Happy All Saints Day!

Today is All Saints Day, a day to celebrate the saints in heaven. 

Saint Mary to me is actually one of the Divine Feminines of the Christian community, to me personally She is a Goddess, a Divine and Cosmic Mother. In her dark aspect she is the Black Madonna,  archetype of the dark goddess, along the same guises as Ereshkigal, Cerridwen and Hecate. My first experience with the Black Madonna wasn't that long ago. During a ceremony in the Glastonbury Abbey House, we were lucky enough to have a Black Madonna bought to us from the White Spring. It was such an honour and a blessing. As we entered her chamber deep in the crypt of the old Abbey House, we had our feet washed with water from the White Spring, we sat in the tiny dark room, candle light flickered quietly, highlighting the tiny figurine. We sung our sorrows and pain to her, we sang our shame and our guilt to her, tears fell and joy slowly blossomed within our hearts. And there She stuck, another piece of myself. The Black Madonna.

I was thinking about this experience, and poetry was the only way I could express it.

I hope you enjoy it, here's to the beautiful Saint. 

Smoked Black by Candle Light

The scent of old damp stone.

Your very image,

Smoked black by candle light.

A gentle light flickers against your face.

Your very image,

Smoked black by candle light.

Small flecks of guild still shine.

Your very image,

Smoked black by candle light.

Christ child, beloved one.

Your very image,

Smoked black by candle light.

Tears, so many tears.

Your very image,

Smoked black by candle light.

Peace, let there by peace.

Your very image,

Smoked black by candle light.

Your face, O your face,

Smoked black by candle light.

By Daniel Mcilvenny-Cox

Pachamama

Pachamama - Patron saint of the Pampamesayoc. 

The woman is the Divine Feminine of the Q'ero people; Mother Earth, Tierre Madre, Dragon Woman. 

The Pampamesayoc, those who built the sacred sites of the earth, from the pyramids of the Divine Masculine; Giza, Machu Picchu, to the stone circles of the Divine Feminine; Stonehenge, Avesbury. 

They are the Gatekeepers of these sites, the altar keepers. 

We as shaman of the Inca tradition, carry our altars with us, our mesa's; sacred bundles of Kuya (sacred stones) wrapped in holy cloth, seem at the bottom of the painting. 

Love Letter to Our Lady

A void of grating scales,

seeps electrifying purple fumes.

Tiamut's crimson blood drips Iike jewels of Gaia.

The sound, all that is, the sound - rushing, echoing like stars both born and dead.

Ninhursag's loneliness drops like a black stone. 

Life burns in the belly of Kisha.

The Great She, adorned in severed heads and fragile hearts.

Coatlicue, adorned in evergreen and serpent skins,

dancing the dance of creation.

Tierrra Madre, show us your red sole that treds upon our hearts.

Giver of life Pachamama, I love you.

I love you, love me.

I forgive you, forgive me.

I'm sorry, we're all sorry.

Hold me in your void Mother Mary.

Let me be soothed by the rushing and the grating of scales.

Art and poem by Daniel Mcilvenny-Cox