Who is the Black Madonna? Why is She Black? Who are the people who have venerated Her around the globe? Why does She matter today?

As the course begins, you’ll journey to the Black Madonna of Clermont-Ferrand, France who has been called Our Lady of the Good Death. Through Her, you’ll learn how the Black Madonna’s powerful Black and female body has beckoned pilgrims’ embodied spirituality since the 1100s — and has the power to transform our mind, bodies, and spirit.

Christena will share how the Black Madonna’s powerful Black and female body is always working to heal and restore you as a spiritual seeker, and our world today.

In this opening session, you’ll:

• Explore the interfaith history and meaning of the Black Madonna and why She urgently matters in our contemporary world
• Learn how the Black Madonna can transform your beliefs about yourself and others
• Discover how the Black Madonna’s healing revolution affirms the sacredness of women and feminine spirituality
• Experience a meditation practice to help you discern how Our Lady of the Good Death is lovingly attuned to your personal pain — and wants to guide your specific steps toward healing

As part of our anti-nurturing society, you’ve likely been conditioned to believe your needs are a burden.

We’ve been taught to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, that it’s not okay to be “high maintenance,” and that asking for help or admitting we’re struggling is a shameful sign of weakness.

You’ll discover how Our Lady of the Sick, the supremely nurturing Black Madonna of Vichy, France, not only welcomes your needs but wants you to bring your biggest, loudest, most embarrassing needs directly to Her.

Seated on the supremely nurturing lap of “She Who Cherishes Our Hot Mess” (one of Christena’s many names for the Black Madonna) you can take a deep breath, relinquish your need to be perfectly independent, and simply be — mess and all.

From this authentic place, you can begin to connect with Her nurturing and healing power — and see that your needs are the key to connecting with the Divine, yourself, and others.

In this session, you’ll:

• Examine how most of us have been conditioned to despise our own humanity, especially our needs
• Discover how Our Lady of the Sick, the Black Madonna of Vichy, cherishes the opportunity to care for you and earnestly invites you to share your needs with Her
• Experience a reflection practice that supports you as you look inward to examine your needs, especially those you’re afraid to share
• Engage in a powerful practice of matriarchal (needs-based) connection with your fellow pilgrims
• Discover what you and your fellow pilgrims can teach each other about co-creating communities centered on meeting people’s needs
• Add an element to your home altar that symbolizes your human needs

Christena will share another of her many names for the Black Madonna, “She Who Showers Us With Miracles.”

Our patriarchal society keeps us trapped in what Christena calls the resource-scarcity-and-fear vortex — a seemingly unending spiral of three fears: the fear of not getting what we need, the fear of losing what we have, and the fear of what other people think.

These fears can show up in your body through sleepless nights, hunched shoulders, a constant sense of urgency, and more.

As Christena guides you on a journey to Our Lady of the Snows in Aurillac, France, you’ll learn how you can wrap yourself in Her bountiful blanket of infinite resources — and watch how your body relaxes.

In Her presence, you’re safe and can face your fears with compassion and courage… as you engage in a series of practices to support you as you pivot from the embodiment of fear to the embodiment of abundance.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover how your perception of the scarcity vs. abundance in your life impacts your embodied experience to a far greater extent than its reality
• Learn how Our Lady of the Snows is uniquely empowered to help you relinquish even your most tightly-held fears
• Discover practices to support you as you identify where fear and resource scarcity are showing up in your body
• Explore practices to help you gently stay present with your embodied experience — long enough to move through fear and resource scarcity and connect with the abundance that Our Lady of the Snows perpetually offers
• Identify personalized images, mantras, and practices that reliably help you connect with your experience of abundance in your body
• Discover where abundance already exists in your life

Grief is legitimately scary.

When your worst fears have come true… when you’re dealing with profound loss… or when you find yourself in a seemingly hopeless situation… the grief can feel both alienating and all-consuming. In the midst of grief, you might wonder whether anything good can come of your experiences.

To make matters worse, social science research reveals that humans possess numerous built-in coping mechanisms that prevent us from connecting with spiritual empowerment when we’re most stricken with grief.

Yet, Our Lady of the City and County, the Black Madonna of Mende, France, invites you to think of grief as a womb space. As Christena will share, another of her names for the Black Madonna is “She Who Holds the World in Her Womb.”

In Her sacred, capable, and regenerative womb, you are invited to assume the role of the fetus. You’re free to allow Her to carry both you and your grief — and radically depend upon Her as She labors to birth something new in you.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover how your experience of grief can impede your connection to the Divine
• Hear stories about how the Black Madonna assures you that you’re completely surrounded by love’s life force in the midst of your grief, no matter where you are — and how this inspired her name, Our Lady of the City and County
• Engage in a reflective practice to help identify the grief you are carrying
• Explore how the Black Madonna’s womb offers a nurturing place to rest when you’re grappling with grief — as She invites you to release the burden of grief and instead be carried by Her
• Learn how the Black Madonna’s womb provides a spiritual umbilical cord which activates precisely when we are faced with the uncertainty that often accompanies grief
• Experience a guided meditation on how to activate the Black Madonna’s umbilical cord… surrender to it… and receive the outlook, wisdom, and love that you need in your unique experience of grief

Whether it’s larger societal issues like climate change or interpersonal ones like witnessing a beloved who is learning a lesson the hard way — we all desire to influence those around us to make good choices…

Yet, more often than not, the fear of what will happen if they don’t do what we think is best triggers the need to control them.

When you’re guided by fear, as so many of us are, you can become so attached to a specific outcome that your leadership becomes heavy-handed, shaming, and punitive.

The Black Madonna of Thuret, France — or “She Who Loves by Letting Go,” as Christena lovingly calls her — offers a different way to be a powerful leader. She stands firmly rooted among muddy lotus flowers — and models what it looks like to influence people from a place of true strength, generous invitation, and affirmation of each individual’s sacredness.

Traditionally called the Virgin Warrior, the Black Madonna of Thuret is supremely capable of holding space for the murkiest moral dilemmas, so you can relinquish your need for control. By joining Her in the mud, you allow Her to liberate your leadership from fear, and empower you to lead from a place of fearless love.

In this session, you’ll:

• Learn how fear triggers a powerful need to control ourselves and others
• Examine the dangers and futility of trying to control others (even when we mean well)
• Engage in a reflective practice to identify the ways you try to control yourself or others
• Discover how the Black Madonna of Thuret — the Virgin Warrior who loves by letting go — models a version of strong leadership that differs from the patriarchal norm
• Explore how to influence others by telling your story of transformation in a non-controlling and effective way
• Engage in an affirming practice you can return to any time you are struggling to “love by letting go”

In our patriarchal society, we’re often taught what to believe and conditioned to conform to what is expected of us.

In this environment, knowing your truth can be difficult, much less speaking your truth.

Yet, as a sacred being, your truth is sacred, too — even if it ruffles feathers.

You’ll journey to the fierce Black Madonna of Moulins, France who famously guided Joan of Arc in 1429 as she fought for her truth and freedom, as well as the truth and freedom of others. As you’ll discover, yet another of Christena’s names for the Black Madonna is “The God of Joan of Arc.”

By examining the social psychology underlying Joan of Arc’s courage, Christena will help you begin to see how Joan of Arc’s identity was spiritually empowered and directly connected to the Black Madonna. From this identity, Joan of Arc was able to stand in her truth, speak her truth, and fight for her truth.

Like Joan of Arc, you can engage in embodied practices that root your identity in the Black Madonna and empower you to heroically speak your truth.

In this session, you’ll:

• Examine how societal forces conspire to silence your truth
• Engage in a reflective practice to help you identify an unspoken truth that you would like to boldly proclaim
• Discover social-science research on how your identity is shaped — and even empowered — by our close relationships
• Explore how your relationship with the Black Madonna, like Joan of Arc’s, can fuel your quest to find your truth… and speak it boldly
• Team up with your fellow pilgrims in a collaborative, embodied practice that gives words and movement to your unique truth

As you conclude your transformative journey, you’ll visit Our Lady of the Rock of Mayres, France.

Affectionately nicknaming her “Our Lady of the Side-Eye,” Christena will explain how the Black Madonna’s Black body is a revolution that invites all people into sacred activism and offers a clear path forward.

Rooted in Her unconditional love and atop Her steadying rock, you’ll discover research and insights into how people of all races unknowingly practice anti-Blackness.

In the midst of embodied spiritual practice, you’ll reflect on and discern how Our Lady of the Side-Eye is empowering you — and all of us — into a more daring and profound practice of sacred activism.

In this closing session, you’ll:

• Discover how the Black Madonna’s Black body cries out on behalf of the Black people in the world
• Discover how the Black Madonna’s Black body is a healing revolution that affirms the sacredness of Black people and invites us to earnestly fuse our spirituality with racial justice advocacy
• Learn about a reliable social science model for identifying subtle anti-Blackness in ourselves and in our communities.
• Participate in an embodied meditation practice to discern how Our Lady of the Side-Eye is empowering you into a more daring and profound practice of sacred activism

High-Resolution Image: Our Lady of the Side-Eye
Artistic Rendering by Laylie Frazier

This high-resolution, artistic rendering of the 12th-century Black Madonna of Mayres, France — by Afro-Filipino artist Laylie Frazier — depicts Our Lady of the Side-Eye. The sparkling genius of Black Girl Magic, the nurturing wholeness of Black Mothering, and the fury of Black women’s drive for excellence come together in a supremely loving insistence that we all do better. When we are truly transformed by Her, everything changes.

Top 5 Sessions From the Mystics Summit
Selected Sessions From the Summit

These standout sessions from the Mystics Summit feature sought-after spiritual teachers who offer illuminating insights on embracing a deep, still quality of mystical attention. Sessions from James Finley, Mirabai Starr, Father Greg Boyle, Rami Shapiro, and Colette Lafia guide us deeper into appreciation and awe for the preciousness of life… with a level of focus that allows us to commune directly with the sacred.