A new edition, with a new introduction by author China Galland, of “Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna,” is now available. This personal and profound book recalls Galland’s ten-year trek from New Mexico through places familiar like France and Switzerland to the less traveled Yugoslavia, Nepal, Poland and India. It is a spiritual journey, not a travelogue. Galland is searching for black images of divinity – the Black Madonna of Christendom, Tara, Kali.
For Galland darkness is a metaphor for insight, transformation, wisdom and protection. You accompany Galland on her journey out of alcoholism, take a walk across Poland, are present at a meeting with Lech Walesa; you’re with her in a Swiss monastery and at a visit with the Dalai Lama in India as she seeks to discover the connection between Tara, a Tibetan female Buddha, and the Black Madonna of the West. Back in the United States Galland seeks to integrate what she has felt, seen, and prayed about, looking to create a new path for her life. Along with Galland you gain an appreciation for meditation, the value of feminine strengths, and the importance of balance in healing personal pain. “Longing for Darkness” uplifts as it informs. –
- Paperback, 416 pages.
- Published by Penguin Books, 2007.
- A spiritual adventure covering ten years and a half dozen countries and cultures.
- Galland moves beyond her addiction to alcohol, past her Catholic upbringing, and studies Zen, and searches for the divine feminine in order to find a new life path.