Dreaming the Magdalene
Categories: Goddess and the Sacred Masculine
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
Last week I awoke with a dream teaching in my mind. It was one of those experiences where you are aware there's been a story going but it faded and you're left with one sentence or two only. It was something like this, "You're expanding Mary Magdalene". The word was specifically "expanding" and it reminded me of the Jungian concept of amplifying dream material. We talk about associations to dreams from the dreamer's life and also mythological (religious) themes that the dream brings up. It puts us into a spiritual perspective about our lives and deepens meaning. We all know what the opposite, reductionism, does to our sense of self. I'm sure you've had the experience of someone saying about a dream image, "it's just....".
Our dreamworld, which is our soul and God speaking, wants us to grow spiritually, wants us to expand our awareness of our spiritual natures. Dream images come along that are related to myths we know and christian spirititual stories we know and if we take the time to think about them we're expanding our spiritual wisdom. I don't mean complicated things, it can be as simple as dreaming about a woman in a red dress. In what way might she be portraying one of Mary Magdalene's story pieces? What's the meaning in that story piece? I'm not saying I always have all the answers about dream images, but I am saying it's up to us to find symbolism important and to try to expand on it for ourselves.
We're expanding Mary Magdalene's story, filling out the pieces we didn't realize were there. We're remembering our own history, our own cellular DNA spiritual history, and it's creating a foundation for younger people to build on. We're expanding Her.
One important way we expand Her is by telling our own stories of our own spiritual lives, the stories of how we came to find her and love her and have another look at her chosen bridegroom. The stories are really fascinating to me. I think I told you the one about a woman who used to look at the stained glass windows in her church when she was little and think to herself that Jesus and Mary Magdalene should be boyfriend and girlfriend. And how healing women who are used to experiencing energies around them are surprised to discover that Mary Magdalene is suddenly there. And I'm sure I've told you that one time I dreamed that I fell hopelessly in love with a wooden statue of her. We are each unique and the ways that our spiritual life expresses inside us will be unique. Variations on big themes. That's why it's fun to hear people's stories about Magdalene, they are each unique.
On Tuesday September 22 we'll be having our second on-line live Magdalene Circle and I hope many of you will call in and let me hear your stories. We'll be at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SpirituallySpeaking on Tuesday from 12-2 Pacific Time. Check the website for the call-in number if you want to participate. I'll also talk a little bit about the issue of Mary Magdalene being called "Mary of Magdala" and how women's stories are easily distorted by wrong naming.
We're in the change of seasons now, even if it doesn't show up so much outside the house. Inside the rhythms of our earthly vessel body-mind-heart, we're feeling the story leave summer and begin a descent to the moist renewal that comes with winter. In the Magdalene Mysteries rosary prayers this is the sequence where "Mary follows the Way of the Cross" and "Mary stands with the Virgin Mother at the foot of the Cross".
The energies inside become aware that things don't stay the same forever, they fade and wait for a rebirth process to begin. There's no avoiding it. To "stand with the Virgin Mother" is the glimmer of renewal even in the presence of death, telling us that the eternal feminine always holds the possibility for new birth and conscious regeneration.
I'll be at the Kripalu Yoga Retreat and Wellness Center this coming weekend with Margaret Starbird so I won't be writing my usual Sunday blog. But I hope to hear from you the following Tuesday on the radio. It'll be podcast if you can't be there.... See you soon!
You can read more about the Magdalene Mysteries rosary prayer sequence by clicking here for Margaret's story
Click Here To Order 14 Steps To Awaken The Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
Joan, you ARE expanding the Magdalene! My life in recent months is a perfect example. First, I "stumble" upon this blog and risk comment. Then I get connected with you and share my Magdalene music. You connect me with even more Goddess women on facebook. From there my soul connection to other women and feminine spirituality is expanded. My depression is lifted. I am singing again and new songs are rising up. In late July I discover Religious Science and am now set to begin as director of music ministry at a Religious Science church in Dallas called Global Heart (the name itself is Magdalene!). And this week was the inaugual meeting of the Mary Magdalene circle in my home in Plano, Texas on Sept. 9, 2009. (I did not consciously realize the significance of 9-9-09 when I set the date.) This morning I discover Matthew Fox, the former Catholic priest who wrote Original Blessing. In searching more info about him I discover an article he wrote challenging the current pope about the need for a church built on the wisdom of Mary Magdalene! When I read that, I burst into tears of excitement and overwhelming passionate joy. SHE IS ALIVE!!!!!!! And WE are HER!!! Thank you, Joan, for bringing Her into focus in me. Lovingly, laura jablinski
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Gosh Laura, what a wonderful story you've told! It's as though you invited in healing energies from the spiritual world and your life took a different shape. Bless your heart for starting a Magdalene Circle and for having such a gorgeous voice to sing to the Magdalene's love for her Bridegroom. Your church is lucky to have you bringing in the spirit of Her. Thanks for telling your very human, normal women's story of feeling so stuck and then allowing in a new spiritual perspective and watching as the changes flow. Others will feel inspired. xoJoan
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I have had several dreams about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. One in which I was in communion (merging hearts)with Jesus and was given an ancient map of Gaul and Britain. The section of the map of the Pyrenees caught my eye and I knew that I was being shown the map of Jesus and Mary Magdalene's journey into exile. Subsequent dreams remarked that not only did Mary journey to Gaul, but that Jesus survived the crucifixion and accompanied Mary. http://www.ariadnegreen.com/holygrail.html
blessings,
Ariadne
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Hi Adriadne,
What a wonderful dream experience! Thanks for telling us about it. I think that individual women are being drawn in many different directions to clarify and amplify the journeys of Christ and Magdalene. One of my favorite books of this nature is The Secret Teachings of Mary Magdalene, by Claire Nahmed and Margaret Baily. It too gives many variations on what we have come to accept as "the gospel truth". We all need to go in the directions we feel pulled by our hearts and our curiosity. My curiosity goes strongly towards the stories of the presence of Jesus as a young man in the British Isles and I like to read about that. But I'm so very aware that until we correct what Margaret Starbird calls "the design flaw" at the center, the center place where the Sacred Marriage is, we won't have done anything.
Thanks for being with us, Joan
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Wonderful site, Joan! I dreamt of the Magdalene many years ago under a quadruple-arched rainbow with a secretary desk with little drawers, each for a healing salve or spell.
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Hi Katerina,
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