New Art: Dark Madonna & Daughter

Dark Madonna & Daughter by Joanna Powell Colbert

My journey through the Underworld with Hecate this month (via the “30 Days of Hecate” course) has led me, somewhat surprisingly, into the arms of the Dark Mother, mostly in her guise as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Not the Dark Crone nor the Dark Maiden, but the Dark Mother.

She has been calling me since I started visiting the Southwest in 2011. I have been to Santa Fe, Taos, Abiqui, Albuquerque, and San Antonio multiple times in the past few years, and every time I go, more images of Guadalupe seem to find their way home with me. I have taken offerings over and over to the statue of Our Lady at the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Santa Fe.

madonna1

madonna2

Ah. Well last week I spent several days — seven in all — working on an illustration of Mother Night & the Child of Wonder for my Wheel of a Woman’s Life book-in-progress, for the section on Winter Solstice. The voice in that section is of the archetypal Divine Child, born on Winter Solstice.  I knew that, in the illustration, I wanted the Child to glow like the reborn sun in the arms of the holy night.  As I worked on the painting, I listened to the audiobook version of Untie the Strong Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and somehow all the stories of Blessed Mother and Her Little Child of Love (as Dr. E says) found their way into my paintbrush, pastels, colored pencils. The focus, for me, was more on the Madonna and less on the Child. I cried. I prayed. I bowed before Her.  “Have you forgotten?” she said, in Dr. E’s voice. “I am your Mother. You are under my protection.”

When I finished, I was shaking. I knew the art was talismanic. Radiating energy. And somehow I had been changed.

She showed up again for me very powerfully at Jennifer Lucero-Earle’s ArcanaDance workshop on the Star card in Seattle on Saturday. I’m not sure where this journey is taking me, but I am listening.

Even though the name of this piece is technically “Mother Night and the Child of Wonder,” she seems to want to be called “Dark Madonna & Daughter.”  (Cosmic wink.)

11 thoughts on “New Art: Dark Madonna & Daughter

  1. Love this Mother & Child image, Joanna…the Mother has become a very important Image / reality for me over the last few decades, thank you for sharing this beautiful piece work. love & light.

  2. “The darker the night,
    the lovelier the dawn
    she carries in her womb.”
    ~ Dom Helder Camara

    My ears are my heritage – Mr. Spock

    I detect a Vulcan-shape to the child’s ear. (cosmic grin)

  3. Hello! Blessed Solstice! Debra, of She Who Seeks, featured your beautiful image on her blog today. I’ll be reading along…

  4. Ultramarine blue was the favourite colour of famous Australian
    artist, Brett Whiteley. He created an 18-part work called the
    Great American Dream in the 1960s.

Leave a Reply to e Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *