How I Use the New Mary Magdalene Rosary
Posted by Joan Norton at 12/7/2008 8:05 AM 
Categories: The Magdalene Rosary
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene Magdalene Rosary
Categories: The Magdalene Rosary
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene Magdalene Rosary
There's a psychology in the Magdalene Mysteries, psychology in it's definition as "soul speaking". That's why we talk about her stories in the particular, for it's in the details that sacred femininity is found in earthy life. And it's the details of archetypal stories which provide help in ordinary daily life.I don't know about you but I'm tired of the phase of proving that Mary Magdalene is the feminine face of god, the beloved bride of Jesus, and our western world's queen of heaven. Let's get on with it, my inner self urges, let's see what it means to live with Sacred Union instead of "the lone male God". He's teetering precariously, tired of being so lonely. Perhaps this is what he feels like now...
"She's magnificent...can I have her please?"
Yes, of course, they're better together. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when they look at this picture.
The story highlights of Mary Magdalene's life which we've been talking about as the new Magdalene Rosary is a psychology of the way of the heart to the development of wisdom. It's in the details of the stories where you will find help for daily life. That's what your dreams give you and that's what the archetypal story of Mary Magdalene's life gives us. We have our individual life and its connections to the archetypal patterns which are the totality of life, the mind and heart of Goddess/God. By connecting our personal life stories to the stories of Magdalene and Sacred Union we live a life of intimacy with the depth and breadth of "the All". That's what people have always done with their religious stories....but it's just now that we are truly discovering our own religious stories in Mary Magdalene.
The first story that has been told in our time of Mary Magdalene is that she's here. We've known that she's there in all the old paintings that we've looked at for centuries or as the shadow "bad girl" or "best student" in patriarchal Christianity. But the big modern surprise is that she's there in our imaginal psyches, our dreams, our healing room guides, our visions where we were trying to activate a Goddess presence, our channelings where we were hoping for some "out there" cosmic wisdom.......along came Mary "called the Magdalene".
I have taken delight in how secret it feels to women who've told me that they've experienced her presence. I think that's the right and normal reaction to an archetypal visitation. It probably should be keep a little secret while we figure out what we're suppose to do to relate to its numinosity in an individual way. And that's where the Magdalene Rosary comes in because the details of its stories are meant to "ground" the numinous into an earthly life like you and I have. In its story highlights we are shown the many details of the tough and often tedious journey of a soul towards wisdom. It's a story of spiritual development, of spiritual initiation, and that will always be a life lived dangerously. The easy way is to go along in a pattern of life "prescribed" by some kind of exterior authority....such as the church. The wisdom path, the initiate's path, the heart's path, will always be a private path of coping with doubt and hoping your inner wisdom knows what it's doing. I've been pitifully grateful along the way for tidbits of archteypal myth motifs which seemed to speak of my dilemma at the moment. Thank you, Inanna , for describing how you hung on the meathook in depression in the underworld.
But now that I've had a personal experience of Mary Magdalene, I've become a devotee of her stories and how they can help women live the wisdom path of the heart. That's why I started a Magdalene Circle and how the book called 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine, Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene , co-authored with Margaret Starbird, came about. The Magdalene Rosary with its seven stories of Mary Magdalene in the Gospels and seven stories of her Legends was developed by Margaret Starbird and I believe it is a next step for integrating the repressed archetype of the sacred feminine into our conscious life as a personal journey of growth. Margaret had a personal revelation about the sacred number 7 and that experience inspired her development of the seven-fold rosary beads and the new Magdalene Rosary with it's 14 prayers of the Gospel stories of Magdalene and the Legendary stories of Magdalene. You can read Margaret's personal story about this in 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene. The experiences you will have with it will be different than mine, or your friends, but the archetypal thread of spiritual development will be the same in that you are led to greater depth and greater intimacy with God/Goddess/All That Is.
It has been working this way with me. I pray the prayers on the beads to the Source of Life, the Glory of Life, and the Magdalene Prayer, and then I choose one of the Mysteries, a story piece, to contemplate as I touch the beads. It's simple to say that insight comes to me, but those words don't convey the profound feeling of insight coming "from nowhere" in a way that is tailored to my current life questions. There is so much comfort for me in this, so much comfort in feeling heard and known and helped. I wish it for you also.
"I will not leave thee comfortless."
"She's magnificent...can I have her please?"
Yes, of course, they're better together. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when they look at this picture.
The story highlights of Mary Magdalene's life which we've been talking about as the new Magdalene Rosary is a psychology of the way of the heart to the development of wisdom. It's in the details of the stories where you will find help for daily life. That's what your dreams give you and that's what the archetypal story of Mary Magdalene's life gives us. We have our individual life and its connections to the archetypal patterns which are the totality of life, the mind and heart of Goddess/God. By connecting our personal life stories to the stories of Magdalene and Sacred Union we live a life of intimacy with the depth and breadth of "the All". That's what people have always done with their religious stories....but it's just now that we are truly discovering our own religious stories in Mary Magdalene.
The first story that has been told in our time of Mary Magdalene is that she's here. We've known that she's there in all the old paintings that we've looked at for centuries or as the shadow "bad girl" or "best student" in patriarchal Christianity. But the big modern surprise is that she's there in our imaginal psyches, our dreams, our healing room guides, our visions where we were trying to activate a Goddess presence, our channelings where we were hoping for some "out there" cosmic wisdom.......along came Mary "called the Magdalene".
I have taken delight in how secret it feels to women who've told me that they've experienced her presence. I think that's the right and normal reaction to an archetypal visitation. It probably should be keep a little secret while we figure out what we're suppose to do to relate to its numinosity in an individual way. And that's where the Magdalene Rosary comes in because the details of its stories are meant to "ground" the numinous into an earthly life like you and I have. In its story highlights we are shown the many details of the tough and often tedious journey of a soul towards wisdom. It's a story of spiritual development, of spiritual initiation, and that will always be a life lived dangerously. The easy way is to go along in a pattern of life "prescribed" by some kind of exterior authority....such as the church. The wisdom path, the initiate's path, the heart's path, will always be a private path of coping with doubt and hoping your inner wisdom knows what it's doing. I've been pitifully grateful along the way for tidbits of archteypal myth motifs which seemed to speak of my dilemma at the moment. Thank you, Inanna , for describing how you hung on the meathook in depression in the underworld.
But now that I've had a personal experience of Mary Magdalene, I've become a devotee of her stories and how they can help women live the wisdom path of the heart. That's why I started a Magdalene Circle and how the book called 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine, Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene , co-authored with Margaret Starbird, came about. The Magdalene Rosary with its seven stories of Mary Magdalene in the Gospels and seven stories of her Legends was developed by Margaret Starbird and I believe it is a next step for integrating the repressed archetype of the sacred feminine into our conscious life as a personal journey of growth. Margaret had a personal revelation about the sacred number 7 and that experience inspired her development of the seven-fold rosary beads and the new Magdalene Rosary with it's 14 prayers of the Gospel stories of Magdalene and the Legendary stories of Magdalene. You can read Margaret's personal story about this in 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene. The experiences you will have with it will be different than mine, or your friends, but the archetypal thread of spiritual development will be the same in that you are led to greater depth and greater intimacy with God/Goddess/All That Is.
It has been working this way with me. I pray the prayers on the beads to the Source of Life, the Glory of Life, and the Magdalene Prayer, and then I choose one of the Mysteries, a story piece, to contemplate as I touch the beads. It's simple to say that insight comes to me, but those words don't convey the profound feeling of insight coming "from nowhere" in a way that is tailored to my current life questions. There is so much comfort for me in this, so much comfort in feeling heard and known and helped. I wish it for you also.
"I will not leave thee comfortless."
Hi, Joan,
I received my Magdalene rosary from Sally a few weeks back, and I have been praying/meditating with it regularly. I, too, find deep comfort from Her through this way of connecting with the Sacred Feminine.
I, too, am ready for my next phase. In my channeling for myself, I've been told that "Once you know, you know, and you need not walk on those setting-right-paths anymore, for they do not exist in the new energy paradigm. It is finished."
I know Her myself as the Queen of Heaven. I know myself as Her.
I was told that I "must die to the old ways of setting the world right and live in the world as if it had been set right already, for it has been."
I was told "This is the new world that you have helped create, and your presence, Her presence alone in you, clears out the old paradigm and activates the new one."
You know how I love Chartres and the role it has played as a resonating chamber to activate the Divine Feminine to allow her return. Our bodies also, like Chartres, have been vehicles, resonating chambers, for Her return.
In the same way that Chartres is no longer aligned with the stars, so that it will continue to activate the Divine Feminine, I was told, I am no longer aligned for that activation either because we have already brought Her back.
Now we get to be Her, not journey to find her or bring her back.
And in the specific manifestations of her sacred mystery in my life, she surprises me by how able she is, how powerful she is, how she exists without blending or harmonizing with others to hide her fullness and truth.
And again I feel that in the specific details of my life, mysteriously, She expends no energy in finding the Sacred Masculine or seeking the Sacred Union. Like your wonderful knowing, Joan, he simply constellates when she is present and speaks those words, "She's magnificent."
I am resting in that long-awaited feeling of acknowledgment, unable to go on with the rest of the Sacred Union story in my life at the moment.
I am shocked to discover that the Sacred Masculine within me may have been just as wounded as the Sacred Feminine within me and may take a while longer to ask for Union. That delay is probably good for it allows me to rest longer in the wonderful feeling of being so fully restored in Her.
Love,
Sandra
http://growingupwithoutthegoddess.podomatic.com/
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Dear Sandra,
Thank you for your wide ranging sensitivities! I know others respond to the way you articulate these deep "goings on".
Your energies resting and not reaching for Union at the moment , waiting perhaps for the Sacred Masculine to heal some more as well, is certainly true of important phases of "consolidating energy" before a period of development. The masculine within becomes useful again when there's something to take out into the world, or to develop. A new knight, a new champion, a new partner, a new lover, a new worker,a new support, a new 'numinosity'......waiting in the wings.
xoJoan
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Hi Joan,
Loved the article - as I love all the articles speaking truth and setting things right, helping us rethink what we once knew - or thought we knew. Yes I sometimes tire of having to convince people about the validity of the Sacred Feminine - I wish we could just "get on with the knowing it, accepting it, embodying it" -- but alas, we cannot outside of our own. We are her Truth Tellers and we carry a great responsibility. We must be tenacious and patient with the retelling of the story until it is truth in all circles.
About the rosary -- I somehow missed the post on how/where to get the rosary. Have you suggested it as a holiday gift? How perfect for the season of Her Beloved's birth - even if we know the date bears little authenticity or accuracy. Is this not another perfect time of year we can rethink and reclaim for the Beloved Couple and his Mother? Let us reclaim these holidays as a time for this trio sans the dogma of the Church.
Blessings,
Karen
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Dear Karen, You're so right about the responsibility we have to be patient because we carry Her into our world again, hoping She will rebalance us into love,harmony, and a peace-filled world. I must have just been having an early morning fit of mouthiness ! It can happen. Thanks for mentioning the rosaries, I'm just loving the contemplations I'm having with mine.
You can see more about them at www.RubyLane.com/shops/SallyNortonJewelryDesign
The new "pearlescent" one is really pretty. You might not be able to see the medallion in the photo, it's of a couple embracing a child. The Grail Family. The garnet one is $153 and the pearl is $49. The seven groups of seven beads is so inately feminine in its sacred number vibration. I was at the gem show with Sally and we saw a beautiful medallion of a bee and I think she'll make that one available too.
I hope women are inspired to make their own too...I think it's the pattern of 7 groups of 7 that's powerful.
Here's the Magdalene Prayer again that Margaret Starbird wrote, as one of three which are prayed on the entry beads of the Magdalene Rosary . You will be interested to read her personal story of inspiration and revelation which led her to creating the Magdalene Rosary. It's in 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
Dear Mary Magdalene, love incarnate
Sacred Vessel, Holy Grail
Chosen were you among women
And blessed is your union with Jesus
Dearest Bride and Beloved of Christ,
Show us the Way of the Heart.
Thanks for commenting, Karen, I always appreciate your thoughts. xoJoan
click here to order a Magdalene Rosary
click here to order 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
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hello,
I am just a reader who enjoys your website and blog. And as a reader of Mrs. Starbird's work, and recently your book, have widened my spiritual awareness of Christ and his Beloved.. Surely the balance between the masculine/feminine energies that is needed to preserve ourselves and our planet is improving, but a lot of work ahead, huh?
Recently, made my own rosary from beads from walmart, with the seven count..But when i saw the pearl rosary on your website with the grail family, I had to have it and will be ordering it soon! Not a former Catholic so is kind of new to me. I commented to Mrs. Starbird who was kind and gracious enough to communicate through email, that holding a rosary focuses one's attention to each prayer or subject you are praying about.. Not a original idea but new for some of us!
bless Christ and his Beloved,
thank you for your blog space
sheila
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Dear Shiela,
Thank you very much for your comment, I think you echo the thoughts and feelings of so many . I saw a button once of an Irish saying, "Women hold up half the sky". Yes, we have alot of work to do , like you said, but we are surely strong enough for the job, aren't we? I'm so glad you made your own rosary, I'm sure it will always have special meaning and a special place in your heart, even if you get a new one. There's nothing so powerful as something symbolic we make ourselves. If you ever feel like sharing your experiences with the Magdalene Rosary prayers and contemplations, this blogspace is a welcoming place for you. My experiences with the specific prayers Margaret has written are new to me as well, and I know other women who would say the same. We are all bringing the Mary Magdalene Sacred Union "way of the heart" into physical life through our personal experiences and personal stories....so yours are as important as mine or anyone's. Sharing is helpful to everyone.
Thanks for being there! Joan
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so do you say this rosary the same as the usual one?
love the rosary beads, I wonder if you could make your own to use. I guess so, just like our ancestors would have.
thanks for this information ! xo
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Hi Robyn,
Yes, making your own beads is wonderful because there will be such a personal devotional feeling in them. They're in 7 groups of 7 with the same pattern on the entry beads. You can see the bead pattern pretty well in the photo. The medallion on the4 end is a little stylized figurine of a couple embracing a child...we call it "the Grail Family". Sally has made the rosaries in pearl ($49) and garnet($152) but we would both like very much to see women making their own. And telling us about it.
Here's Sally's website , look for both types of rosaries "Pearl" and "Garnet" www.RubyLane.com/shops/sallynortonjewelrydesign
Here are the prayers and youcan read more about them on this blog by searching the category of "Magdalene Rosary"
For the entry beads:
#1. Prayer to the Source of Life:
O Mystery of Life, Birther of all that is,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts
As we forgive our debtors,
And lead us not unto temptation
But deliver us from evil, Amen
#2. Magdalene Prayer
Dear Mary Magdalene, Love Incarnate,
The Lord is with you
Chosen are you among women,
And blessed is your union with Jesus.
Holy Mary, Beloved of Christ,
Show us the way of the heart.
#3.Glory to the Source, the Force, and the Presence
Glory be to the Source, and to the Force,
And to the Living Presence
As it was in the Beginning, is now and forever shall be,
World without end. Amen.
The Magdalene Mysteries
l. Mary Magdalene-Bride and Beloved
The Gospel Mysteries
1. Mary meets Jesus and is healed of seven demons
2. Mary's tears move Jesus to raise her brother Lazarus
3. Mary anoints Jesus at the banquet at Bethany
4. Mary follows the Way of the Cross
5. Mary stands with the Virgin Mother at the foot of the Cross
6. Mary meets Jesus at the tomb on Easter morning
7. Mary carries the Good News of the Resurrection to the Apostles
ll. Mary Magdalene- Bride in Exile
The Legendary Mysteries
1. Mary travels with Joseph of Arimathea to safety in Egypt
2. Mary gives birth to her daughter Sarah
3. Mary and her family escape by sea from Palestine
4. Mary's boat with no oars is swept ashore in Gaul
5. Mary preaches the Good News in Marseilles
6. Mary lives out her life in prayer in the cave of Ste. Baume
7. At her death, Mary is assumed body and soul into heaven
***********
Sometimes I choose one of the Mysteries to comtemplate as I go through a heptade (7) of the beads, and sometimes I like to recite all 14 Mysteries as I go through the beads. And sometimes I just sit there in the early morning hours with the rosary in my hand and that's all.
If you feel like sharing your experience with the prayer and the rosary, we'd love to hear about it. Thanks very much for writing. Joan
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Again, I am being feed with specific action. Thank you so much. And I loved the Bloodhound Gang reference
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Thanks for your participation in this Magdalene Circle.......what's the Bloodhound Gang? xoJ.
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