Mother and child

Mother and child, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Here is a timeless image of a mother with child, this one taken on the banks of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia.
It is an image we found many times in Sicily in the religious paintings and frescoes in the churches, baby Jesus suckling at the breast of the Virgin Mary.

Whilst investigating this Sicilian phenomenon on the internet, I came across a book called 'Dark Mother - african origins and godmothers', which explains how 'the oldest veneration we know is of a dark mother of central and south Africa, whose signs -- red ochre and the pubic V -- were taken by African migrants after 50,000 BCE to caves and cliffs of all continents. The oldest sanctuary in the world was created in 40,000 BCE by African migrants at Har Karkom, later called Mt. Sinai, foundation place of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.''

It is startling, therefore, to find that, despite these beginning, these three religions have all officially turned their back on the goddess, all worshipping a distinctly male god.

However, as was very clear to us in Sicily, when we were there in 2004, many societies feel the need for the sacred feminine, thus the local practice there of worshipping Ceres/Demeter/Kore/Virgin Mary as evidence by an unending and unbroken stream of her representation in all sorts of art forms on the island, from small statues to great baroque masterpeices.

Tags: dark+mother, goddess, black+madonna, madonna, madonna+child, mother+child, mother+and+child, sicily, sicilia, italia, maria, virgin+mary, jesus, italy, religion, black, woman