Our Lady of Montserrat La Moreneta (Catalan: the Dear Dark One)
I remember a time, after I’d said I was leaving, I’d taken my daughter on a break. We hired a campervan and travelled around the north -east coast. Still covid, still a pandemic. Summer relaxing of restrictions. Eat Out For Summer, something like that. The van kept breaking down for one reason or another.
We booked into a hotel for one night, and I got a phone call from a potential funder. Offering support to apply for emergency funding to help the organisation I was working for as project coordinator to be able to pivot. Still over the nature connection we’d been offering but through nature immersion online.
This person, who called out of the blue, helped me secure the bag. Helped me secure the funding, so I could continue to run nature connection events for others, during these difficult times, but also continue to be paid.
One of the reasons I thought I couldn’t leave my marriage before was because of finances. We lived pay cheque to pay cheque. I didn’t have the resources to move out and find a place of my own.
To me this was a miracle. This was a lifeline. This made this dream of leaving come through.
With my knapsack on my back, I went a wandering. Wandering and wondering is part of my summer field guide plans ( more to follow here with updates). It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too cold. It was just right.
I had a bundle of old photographs with me, probably half of my family archive of photographs, as I was going to get them photocopied for a project I’m working on ( more to follow here too).
At my local library, there are two photocopiers. I usually use the downstairs one. But this one was broken. Has been for a few weeks. So I had to go upstairs and use that one.
This photocopier upstairs is manually operated and all monies have to be given to the librarian sitting not far from it.
I asked to use the photocopier. They said yes and I started the job. As I’ve said there were a few photographs to get through and the librarian did say they were leaving momentarily, swapping out.
They stayed for the duration of the job. I paid for the copying and then I took a minute to turn around and look at the new books . Something I do from time to time.
The librarian said at the same time, I was just going to say that there are new books in if you want to have a look at them. Don’t you just love getting your hands on new books? And I had to agree with them.
And there, right in the middle of the shelf, facing me at eye level was the new book from Christena Cleveland, The Black Madonna.
You might remember that another book from Christena Cleveland has been featured on this blog. God is a Black Woman. Ring any bells?
A book I travelled with to Paris, and the outskirts as I took a mini trip to France in search of Black Madonnas.
Well, Cleveland’s next instalment is The Black Madonna, is a further reclamation of the divine feminine, part memoir, part global stories, part historical records, part invocations and rituals. Total liberation.
Part way through this book, where at the end of each chapter there is an invitation to actively allow Black Madonna into your life more fully, I’m drawn to the task of mapping Black Madonna’s loving pursuit of us. Of me throughout my life.
Cleveland presents the story that Black Madonna, is the sacred black feminine worshipped from time, from Africa. When the people of Africa were stolen, taken across the ocean to be enslaved, the sacred black feminine in the form of Osun, orisha of the Osun river begged Yemoja, Mother of all Orishas and Oceans, to let her go with them. Osun’s love for her people was limitless and she didn’t want them to think that she had forsaken them, forgotten them or stopped loving them because of their forced departure .
Yemoja granted Osun’s wish by transforming her into rain, so she could cross the ocean and be with her people who needed her most. So within the Americas, and the Caribbean, Osun crossed an ocean, transforming herself into a more light-skinned goddess so her people would recognise her in these strange new lands, where they had been enslaved and all Africanness bred and/or whipped out of them. She crossed an ocean not just out of love for us, but to empower us. Who has not heard of the slave rebellions inspired and led by Black Madonna, by black women? Who do. you think Harriet Tubman’s North Star was?
Black Madonna. Shape-shifter. Black women. Shape-shifters.
Anyway, I thought I’d share my mapping of Black Madonna’s loving pursuit of me for the past 6 years on this blog this month as I’m in need of feeling that I am not alone.
I’m in need of feeling that I have a black divine presence in my life who’s got me. Who’s there to catch me when I fall.
I’m not religious more spiritual. And because of the white washing of religion,I would’t claim any religion as truth, as something to put my faith in. Never.
I’d much rather put my faith and trust and love into black women. God is a Blackwoman, right. And there is something about Black Madonna that keeps drawing me back to her. That gives me peace and joy when I sent eyes on her.
So who wouldn’t these feelings to continue? Who wouldn’t want to highlight and amplify these feels through difficult times?
I’ve taken quite a shine to Loch Morlich. It’s a place that keeps on giving. And a place I long to return. I leave it with a renewed commitment to my self-love journey. To devoting more time, care and attention to myself. Diverting the attentions I might have been giving out willy-nilly to other people, thoughtlessly, I redirect back to the source. Me.
7am, Loch Morlich
I entered the loch today as the sun was rising. I broke the surface of the loch, with its shards of ice and glided out. Slow expansive circles ripped upon the lochs surface as I took slow, cold strokes. It was freezing and it was painful, but I didn’t want to stop, to get out and leave the loch. But I did.
My finger tips were white for a long time after my swim. I used hot water to bring back some feeling into them. They were so painful. But this pain, along with my body submerged without the frozen loch, are all a reminder to feel again, to live my life to the fullest and give thanks in the process.
Yesterday, I clocked up 17 miles on my walk into Aviemore and back. So today was a talking it easy kind of day. But I still needed to move my body. To explore the camp site and be with the loch. So a morning walk it was.
Sun just up. Loch serene.
10am, River into Loch
Some days, to keep the creative juices flowing and the blood pumping, I take a walk out. Stretch the legs and clear the head. All those great thinkers from time have sworn by taking a walk and a problem is solved.
Sun up. River flowing.
2pm, Loch Morlich
As the afternoon wears on, I usually get a slump in energy levels. If I was home, I’d crawl under a blanket and ride out the low energy. Picking on myself for being so lazy and not doing something to shift my energy. Today I got back out to the loch and noticed a nip in the air. A rise in the wind speed and a reluctance to get into the water.
Sun descending. Loch rippled.
5.30pm, Loch Morlich
The aim was to enter the loch with the sun going down. But I couldn’t be arsed. There were too many people round. I was the only Black body around for miles as well as the only body I’d seen for my stay entering the loch. I was too tired to be singled out any further. So I walked the loch. Around to the point of the sun going down and the loch taking on the colours of dusk. I was glad I walked out again.
A few days in the Emerald Isle, staying in Dublin. Walking my little legs off and soaking up the culture and Guinness ( with a dash of blackcurrant).
Here is St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Probably the first building to get my heart a pumping. And I’m thinking gothic. I’m going back to my GCSE studies and Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. And it just really thrilled me. It touched my romantic horror capabilities. The terrible beauty of this world.
It’s a striking Cathedral, made from limestone and is constructed in a gothic style. I recognised its mystery and gloom and yet a feeling of light too. An 800 year old building probably constructed in an ancient well used by St. Patrick himself.
It’s such a beautiful construction as well as having a moody kind of vibe of pointy arches and buttresses and heavy weathered stone. I was just as in my element as I walked the streets of Dublin. And just as the limestone, is greying and dark, but still a hint of lightness, so was the city itself: full of heart with an underbelly of poverty and suffering. A terrible beauty.
I’m in North Wales. On a swimming residency. The heat and crowds have been killing me though.
Planning to keep cool with water. Inside and out. But the scenery here is amazing. There’s an ancient vibe to the place. I really get the felling that these mountains have been here for centuries and will be here long after I’ve gone.
There’s a timelessness about mountains which force me to step off the busyness and into the calm and collected stance of stillness.
Just like a mountain. Over the next few weeks, as we ease into the summer holidays, I’ll be here in fits and starts. Not putting any pressure on myself to produce as I’m tired.
I’m tired and need to fall back in love with creativity. And I also need something to say. So enjoy the summer and maybe see you back here. But if not over the summer, see you in Autumn.
Living Wild Studios 