What if Darkness was one of our first Mothers?
What comes to mind when you hear the word darkness?
Maybe you remember being a small child, lying beneath your blankets with your eyes wide open, quite certain that something dreadful was lurking underneath your bed. Or your thoughts might wander towards those darker aspects of yourself that you would rather keep tucked away somewhere, preferably behind a firmly closed door.
We humans have woven an extraordinary number of stories around darkness, haven't we? Stories of danger, of things unseen, of mysterious creatures that apparently have nothing better to do than wait for us in darkened corners. Even within spiritual circles, we often speak about bringing our darkness into the light, as though darkness itself were something that needed correcting.
And yet, during a recent Oracle of the Grandmothers circle ceremony, the Grandmothers began telling a very different story. A story about the first mother we ever knew.
Her name is Mother Dark.
The Shadow That Walks Beside Us
It was early morning when I sat down to open the circle, the sun slowly beginning to rise outside. As I invited the Grandmothers to come forward and speak through me, they began talking about the movement between light and darkness, and how uncomfortable we can become with the latter.
One of the Grandmothers introduced the subject of our shadow. She made a rather amusing reference to Peter Pan, whose shadow had to be sewn onto the bottoms of his feet to stop it wandering off. Hers, she explained, needed no such sewing. Her shadow was perfectly happy to remain with her because she was whole with it!
I love that image. Imagine no longer having to chase your shadow around, trying to pin it down or persuade it to behave itself. No needle and thread required.
It was a playful way of introducing something that many of us spend a considerable part of our lives wrestling with: the parts of ourselves that we have labelled dark. The feelings we would rather not acknowledge, the old wounds, the anger, the fears and the things we have been taught are somehow unacceptable.
But the Grandmothers weren't interested in making darkness into another problem for us to solve. They wanted to introduce us to someone.
The First Mother
The Grandmothers began by asking us to consider our love affair with light. We seek it everywhere, don't we? Within ourselves, in our relationships, through our spiritual practices and in the world around us. We long for clarity and understanding. We want to see where we're going.
And yet, as the Grandmothers pointed out, too much light can overwhelm our vision. Think of stepping out into brilliant sunshine and finding yourself squinting, unable to see clearly until your eyes have adjusted. Light, for all its gifts, is not the only way of seeing.
Then came their invitation.
Imagine travelling backwards through your life, beyond all the years you have lived, beyond the first breath you took upon entering this world. Further still, into your mother's womb.
There you are, curled up within that remarkable human body, slowly growing into the person who would one day emerge into the world. You haven't yet seen the sun or the moon. You know nothing of the colours of the sky, the trees or the faces of those who will come to love you. And what surrounds you?
Darkness.
Warm, living darkness. The first home your physical body ever knew.
I find that rather extraordinary when I think about it. We have become so accustomed to associating darkness with fear that we can easily forget how intimately our own beginnings are connected to it. Before we ever opened our eyes to the light, we were held within darkness.
Not by the bogeyman beneath the bed. Our mother's womb.
And then the Grandmothers took us further into the story. They spoke of a mother who existed before the physical womb, before our arrival upon this sweet planet called Earth.
Mother Dark, the Primordial Mother.
In the Grandmothers' telling, she is the first Spirit our souls encountered, the great original Mother whose dark, velvety arms held us before we took human form.
Now, I know that not everyone will understand this in the same way. You might receive it as a spiritual teaching, a myth, a metaphor or simply an image that awakens something within your imagination. There is room for all of that here.
What interests me is the invitation to meet darkness through an entirely different story. One in which she is not an enemy of life, but a Creation Mother.
The Great Velvet Arms of Mother Dark
The Grandmothers spoke about Mother Dark as a presence that continues to exist within and around us. Not someone we have left behind, never to be seen again, but a part of the great mystery of life to which we remain connected.
They described her great, dark, velvety arms wrapping around us. I can almost feel the texture of that image. The softness of velvet, the warmth of being supported, the curious comfort of being held without needing to see the arms that hold you. There is something wonderfully womb-like about it.
And during the ceremony, the Grandmothers invited everyone to meet her.
How? By closing our eyes.
Yes, something as ordinary as that.
They spoke of our eyelids as sacred veils, a part of our own human bodies that allows us to move between the outer world of light and the quieter world within. I rather like the thought that we have been walking around with these little doorways all our lives, opening and closing them without giving them much consideration. No elaborate equipment required, although the Grandmothers were perfectly happy for anyone who fancied an eye mask to “put one on!”
They invited us to rest our hands over our eyes if we wanted a little more darkness, to breathe slowly and allow ourselves to settle. And from there, to set an intention. Not an intention that needed to be complicated or dressed up in particularly spiritual language, simply a wish to meet Mother Dark.
The Grandmothers described intention as the seed of the work, something that helps inform the pathway upon which we travel. I think there is a lovely freedom in that. You can allow your imagination to wander. You might sense a presence, feel a change within your body or notice an image forming in your mind.
Mother Dark may appear in a human form, or you may experience something quite different. The Grandmothers spoke of the possibility of feeling a great velvet blanket wrapping itself around the whole body, over the shoulders and head, until you are cocooned within something akin to a great vast cosmic womb. There might be words, revelations or there might be silence, and there is no need to force either.
They suggested placing one hand upon the heart and the other upon the lower belly, and asking:
Mother, what can I do to deepen my relationship with you?
Then listening. Not necessarily with our physical ears, but through the sensations, impressions and quiet movements of our inner world. The Grandmothers reminded us that Mother Dark often speaks without words.
I wonder how much we miss when we expect every answer to arrive as a clear sentence.
Closing Our Eyes to See
There was another thread woven through this ceremony that I found particularly moving. The Grandmothers began speaking about separation, about the many ways we come into this world and gradually experience ourselves as separate beings.
Our birth is one of the first great transitions, initiations in fact! We leave the womb that has held us and enter an entirely different way of living. And throughout our lives, we continue to encounter moments of separation. We grow, we change, we leave places and people behind. Sometimes we choose those departures, and sometimes The Sisters of Fate, or indeed Life, makes the choice for us.
Through these experiences, we come to understand ourselves as individuals. But somewhere along the way, we can also begin to believe that we are entirely alone. The Grandmothers described us as little dots floating around in the vastness of existence, and I could see exactly what they meant. That peculiar feeling of being a small, solitary human being, trying to make sense of an enormous world.
And yet, within the Grandmothers' story, separation does not mean that we have been cut away from the great web of life. We still belong. Mother Dark has not disappeared simply because we have emerged from our mother's womb and grown into adulthood. The Grandmothers tell us that she is still here, and that we can begin to re-member our relationship with her through something as simple as closing our eyes.
I find it fascinating that we so often close our eyes when we want to feel something more deeply. When we embrace someone we love, when we listen to music that moves us, when we pray, dream or find ourselves overcome by a feeling we cannot quite put into words. Our eyes close, and something within us seems to turn towards another way of knowing.
The Grandmothers spoke of closing our eyes so that we might see more clearly. Not necessarily the kind of seeing that helps us identify the details of the world around us, but the inner sight that allows us to encounter life through imagination, sensation and Spirit. There is a different quality to that sort of attention, a quieter one.
Lady Death and the Sacred Thresholds of Life
As I sit with the Grandmothers' teaching about Mother Dark, my thoughts wander towards another of the Grandmothers whom I have come to know through my shamanic practice, Lady Death.
Some time ago, I painted her as Spirit of Transition: Lady Death. She is an ancient, compassionate presence, a Spirit guide who accompanies us through the many endings and beginnings of our lives.
In the painting, she holds a small flame within her hands, surrounded by the deep blues and purples of a great cosmic darkness. Around her are symbols of transformation, of cycles completing and life moving into new forms.
Looking at her now, I find myself considering the relationship between these two Grandmothers and the stories they bring.
Mother Dark invites us to remember the darkness from which we first emerged, while Lady Death accompanies us through the great thresholds of change. They are not the same Spirit, nor am I suggesting that the Grandmothers were speaking about death during this particular ceremony. But there is a kinship in the way their teachings challenge the stories we have inherited about things we fear.
After all, we spend much of our human lives moving through transitions, don't we? We are forever leaving one version of ourselves behind and growing into another, sometimes willingly and sometimes with our fingernails firmly embedded in the doorframe!
And while the ending of a relationship, a way of life, a familiar identity or even a cherished dream can feel like a little death, there is often something quietly stirring beneath the surface, even when we cannot yet see what it might become.
I wonder whether part of our fear of transition comes from not knowing what lies on the other side. We like to have some idea of where we're going, preferably with a map, a torch and a few reassuring signposts along the way.
Yet the Grandmothers' stories offer another possibility: that even within the unknown, there may be companionship. That the darkness surrounding a threshold need not mean we are abandoned or alone.
There is something about Lady Death holding that little flame in her hands that speaks to me here. She does not banish the darkness around her. The light simply lives within it.
And I find myself returning to the Grandmothers' reminder that darkness and light belong together.
Making Friends With Darkness
I've been sitting with this teaching since the ceremony, especially the image of Mother Dark as the first mother. The one who held us before we had any understanding of what darkness was supposed to mean.
It has made me think about how easily we inherit stories without questioning them. Light is good. Darkness is bad. A tidy little arrangement, although life rarely seems particularly interested in being tidy.
The Grandmothers reminded us that light and darkness belong to one another. Without darkness, there can be no light. And without light, how would we recognise darkness? There is a place for both.
This doesn't mean that every experience we associate with darkness is pleasant, or that we should ignore the difficult things we discover within ourselves. Our shadows can be uncomfortable companions at times. But I keep returning to that Grandmother and her Peter Pan shadow. No stitching required. She wasn't trying to get rid of it, and it wasn't trying to escape from her. They belonged together.
I wonder what might begin to change in our relationship with ourselves if we could become a little less frightened of the parts we have labelled ‘dark’. And what might happen if we allowed darkness to be more than a symbol of everything we would rather avoid?
The Grandmothers have offered us another story to sit with, one of warmth, belonging and the great velvet arms of the Primordial Mother.
You can explore that story in your own way. There is no need to travel anywhere special or perform an elaborate ceremony. You might simply find a quiet moment in your day, settle yourself somewhere comfortable and close your eyes. Feel the gentle darkness behind your eyelids and notice your breathing.
And if it feels right, allow the image of Mother Dark to enter your imagination. You could even ask her the question the Grandmothers shared with us.
Mother, what can I do to deepen my relationship with you?
Then give yourself a little time to listen.
I cannot tell you what you will experience, or whether Mother Dark will appear to you as she did in the Grandmothers' story. That is something for you to discover.
But I do find it rather comforting to remember that the very first place my human body called home was a dark one. Before I knew anything about the world, before I had learnt which things I was supposed to fear, there I was, growing quietly in the darkness, held by my mother.
And now, when I think of Mother Dark and her great velvety arms, I find myself wondering whether there are some things we do not need to overcome at all.
Some things are simply waiting for us to re-member them.
Lady Death – Spirit Guide of Transition
Shamanic Medicine Art Print by Roberta Orpwood
She is not a thief of souls, but the keeper of sacred thresholds, an ally to walk with you through deep change.
Lady Death – Spirit Guide of Transition reimagines Death as an ancient ally, a compassionate presence who walks beside us through the many endings and beginnings that shape a life. She holds space for release, surrender and transformation, guiding us through both the subtle shifts and the great initiations of becoming.
Rather than an ending, she represents passage. The crossing from one season to the next. The ancient wisdom of cycles completing and new forms emerging from within it.
This piece forms part of The Grandmothers - a circle of guiding spirit allies with whom Roberta works within her shamanic healing practice. The Grandmothers also appear within the Earth Embers Oracle deck, carrying their wisdom into divinatory and ceremonial space.
Created within shamanic practice, this piece honours Death as teacher, guardian and sacred guide through change.
Each print is professionally produced using archival pigment-based inks on heavyweight, acid-free textured fine art paper, ensuring exceptional colour depth and longevity.
DETAILS
Signed by the artist
Available in A4 (210 x 297mm) or A3 (420 x 297mm)
Museum-quality archival pigment inks
Heavyweight, acid-free textured fine art paper
Small white border included for easy mounting and framing
Print only (frame not included)
© Roberta Orpwood