HAIL SARA LA KALI!

This morning my daughter asked me to run though learning the Minor Arcana with her. I taught her how to read with the Trumps a few months ago, and seemed content to stick with that for a while, but this morning, she decided to continue further. I said “What a perfect day to ask!” This morning in France the statue of Sara La Kali was taken from her shrine room and marched in procession with hundreds of devotees down to the ocean.  The moment it was bathed in the water, readers will dip crystals balls, or cards kept dry in plastic bags, into the ocean at that same time, so Sara can bless them. Others will take some water and sprinkle it on their heads and over their eyes so that they can be gifted with sight.

Her statues depicts a black woman or girl, decked in a crown and blue and white clothes, not unlike Mary, who has a long tradition of being depicted with black skin. This is not a Black Madonna though, but a rogue Saint beloved by the Romany, by the people of Southern France, and by mystics and magicians the world overt. Who is shw though? That is a question with no firm answer.

I first heard of her many years ago as the secret daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdeline. She arrived on the shores of Camargue on a fragile boat with no oars with Mary Cleopas, Mary Salome, and Mary Magdeline. She is black indicating that she is hidden offspring, and her name is Sarah, meaning Princess.

Later I learned the more popular legends that claim her as an Egyptian girl that served the three Mary’s and is venerated for her charity.

Still other legends claim that she was a Roma Queen already in France, or a priestess of Isis, and that the shrine where her statue is now located was once a place of Mithraic Sacrifice.

And of course some claim that she is a Christianized Kali, whose veneration the Roma carried with them. Recent genetic studies have shown the Roma throughout Europe are descended from dalits in India 1400 years ago.

So how do I honor her?  All of the Above.

To my mind there is an honesty and even power in saying “I do not know” or “I cannot quite pin it down”. I feel that the mystery of the Black Madonnas overall is an invitation to contemplate how much we do not know, how much we cannot know, and how our ordinary methods of knowing fail us when faced with the ineffable.