The Women at Ted Kennedy's Funeral
Posted by Joan Norton at 8/30/2009 6:21 AM 
Categories: Goddess and the Sacred Masculine
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
Categories: Goddess and the Sacred Masculine
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
I wanted to watch the Kennedy funeral mass to see and feel the deep ritual and ancientness of it but I wasn't expecting to have feelings related to Mary Magdalene. But when they brought the coffin down the aisle to the front pews where the family was and the women all came forward and gathered around it to cover it with a shroud/cloth, I felt Her there. Here was the most ancient ritual of all, the one that can't be erased from history; that it's the wife and other family women who attend to the body of the dead. Even now, even obliterated by the dominating presence of "God the Father", the women still attend the body . I was rivited to the tiny t.v. screen as I watched "the wife" take charge of the moment, by herself. She handled the simple white cloth, helping the other women to spread it over the coffin. No priest presided there, only the women. I thought, "There it is! There is the profoundest truth and the profoundest lie....Mary Magdalene could be nothing other than the wife to the dead man if she were allowed near the body." In the modern t.v. re-enactment of the ancient funeral ritual, it was only after the women had covered the body with a shroud that the priest said, "We welcome the body of....." 
I know that's the whole point that our dear genius Margaret Starbird has been making all these years but for me the "ah-ha" moments continue to happen. To see with my own eyes the ancient re-enactment of the primacy of the wife in the religious death rituals and to see her grief and her weeping made me feel angry all over again. It would be nice to say I just felt sad but I didn't. I felt the centuries of the theft of Her right to feel and it made me mad. The theft of Mary Magdalene's role as grieving wife attending to the body of her husband is emblematic of so many, many other thefts of women's heart and feelings about our world. It brings new meaning to Botticelli's Derelicta. To go through everything that she did and then be denied the story that she was the wife attending to the body of her husband...... well, it makes me sick.
We have to get our own stories back, we have to claim our our right to feel because feeling is an intelligence. And that's another reason to be grateful for Margaret Starbird's work in bringing back the narrative of the Goddess in the Gospels. She's given back to us the intelligence of Mary Magdalene's heart as the story of Everywoman's sojourn through life. (and Everyman's soul journey) We don't grow our soul's wisdom and spiritual maturity through our thinking , we grow it through the intelligence of our heart.
We have to get our stories back.
It's never going to be good enough to say Mary Magdalene wept and cried because she was a devotee, nothing will ever carry the magnitude of our heart's reactions to our life unless it is told in story that Mary Magdalene loved Jesus as a wife loves a husband. That's the only story that gives profound enough feeling.
Sometimes it's only in death that these profound feelings of the heart show to the outside world.
Goodness, I hadn't intended to write this way this week... but there it is. Maybe it fits a little bit with the season of death of the vegetative year as we go into autumn. I'm sad to feel the greenness drain out of my bundle of string bean plants, and the loss of yellow on the droopy head of the sunflower. In my own denial of those feelings of loss, I scrambled to plant seeds this week. And there we have the deep meaning of the sacred ritual story of original Christianity, the one that tell us we live constantly in a state of "cyclic renewal". Life, growth, death, life.
Hi Joan...being a non Catholic, I was watching the entire liturgy, I think it is called, out of curiosity; then started feeling really spiritual with the entire event..yes, when she covered her husband's casket that was a dramatic and humble experience..so many in her and in the other ladies positions would have conferred the chore to someone else I'm sure..and as you said how powerful the moment was, the same as Mary Magdelene is described in the bible as going to Christ's gravesite, when earlier on previous days of course she had anointed her husband, Christ the King, with her nard or ointment...one of the phrases the older priest said has stayed with me... "This ceremony is one of memory and hope.".....Memory of MM"s actions and hope of her current and future spiritual activity with Christ is a grounding and enlightening blessing for all of us...sheila..: )...ps..I loved the beautiful fall photo!!
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Hi Sheila,
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Hi Joan,
I really know what you mean, how it feels to watch plants dying, and here in southern California we are supposed to cut back on our water use. But to see plants and trees dying, as I have when I have gone for a walk, really hurts, alot. There is a primeval instinct that takes place in our nature, in our connection to the natural world. So we strive to be sacred gardeners, and we want our plants to flourish, we want to renew the lands when they become barren, to renew them in whatever way we can. I feel that that's part of the Magdalene's message.
I've been focused on the element water so much lately, its such a feminine element. Fluid, life-giving, refreshing, renewing, like a drink from the holy chalice. And She, Water, feels like she has a message. There is a Place of Water, a place from which the garden draws its life. We can be renewed through the powerful, primeval energies of the Mother of Life. Her strength and love have never waned. She wants us to 'cultivate.' And if that means buying biodegradable soaps, and using laundry water, dish water, and bath water for our gardens, then that's a choice we have. We have the gift of ingenuity to reclaim the gifts of water.
The solution to women having been demoted and largely (but of course not completely) taken out of the story of life, is to put them back into the story. And that's exactly what we have been doing, and are continuing to do. We have a vision for the present and the future, a vision in which women are praised, honored, and appreciated. We have a vision that the rightful place of Our Lady will be reaffirmed. That vision lives and has grown by leaps and bounds. And the vision continues to grow, casting its net into wider and wider arenas, waking those who have been unaware. 'Reclaiming' the Holy Waters that have been lost, and that are lost no more.
I recall I once saw a film about Greece, and they said that not only do women give birth, but they also take care of the dead. And it was part of the culture of ancient Greece for elder women to care for and bury the dead. I would suggest that any area around the Mediterranean had that same tradition, including the Holy Land.
Our Mary Magdalene was always there, always in the story, and I think its good to remember that in certain quarters of southern France, she was never forgotten. We add our voices and our love for the Sacred Feminine, and we build on what has already begun to reawaken. We add our awareness and our honoring of the power of Our Lady Magdalene, of Our Mother the Earth, and of our own sacred selves. And we do this in the knowledge that we have a part to play in the continuing unfoldment of the story of life.
Love, Jen
Jennifer Reif
"The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene"
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Hi Jen,
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Hi Joan,
Thank you for telling me about the fountains in France named for Mary Magdalene. That feels very important, in fact I'm going to do some research on that, very exiting!
Love, Jen
Jennifer Reif
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Hi, I think I read about it in Bride in Exile....
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Thank you Joan for this profound insight that's so spot on. In our busy world, we sometimes don't see the forest for the trees and you of course helped us recognize the Great She in the drama and grief of this ancient/contemporary life passage. As always, thank you for the tender and supportive essence you bring to our lives.
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Hi Karen, Thanks very much for your comment, I appreciate your presence here. I love the way you say "the Great She". We are surely doing our best to restore Her to that, aren't we? And of course, I've got a special place in my heart for her Sacred Companion. What you said about the busy-ness of life affecting our abilities to perceive nuances and symbolic moments is really true. If I go one single day without a "calm down and center myself" time, I start looking at the world differently. Here's to much needed introversion!
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What a beautiful and piercing perception, Joan, that the church funeral ritual that includes the wife, unwittingly acknowledges Mary Magdalene as the bride and beloved of Jesus! I love the way you found her hidden story revealed in this ritual, which was developed by those who denied and exiled her.
Thank you especially for these words, filled with pain and knowing: "To go through all she did, and then to be denied that she was the wife attending to the body of her husband. . .well, it makes me sick."
We all have been Her as cast-out and cast-off and denied, and I know you know that it has made us all sick in our minds and in our bodies and in our Earth.
But you, dear Joan, and certainly Margaret Starbird, have helped and continue to help us recover Her whole story.
You continue to help me find my way to this part of the story where who She really is, who I really am, springs up undeniably even in the places that originally exiled her (and me), and I get to experience Her and my Self as the Beloved. And it is continually healing. Thank you!
Love,
Sandra
http://www.GrowingUpWithouttheGoddess.com
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Hi Sandra,
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I'm currently re-reading Margaret Starbirds Goddess in the Gospels. Seeing where i underlined, this time i highlighted..the first time it made me so angry that Mary Magdalene's story was not told...I see the result being No Model for Divine Relationship between men and women. Females denied their 'Mirror'......I ask what I can do to bring awareness of The Bride and Bride-groom's Sacred Love ......I'm haunted by the suffering women who all are The Divine Feminine robbed of identifying with Mary Magdalene's authority and the knowing Christ's Love and respect He had for Her......
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Hi Sharon,
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Hi Joan..reading your response made me very happy. Giving the world back the Magdalene that Christ loved puts it all in perspective. Your encouragement means more than you know. I've been pretty addicted to Her for years. I met Merlin Stone along time ago and she told me to read her book 'When God Was a Woman'. It led to many books that opened my eyes to the 'problem' the people of Earth face as a result of Mary Magdalene NOT being in our collective phyche. Every man's looking for Her and women are punished for not being Her. I read Sandra Popes book-couldn't put it down. Passed it on to a friend who said the same. She had lucid dreams after reading it. Another friend is reading it now. Please tell Sandra thank you on behalf of those of us with that inner child wound. I will definitely tune in to the radio show September 12. Has anyone read The Magdalene Manuscript by Tom Kenyon and Judy Scion? Also I wonder if Margaret Starbird knows about the Statues of The Black Madonnas at www.SacredSource.com Love, Sharon Lewis
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Hi again Sharon,
How wonderful to have met Merlin Stone, isn't she an important foremother in the revival of the Sacred Feminine? She was that for me in the 70's, that's for sure.
I will pass along your appreciation to Sandra and she'll probably see this comment as well. Her book has an astonishing effect on women. It's so deeply felt and well told a story of abuse, neglect, and then hopeful recovery into the arms of the Sacred Feminine Mary Magdalene. Sandra is a regular contributor here and she has her own blog as well, which concerns itself with the wonderful ways of self nurture and healing which are essential to "reclaiming the Magdalene within". Her blog is at www.GrowingUpWithouttheGoddess.com
Thanks for giving the Sacred Source link, they offer so much. You probably know Margaret Starbird's thoughts about the Black Madonnas (see pages 117-118 of Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile) . As the evolution of the image of Goddess moved through the centuries into Christianity it naturally kept iconography and symbolism of goddesses who came before, including probably the blackness of many images of Isis. The stories indigenous to Mary Magdalene then begin to carry the blackness we see in the Black Madonnas. " The blackness of the bride is symbolic of her connections to the Wisdom tradition and to the earth, but also of her obscurity and enforced exile..." . There's more, but you probably already know these things.
Thanks for being with us, good to have your intelligent commentary. xoJoan
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Hi Joan,
This line of yours really stood out to me..."we are intent on giving the world back the Magdalene that Christ loved." Yes, oh yes. Our Lady, hidden and mislabeled for too, too long...and now we are bringing her back to the light of day, bringing her back in all her splendid glory.
It seems to be impossible for me not to want to reclaim him too... to reclaim the 'Christ that the Magdalene loved.' His image has been so distorted, until he's become less of a real flesh and blood man, and more of a luminary God...even a dispenser of harsh rules and regulations. His image and sign have been used to fight bloody wars and to control people. I don't believe that he would have wanted any of that.
So while they were demoting Mary Magdalene and decreasing her importance and trying to mudsling her name, rulers of nations were making Christ a representative of their own personal ambitions...making him into a distant, judgmental, unearthly and powerful God-King.
I think that Our Lady adored a man who was full of love and goodness, strong, outspoken, powerful and compassionate. Still, lots of people feel scared of "that Jesus guy." Sadly, some Christians still use his name to terrorize people. Recently, I saw pitches for financial donations, coming from Christian televangilists, who announced that the only way for their audience to get out of their current economic problems was to tithe to them and their church. Its so totally corrupt. Major yuk.
All I can do is celebrate them both, love them, love the fact that they loved each other, and remain open to their sacred story. And I do.
Love, Jen
Jennifer Reif
"The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene"
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Hi Jen,
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Hi, Joan,
This blog entry has been such a source of re-connection for me. And reading what others have written has made me see how connected we all are in this work.
I was so grateful to read Sharon Lewis's comments about the deep and positive experience she and others have had reading my book. Her comments affirm that we are all in this Magdalene Circle together and that together we are re-covering Her for ourselves and for others.
I really feel that when one of us opens to the Divine Feminine in ourselves, the way is opened wider for all others.
I don't think I could have put my painful story into the world if I had not been constantly reassured by Her that it was Her story that was being told and her body, mind, and heart that was being healed while my own was.
I am so grateful that my book holds her vibration and helps others find and re-connect with Her presence in themselves.
And I am just plain happy that you are doing the on-line Magdalene Circle. I listened in to the first one and spent some time in the chat room. I felt like I was connected with women in a circle around the country. There was even a woman from Norway! I am really looking forward to the next one. I might even have the courage to phone in. . .
Love,
Sandra
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Thanks, Sandra, you've said it so well about how we all encourage each other. The next Magdalene Circle is going to be on it's "regularly scheduled" date of September 22, 12-2 Pac. Time I hope you and everyone else will be there.... we're all there for each other. xoJoan
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Joan,
I was so struck by this entry that, I, who do not normally post entries on any blog feel compelled to comment. I did not watch the funeral because the liturgy with all its references to men and its underlying patriarchal structure annoys me, so I am sorry now to have made that decision. As a life long Christian I have seen the ritual of the widow covering the casket over and over, and I am so used to it that this connection with Mary Magdalene never came to my mind. It is stunning to what extent women's roles in the church and the christian story have been suppressed, ignored, not mentioned, and trivialized to make this not noticing possible. By noticing these things and saying them, you are helping all of us reclaim parts of ourselves long lost in the story and making us feel like important participants rather than observers. Thank you for that.
Also, having very recently experienced the loss of my mother who was through the last days of her life lovingly tended hour upon hour by my sister and then lovingly bathed after her death while my brother avoided the scene, the ritual of the women tending the dying and dead has even more meaning. It is as if it is in our genes and was expressed in the Jesus story, but somehow the institution of the Christian Church has taught us all to ignore it or overlook it even as it was right before our eyes all these centuries. "Let there be light."
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Dear Ruth,
Thank you for your insightful and feelingful observations and for sharing your personal experiences as well. As the days go by and I receive more responses to this blog entry I realize how deep a chord I struck. I felt it deeply myself. We surely do want to reclaim our voice in the rituals of birth and death, don't we? And we are.
I think the funeral mass is available on YouTube if you want to watch it.
Thanks for sharing with everyone. xoJoan
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