Exploring Love in Times of Turmoil: A Medieval Perspective
What does it mean to love in a time of turmoil? This enduring question is rarely asked of the medieval world, yet the Middle Ages offer insights into the meaning of love that still resonate today. Love is most profoundly tested in moments of strain and upheaval, where care is stressed or obscured, revealing its true essence.
In our current era, we are confronted with various forms of exhaustion that hinder sustained attention: humanitarian crises reduced to mere statistics, social care systems hollowed out by austerity measures, and digital economies prioritizing speed over responsibility. The concept of care is often deferred, overshadowed by scale, distance, and a growing tendency to manage vulnerability rather than address it.
Medieval European visual culture frequently depicted moments of trial and tension through blackness, symbolizing humility, penitence, and spiritual testing. However, images of Black figures in medieval art often served as a mirror for viewers to confront their own sin and shortcomings, rather than as a representation of love’s generative power.
However, a unique image from the 15th-century alchemical manuscript Aurora consurgens (Rising Dawn) challenges this conventional narrative. It depicts a black-skinned angel with green wings, symbolizing moral goodness through a different lens. In a theological context where whiteness typically represented purity and sanctity, the black angel disrupts traditional notions of goodness and invites contemplation on the nature of love.
The Aurora consurgens reimagines alchemy as a spiritual journey of humility, self-awareness, and soul transformation. It introduces stages like nigredo, rubedo, and albedo, emphasizing that true change involves integrating darkness rather than erasing it. This approach highlights the importance of embracing vulnerability and brokenness as essential components of spiritual growth.
Unlike traditional depictions where blackness symbolizes sin to be cleansed, the Aurora consurgens presents blackness as a foundational element for love to manifest. The black angel embodies a radical concept of love that emerges from unmaking, vulnerability, and self-awareness, challenging viewers to reevaluate their understanding of purity and transformation.
By acknowledging blackness as a shared experience of unmaking and growth, the manuscript invites us to see love not as a distant ideal, but as a tangible capacity that emerges from embracing our imperfections. In a time marked by turmoil and a lack of empathy, the image of the black angel prompts us to recognize that love flourishes in vulnerability and authenticity.
Editor’s Note: This essay was inspired by a lecture presented at the Love: A RaceB4Race Symposium hosted by Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, on January 24.
