perhaps was symbolic of the sacred yoni and/or the psychotropic blue lotus. After quieting my mind, I sat quietly on the temple floor and simply allowed myself to feel her energy. She felt strong, protective, fierce and peaceful. I felt that if I embodied the energies she was representing, I would be in touch with my own deep feminine strength and power. The fact that she was black made me feel even more in touch with the dark womb of the earth and cosmos.
A few weeks ago, I participated in a teaching-transmission of the Tibetan Black Dakini, who is seen as a black lion-headed goddess, Simhamukha. Although she is Tibetan, her energy and her attributes felt the same to me as those of Sekhmet -- fierce and powerful. It was the same archetype. I was truly awestruck by the similarities between these two goddesses, and felt Lucia's work resonating in my heart. I could see the arms of the original African Dark Mother reaching out across the planet, embracing her children and encouraging them to come close to her -- to come back home.
In these desperate times, we need the healing power of the Dark Mother who is not afraid to cut through the egoic structures of dualistic thinking with ruthless compassion. Women especially need her image to help us shed the heavily imposed patriarchal layers of definition by a mind that does not really see us, and is only interested in controlling us and making us "behave." This healing power is a primal transformative force emerging from the depths of women's wisdom, which is, as we now know, genetically passed on to all of us. Men need this image in order to face their fear of the feminine they have learned to hate, and so, hate within themselves. With the Dark Mother by their side, men can allow themselves to go into their deep feelings and not be ashamed to bring forth those frozen tears that often turn to bullets or violent attack. They can once again reclaim their heritage of being the loving sons of the mother who has shared her womb and breast with them to give them life. No longer will they need to conquer and dominate. With the Dark Mother's embrace, all people will be able to once again live in her bountiful peace, beauty and celebration. Without her, we will perish.
With a deep and profound reverence for our ancestors, and to the foremothers that have literally given birth to all of us, I offer a prayer in closing:
In the spirit of peace, beauty, compassion, kindness and love, let her wisdom once again teach us the way out of our own mind-made prisons of distortion so that we may once again feel her exquisite embrace and gracefully move our feet in dance to the rhythm of her beating heart and come to know within the blessing of her ecstatic joy. BLESSED BE.
Omit:
When it is time for us to leave the earth, we then return to her womb of all possibility, to the spiral of life in its never-ending dance. In our current patriarchal culture, death is frightening, and people would rather deny it. But in Her world, death is part of life -- necessary for transformation and growth. Our early ancestors knew the secrets of the "womb-tomb". Archeological evidence from the Paleolithic and the Neolithic indicates that death in Goddess-centered cultures was never represented by itself; it was always accompanied by symbols of regeneration. It would appear that our early ancestors held a reverence for death that could be celebrated rather than feared and despised. Some of the megalithic tomb and temple structures in Eruope and the Mediterranean were constructed in such a way as to allow the first rays of the equinox and solstice sun to enter passageways and openings, lighting up altars, spiral motifs carved on walls and burial places to symbolize the life force of the Goddess awakening life in the womb space of the grave.
And:
Our ancestors profoundly understood something we have profoundly forgotten, though the memory is deep within our cells. From early rituals enacted in caves, the very body of the mother, to whole communities of people living together and constructing temples to the Goddess some of them would never see completed, as the structures took many many years to build, one thing is clear: the commitment and devotion to the Mother -- to the Dark Mother -- our ancestors lived was literally monumental.