Ritual and Reparations

Dear Ones,

Last week, the Temple hosted a 7-day Vespers series called “Madonna Holy Week” in which we examined 7 different epithets related to the Virgin Mary. We tipped traditional understandings of Mary over and looked at the ruins of the matriarchal ancient future foundations beneath them, much like archaeologists excavating the Goddess temples so often found buried beneath modern churches and cathedrals. We also shared heart stories and devotional aspirations during our daily ceremonies, which gave us all opportunities for deep healing.

Many of us expressed our experiences of frustration at moments of injustice in our lives and in the world, and prayed for miraculous healing of issues related to poverty, abuse, racism, systemic inadequacy, and more. As our week went along, we also gained a deeper sense of agency around the miracles we would not only like to see in our world, but which we would like to help co-create.

As a member of a multi-racial family, who has time and again witnessed both subtle and overt racism directed toward my siblings, I have long held the belief that reparations and restitution are not only a good idea...they are completely necessary if we wish to begin to rectify the imbalance of power and dignity that has occurred for over 400 years toward people of color in this country. Reparations are defined as “the making of amends (usually financially) for harm one has done.” It seems like a fair enough proposal that in this country, we would be able to find institutional and personal ways to contribute to balancing the scales of racial inequality through reparations. Yet I have often encountered resistance to the idea of reparations when I’ve brought it up. Some of the more common arguments I’ve heard against reparations are as follows:

• That they are only a drop in the bucket and could never really work to balance the scales. To which I reply, “We don’t know that. We have not tried. Why not try and see?”

• That we don’t know exactly who is descended from enslaved Africans, and therefore can’t know who deserves the reparations. To which I reply, “Then why not create a foundation to support projects that benefit people of color in general? Those who apply for the funding can detail instances in their lives when they have been subjected to racist attitudes, danger, or prejudice, and their stories of suffering would certainly be proof enough that they deserve reparative funding?”

• That impoverished white people should not have to pay any kind of reparations tax because they are suffering, too. To which I reply, “Reparations should not be an added tax for individuals, especially those struggling with poverty. It should be the willing and compassionate effort of good-hearted individuals who understand and empathise with the need for an act of rebalancing; it should come from the government, re-allocated from weapons spending; it should also be funded with special tax placed on corporations that make above a certain profit margin.”

I don’t know if me writing these arguments down will change anything. I’m not suggesting anything that hasn’t been mentioned by someone else before, after all. But I do know this: that reparations can create a potential wave of healing that would free something currently blocked and bound in the hearts of both people of color and white people...and everyone in between on this complicated spectrum of human genealogy.

So, during Madonna Holy Week, it became clear to me what to do about this, at least here in our Temple.

On August 26, the feast day of Our Lady of Częstochowa, I will be re-igniting the flame of the Order of the Black Madonna, https://orderoftheblackmadonna.com, a project which has been on hiatus since 2018. Formerly a more elaborate membership association with multiple levels of training, in its new form the revived Order will simply be focused on two things: 1) offering a monthly Madonna ceremony, in which we lift the petitions that have been submitted through our web site, and 2) gathering membership dues as reparations to help fund the “Black Woman Is God Joy Resistance Retreats” that I’ve been dreaming into being. My ideal is to begin with one retreat by the end of 2020, with two retreats in 2021, and quarterly retreats in 2022 and beyond, so that many Women of Color can have this experience. I have already been discussing this idea with several Women of Color artists I know, and they are beginning to think about the activities that will be nourishing and joyful for them, such as sourcing all of the food from a Woman of Color-owned farm, and having a professional photographer on hand to create Goddess portraits.

I know that if we dedicate the monthly dues from the Order of the Black Madonna to this project, it will grow over time into the kind of sustained, ritual replenishing reparations that can create a wave of positive change, at least for women in our little corner of the world. And in time, more projects may emerge for the Order, as inspired by the Madonna herself.

I’ve set the dues for the Order of the Black Madonna Tier of the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple’s Patreon at $15 per month. After Patreon’s fees and charges, and a $3-per-month membership fee to fund the maintenance of the Order’s website and activities, the remaining $10 of each donation will go into the Reparations Fund every month.

If you are a member of the Temple at the $5 or $10 level, or thinking about joining, I invite you to consider becoming an Order of the Black Madonna member, and contributing your dues to our reparations project.

If you are a member of the Temple at a higher level, and you’d like to allocate a portion of your monthly dues to the Order of the Black Madonna reparations fund, please contact me and let me know. I’d love to facilitate this for you. You can reply to this message or you can text me at (510) 355-7912.

Thank you all for considering this invitation.

Our monthly Madonna ceremonies will be on 4th Wednesdays at 7pm, starting with the inaugural ceremony on August 26, and continuing thereafter. They will be open to all members of the Temple who feel called to attend.

May this working be blessed with the success to do its part in repairing the damage that might stand in the way of women bonding together to create a beautiful future for all beings 🙏🏼

Blessed be,

Yeshe

Supporting Black Mothers

The Mt Shasta Goddess Temple is committed to honouring the Great Mother through acts of spirit, beauty, and service, and we embrace opportunities to help shape a better world for women. Our annual devotional cycle dedicated to Goddesses from many world cultures invites our membership to reflect on the diversity of the female divine, and our practices and teachings inspire women of all colors, shapes, sizes, and backgrounds to discover the divinity within. In our Temple, we believe that every woman is an earthly embodiment of the Goddess.

June is the month of the Black Madonna in our Temple, and we are listening with compassion and concern to the cries of Black Mothers who have lost their children to police and institutional violence, to racist medical practices that place communities of color at higher risk during this pandemic, and to the ongoing issues of Black infant and maternal mortality in a nation with the technological and institutional wherewithal to do better.

The Madonna of Black Butte by Priestess Holly DeFount is the Temple’s devotional representation of the Black Madonna. Situated in the Temple’s Siskiyou County landscape, against the backdrop of Black Butte (a satellite cone of Mt Shasta), the image includes iconic details in homage to several different historical Black Madonnas: the scars from the cheek of our Lady of Częstochowa, the rays of light emitting from Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the colourful robes of Sara-la-Kali. At her feet is a rattlesnake native to our region, not being trod upon or treated as evil, but curled in a harmonious infinity symbol at the feet of the Great Mother, symbolising her eternal love for the Earth and all of its sacred creatures. On her right side, red roses grow, and on her left are white Shasta lilies. The two flowers alchemically represent the sun and the moon, or the red and white tinctures that ultimately give rise to the Philosopher’s Stone.

From now until August 1, the Mt Shasta Goddess Temple will dedicate the proceeds from print sales of this image to Black Mamas Matter, an organisation addressing the needs of Black mothers today. From their website: “Black Mamas Matter Alliance is a Black women-led cross-sectoral alliance. We center Black mamas to advocate, drive research, build power, and shift culture for Black maternal health, rights, and justice.”

*Please note: due to COVID-19 labor shortages, print fulfillment may take longer than usual. Current estimate is 2-3 weeks from date or order. Thank you for your patience!

How to Contribute to Peace: Part I

Contributed by Sr. Marie Intégrité

You wake up in the morning, heat the water for your tea, or make a cup of coffee. You turn on the news or the radio. Perhaps you turn to an online news or social networking app instead. You scroll through the posts of people's cats, political memes, and some kind of Buzzfeed quiz that will reveal to you which X-Men character you are most like. Whichever way you access the information regarding events happening in this world, it still hits you like a ton of bricks....

Another death by police hands. Another senseless mass killing. Yet another suicide bomber destroying the lives of innocent people... Nearly every week we get word of these horrible tragedies, and it can feel overwhelming.

I have cried tears of sorrow for these souls and their families. I have felt anxiety and fear for my family, and the families of friends. I have screamed words of rage. I have sat at my altar with wet cheeks, begging the Great Mother for an answer to my question: "WHY?"  

WHY does humanity continue to harbor hate in their hearts? WHY do we still have people who feel it is in their righteous power to kill others? WHY haven't we evolved enough to be beyond acts of great violence? WHY does this keep continuing?

I have felt lost as to what I could do to better the current situations in the world.... I could certainly protest. I could contribute money to good causes. I could do my best to educate those around me on how to be accepting of others regardless of race, gender, religion, or whom they love... While these are all noble ways to affect change around me, I felt it wasn't *quite* enough. I needed to do something more, something on an energetic level.

Not too long ago, a group of pagans made a call out on social media to hex a convicted rapist who was given a slap on the wrist for his crimes. If a group of magical people can work a hex together, couldn't a working for Peace for the greatest good be done together as well?

After the horrid tragedy at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, FL, I found myself crying at my altar once again. My eyes locked onto a prayer card I picked up only a few weeks prior at the San Jose Rosicrucian Museum, and I was inspired to write and post on social media a working that anyone could do to aid in spreading a white light of love and peace throughout the world. I found myself reposting this working again shortly after I heard about the horrible attack in Nice, France. I share it here with you here, in hopes that you might join me and others in this practice.

Statement Regarding Police Violence and Racism

We of the Order of the Black Madonna stand in solidarity with other Pagan organizations in publicly denouncing:

• the racist and hyper-militaristic violence of police departments directed against people of color.

• the use of violence by police departments against all non-violent persons engaged in lawful, constitutionally protected acts of protest.

• all policies that encourage police officers to use deadly force prior to discerning the facts of a situation, including policies that enable the reckless hiring of officer candidates that are clearly, demonstrably, and dangerously unqualified to protect and serve their communities.

• all attempts to cover up, manipulate, or erase the facts of cases involving wrong-doing by police officers, including intimidating witnesses, lying, destroying or hiding evidence, and stonewalling or otherwise not cooperating with investigating State and Federal authorities.

We express our solidarity with people of color in our community and in communities across the country. We stand with them in peaceful, non-violent protest of the death and destruction that has been directed at them by a racist, bloody over-structure that has time and again proven itself to be incapable of self-regulation.

We demand the complete overhaul of this system so that all military weapons purporting to be for “crowd control” currently used against non-violent protestors be immediately removed from all police departments nationwide, and all military vehicles and military-grade weapons be removed and destroyed. We also demand that body cameras be issued to every on-duty police officer for the protection of the public against wanton outbursts of violence. Finally, we demand that each and every individual who seeks a career in law enforcement be critically evaluated by psychological and Diversity Education professionals to see of they exhibit signs of unaware racism, racial prejudice, and racial bias.

The Order of the Black Madonna is a devotional society dedicated to Our Lady of Magic, the holy darkness which gives birth to all and receives all. As Our Lady of Czestochowa, Isis, Sophia, Caridad del Cobre, The Magdalene, The Great Dark Rich Mother Earth, The Nameless Cosmic Darkness. She is the silent, numinous, holy sense that is found in moments of un-self-conscious reverence. We stand and hold Her sacred embodiment, and we witness the powerful and courageous emergence of previously marginalized voices of color in our communities. In Her stead, we weep at the innocent blood being shed, and in solidarity with them and with all people of righteous purpose we demand bold, empowering change on all levels of our society. Now.