The Black Madonna

The image in which Woodman renders the emergent conscious-feminine. “Throughout history, the Black Madonna has presided over fertility, sexuality and childbirth. She is nature impregnated by spirit, accepting her own body as the chalice of the spirit. She has to do with the sacredness of matter; the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. Rejected by the patriarchy, her energy has been smoldering. It is now erupting in individuals and in the planet, demanding conscious recognition” (Woodman 1993, p. 81).

Woodman encounters her in the dreams of contemporaries: “Sometimes she’s crying. Sometimes she’s austere. She’s dark. Sometimes she’s a black woman or Indian or Portuguese. I think she’s dark because she’s unknown to consciousness” (Woodman 1993, p. 81). The image’s darkness is epistemic rather than moral — she is the feminine that consciousness has not yet known. She is Sophia, “the deep feminine wisdom that manifests through nature, including human nature” (Woodman 1993, p. 83). She functions as a bridge — “a spiritual figure in a physical body, so she acts as a bridge between head and heart… the bridge between heaven and earth” (Woodman 1993, p. 82). Her eruption in contemporary dream material is, for Woodman, the psyche’s announcement of “the redemption of matter” (Woodman 1993, p. 81) — the recovery of the feminine side of God after two millennia of patriarchal repression.

Relationships

• conscious-feminine
• neumann-great-mother
• anima-mundi
• sophia

Primary sources

• woodman-conscious-femininity-interviews (Woodman 1993)