the madonna's instagram account

i read comments from far across the sea lately, some from supporters and some from accusers of exhibitionism, about the everyday women and the celebrities who post photos of themselves breastfeeding or grab headlines in the news for the way they are invasively confronted or accused in public.

and they go to social media to share, awaken, show. this is the trending news, but it isn't really so new.

the madonna (and by that i mean to refer not to the singer who doesn't use "the" in her title, but THE madonna, as catholics refer to the mother of god) you could say has been posting to a type of proto-twitter account, call it the beta version, since roughly the 13th century.

all over florence, looking down at you from the corners of buildings frescoed up high in little stone or wooden tabernacles, among her other loving and reassuring poses protecting and opening her ear to your silent thoughts or prayers as you pass her walking by, are the madonnas "del latte", "of milk".

these are the images of the mother of god who shows her milky round nourishing breast as she feeds god as a baby. in that moment, she feeds you as you recognize yourself in the arms of the universal mother, being cradled by the feminine face of god, in a gesture that reassures you there is enough nourishment to go around, you, too will get enough. these images remind their onlooker that she is here to take care of, feed, and make sure you get your heart and life fed.

this act of exposing nourishment is unashamed and without any trace of the vulgar, and is not private or hiding, but sensual and holy. these images from the 1200s and on seem to me to answer the debate raging far away in the new world 800 years later.

so i thought when i found her latest "instagram post" in the form of a large canvas in an antique store window down the street:

it's a painting from probably the 1800s, at the madonna's own special birthing day.

and there i noticed, way down in the left corner, one of her guests- a mother herself too- doing just what mothers do, right there in the middle of the crowd, right there celebrating life, love, nourishment, and the holiness of the female body, of everyone's body. of everybody.