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

Feast of Mary Magdalen

From guest contributor Lou Florez:

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.

Contextualizing the Ceremony:

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:

• Set space
• Libation
  -Offering water to cool, open, and help aide in coalescing the individual and communal consciousness to task at hand.
• Asking that any negativity be averted and the ways of communication be cleared
• Honoring/Acknowledging
  -who are you/ how do you name yourself?
  -who is in the room with you?
  -who are your teachers/ who has uplifted you/ spiritual influencers?
  -Evoking/Inviting Spirit in the room
  -who are you calling?
  -what qualities/ personality of Spirit do you want to build a relationship with?
  -what is your intention for bringing them in the space?
• Working
  -construct
  -consecrate
  -anoint
  -enact it
• Offerings
• Divination/read it
  -is it accepted?
  -in balance?
  -ritual complete?
• Close
  -acknowledge every being in the room
  -release the space with intention

Perform the Ritual

• Set Space
   
• Libation- Pouring of Waters
  Cool Water, Cool Road, Cool House, it is the Owner of the Day we respect. It is the Spirits of the East we respect. It is the Spirits of the West we respect. It is the Spirits of the North we respect. It is the Spirits of the South we respect. It is the first medicine holders and diviners we respect. It is the first Mothers, Wise Mothers, Mothers who fly on the right we respect. It is the Spirit of the Earth we respect. It is the Spirit of the Divine Messenger of Transformation we respect. It is the Spirit of those who live in the Realm of the Ancestors we respect. We give respect, we give respect. May it be so!
   
• Removal of Obstacles
  Let illness be averted from our path
  Let poverty be averted from our path
  Let confusion and frustration be averted from our path
  Let our enemies not find our door
  Let witchcraft be made impotent at our feet
  Let death never see us
  Mothers, Fathers, hear these words and let be so!
   
• Naming those present at ceremony
  I come before this altar today (state your name)
   
• Naming teachers and those who inspired you
  I respect all those teachers who have taught me the ways of medicine and spirit. I recognize and honor my lineage of blood and affinity (name names)
   
• Ancestral Recognition
  Ancestors I call you. Ancestors I call you. Ancestors I call you. I call you three times. Ancestors who have preserved the mystery of featherless flight. You create the words of reverence and Ancestors you are welcome at this house. Please come today. Ancestors you are welcome at this house. Come and accept our offering. Whatever good things are eaten in the Realm of the Ancestors please partake. If the earthworm pays homage to the Earth, the Earth shares Her abundance. If the child honors their parent they never suffer from neglect. All respect to the powers of the Praise to the Fathers. Praise to the Mothers. Praise to the Fathers. Praise to the Mothers. Praise to the Ancestors, we ask for your help and give you thanks. Ancestors we ask for good health and we ask for the power of transformation from the Realm of the Ancestors and we give you power. Please come today. Ancestors you are welcome at this house. I give thanks. I give thanks. I give thanks. I respect all those teachers who have taught me the ways of medicine and spirit, living and dead. Ancestors, I am greeting you my friends. When I do not know which road to follow I will turn to the wisdom of the Ancestors. May it be so.
   
• Evoking the Creator (light white candle)
  I give honor to the Womb of Creation, Monarch of the first Messengers I praise. Eldest Parent of the Ancestors. The Ruler who never faces death. Spirit of the Earth, I praise you with your praise names. You mold the light to create all things. Owner of the Mystery of Nature, whose words are the Queen of Creation. Keeper of the unknowable Mystery. Source of all the Heads in Creation. Chief Diviner of the Light who will always be praised in the sacred Grove be present in this ceremony.
   
• Evoking Mary Magdalen (light red candle)
  Saint Mary Magdalen, Our Lady of the Ecstasy of Creation, hear our prayers. Apostle of Apostles, first witness of the act of transcendence through grace, it is you who up lift us. Saint Mary Magdalen hear our prayers, Great Lady who tramples the injustices of misogyny, hear our prayers. Honored Wise Woman, Blessed Queen who forsook the ignorance of man and claimed her divine right as the living embodiment of the Womb of Creation, hear our prayers. It is you who have been denigrated through sexism and it is you who uplifts all those who have been violated by the patriarchy, Our Lady hear our prayers. We pray for all Women this night and uplift all those who have been wounded and are in sorrow, Saint Mary Magdalene hear our prayers.
   
• Working
  In a group, all women present take turns recounting their experiences, struggles, joys, hardships, prayers for each other. Light a tea light on the altar for each participant to uplift their lives and their prayers to heaven. All men present, witness, be silent, don’t take up space, and support.
  
  If you are doing this ritual by yourself, light tea lights and pray for the upliftment of all women in our lives and in the world. If you are a woman, recount your experiences, struggles, joys, hardships, and prayers to Mary Magdalen herself.
   
• Offerings
  Present the shrine with flowers, honey, incense, wine, perfume oils, and images of beauty and love.
   
• Divination
  Divine a messages from Saint Mary Magadelen for the group or individual. Ask through divination (tarot, runes, oracle cards, etc) Receive message and contemplate it. Then, ask: i this complete? If not what needs to be given? Listen to spirit or use futher divination to help you receove all information needed.
   
• Close
  Speak words of reverence and gratitude, then close the ceremony in your own words.
  
  This liturgy was inspired by the works of St. Hildegard, St. Theresa, as well as English translations of Oriki by Awo Falokun.