The Great Mother Grocery
Altars of Abundance as Devotional Practice
Somewhere in my mid-20s, I found a farmers’ market. It was in Takoma Park, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and after growing up in the 1980s suburbs, with their big box stores, aisles of pallid produce, meats from gods know where, the market was a sensual wonderland.
Twenty-plus years later, I still go almost weekly, and when I return home, I make altars of the bounty before a statue of the Black Madonna I got many years ago outside of a cave in Southern Italy. Made of Vesuvian lava and draped in a disco mantle, she’s the perfect expression of the Dark Mother’s totality – impenetrable shadow and razzle-dazzle. The practice of putting one’s harvest before the Great Mother is an ancient one, and if you read enough of the classics – plays, epic poetry – there are countless examples of people pouring amphorae of oil and wine onto an altar or spreading out the orchard haul at the foot of the statue.
Below are some photos I’ve made of market altars over the years. Sometimes, I’ll chant a little impromptu Latin litany to Our Lady, reminder that even for someone who lives in one of the most unnatural places in the world, Manhattan, I’m still connected to the Mater Terrae, the Earth Mother. Make your own and let me know how it turns out (and yes, even the goods from the grocery will do).
Glorious !! Love the pics.
Fantastic! I'm going to divide what used to be my compost material into an altar pile and a compost pile. OH, except that I want to honor the Black Madonna, so maybe I need to rethink that. Let's see... perhaps first on the inside alter to the Mater and then once it wilts on to the outside altar that was once only a compost pile! Mater and Matter I think I'll call it. Thank you for your post!