The Magnetism of Candlemas
Posted by Joan Norton at 1/31/2010 9:07 AM 
Categories: Seasonal festivals,Starting A Magdalene Circle
Tags: Candlemas. Brigit's Day 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene Easter Mysteries
Categories: Seasonal festivals,Starting A Magdalene Circle
Tags: Candlemas. Brigit's Day 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene Easter Mysteries
Mary, called Magdalene, is healed of demons and her story of the year's liturgical season begins. She feels herself as virginal and receptive to the magnetism of the sun, which we know in human symbolism as Jesus. The Earth receives her mate. A little bit of quickening is felt, a little bit of spark from which will come new growth, new year, new life, new creativity. In the calendar of Sacred Union this is a holy time of initiation and joyful expectation. Soon there will be bunnies and colorful eggs and baskets of flowers left on the doorsteps. Soon Mary, called Magdalene, will let the sparks fly and marry her King. And at the very least we'll feel like getting a new dress, if not make a quilt with yellow and lavender or else write a poem celebrating the birds and the bees. What could make such natural exuberance of the seasonal calendar of Sacred Union go sour? Lent.
Here are some of the lighter colored , spring and celtic feeling rosaries. Click Here To See Magadalene Rosaries and Chaplets
The calendar year of Sacred Union as the story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus says that this is a time of considering a union and starting anew. It's a good time for initiations, for rituals and ceremonies and parties which recognize that there's always a new beginning in Godde-as-nature and Godde-as-natural me. If I want to be in emotional/psychological/spiritual balance with it's physical health, I will follow the natural calendar of the season's liturgical year and recognize celebration of new growth in the garden when it's time to do that.
There's a psychological diagnosis that I learned in training a lot of years ago. Maybe it's not used anymore, I don't know. A "reaction formation" is when someone artificially creates a feeling or idea that's opposite to how she actually feels, probably as a way to cope with her environment. Sound familiar? It did to me. I think it applies to what has gone on inside women for the last many millennia and which is reinforced yearly in the concept of Lent and preparation for suffering and death as a recplacement for the natural wisdom of joyful expectation of Sacred Union. Death comes later in the year in it's own natural season.
Lent is kind of anorexic, don't you think? Kind of "reaction formation" to what we naturally, instinctively experience at this time of the seasonal year ... inside and outside. I read that "evangelicals can be strangely attracted to Lent", and I understood this as what happens when people are actively repressing the feminine all the time. They can develop love for reductionism, etheric spirituality at the expense of physical spirituality, extreme discipline, and a belief in suffering or that the world is doomed. Maybe the practice of concentration on a spiritual desire is helpful to create a disciplined attitude towards union with your inner world, but those aptitudes come with the idea of "initiation" as well as "abstinence". With initiation we decide to accept the boundaries of something new in our life. There are natural boundaries to planting a garden, making a quilt, joining a group, or getting into a relationship. There are disciplines natural to each. There are natural disciplines to conscious connection with the heavenly dimension also, and they're not suppose to involve physical suffering. So why call it abstinence and make a religion out of it?
I think of Nanny McPhee as representative of the Great Mother and her natural disciplines through which magical change can happen. If we keep the routines she's set out before us in her seasons , we can be healthy and happy and have spiritual strength.
"Mary is healed of seven demons and meets Jesus". Maybe that's also a recognition that natural sacred masculinity works well in relationship with feminine spiritual strength, someone who can meet the demons and get the best of them. Our inner sacred masculine energies want us to have feminine spiritual strength. They choose each other for Sacred Union.
This may seem a small thing but at Candlemas I feel like changing colors and I want to start using my rosary which has light, bright, spring colors. And tonight I'm putting out my straw doll, my Brigit's doll,my Brigit's straw cross, but I'm calling it "my Mary who is getting ready in her white dress".
Bright Blessings. "She receives their prayers in her new robe as she did in her old one".
P.S. I didn't make this quilt... it was surely a woman of greater quiltmaking wisdom than I.
Here are some of the lighter colored , spring and celtic feeling rosaries. Click Here To See Magadalene Rosaries and Chaplets
This is so nurturing, Joan. The "reaction formation" misdirection of energy and "etheric spirituality at the expense of physical spirituality" are so familiar in my life behaviors! I love being shown why and how it is just natural and healing to give up the "suffering" path, and embrace the natural cycles, which include celebrating this joyous outburst of life re-generating that the Great Mother is about to give us.
Thank you so much,
Sandra
Reply to this
Hi Sandra,
Reply to this
Dear Joan,
your writing make me reflect on the fact that I am often anxious when I feel well-being. why? In someways the calendar put a new confrontation of life and death, happiness and sorrow,love and fear.. as if in this world we cannot escape from duality.
as I wrote above I feel anxious when it's going well but I often find in pain a way to do an inner job and find a new hope. we cannot make us illusion: life is always a comin'out of something, because our nature is signed by death,we cannot experience the unity,at least in this life. Lent remind us to guilt and fear, however they are not necessary. It is necessary do like Mary Magdalene: I believe she felt a voice when she was sad, saying very softly "if you want the tears go to Jesus" this we must do....like Mary we will find our smile. Massimiliano
Reply to this
Hello Massimiliano,
Reply to this
This is an excellent discussion revolving around Lent. I was directed here from a Newsvine discussion about your writings. Thanks!
Reply to this
Thank you very much for being with us here from Newsvine. I hope you tune in often and feel very free to comment and participate. Our hope is to broaden and deepen the understanding of Mary Magdalene and Sacred Union as modern stories of ancient themes. It takes the minds of all of us to do the job.
Reply to this