Embracing Mother’s Dark Heart

Session Five: Contacting Positive Darkness

Mark BradyMothersDarkHeart @gmail.com

Jeanne DenneyJeanneDenney@ gmail.com

March, 2012

“ The most protean aspect of comedy is its potentiality for transcending itself, for responding to the conditions of tragedy by laughing in the darkness.” ~ Harry Levin

Discussion

How has Dark Heart been showing up in your life these days?

Reclaiming the Dark Mother as Heroine

“The experience of the feminine is the

psychological key to both the sickness and

health of our time and its healing….The

Feminine, which Freud and Jung only began

to explore, can now be released into a

creative and redemptive life.”

Marion Woodman - Addiction to Perfection

The Pot of Blood in the Hand of Kali

Kali, be with us.Violence, destruction, receive our homage.Help us to bring darkness into the light, To lift out the pain, the anger, Where it can be seen for what it is -The balance-wheel for our vulnerable aching love.Put the wild hunger where it belongs,Within the act of creation,crude power that forges a balanceBetween hate and love.

- May Sarton

A Very Short History of the Dark Feminine Paleolithic Goddess

Venus of Dolni Vestonice During this time:

• Great Mother was worshiped.• Women did not live much beyond 20

years. • Mothers were gatherers and primary

source of food for others.• Probably a child-respecting culture.• Evidence of parental attachment.• Evidence that even disabled infants were

cared for.• Some evidence of ritual child sacrifice

and/or cannibalism.

Neolithic Mom Catal Huyuk

• Mother worship. “Great Mother” governed birth and death, creation and destruction.

• Seen as embodying both nurturing and ferocity.

• Maternal figures are lusty and willful• Mothering was defined by women.• Figures of women holding children

appear.• Children appear to have been esteemed

as an asset.• In agricultural societies, children were

helping by age 3.• Early dwellings did not house men.• Children were buried with their mother.• Equation of mother and nature.

Ishtar of Babylon and Assyria

Astarte of Canaan 6TH to 7th Century B.C

Inanna of Sumeria Ancient Mesopotamia

Bad Girls of the Ancient WorldOf the same lineage, this trio are goddesses of fertility, love, sex, and war though not motherhood. Some say they were love goddesses who were "as cruel as they were wayward.“ All carry the shamanic theme of descent to an underworld.

Isis of Egypt

The cult of Isis was the dominant religion of the Mediterranean during late Roman times. Known as matron of nature and magic, protector of the dead and goddess of children . Like other Black Goddess figures, Isis is the life-giving and healing goddess of the Earth.

InThe Golden Ass of Apuleius, Isis speaks: "I am Nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen also of the immortals, the single manifestation of all the gods and goddesses there are.“ The text goes on to claim that she is identical with Cybele, Artemis, Aphrodite, Persephone, Demeter, Juno, and Hecate.

These mother and child poses prefigure Mary and Jesus.

Gaia of Pre-Hellenic GreeceIn the beginning was only Khaos, the nothingness of space. From Khaos there appeared:• Gaia, goddess of the earth • Nyx (Goddess of the night) • Tartaros (God of the

Underworld)• Erebos (God of shadows

and darkness), and • Eros (God of sexual love).

The Greek Goddesses• As Patriarchy takes hold, goddesses are

dominated by Father God Zeus. They were also often borne of men.

• Most Goddesses did not have children (even goddesses of childbirth and protectors of children).

• Aphrodite is also considered part of the lineage with Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte. She is a goddess of love and sexuality, and also capable of cruelty.

• Demeter, goddess of corn and agriculture, is a notable exception. She is probably the closest examples of Dark Mother. Demeter carries both maternal qualities and the theme of descent.

Demeter and Persephone

Aphrodite

Hecate• Born of Gaia• Greco-Roman goddess associated with

magic, witchcraft, curses, necromancy (the occult), crossroads, night time and doorways. Ironically, she is also associated with Childbirth, nurturing and dogs.

• “Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, ‘she is more at home on the fringes than in the center of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition.’” (Oxford Classical Dictionary)

• Three faces have been interpreted as representing “Virgin/Mother/Crone” phases of women’s life. (Donna Wilshire)

Medieval Mother Goddess Mary• Light-filled maternal archetype becomes

widespread through “Mary, mother of God.” Images abound.

• Mother as asexual virgin becomes widespread idealization.

• Motherhood becomes the pinnacle of female ambition.

• Mary sets the bar for motherhood, introducing mercy, peace, goodness and inexhaustible caring – a child’s perfect fantasy.

• Christian rejection of the corporeal body and sexuality is represented by Mary.

• Dark mother she was not, however she does appear in Europe in a “dark” form.

• Variant on the virgin and child. Brought from the crusades• Venerated for Healing• Is seen to be a derivative of Isis with Horace• The Black Virgin has been identified with several black

goddess figures of the ancient pre-patriarchal cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East, including the Phrygian Cybele, the Sumerian Inanna, the Syrian Anath, the Hebrew Lilith, the Indian Kali, the Ephesian Diana, and the Egyptian goddesses Neith and, of course, Isis

The Black Virgin

In the goddess-worshipping cultures of Old Europe and the pre-patriarchal Mediterranean, black was the color of fertility and abundance, like the rich black soil of the Nile and other river valleys. White on the other hand was the color symbolic of death, and images of the death-bringing goddess were carved in bone or marble.

Baba Yaga – Eastern Europe

• Rides in a mortar and pestle looking for rare herbs and flowers (for healing)

• In charge of the sun and moon rising• Survival in her hands depends on capacity for truth • Both healer and threat to hero or heroine’s quest • Theme of benefit through facing terror with truth, ugliness with

respect, and doing service in her hut

• Devouring Crone from Slavic Folktales• Healer/Destroyer• Source of wisdom and truth• Lives on margins of society in strange

hut with skulls circling house

Kali of India The Hindu goddess associated with eternal energy. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Kali means "the black one". Since Shiva is called Kāla - the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "the Time" or "Death" (as in time has come). Hence, Kali is considered the goddess of time and change.

Hariti• 2-3 Century Japan

(originally Iranian)• Protector of children,

families and family harmony

• Originally (in Iranian form) was a fierce or hostile diety. Cannabalistic and demonic. Ate children.

• Often depicted with children and cornucopia

Yukari’s Slide

Acala Natha is described as “he” but s/he is the symbol of the darkness inside.

Guanyin is the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin which means "Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World."

(Wikipedia)

Paldem Lhamo• One of the Wrathful Dieties

of Tibet.• Wrathful deities are

enlightened beings who take on wrathful forms in order to lead sentient beings to enlightenment.

• Kills her own son to protect Buddhism.

• Often seen drinking blood from skulls.

• In Tibet, wrathful dieties are considered helpful in transformative processes and are …XXXX

Cross-culturally and Cross-historically Dark Mother Goddesses are:

• Destroyers and creators (as seen by ego)

• Purveyors of both chaos and order• Associated with Nature and facilitator

of natural processes • Guardians of Fertility, Birth and Death • Associated with Sexuality, Mothering

and Families.• Sought for Healing and Abundance• Guardians of Truth• Fierce, even bloody at times• Associated with full life span of

women, virgin, mother and crone

• Both empathic (Attached) and indifferent (Detached)• Often also associated with Night, the “underworld” and the Occult

Discussion

What’s does this Dark Mother history evoke for you?

Nine Major Pathways of Neural Integration

Dr. Bonnie BadenochBeing a Brain-wise Therapist

1. Vertical Integration

Vertical integration simply means that the body, limbic structures and prefrontal areas are wired together optimally with lots of connections. This allows for a strong body-awareness putting me easily in touch with bodily feelings. Strong vertical integration allows me to tolerate a broad range of emotion without becoming either frozen or overwhelmed and reactive. Differences in vertical integration are responsible for one woman’s ceiling ending up being another woman’s floor.

The Limbic Structures of Your Brain

2. Bilateral (Horizontal) Integration

Like a house with a solid foundation, bilateral integration is built upon strong vertical integration and simply refers to increasing connections across both sides of the brain. Bilateral integration allows us to more easily put words to feelings and to translate and make meaning from the images and sensations arising in our complex inner world which often originate from right brain firing.

Musical Medicine.

3. Narrative; 4. Memory; 5. State Integration

Narrative, memory and state integration are the natural outcome of either secure attachment in childhood or earned secure adult attachment later on. Essentially, we’ve come to terms with our personal history and can talk about it in a coherent, emotionally engaged manner. It’s also responsible for what UCLA neuro-psychiatrist Dan Siegel calls Mindsight – being able to readily think about and observe our own and others’ thought processes.

For those of us who can do this easily, it often comes as a revelation that many people – children and adolescents especially – do not possess sufficient neural integration to be able to readily think about their own thoughts. In other words, they are slow to realize that “a mind is a terrible thing to trust.” That unless the PFC, the CEO of the brain, is given something deliberate to think about, it will think about anything.

6. Consciousness Integration

Consciousness integration is the ability to easily move back and forth between my inner world and the outside world – endo-awareness and exo-awareness. Integration allows us to do this with the calm curiosity of a caring observer. Accomplishing this integration allows us to “be here now” – fully focused in the present moment more often than not, without a preponderance of negative judgments or excessive reactivity. This is a very useful integration to possess in the workplace, in politics and in negotiations with teenagers.

Your brain and mine are relational organs constantly trying to predict the future. Success in this endeavor insures your and my survival. Our brains grow and integrate best when the future looks bright and it’s in the company of more organized brains, that is brains with better neural integration. Thus the value of healthy parents, teachers, therapists, mentors and peers for ourselves and our children.

People don’t necessarily judge us by the company we keep, but our brain is significantly impacted by that company. And whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly scoping out the intentions and feeling states of the company we keep every day. And as we develop increasing Interpersonal Integration, this capacity becomes more and more conscious – we know what we think and how we feel about different people, and more importantly – why.

7. Interpersonal Integration

8. Temporal Integration

People possessing good temporal integration have more than a dissociated denial or an isolated intellectual under-standing of the inevitable reality that “Yes, we are all going to die.” They have given it considerable thought and have often found ways to creatively express great feeling with respect to their own mortality. Many such people end up working in hospitals and hospices and grief counseling agencies, writing poetry or making compelling art.

“Nothing so focuses a woman’s mind as the sure knowledge she is to be hanged in the morning.” ~ Samuel Johnson

9. Transpirational IntegrationTranspiration means “to breathe across.” In the sense of brains integrating, it essentially refers to a developing awareness that the body boundary we all walk through the world carrying is an artificial one. As Transpirational Integration unfolds it moves us away from Martin Buber’s I-It interactions to more and more authentic I-Thou relationships. In Abraham Maslow’s world Transpirational Integration is known as transpersonal Integration.

Einstein probably described Transpirational Integration best when he wrote:

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty….We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.

The Two Perilous Questions

What’s true for me?

Recursive

What do I want?