A contemplative and service-oriented holy society devoted to the Great Dark Mother.
Our Mother whose body is Earth
hallowed be Thy 10,000 names.
Thy Queedom come, our wombs are one,
may all women, come to remember!
Give us each day food to nourish
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we strive to heal ourselves and the planet.
Lead us unto Your many pleasures
and deliver us from oppression.
For Thine is the wisdom,
the power and the beauty
forever and ever!
~mystic revision of The Lord's Prayer by Heather Kohser 2012 c
Transparency as a spiritual tool and discipline has been a foundational message in terms of the ongoing work of decolonizing my personal practice. In order to engage integrity with this directive it is important to name my privilege as it relates to patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, and conversations about women and their experiences. I am a cis-gender man and by birth have been afforded rights, resources, access to power, safety, financial opportunity, as well as, structural and systemic privileges in the cultural, governmental, and family spheres. As such, my voice will be weighed and given more legitimacy than Priestesses and change makers who have been doing the work longer than I have been alive. Another foundational corner stone in my exploration of liberative practices centers itself in the intersectional analysis of systems of oppression; meaning that as a facilitator of ritual space, ceremony has to inhabit multiple points of access in terms of resources and reflections of historically under-represented populations.
I am not Catholic or Christian but have had a personal relationship with Mary Magdalen as a holy ancestress in the religious/magical traditions of the West, as well as, a one of the many patronesses of agency, sovereignty, sexuality, and embodied authority, divinity, and grace. Being that I work a Catholic influenced form of Rootwork and Hoodoo, the form through which I was taught to venerate and honor Spirit follows the following structure. For those who practice multiple Afro-diasporic traditions you can see the similarities. Here is the general outlne this ceremony will follow:
This piece was written by Guest Author Crystal Blanton
From the depths of her soul she mourns
From the fear of her present she cries for the reality that she must hand to her child.
From the shadows of her experiences she gives the lessons of a mother who prepares her child for battle.
She is the carrier of hardship inside of a harsh world, the holder of the painful lessons, and the mother of the endangered.
She is the beginning of all life, and she is the the seeker of true justice.
She is the caregiver for the oppressor, and the trainer for the oppressed.
She is the warrioress stuck in the tower, unable to save her children from death.
She is mother
She is Black mother
She is the forgotten of the bereaved, while she holds the hands of those who dismiss her pain.
She holds the power of the universe, and harnesses the dark shadows of the world.
She is the magic of motherhood, and possesses the thighs often stolen for others' pleasure while discarded for the perception of her ugliness.
She is mother
She is Black mother
She carries the pain of her lineage, and the hope of her visions.
She walks the floors of the bottom, and finds magic when there is nothing else left.
She bears the misfortune of the darkness of society, and passes the culture of survival to the next generation.
She is mother
She is Black mother
As she rises from the bottom once again, take a moment to breathe in her name. Take a moment to acknowledge her need. Breathe out words of strength, encouragement and magic to her. Speak them aloud…..
Let this energy reverberate into the world… We give it to the Black Madonna as she heals, encourages, protects, and strengthens the Black mothers in our society, and their children, so they can continue the fight to thrive in our communities and to touch a sense of equity in our world. May she be blessed as we all are blessed.