MaryMagdaleneWithin

Community News and Pretty Pictures

2010-03-04T13:33:00Z

We're all in the circle together........

Cynthia Jordan's song "Mary Magdalene" is going to be a part of Margaret Starbird's "Miracle Play" on March 20 in the Seattle area. Cynthia chooses the music for our monthly online Magdalene Circle, often using her own beautiful compositions. Her Magdalene song stays in my head a long time after I hear it at the beginning of each Circle. Did you hear Margaret on the February 22, 2010 show describing her play? She said it's going to be videotaped and available so other churches and groups can use it. I think we're in the "post-book" era of the return of Mary Magdalene and we're going to be seeing a lot more paintings, poetry, plays, and music dedicated to the story of Sacred Union. She told us that she'd modeled her play's style on the simple passion plays performed on the steps of cathedrals in medieval times.

Katerina Fretwell's poetry about Mary Magdalene is sweeping and intense and sometimes heart-piercing. She's going to read some more of it on Karen Tate's online radio show March 24, 2010 when I'm on it. Karen's "Voices of the Sacred Feminine" continues to be a fantastic discussion forum for goddess spirituality and the expanding consciousness "movement". Karen is currently teaching the "Cakes for the Queen of Heaven" curriculum at the Goddess Temple of Orange County and I'm going to co-teach the Mary Magdalene section with her in June. I'm grateful for the opportunity to do a little bit to get beyond the "best little apostle in the world" story.

Another online radio show coming up is with with Kala Ambrose in North Carolina. We had a great conversation that will be on air soon, I'll let you know. There were some similarities in my talk with Kala and many other Catholic raised women I'm meeting these days. I keep hearing something like this, "I knew something was wrong with the story when I was little". Kala said she'd really given her priest a talking-to because of what she knew intuitively about Jesus. Other women tell me they wouldn't have even tried to talk to the priest, they just "knew" the spiritual story they were told was wrong. I say this all the time but I'll say it again.... I love these stories because it's so clear that our feminine spirit has the instincts about Sacred Union and the love story that's at the center of our spiritual life. There's a love story at the very center of the "Great Mysteries" of western civilization. Too grand a way to say it? I don't think so.

The Magdalene Rosary and the 14 highlights of Mary Magdalene's life that Margaret Starbird identified continues to grow in my creative life as I work a bit on writing commentary about each prayer. The rosaries and chaplets themselves are getting prettier and prettier. The ones Sally is making now are each unique with different symbols on them, some Celtic and some really beautiful little portraits of Magdalene and other women. Sally is a forward-movement-always Aquarian soul and I should have know she wouldn't be content with making the same design over and over. Those of us who have the original rosaries with garnet gemstones now have collection pieces.

I met a nice young woman named Marcia Frescura this weekend at a workshop in north San Diego county. Marcia has a Magdalene Circle and told me she is liking the flexibility of doing the book's readings and meditations in different and new ways. I'm so happy that the book is used as a template, not a rule book. She also has more than one rosary..... now I don't feel too guilty. Kala Ambrose told me she has a collection of old and beautiful rosaries, and she is very interested in the new way our community is using rosaries. She wants to write about the Magdalene Rosaries in her column in the online Examiner where she can show pictures too.

Write in and let me know about "Magdalene things" that you know about, okay? Thanks.... Christ Consciousness is not fully useful until it's in Sacred Union.

Spring Maiden Mary Magdalene

2010-02-20T14:21:00Z

The rush of energy wants something. She wants to celebrate and be in union with life. I don't know how the "real" Mary Magdalene felt about union and sacred marriage and Jesus the love of her life, but I don't think these eternal truths have changed that much. We feel the rush of life energy inside us ether for a love relationship or a creative relationship. Something's going to happen. There's fullness and swelling and budding and singing. She has perfume which causes everyone to be upset and take notice. Jesus tells the others to calm down, she's here to stay. I don't think they felt the things he felt. Forever more the Spring Maiden has done this to men. She is the surge of "life itself", Godde is Earth. She is magnetic and electricity is attracted to her. She is the Magdalene and the Christ wants her.

We're in her part of the story now where she is in the garden and she is the garden. She is awakening...in every sense from the physical to the metaphysical. She begins to grow again for the year's cycles and something new will surely be born. But first the union. And before the marriage, the feelings of bursting forth and rushing energies.The feeling that it's almost too much. Not sure I can handle it. Maybe that's the disciples response to Mary called the Magdalene in their story...."I'm not sure I can handle her". Jesus said she would be remembered for the anointing that she did. She would be remembered as the Bride who is the Queen. When you remember the anointing, he said, you will remember her. It's the scene which is told most often because it's the central theme of it all.

What to do with that rush of love or that rush of creative urge? Find it a mate or a "mode of expression". That's the marriage part, the coming together of the rushing energies with a way to hold them. It's the "container" function of the alabaster jar. It's the Jesus to the Mary. It's the earth structure to the boundless energy of the cosmos. It's the yang to the yin and it seeks union.

I'm sorry this doesn't show up very well in the ride into Jerusalem. Maybe she was in the background with a garland of flowers in her hair and the long green brocade dress on, feeling the rushing energies within her. Spring Maiden Magdalene, we are all her right now.

Click here to see more about the book

Click here to see Magdalene Rosaries

Click here to listen to Magdalene Circle archived shows

Click here to read about The Mary Magdalene Within

Was Shrovetide Suppose To Be Happy?

2010-02-05T13:46:00Z

It is emotionally uplifting into the joyful realms to celebrate as many seasonal holidays as possible. And it's probably good to keep our collective minds off destruction. Not to be ignorant but to purposefully place our consciousness in emotional forward movement into the New Creation we want, as balance to the work we do. One way to do that is to recognize and celebrate spiritual holidays. I listened to Jean Shinoda Bolen on Karen Tate's "Voices of the Sacred Feminine" online radio show and she was talking about women finding a sense of "assignment" to help the world. And she is always saying that it's good to have a spiritual center to our circles. I find the rhythm of seasonal holidays helpful in emotionally supporting myself to work hard on my "assignment".

First I was surprised that the earlier traditional date for recognition of Brigit's Day is February 13. Then I was surprised that Shrovetide was said to be the best time for marrying, which is pretty opposite from a confession day. It makes Valentine's Day more of a continuation of the Brigit's Day/Candlemas season of newness and celebration of the spark of life in the cycle of renewal which the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene represents. The whole 40 days of Lent is more likely the 40 day seasonal recognition of their Sacred Marriage. The archetypal patterns of natural life which are underneath Christianity live it that way. What a spoiler it was when the hierarchical form of Christianity came in and said that early spring is the time for confession and fasting and preparation for death instead of marriage, the way it should be.

"Nest at Brigit, Egg at Shrove, Chick at Easter" is the folk saying that describes what our instinctual natures are doing during this season. I think it's a pity that we bundle up all the instincts and let them out just on one Valentine's Day of recognition of Love. If we understand that the anti-woman form of Christianity worked to deny woman's instinctual nature, then it's really up to us to let it flourish again by celebrating more seasonal rituals which are joyful. It is so much within the natural spirit of women, and the inner feminine in everyone, to feel joy and to express it through celebration. "Cakes for the Queen of Heaven" is such a great phrase in its recognition of our desire for joy.

We have Mary Magdalene in beautiful dresses with delicate embroidery and pearls and long flowing hair to look at, and she is easily the spring maiden in our inner eyes. It must have been difficult for earlier peoples to confine her and lose the exuberance of the Springtime Magdalene.

It's helpful to remember that the ones who committed pen to paper and chose the exact wording of the Gospels, chose the words "Maria h Magdalhnh" to name her, giving her the title which meant that she was to be thought of as above, bigger, greater, MORE. The "hnh" was also used to identify Athena, the local Goddess for the Greek speaking audience that the Gospels were written for. In describing Mary Magdalene as Goddess in the Gospel stories of a Sacred Couple, she was to be understood as representing all phases of the feminine spirit as reflected in the seasonal life we all live. She wears different clothing and tells a different part of her story at each seasonal phase of inner life and the earth's life. Picturing her in clothes reflecting the consciousness of each season is a shorthand way to talk about the various realities of the feminine spirit. Seeing Mary Magdalene in a green dress that's rich brocade is saying that she represents the abundance and continual potential of our Earth and our inner being. She is readying herself to be the Bride, the Sacred Feminine in intentional alliance with the Sacred Masculine's best self.

One of the earlier customs associated with the post-Candlemas Shrovetide time of the year was "walking the land" with a prospective bridegroom to take stock of what he had to offer his bride. I just like that phrase... "walk the land"..... and I want it to be part of how I celebrate the season of the Sacred Marriage. For a woman to ask "what have I aligned myself with" is a good idea. Do I have the inner fortitude and physical capability to carry out my inspirations? If the answer is yes, then it's time to celebrate. I've walked my land and I see that it is good.

If you'd like to hear Jean Bolen talk about having an "assignment" to help the world and why having a spiritual circle of support changes the world, here's the interview on "Voices of the Sacred Feminine" with Karen Tate. Click here to listen Scroll down to the January 27 edition of the show.

Starting a circle with a spiritual center works in alignment with all other non-hierarchical modes of living in the world in a way which will undermine patriarchial power.

The Magnetism of Candlemas

2010-01-31T16:07:00Z

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.

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

Inner Candlemas

2010-01-24T15:16:00Z

     It used to be called "sparking", didn't it? Maybe it was in my grandmother's generation, I'm not sure. It's a perfect word for feeling the life force energies between people. "Courting" doesn't quite convey the feeling. In the dreamworld there are often stories of meeting someone and feeling the spark of attraction, and it might not be with your current mate. Then we must do the work of understanding what our soul wants to do in "hooking you up" with that person. There's some good reason for it, some consciousnesss to bring forth, some feeling wanting to be felt. Why that particular person? Why go to the trouble of creating the story as a "sparky" story, one with physical attraction? You know the answer. Because life isn't moved forward with mental prowess only, it's moved forward by heart prowess. And we know now that the intellect is in the heart as well, so maybe we can let go of referring to the heart as feelings only.
   The quickening of the potential for new life is Candlemas , but we can't be sure yet if it will germinate, gestate, and be born. You never know about attractions. Or seedlings. We accept the readiness inside ourselves, we accept the energy of coming forth out of the dark of winter and the new year laid out ahead. We place ourselves in readiness for MORE.

                                                    Was Mary Magdalene's alabaster jar always a full one? Or was there a time before she was ready to anoint with it's contents that she stood by herself, with the vessel, and wondered if she was able? When the demons are healed and gone, for the year or for the moment, there's a moment of stillness before dominion is accepted. Do we think she had such a moment? We have lots of pictures of her with pensive, inward, contemplative moods, but we don't have stories that might reveal to us the wonderings she had before she acted. Maybe it's better described as an inner waiting, and Candlemas is the answer to the waiting. She has a quality of reserve and waiting in this famous picture of her.


Candlemas says it's time to accept the spark of life that's happening. I think the dreams with attractions say something similar, it's time to accept that there's something to learn with whatever this other person represents to you, something to experience consciously. Inner or outer.
     There's a fire in the chalice right now, the spark of newness. We're being asked to take dominion of it, to hold the chalice as our own and guard the spark of life wherever we personally perceive it. It's going to be different in each, but the job for each is the same and that's to believe ourselves and take dominion of our story. Mary Magdalene represents dominion of her land and her people, as the Sacred and Divine Feminine in her loving union with the world and with each other. That's why we have so many stained glass windows where she's holding a church or a building and she has the land around her. I know this is a window of the Celtic Brigit , who's iconography is the same.


    Celtic lands are full of placenames that echo the stories of Jesus' relationship to Joseph of Arimathea and his early life  presence in those lands, and Mary the Magdalene travels right along with his story , no matter what name you give "the Bride".
    There she stands in readiness, with the capability of dominion over her land and people. Each of us feeling that way over our own life is what is going to heal the world. A little at a time, feeling the spark and being willing for the union with that part of ourselves that's going forward.
                                                    *****************

  Do you want to hear some strongly moving poetry about Magdalene? Go to  www.SpirituallySpeaking.webs.com    and listen to the archived Magdalene Circle show from January 22,2010. Penn Kemp and Katerina Fretwell read "Magdalene Rising" and it was just wonderful to hear their strong and feelingful voices place "our Magdalene" in the company of the goddesses she is with.  Google both these accomplished women and you will see more about their poetry.
  The sign-ups for the February 28 workshop in Vista, California are going well and I'm looking forward to meeting some very, very interesting women there.Sally's going to bring her rosaries. Thank you Natalie Maisel and Lisa Starr for creating this workshop.
You can see more details and register by clicking here

   And here's some news for people in the Seattle area. Margaret Starbird has written a Miracle Play which will be performed on Saturday March 20 at The Interfaith Community Church in Ballard. Here's more information   Click here to see the poster of the play

Someone asked me this week for the recorded meditations that go with 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene , so here they are again. Click here for the recorded Magdalene Meditations

Why Bother with Candlemas?

2010-01-17T14:10:48Z

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.

Candlemas

2010-01-09T14:35:00Z

A few more weeks and it'll be Candlemas and I've found myself thinking about what to put on my altar. The ancient ceremony says to bring every single candle that will be used in the seasonal year to church and bless them. M-m-m-mmm....lots of fire. Time to begin to chase away the darkness. It's a fire honoring time, a sun honoring time, an inner Light honoring time, a hopeful time of encouraging the sun to bless the land with crop growing heat once again. Time to recognize what it is within ourselves that we want to nourish and grow for the year.

Candlemas is a more current version of what they used to call The Feast of Presentation of Jesus at the Temple and The Feast of Purification of the Virgin. Those descriptions are versions of the earlier ceremonies and rituals about the year being virginal and knowing that now it's time to concentrate on what's ahead; crops , projects, growth of anything and everything. We harvested the year, we let it lie fallow, and now we're beginning to be interested in what will happen this year. We're looking for signs. Calling it "presentation of the baby at the temple" is as good a way as any to describe it. Looking at it that way gives us the chance to buy the baby a new white christening dress and honor the beginning of her life in the arms of Godde.

She's a bright light.

Before the familiar four armed straw cross of St. Bridget was used to ritualize and celebrate the coming again of the sun, a doll made from grain stalks was created by the girls in the family, a Bride doll. She was decorated with shells, crystals, bits of bright cloth, and maybe a special little smooth round rock and put outside your house at night so that Godde (Bridget in this instance) would come by and give you a blessing for the year's success. This was not so much the business of babies as it was of the beginnings of the courting season, because it's the beginning of the year's story of the Sacred Union of Bride and Beloved.

We're chasing away the darkness, which I guess you could call "purification", although I don't like that word somehow. There are even earlier symbolic ceremonies which are designed to chase away the darkness on deeper levels than the winter's gloomy weather. When we're talking about deeper levels of spiritual and psychological darkness the imagery is usually scarier, like snakes and demons and dragons. And then the story is of a personal initiation process, of confrontation with one's own negativity which will hopefully end in gaining distance from it or understanding of it. Always magnetizing us closer to our own Godself. Confrontation with demons and their psychological darkness is the way our story with Mary Magdalene starts, "Mary meets Jesus and is healed of seven demons". Earth meets Heaven and a new story begins. Sound far fetched ? There was one old folk custom of symbolically beating a snake to death, overcoming it to ensure a good year. Something is put into the correct balance by symbolically doing this, by symbolically overcoming the dark. Maybe because the snakes live underground and are cold blooded they can sometimes represent the dark capability of Earth's energies. They need to be in sacred balance, that's all.

I'm not going to have anything to do with ceremonial snakes, that's for sure. I'm taking Candlemas psycholically as the beginning of a spiritual journey, whether it's the journey of the seasons or the soul's journey in me for this time frame. "Mary meets Jesus and is healed of seven demons", and I assume she begins her longing for him and him for her. And thus the story of Sacred Marriage begins.

That's her in the middle in the reddish dress and long hair and her finger in her mouth in wonderment. It's not the painting I'd paint of their meeting but it's the only one I've been able to find. It's from the 14th century by Giusto de Menabuoi. She looks like she's ready for the biggest story of her life to begin, Sacred Union. It's our soul's biggest story too, the story of union with the physical dimension. It's taking place on all levels of us, the divine and the physical trying to "get it together" and create something good. We've tried it without a full Sacred Union of Mary Magdalene and Jesus and it's been a failure, but now I think we're on the better path. Healed of demons and ready for the love story.

I'm going to be giving a workshop with Natalie Maisel called "Mary Magdalene: Goddess of the Western Mystery Traditions" next month February 28, in Vista California.We'll be looking at slides of Magdalene artwork through the centuries, doing guided journey work, and sharing stories of how Magdalene is in our lives now.

Love to see you there! Click here to read more about it

Watch for the monthly Magdalene Circle on January 22, 9-10 Pacific Time. Lerin Winter and Cynthia Jordan and I are having such a good time expanding the circle of women interested in Sacred Union. Click here to go to their website and listen

And lastly, Sally's been making more beautiful Magdalene chaplets and rosaries. She said she's going to get another picture to me to show them to you, but in the meantime Click here to see her website and the new ones

The Alabaster Jar at Christmastime

2009-12-20T14:05:00Z

Would someone please Photoshop me a picture of Mary Magdalene with her jar-cauldron-vessel looking big enough to stir ? That's what I was longing for this week feeling the great dark energies of the deep winter Mother Godde making Her effort to find the Light one more time. Sometimes Mary Magdalene's alabaster jar feels smaller and sometimes bigger as she carries it through the year for us. Sometimes it's full of lovely smelling healing ointment that makes the men argue about her. And sometimes I want to see her standing next to a cauldron-sized alabaster jar, stirring the earth energy forward into the next phase of things. Having this feeling drove me to an image search on Google, which ended up being a stained glass window image search. None of them have the cauldron I'm looking for but it seems like her cloak and mantle carry some of the feeling of enclosure that the cauldron has. She often is swathed in her cloak/mantle. I remember reading about the transition time between worship of the Goddess Brigit and "whichever" Mary and the writer said it was a smooth transition and people began praying to the newer version of their Goddess with just a slightly different mantle that she wore.

In this wonderful fabric banner ( I'm partial to fabric) "whichever" Mary has a mantle with a fluer-de-lis clasp, one of the secret symbols of the early alternative church of the sacred union traditions.

Here's a stained glass window that has Magdalene in a beautiful red mantle enveloping her in the "container" feeling that a cauldron has. It's a bright red cloth and maybe the symbolism of the Goddess weaving cloth is the same as the Goddess creating life , cooking it up in the cauldron. Creation in the cauldron feels more like alchemy with it's use of the raw material of life to create something wholly new, while weaving has the feeling more of sacred geometry with it's careful, purposeful placement of energies to be in harmony in the physical world.

Weaving and mixing, creation and placement of your creation.... all the province of the feminine in her relationship to the masculine. Sacred Union. Sacred geometry is an art of relationship between things.

I like the bigger jar in this window picture from a church in North Dakota. I think it's evidence that Mary Magdalene is a symbol in transition and that we can expect to see pictures of her change as we go forward with her story. It's already that way with individual artists but I expect it will be so even in church art as well. Here's another modern one. That's her on the right.

This coming Tuesday December 22 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time we'll be having our third Magdalene Circle at Spiritually Speaking online radio with Lerin Winter and Cynthia Jordan. This time the discussion is Lesson 3 from the Magdalene Circle book, the lesson called "Other Ways We Know She is the Bride". It's a favorite discussion of mine because it's all about the various symbols of her as Goddess in the Christian story, the symbols which people have woven, and made into watermarks, and painted into their pictures, and carved into their statues. Now maybe we'll have to add the Photoshop capabilities as well.

See some very beautiful new Magdalene Rosaries and Chaplets by clicking here

The Tension in the Manger

2009-12-13T13:25:00Z

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.

The Animals in the Manger

2009-12-06T13:15:00Z

The animals in the Christmas manger in the holy nights of solstice are riviting. Especially the ox, who is sometimes a cow . They're bigger than the baby Jesus, aren't they? He needs their devotion.

I was surprised to find out that the creche scene with the animals has been with us only since the 1200's, when St. Francis of Assisi felt the spiritual urge to create one. What did they do before that to express the idea that our animal instincts are necessary to support the birth of "the new" inside of us? The Light within needs the manger within. It's that way in dream guidance, where it's very important to notice what the animals are doing. If they're acting strangely or are against us, something is awry in our own ability to support our own true self in continuing growth. This true self is pictured as the return of the Light in the manger.

I've seen nativity scenes without alot of animals, with many people instead, and they look really wrong. We respond to them with our head instead of our heart.

The animals carry something of the earthly heart in the Nativity scene. Certainly they know who they're devoted to. I've seen Christmas manger scenes with dogs and they are a wonderful image of devotion and loyalty. It's a moment for celebration when you've dreamed of a dog being with you. If we lived with cows and sheep we'd probably know the same things about them, and they'd figure in our dream world more. I love the way the cow is looking right at me in this painting.

We need the animals and we need our own animal instincts more than ever right now as we work towards creation of a new world. It's our animal instincts which say "go this way for safety" and "go this way to be more comfortable" and "rest right now because you're depleted" and "this is just the right spot to be in". Our animal instincts save us from being in our heads too much. They help us define, with strong feeling, what we want to give birth to and to nurture into life.

I have a poem to share with you and it's related to thinking about instincts because it expresses spiritual urge. Spirituality is an instinct. I think this poem expresses the spiritual urge for "the Mary Magdalene within" that vast numbers of women (and heart centered men) are feeling. Penn Kemp and Katerina Fretwell are poets in Ontario, Canada and they've written this poem to be read by two people. That in itself is "Magdalene" because it's the feminine urge towards collaboration and relationship.

Magdalene Rising

                                        Magdalene, we whisk you away
                                        from scriptural demotion.

Memories locked
in rolled stone reveals
vastness open
to sky on one
dawn only.

                                        Harlot-with-a-heart your tears
                                        moisten and your hair dries Jesus' feet.

You’ve been watering the garden
again. Your tears plash
upon bare feet. Crimson
desert flowers spring round.

                                        Cast as his mom in verse contraire,
                                        Mother Goose's Mary Quite Contrary,
                                        loath to let him go and first to find him
                                        transported from his tomb.

                       You
are in so much sorrow
you cannot recognize
the joy that greets you.
How can you?

                                        We ease you back to the Magdalenian prehistory,
                                        your earlier name or consort,
                                        Venus of Willendorf,

fertility cult figurine buried in Catal Huyuk's roomiest mound,

                                        that of your high priestess.

This Sunday you visit
the tomb again
in seasonal round.

                                        On to Ice Age France, we're spellbound over
                                        La Magdaleine Cave art

                   Who are we
to recognize that which is, has been
up to now, invisible?

                                        reclining females in repose,
                                        rulers prefiguring Isis, Artemis, Astarte.

In plain sight. Arms outstretched
but noli me tangere,
not to be touched.

                                        We hand you your Gospel,
                                        quote your find,
                                        the risen Christ.

The mixed message of Salvation.
Come hither / You are already
here.   Here.   Here.

                                                Denounced by Peter & James,
                                        envying you, First Apostle, bride of Christ.

Your own wisdom
reminds you.

                                        Your bones boxed side by side.

Whatever's lost in layers of church-speakKnowing does not prepare

you for witnessing
such sorrow, such joy.

                                        Hail, Mary, sprung from the earthbound role
                                        ascribed to you

unrehearsed now that real
time takes
over
                                        vibrant breath of the cosmos.

from…

“Magdalene Once More”                                     “The Risen Magdalene”
        by Penn Kemp                                                     by Katerina Fretwell

As Western's writer-in-residence for 2009-10, I host Gathering Voices, an eclectic radio show on Radio Western, which you can read about and hear archived on www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices.

Muse/news, renewed for OCTOBER on http://mytown.ca/pennletters/, featuring Upcoming Events!

Profile pages: http://www.myspace.com/pennkemp
http://www.facebook.com/pennkemp

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Penn-Kemp/126450531030?created

Thank you, Penn and Katerina, for giving the great swell of desire for the sacred feminine a unique and heartfelt voice. We'll be able to hear the poets themselves read this poem on the January Magdalene Circle radio show. More about that later.

For now....let's tend our beautiful animals, both inner and outer. We can probably never adequately express what they mean to us.

If you feel the instinct to pray the Magdalene Mysteries, click here to see the chaplets and rosaries

Advent and Pregnancy

2009-11-29T13:48:00Z

M-m-m-mmmmm....I feel expectant. It's dark and getting darker in the land. The animals have grown their shaggy coats, knowing to keep warm is harder when we're waiting for the great returning sun. There's something inside me that is waiting and I don't yet know what I'm waiting for . Expectant. Advent. It means that a desired guest is coming, to be welcomed into the house. It's related to the words convent and coven. I'm waiting to welcome a very desired guest into my "inner home", my heart. I'm expecting. I might as well say I'm pregnant, for the sense of mystery that is with me. I don't know who it will be or what it will be.....I just know that I'm going to welcome something new. I think I'll set a candle in the window to light the way for my desired guest. Pregnancy, expectancy, advent, mystery, takes place in the dark. We need candles.

Mary had no idea what to expect. Which Mary? Both Marys, both Marys as the one Great Mother with all her names throughout all time and as the inner Great Mother who governs the seasons of the land which give us pregnancy, expectancy, and later on...birth. These are the patterns of psychological spiritual growth and change and spiritual transformation. Is Mary escaping to Egypt with the protective Joseph of Arimathea or is Mary wandering from unwelcoming inn to unwelcoming inn? Or is she you awaiting a birth from Mystery inside? It's all the same story and we're beginning to feel it now. It's the part of the story that comes after a wedding, that's one reason we have to have Jesus and Mary Magdalene's wedding as our celebration as well. Otherwise, we don't know how she got pregnant. And it has to be an earthy wedding and follow the sacred pattern of fecundity and holiness of the earth's patterns of life. The sacred and holy stories are earthy stories, for they are Godde's participation in earthy physical life. You know the saying, we are spirit walking a physical path. Walking a physical path in love with physicality, for Love governs all.

Marriage and wedding imply birth, growth, death, and the resurrection of life again, on all planes of existence. We're in the birth part of the story now, which is the darkness part of the story that comes before the birth. The Mystery part of the story, the part where you don't know what will happen next.

The veil between the worlds becomes thinner in the expectancy, Advent time, the time when we look forward to welcoming the guest. That's a typical frame of mind of pregnancy too, when we are comfortable with Mystery. We know that the child is coming from Mystery, whether it's the mystery of genetics or the mystery of the child's own soul story. Or whether it's the mystery of the coming resurrection of life in springtime and the newness it will hold. At Christmastime we allow ourselves to thin the veil between the worlds, we begin to expect something special to happen. And then we're on the path of "believing" and "faith". Yes, I have faith that I am in the presence of Mystery and that I will be surprised.

When an inner birth is coming, when your dreams give you a story that you're pregnant, we count backwards in "real time" to see when the conception was. Dreams are literal that way...just like physical life. When was this baby conceived ? When was a new growth process started in me and what could have caused it? Usually when I count backwards with someone about such a dream, it's pretty apparent what the moment of "marriage" was. The dreamer may have been pondering a new path, new school course, new creative enterprise, new relationship, new belief system, ...new something. Just like a wedding, where we decided to become open and vulnerable to another person's way of life and way of thinking. We start along a path of growth and learning and this will result in new parts of ourselves being born. Our soul pictures this very literally in dreams and we picture it very literally in our greatest spiritual stories.

We're in the Expectancy time.

Magdalene Circles Change the Spiritual Story of Our Times

2009-11-21T15:29:00Z

     Spiritual stories create culture and guide the psychology of an era.. In the long, long span of time spiritual stories evolve to encompass the changing ideas of who we think we are in relation to the sacred world. The spiritual stories of our time have generally become too rigid and codified, grown into rule systems that have lost life. You know what I mean. At first the stories were inspirational, moving people to improve themselves and their lives. Then the formality takes over. Maybe at that point people have learned all there is to learn from those particular spiritual ideas. Our brains are built to continually want to reach for the MORE of us, and that reaching will always come from deep within us in response to rigid religious systems. I'm sure Jesus was frustrating to alot of people with his parables and the way he directed people to "within". Not much for rigid systems. It's from the Mystery of "within" that new spiritual stories develop and that's what's happening now with the Sacred Feminine as Mary Magdalene. And that's what Magdalene Circles are for. Yes, we have some very basic misconceptions about "Mary, called Magdalene" to straighten out, and yes, we have some of her legends to bring back to life, but we are also divinely charged with "allowing" newness to come bubbling up from within. In a small group, or in our individual study and contemplation, we are allowing the Sacred Feminine to come alive again. And we know she's interested in Sacred Union because the feminine is a master of relationships.

     Magdalene Circles that I'm aware of are engaging in the new curiosity and love of Mary Magdalene in all kinds of different ways, and that's a very good thing.   In my own circle we always told a piece of Magdalene's story and talked about the sad loss of it to the history of Christianity, and maybe got mad about it too, but then we also spent plenty of time listening to each other's current revelations through dreams, artwork, high intuition, and synchronicities. It's not church. We need to LET HER IN and that happens from inside each of us, from the Mystery realms.

   We are the ones revitalizing the spiritual story which will serve us into the coming age where the values of the feminine had better be in more prominence. There's plenty of Magdalene to go around, for all people to find their own unique relationship to her and to her sacred marriage.
    Here's a heartening tale from the recent HerChurch conference. A friend of Margaret Starbird's, Bishop John Beverley Butcher of the Episcopal Church, has written a book about the sacred partnership of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and has begun creating rituals to introduce people to this idea. He is now convinced apparently that the "Mary of Magdala" is a false story and that Margaret's research on that subject is correct in stating that there was no "Magdala" in that location at that time. It was a town called Taricheae. Mary Magdalene is "Mary of Bethany" of course.  Rev. Butcher had a wonderful icon commissioned for the cover of his book and has given me permission to share it with you here. It's copyrighted art and is available from Trinity Stores online , but I thought you'd like to see it.


    We have an abundance of symbols which tell us that Mary Magdalene was thought of as Goddess/the Magnificent One/Sacred Bride/Holy Feminine but it seems that the "Mary of Magdala" story keeps sticking to her as though it's the gospel truth. Actually, as we know, the Gospel called her "Mary, called Magdalene". I think most women can relate very well to the idea of "mistaken identity" and to the experience of people not knowing who you really are. The job of restoring her rightful title and name and dispelling the "of Magdala" myth is Lesson 2 in 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene and we're going to be talking about it on the Magdalene Circle online this coming Tuesday November 24, 2009. Cynthia Jordan and Lerin Winter and doing such a wonderful job of creating a global Magdalene Circle reach, and they've made a new website for easy call-in access. You can listen live from their website in whichever time zone you're in. Call in and chat with us.....it's easy. Click here to access the online Magdalene Circle show

   I do think we're healing the wasteland, don't you?

Godde was in Her House

2009-11-15T13:48:00Z

     GODDE. That's the experience I had at Rev. Stacy Boorn's HerChurch in San Francisco last weekend. Both the Sacred Masculine and the Sacred Feminine were there. When Rev. Boorn introduces a passage from the Gospel in her Sunday morning service she prefaces it this way, "Jesus and Mary Magdalene were teaching together and .....".   The idea of this sacred partnership as a teaching couple is more and more acceptable, and I think that means their Sacred Marriage can't be too far behind. Maybe they're in a courtship phase in our collective mind. At least they get to spend time together.
     It was an amazing feeling to me when I heard those words from Rev. Boorn as I sat in her Lutheran Church with it's beautiful , Scandinavian-feeling sanctuary with it's graceful blonde wooden cup shaped ceiling and pastel banners of doves hanging from side walls. She is a courageous pastor because she has changed not just the gender identification of the service, but the whole philosophy of the service so that it reflects the loving relational values of the Sacred Feminine. We sang hymn after hymn of familiar melodies but with words like this:

     Praise Wisdom in our hearts; Come, rejoicing, praise Her!
     True freedom She imparts; Come, rejoicing, Praise Her!

     The words to so many familiar hymns sung in churches every Sunday can now carry the message that there's a feminine face of Godde. These words were written by Jann Aldredge-Clanton, Ph.D., who is herself a minister, teacher, author , and chaplain. She's written a book of hymns which honor the Sacred Feminine, called Inclusive Hymns for Liberating Christians, and you can click here to see her website.
     My part of things was to talk about creating Magdalene Circles in a small group workshop, which is my favorite because I get to hear interesting stories about Mary Magdalene's appearances in our everyday lives. Christy Michaels, who does public work on the Course of Miracles and it's alignment with the gnostic text called The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, told stories about the synchronicities which followed her everywhere as she visited the sacred sights of the Templars and the holy places in Celtic lands. For instance, the number 153 seemed to follow her everywhere, giving her the constant sense of support and reassurance that she was "on the path".   We all look for that, don't we? I want to thank Margaret Starbird for continually reminding us in her public lectures that the number 153 is identified with Mary Magdalene in the same way the number 888 has always been associated with Jesus the Christ. He was refered to as "the fullness of 8's", these numbers being an ancient way to express spiritual philosophy. This business of Mary Magdalene's 153 number identification is so important because it brings her beyond the role of being only a teacher-partner and gives her back her bride dress. Margaret's written a good shorter version of the story of the 153 here on her website.
   And speaking of Mary Magdalene having her bride dress stolen from her, I had a moment at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco where I felt the theft in my stomach. Margaret and I went for a visit there late in the day and were walking around the huge sanctuary looking at the Gospel stories depicted in bas relief wall plaques. First of all, they were so grim that it made me sad and afraid. What a scarey religion Christainity has become. We were standing looking at a carved picture of Jesus as a huge figure with people crouching down around him. In front was a woman supplicant with long, loose hair and I thought it was "our Magdalene". But no, Margaret told me it was his Mother. I couldn't believe it! They'd stolen Magdalene's hair and gave it to his Mother! It was a moment of "rage against the machine", that helpless feeling of the vast power of institutions to "brand" a story. Rage is probably a too-strong word, but it did get me in the pit of my stomach. I want to walk into a cathedral in 2020 and see Magdalene and Jesus' wedding cake like the one we had here in L.A. at our conference with Margaret. And a wedding dress on Magdalene too.... and while I'm at it.... a hairstyle for the bridegroom's mother that's appropriate to her age and wisdom.

     There's really no other way to put love of our earth and love of ourselves and love of our bodies and love of our hearts in the story except through a love story between the Beloveds in the Garden. She's simply got to have a wedding dress as one of her mantles. If she doesn't get to wear her wedding dress when she wants to , she's confined to
co-teaching without recognition of the magnitude of her title the Magdalene. When she is "the Magdalene" she is the Holy Grail itself, and then we have a worthwhile christian spiritual quest.
     Conferences like the one at HerChurch are important, just like the small Magdalene Circles are important, because they're like quilting bees. The word gossip originally meant women's wisdom. Everyone shares tidbits of the goings-on in their families and communities. Passing on learning and stories is easy this way and   we seed each other's spiritual creativity. We support each other and we support the growing creation of a spiritual story which will better serve us in the coming centuries, one which has a divinely human love at it's center.

Click here to see some pretty new chaplets

Day of the Dead

2009-11-01T13:47:00Z

I had another "ah-ha" moment about Mary Magdalene when I was preparing for last week's on-line Magdalene Circle with Cynthia Jordan and Lerin Winter. We were doing Lesson 1 from 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene , which is called "It Was Foretold". It deals with the idea that there was prophecy that the Bridegroom would have a Bride, that the King would have a Queen, that the Sacred Feminine would be partnered again. You can imagine how many times I've studied Margaret Starbird's books......MANY....but this time something jumped off the page with a new awareness for me.

She was discussing the suffix "hnh" of H Magdalhnh, the way her name is written in Greek in the Gospel. Margaret says it this way, "To many, the hnh was already familiar in connection with the patroness of Athens, the goddess Athena." This means that in the careful choosing of the Greek words to describe Mary Magdalene, the words which would set her into written history, the association was made with the sacred feminine diety Herself, just as Jesus' names and titles were coined to reflect the eternal principles of the Sun dieties. For some reason this had not sunk into my consciousness before, that in order to help people understand who Mary Magdalene was they associated her with the goddess Athena. It was like saying to people, "Think of her with the love and respect that you have for your Athena." Jesus and Magdalene didn't drop into western civilization out of nowhere, their archetypal story of the renewing and regenerating cycles of earth and heaven were already known through the religious stories which people counted on.

We're in the place of that yearly cycle of renewal and regeneration right now which in my neighborhood is called "The Day of the Dead". It's related to Magdalene Mysteries number 4, 5, and 6. "Mary follows the Way of the Cross", "Mary stands with the Virgin Mother at the foot of the Cross", and "Mary meets Jesus at the tomb on Easter morning". It's the descent phase of the story, which is in all the goddess story cycles. It's one of the deepest mysteries of the Western Mystery Tradition, we might call it "the mystery of wisdom gained from enduring". Day of the Dead parades have women dancers who move with slow chanting and no smiles on their faces, for we are nowhere near the Light yet. We're at the cross, we're in the cold tomb, we feel the presence of the dead ancestors. It's the darkened phase of things when sometimes even a dream doesn't break through. Ghosts of life gone by or people now dead to us sometimes come visiting, and we sincerely hope it's brief.

One of the hallmarks of the descent stories is that she has to go alone, there are none of her usual helpers in this hour of need. It's related to the the "Journey in the Boat with No Oars" story where she must rely on faith alone to guide her to the new place. In the descent to the tomb story cycle there's not even a sense of going somewhere, there's just the absence of where one has been. All the images of Mary Magdalene contemplating are, for me, images which satisfy my feelings of this place in the inner journey.

We'll be talking more about the distortions of Mary Magdalene's true name and title on the November 22 Magdalene Circle. It's Lesson 2, "I Thought She Was A Prostitute from Magdala". You can listen to the podcast of Lesson 1 on Spiritually Speaking radio.

Next Sunday I'll be with Margaret Starbird, China Galland, and other fabulous women at the "Marys Madonnas Eternal Mothers-Goddess with Us" conference in San Francisco. I'm looking forward to seeing a couple women I've met on my Facebook page . I'm also excited to be giving Rev. Stacy Boorn of HerChurch one of the Magdalene Rosaries that help center my contemplative life.

I'll have stories to tell when I return to this circle of friends.