Why Bother with Candlemas?
Posted by Joan Norton at 1/17/2010 7:10 AM 
Categories: Seasonal festivals
Tags: Candlemas 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene Brigit's Day
Categories: Seasonal festivals
Tags: Candlemas 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene Brigit's Day
Why bother with Brigit's Day, Candlemas, Presentation at the Temple? Why bother musing about Mary Magdalene as our representation of this calendar phase of the year in the great pattern of Cyclic Renewal of the Goddess in Sacred Union ? It's to make a story connection between Heaven and Earth, it's to perceive the story of connection between Earth's life and Heaven's life as they meet in our own inner lives. We are the story of Heaven and Earth meeting, we all know that now. It's not lived somewhere else out in the cosmos. It's in our body/mind... our soul in it's Earthwalk. Our soul in it's Earthwalk in our body wants to respect the patterns of Goddess that are represented in our spiritual stories. For our body's health, for our emotional health, we need to know the patterns of Cyclic Renewal of the year's passage of time. We've squashed them all up into two major festival days but they are meant to be lived stretched out into a longer time. If we can slow down and recognize tht Candlemas is the time of beginnings, the beginnings of the great love story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, we are doing our emotional body a favor.
"Mary meets Jesus". Mary, the word which means the sea, the beginning of all life, the container of hidden depths and resources and mystery. She meets Jesus, the Heavens, the cosmos, knowledge of the future , mind of the All. Feminine and Masculine principles. It's the year's meeting time once again, a pattern which plays out constantly in minor and major ways inside us. So we need a template for it, a story to carry the idea consciously. "Mary meets Jesus" and a cycle of creativity begins.
Respecting cycles is everything. Every mother knows that in raising babies. You'd better try hard to get a good sleep pattern going or you'll be sorry. If we don't respect the Goddess' earthy patterns in us as cycles of sleep and eating well, we'll be very sorry. When the Roman version of christianity was able to dominate the Celtic one, our bodies lost out. We got trained to think of the goal of Heaven , the "pie in the sky" of rewards later on. If the culdee church with it's roots in Brigit's world of earth and body had won the story, we'd feel legitimate about claiming Candlemas as the time of quickening of the earth's energy and a way to describe the quickening within the patterns of our own creative life.
I think maybe Jesus knew the broader implications of the anointing scene as representation of the patterns of the Goddesss in Cyclic Renewal when he said we would all "do this in memorial of her".
But the archtypal patterns he was talking about rose anyway through the misinterpretaions of what he and Magdalene were doing. They rose and they took on the story-guise of the cultures they moved through.
I found a remnant of those archetypal patterns he was symbolizing in the National Institute of Mental Health's treatment recommendations for bi-polar disorder, a situation of being unconsciously swept into highs and lows. They recommend that the therapist help the patient to understand the need for regular sleeping and eating, and for keeping to those patterns consciously. There is the Goddess and we'd best not ignore Her.
I wish we had more festivals because it supports the mental health of a culture, as well as the spiritual health. As we all work together to dismantle the one sided, unbalanced spiritual pattern that has governed us, I think we'll be adding back in many more of the feminine times of ritual. It's for our own health. We may not have it as a culture yet but at least we can tell a simple piece of story to our children and grandchildren. "This is the time that Mary Magdalene and Jesus met in the garden."
This Friday, January 22 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time we'll be having our online Magdalene Circle again. It's going to be special this time because two wonderful Canadian poets, Penn Kemp and Katerina Fretwell, are reading their collaborative poem "Magdalene Rising". Click Here to go to Magdalene Circle online radio show Katerina has written many poems to "our Magdalene" that are expansive and stirring and wonderful and I'm so happy to share one of them with you.
Hi Joan,
Yes on a Magdalene Candlemas! I think that the more we find ways to celebrate Mary Magdalene, the better! Life can be tough, and finding and creating times of celebration, or prayer, or ritual particularly for Mary Magdalene, can only serve to bring more joy into our hearts.
Linking with her via this Sacred Day is a great idea. I say, bring on a Magdalene Candlemas! In fact I'm sittin' here wondering what liturgy for that would look like! Hmm...the mind is rolling forward...I like it! "The Bride's Day," perhaps the anouncement of their marriage, lots of candles, water for a purifying bath, a healing of the heart, and the beginnings of the preparation for her wedding! I'm working on it already! Thank you for inspiring me Joan!
Love, Jen
Jennifer Reif
"The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene"
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I love what you know. The festival days really, really, really help make life better and more in the harmonies of Heaven and Earth.
Can't wait to see where your inspiration takes you. I know we will all benefit. Love, Joan
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