The Tension in the Manger
Posted by Joan Norton at 12/13/2009 6:25 AM 
Categories: Christmas
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
Categories: Christmas
Tags: Mary Magdalene 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene
One reason many women went away from Christianity was that the Virgin Mary wasn't "holding the archetype", she felt too small. Many women I know can't see her anymore as the only occupant of the manger scene. We know there is a Beloved Mother in there with the newborn Light, and we know that sometimes it is Jesus' mother, but we also now think of Mary Magdalene as being a mother too. Not that she wants to take over the Christmas Mysteries, that's not it at all. We call Jesus "Light of the world" and as that he represents the Yuletide Solstice and the coming, one more time, of the sun to warm the earth and prepare the land for seeds and growth. Again, one more time. On the earth and in the cosmos and inside us as we hope for "the new".
There's tension in pregnancy, there's tension in the dark time of the year, there's tension in waiting for something to happen. It's a good thing we give children lots of hopefulness and confidence that Santa will come and bring good things. That helps to create a layer of pattern inside that believes in change for the better. With adulthood we discover that there's an awful lot of nuance in the process of "union, growth, birth...change" both inside and outside. The tension that's there in pregnancy, for instance. It's natural because we absolutely don't know what will happen to us when the baby's born. The same tension is present whenever anything new is bubbling up from within; new belief system developing, new phase of life around the corner, new involvement with schooling or learning of some kind, new relatiosnhip or new independence.... on and on. I'm aware especially of the tension that's there when the inner world, the unconscious, wants to make something known. You have a dream that's got a disturbing figure in it, a story you don't want to have, and you know you must think about it. Or even more demanding, you know you have to draw it or let it talk to you, or know it in some other way. The tension about letting "the new" be known or just going about your business in the same old way, can be palpable . I think alot of us feel that way about the "New Creation", the New Age, that's trying to get born. That's the bigger cosmic story, the "as above" of the "as below" that we are.
I see the bits of tension I'm talking about as natural to pregnancy and pending birth in pictures of Mary Magdalene, and I'm grateful for seeing it. It's a pressure to feel we have to be the Madonna all the time. Painters often painted Mary Magdalene looking sideways, glancing at you knowingly. She's often pregnant and holding her alabaster jar, a mirror of her body's function as the Great Cauldron of Life. This is also a portrait of our soul, our psyche, the sacred vessel which is us on earth. She looks like she has a secret and she looks beautific and she also looks like she's got the strength to hold some tension. Marion Woodman says that one of the qualities which defines the feminine is paradox, being able to hold a paradox. Being able to be content in knowing something new is coming; new Light, new life, new baby; but also feeling and holding the tension that's there.
It might be that the tension of the dark time of the year or the dark night of the soul is so thick and regressive that we'd better beat some drums and sing joyful songs and want new things or else it would never lift into Light. That's not true for Solstice and Earth but it might be true for inner processes, where we can prevent our own growth by forgetting the naturalness of the Light and the new and the birth of our ownselves always ever into the More.
Mary Magdalene had a baby too but it was a left out part of the official story and it might have had to happen in another land. The Magdalene Mystery prayers say that she traveled with Joseph of Arimathea to Egypt and there she gave birth to her daughter Sarah, the princess in the story. A nice piece of that legend survives today in the story of Joseph of Arimathia going back to Celtic lands and planting a staff on a hill, a hawthorne which blooms each Christmas now. What did he really carry back from Palestine to Celtic lands? It's represented by repeated blooming in the dark of wintertime, something we're to think of as ever-flowering on the staff of life. And he was protecting something for Mary Magdalene when she was enduring the unimaginable tension of her situation in exile.
It is said that the Grail cauldron, which is Mary Magdalene's alabaster jar as well as her whole self as the Holy Grail, won't cook the meat of a coward. It takes courage , a heart centered word, to hold the tension of necessary changes, big and small. Mary Magdalene's Way of the Heart is not for the faint of heart.
I love the topic of TENSION. I have a meditation inspired from Mary Magdalene that speaks to the necessity of tension in order to experience birth and transformation. Learning to hold tension as holy, necessary and with great faith has been challenging yet powerful for me. Blessings to all, Sally
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Yes, exactly !
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Joan,
This entry was like a soothing balm. So it's ok to experience these dark times? I've been told many times that it is, but seeing so many strands from my own journey in your writing (dark night of the soul; the paradox; not for the faint of heart) assures me that Julian of Norwich's wee gem: All will be well, is indeed the truth.
I'm both relieved and chagrinned to know, once again, that much like the nuances of love--the ebb and flow, the here and there, the now and then; so is my faith journey equally ever-changing. As I heard during a podcast, it's in the searching that we find. It's not the discovery. Whoa.
This is such a difficult time of year, but with the utilization of the word 'tension' in describing the waning sun, the long nights, it gives me deeper reason to celebrate this solstice. One I can truly hold onto and share with my family...
Thank you Joan,
Jen
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Dear Jen, How nice to hear from you and know that you're still circling with us. You write really well, I hope you do a lot of it. I know you have young-ish children and maybe that's the hardest role, to be both true to yourself and your own deeper self and also be the uplifting Mommy. They benefit from knowing the whole you, I know that for sure.
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