Virgin a Day - #2

(Sara-Kali, image from here)

I visited Moxieantiques this morning (catching up on some of the offerings for Rebecca's Virgin a Day) and found myself propelled back into time with Melinda's tribute to her grandmere.  This is part of the comment that I left for her:

What a lovely tribute to your grandmere.  I didn't know mine, either - both died when I was very young and there was nothing left of theirs to pass on, except their memories which both my parents kept for themselves.  

My grandparents were born in Eastern Europe and immigrated to the US in the early part of the 20th century.  My parents were first generation here, which I think had its challenges - new country, new language and new customs for their parents, charged with teaching them these new ways.

My mother's mother died when I was about 10 months old; my father's mother died when I was about 4 1/2 years old.  Although I have pictures of me with them, I don't have any conscious memories of either one of them.  What I do remember, though, was a deep knowing that they were not from America - that their vibe was European through and through.  And some part of my little brain was imprinted with the knowledge that my life line was from that part of our Planet.

Neither one of my parents spoke much about their European heritage, preferring to concentrate on being "American."  Neither spoke their parents' native languages - their parents thought that since they were in America, they should speak English.  I knew that my father's parents were from Berlin and from Vienna.  My mother's parents, though, are somewhat of a mystery. "Austria Hungary" was the answer I usually got; nothing more specific.

Now, nothing gets me more determined to know something as when there is an air of mystery surrounding it or if the information is kept from me, for whatever reason.  I then put on my Mata Hari outfit and start digging - relentlessly. When my mother couldn't or wouldn't answer my questions about where her parents came from and their experience there and immigrating here, I used to tell her that we probably had Gypsy blood and that the family was embarrassed by that.  So I searched myself - and still do - relying on my intuition and trusting that my blood, bones and cells remembered their origins and would inform me.

In one of my research excursions on the internet, I found myself in the South of France and stumbled into the shrine of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer - where I found another Black Madonna:  Sara Kali.  Imagine my surprise when I read this:

Until recently it was widely believed that this worship of Kali Sara, the Romani Black Madonna or Goddess was unique to Les Saintes Maries de La Mer. My own recent research among Romani refugees from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and in countries of the Balkans has uncovered the little-known fact that other Black Virgins are worshipped by Roma in central/eastern Europe and that Roma from these countries perform similar rituals. These rituals include laying flowers at the feet of the statue, adorning the statue with clothing of the sick hoping for cures, placing requests to the statue, and lighting candles to the female divinity. To the Roma, Kali Sara is the Protectress who will cure sickness, bring good luck and fertility and grant success in business ventures.

Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland - all part of the greater Austria Hungary of my grandparents.  I did know that my mother's father said he was from the area of the Carpathian Mountains and mentioned Reuthenia - both of which are in the general vicinity of Slovakia and Poland.  My mother was adamant that her family was not Polish, but interestingly enough, her maiden name spelled in the original form (the family changed the spelling to Anglicize it) means "person from Poland."

Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna of Poland.

Sara Kali, the Black Madonna of the Roma people.

The Black Madonna ~ She travels, She immigrates, She's in the US.  She refuses to desert us.

And it seems that She will not let me forget Her, regardless of the broken ties with Europe or the sparse information about that past, because even here, in the US, She reminded me with Her image as La Virgen de Guadalupe when I moved to California from New Jersey.

I was, after all, born on the 12th of December.

A Sagittarian, the traveler or Gypsy of the Zodiac.

Can it be any more obvious to me?

No.

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From Matthew Fox's essay on The Black Madonna, #2

2. The Black Madonna calls us to cosmology, a sense of the whole of space and time. Because she is dark and leads us into the dark, the Black Madonna is also cosmic. She is the great cosmic Mother on whose lap all creation exists. The universe itself is embraced and mothered by her. She yanks us out of our anthropocentrism and back into a state of honoring all our relations. She ushers in an era of cosmology, of our relationship to the whole (“kosmos” means whole in Greek) instead of just parts, be they nation parts or ethnic parts or religious parts or private parts. She pulls us out of the Newtonian parts-based relation to self and the world—out of our tribalism—into a relationship to the whole again. Since we are indeed inheriting a new cosmology in our time, a new “Universe Story”, the timing of the Black Madonna’s return could not be more fortuituous. She brings a blessing of the new cosmology, a sense of the sacred, to the task of educating our species in a new universe story. [8]