Cathedral of the Black Madonna

Cathedral of the Black Madonna PDF Author: Jean Markale
Publisher: Inner Traditions
ISBN: 9781594770203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Explores the connection between ancient druidic worship of a virgin at Chartres and the veneration of the Black Madonna • Examines the Virgin Mary’s origins in the pagan worship of the Mother Goddess • Identifies Mary with the dominant solar goddess of matriarchal societies The great cathedral of Chartres is renowned the world over as a masterpiece of High Gothic architecture and for its remarkable stained glass, considered alchemical glass, and its mystical labyrinth. But the sacred foundations of this sanctuary go back to a time long before Christianity when this site was a clearing where druids worshiped a Virgo Paritura: a virgin about to give birth. This ancient meeting place, where all the druids in Gaul gathered once a year, now houses the magnificent Chartres cathedral dedicated both to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and to one of the most venerated Black Madonnas in Europe: Our Lady of the Pillar. Coincidence? Hardly, says Jean Markale, whose exhaustive examination of the site traces Chartres’ roots back to prehistoric times and the appeal of the Black Madonna back to the ancient widespread worship of Mother Goddesses such as Cybele and Isis. Markale contends that the mother and child depicted by the Black Madonna are descended from the image worshipped by the druids of the Virgin forever giving birth. This image is not merely a representation of maternal love--albeit of a spiritual nature. It is a theological notion of great refinement: the Virgin gives birth ceaselessly to a world, a God, and a humanity in perpetual becoming.

Cathedral of the Black Madonna

Cathedral of the Black Madonna PDF Author: Jean Markale
Publisher: Inner Traditions
ISBN: 9781594770203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores the connection between ancient druidic worship of a virgin at Chartres and the veneration of the Black Madonna • Examines the Virgin Mary’s origins in the pagan worship of the Mother Goddess • Identifies Mary with the dominant solar goddess of matriarchal societies The great cathedral of Chartres is renowned the world over as a masterpiece of High Gothic architecture and for its remarkable stained glass, considered alchemical glass, and its mystical labyrinth. But the sacred foundations of this sanctuary go back to a time long before Christianity when this site was a clearing where druids worshiped a Virgo Paritura: a virgin about to give birth. This ancient meeting place, where all the druids in Gaul gathered once a year, now houses the magnificent Chartres cathedral dedicated both to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and to one of the most venerated Black Madonnas in Europe: Our Lady of the Pillar. Coincidence? Hardly, says Jean Markale, whose exhaustive examination of the site traces Chartres’ roots back to prehistoric times and the appeal of the Black Madonna back to the ancient widespread worship of Mother Goddesses such as Cybele and Isis. Markale contends that the mother and child depicted by the Black Madonna are descended from the image worshipped by the druids of the Virgin forever giving birth. This image is not merely a representation of maternal love--albeit of a spiritual nature. It is a theological notion of great refinement: the Virgin gives birth ceaselessly to a world, a God, and a humanity in perpetual becoming.

Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna

Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna PDF Author: Alessandra Belloni
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591433436
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
An experiential guide to the ancient healing rituals of the Black Madonna • Reveals the practices and rites of the still-living cult of the Black Madonna in the remote villages of Southern Italy, including the healing rites of the tarantella dance • Details shamanic chants, rhythms, and songs and how to use them for self-healing, transformation, and recovery from abuse, trauma, depression, and addiction • Explores the many sacred sites of the Madonnas and connects them to other Great Goddesses, such as Isis, Aphrodite, Cybeles, and the Orisha Yemanja and Ochun • Includes access to 12 audio tracks The mysteries of the Black Madonna can be traced to pre-Christian times, to the ancient devotion to Isis, the Earth Goddess, and the African Mother, to the era when God was not only female but also black. Sacred sites of the Black Madonna are still revered in Italy, and, as Alessandra Belloni reveals, the shamanic healing traditions of the Black Madonna are still alive today and just as powerful as they were millennia ago. Sharing her more than 35 years of research and fieldwork at sacred sites around the world, Belloni takes you on a mystical pilgrimage of empowerment, initiation, and transformation with the Black Madonna. She explains how her love for Italian folk music led her to learn the ancient tammorriata musical tradition of the Earth Goddess Cybele and the Moon Goddess Diana and discover the still-living cult of the Black Madonna in the remote villages of Southern Italy. She vividly describes the sensual shamanic drumming and ecstatic trance dance rituals she experienced there, including the rites of the tammorriata, the transgender rite of Femminielli, and the erotic “spider dance” of the tarantella, which has been used for centuries in the Mediterranean for healing. Sharing chants, rhythms, and sacred songs, she details how she uses these therapeutic musical and trance practices to heal women and men from abuse, trauma, depression, and addiction and shows how these practices can be used for self-healing and transformation, including her personal story of using the tarantella to overcome cervical cancer. Revealing the profound transformative power of the Black Madonna, Belloni shows how She is the womb of the earth, the dark side of the moon, and the Universal Mother to all. Truly alive for all to call upon, She embraces and gives everyone access to Her divine strength and unconditional love.

The Cult of the Black Virgin

The Cult of the Black Virgin PDF Author: Ean Begg
Publisher: Chiron Publications
ISBN: 1630514411
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description


Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing

Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing PDF Author: Cornelia Elbrecht
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623172772
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
A body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy that will appeal to art therapists, somatic experiencing practitioners, bodyworkers, artists, and mental health professionals While art therapy traditionally focuses on therapeutic image-making and the cognitive or symbolic interpretation of these creations, Cornelia Elbrecht instructs readers how to facilitate the body-focused approach of guided drawing. Clients draw with both hands and eyes closed as they focus on their felt sense. Physical pain, tension, and emotions are expressed without words through bilateral scribbles. Clients then, with an almost massage-like approach, find movements that soothe their pain, discharge inner tension and emotions, and repair boundary breaches. Archetypal shapes allow therapists to safely structure the experience in a nonverbal way. Sensorimotor art therapy is a unique and self-empowering application of somatic experiencing--it is both body-focused and trauma-informed in approach--and assists clients who have experienced complex traumatic events to actively respond to overwhelming experiences until they feel less helpless and overwhelmed and are then able to repair their memories of the past. Elbrecht provides readers with the context of body-focused, trauma-informed art therapy and walks them through the thinking behind and process of guided drawing--including 100 full-color images from client sessions that serve as helpful examples of the work.

The Hidden Spirituality of Men

The Hidden Spirituality of Men PDF Author: Matthew Fox
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1577317920
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
It is no secret that men are in trouble today. From war to ecological collapse, most of the world’s critical problems stem from a distorted masculinity out of control. Yet our culture rewards the very dysfunctions responsible for those problems. To Matthew Fox, our crucial task is to open our minds to a deeper understanding of the healthy masculine than we receive from our media, culture, and religions. Popular religion forces the punitive imagery of fundamentalism on us, pushing most men away from their natural yearning for spirituality and toward intolerance and domination. Meanwhile, many men, particularly young men, are looking for images of healthy masculinity to emulate and finding nothing. To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Grandfatherly Heart to the Spiritual Warrior. He explores archetypes of sacred marriage, showing how partnership becomes the ultimate expression of healthy masculinity. By stirring our natural yearning for healthy spirituality, Fox argues, these timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to reinvent the world.

Rhythm is The Cure

Rhythm is The Cure PDF Author: Alessandra Belloni
Publisher: Mel Bay Publications
ISBN: 1619115174
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
This book with online video (111 min.) will introduce the reader to the tambourine and folk dance tradition of Southern Italy, the Tarantella. Students will learn the techniques of Tarantella tambourine playing as well as the history of this ancient tradition. This book reflects 25 years of field research and performance by the author, Alessandra Belloni

Italian Folk Magic

Italian Folk Magic PDF Author: Mary-Grace Fahrun
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 1633410552
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In this fascinating journey through the magical, folkloric, and healing traditions of Italy the reader learns uniquely Italian methods of magical protection and divination and spells for love, sex, control, and revenge. "Mary-Grace Fahrun's Italian Folk Magic is an intimate journey into the heart of Italian folk magical practices as they are lived every day. Having grown up in an extended Italian family in North America and Italy, the author presents us with the stories, characters, saints, charms, and prayers that form the core of folk religion, setting them in context in an authentic, down-to-earth, and humorous voice. A delight to read!"—Sabina Magliocco, Professor of Anthropology, University of British Columbia Italian Folk Magiccontains: magical and religious rituals prayers divination techniques crafting blessing rituals witchcraft The author also explores the evil eye, known as malocchio in Italian, explaining what it is, where it comes from, and, crucially, how to get rid of it. This book can help Italians regain their magical heritage, but Italian folk magic is a beautiful, powerful, and effective magical tradition that is accessible to anyone who wants to learn it.

The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife

The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife PDF Author: Veronica Di Grigoli
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781514802250
Category : Man-woman relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
When career-girl Veronica flies to Sicily for a friend's wedding, she accidentally falls in love with one of the groom's three-hundred cousins. A year later she has given up her job, house and friends, and is planning her own wedding with her Latin Lover in the shimmering heat of Sicily.

The Madonna of Notre Dame

The Madonna of Notre Dame PDF Author: Alexis Ragougneau
Publisher: New Vessel Press
ISBN: 1939931401
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
This murder mystery set in the Parisian cathedral is “a twisted and riveting story . . . Highly original” (Toronto Star). Fifty thousand believers and photo-hungry tourists jam into Notre Dame Cathedral on August 15 to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The next morning, a stunningly beautiful young woman clothed all in white kneels at prayer in a cathedral side chapel. But when an American tourist accidentally bumps against her, her body collapses. She has been murdered. The autopsy reveals disturbing details. Police investigators and priests search for the killer as they discover other truths about guilt and redemption within the walls of this soaring Paris refuge for the lost, the damned, and the saved. The suspect is a disturbed young man obsessed with the Virgin Mary who spends his days hallucinating in front of a Madonna. But someone else knows the true killer of the white-clad daughter of Algerian immigrants, in this thrilling novel of good and evil that illuminates shadowy corners of the world’s most famous cathedral.

Pilgrimage to Images in the Fifteenth Century

Pilgrimage to Images in the Fifteenth Century PDF Author: Robert Maniura
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781843830559
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A case study of the meaning and purpose of pilgrimage, based on the image of the 'scarred Virgin', Our Lady of Czestochowa. The tradition of pilgrimage to an image is so well-established as to be taken for granted. Throughout Christian history large numbers of people have made journeys to images associated with miracles, yet the phenomenon has never been a subject of detailed scholarly scrutiny. This book explores the issue through a case study of the origins of pilgrimage to one such image, Our Lady of Czestochowa in Poland. The shrine remains one of the most prominent pilgrimage destinations in the Catholic world: the striking focal panel painting shows the Virgin Mary with an apparently scarred face, and the legend of the picture's origin claims that it was painted by St Luke and desecrated by iconoclasts. The author assesses the significance of the stories attached to the shrine, and goes beyond them to consider the practices and responses of the pilgrims. Drawing on the earliest surviving miracle collections, he also explores the interaction between the pilgrims and the image of the 'scarred' Virgin. ROBERT MANIURA is Lecturer in the History of Renaissance Art, Birkbeck College, University of London.