MaryMagdaleneWithin

The Magadalene Rosary, the Legendary Mysteries

Joan Norton — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:09:32 GMT

     The word "rosary" comes from the Latin for "rose garden", another metaphor for life itself. The Magdalene Rosary gives us helpful stories for the life we live. They're archetypal stories, meaning universal themes for everyone's ordinary lives. And of course we know so well that the word "Magdalene" means the Sacred Feminine and her stories.
     What do I call to inside myself when I touch the rosary bead for this particular story in Mary Magdalene's Mysteries? " Mary travels with Joseph of Arimathea to safety in Egypt" is the first of the Legendary Mysteries.
    She has married, her husband died, she's pregnant, and the ruling party of the land wants her dead too, along with the whole family. She is living a paradox in the extreme; she holds both death and new life in her heart and in her womb.
     How well women know this, how familiar is the feeling of paradox and its call to balance. How well women know to hold two truths, two opposites, at one time in our heart. The hero has the luxury of being dominated by one goal, one "stand", one belief, one path; and we may very well have that part of ourselves too.   But the Sacred Feminine consciousness who lives through Mary Magdalene must hold the paradox of two truths at once within her. Her life has seemingly ended with Jesus' death and yet her life also begins again with her pregnancy and her exile to Egypt to give birth.
    How many times have you lived Mary Magdalene's story of opposites? Many.
    We also learn from this story that extreme danger is present and that if we try to hold on to what is over and done, our soul's journey may be annihilated. Our Mary of Bethany, the Magdalene, would be killed by the same ones who wanted her husband dead, the "ruling party" interested in preserving its own power. The same is true in us, worn out patterns of life and thinking will kill us if we try to hang on to them too long. You see this over and over in fairy tales and myths as the corrupt ruling king who is living without a queen of equal stature.
     Mary Magdalene must escape from this, both grieving and hopeful at the same time. It's not safe to stay where she is, as she is. The Church's story left her there grieving, without the story of the life inside her. I think that's why the Feminine became a stereotype in their story instead of a "living presence".
     But now we know better. We know that Mary was quickly protected by the Sacred Masculine, for it has many forms as well. Joseph of Arimathea took her to safety in Egypt, so the legendary mystery is told in Mediterranean tales. He is known as Jesus' uncle and later as the a founder of the Christian church in Celtic lands.
    There's a song by Billy Swann called " I Can Help" " with words that fit this part of our story. "I've got two strong arms, let me help. It would do me good to do you good, let me help." I believe that describes the Joseph of Arimathea character as he helped Mary Magdalene to safety, and then on again to France. He is the Sacred Masculine who sees that the "way of the heart" should be supported....that she alone carries "the new".
    Joseph of Arimathea takes our Christian story into Celtic lands and Celtic culdee communities, into the lands where today we're seeing "miracles in the crop." Some call that land the new center of Christianity, the place where it is being rebirthed for the Aquarian Age that we are just beginning to create for ourselves. That feels intuitively true to me....Jerusalem sometimes feels old and used up. It's become a center of fear instead of a place of potential for new life. All over Celtic lands there are ancient placenames of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea which tell of their visits and travels, just as this is so of Mary Magdalene's name remembered all over southern France.
     Barry Dunford writes extensively about Jesus in Scotland , you can read about it on his website
here .
     What is my own "inner" Joseph of Arimathea? , my own self support, my own "two strong arms"? Do I allow and support my own paradoxes? Or do I criticize myself for those times I feel too much or feel two opposite ways? Our Mary Magdalene Rosary tells us that sometimes we have to hold two truths at once in our heart, two opposites, and that if we can allow ourselves not to stay stuck in one or the other, life will go on to renew us over and over again.

P.S. Maybe "the Good News" is a pregnancy announcement.

The new pearl rosary isn't up on Sally's website yet...you can contact her about it at SallyANorton@sbcglobal.net

The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene

Joan Norton — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 07:02:54 GMT

Groups of people want to know how to honor Mary Magdalene and the story of Sacred Union in ceremony and private contemplation. More books and more groups are developing all the time and I'm sure this will grow in the next few years. My friend Jennifer Reif had many, many years as a Goddess author, advocate, and ceremonialist before she had a personal ephiany about Magdalene and Jesus as God and Goddess, resonant of earlier god and goddess couples that she was familiar with. She then spent two years in seclusion, writing a book of prayers, ceremonies, discourses, and festivals for the celebration of Sacred Union. Not only that....she painted a lovely, sensitive, gorgeous picture of our precious Mary Magdalene for her book's cover.
I like her book alot and I thought readers might be interested in getting to know Jennifer so I asked her if she'd do this interview for us......

Question 1:
What sets your book apart from other Magdalene Books?
~ Answer:
I would say that the focus was to write a spiritual handbook, something that those who love the Sacred Union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene could use for personal spiritual experience. The discourses, prayers, ceremonies, and festivals are a major part of the book’s content. At the time I was writing I wasn't aware that other books, designed to give shape to a Magdalene-based practice, were being written, such as your new book on Magdalene Circles that is you wrote with Margaret Starbird, due for release in May, 2009.

Question 2:
What was the inspiration for your Creation myths and stories?
~ Answer:
It’s hard for any poet to pin down exact references for intuitive-based forms of writing, but I can pin down a few inspirational sources. First there is my past experience as an author in the Goddess religion genre, and so integrating the Sacred Feminine into the Creation myths was natural. In addition, you can see pieces on the Elements in my Creation stories. I call them Aeons; they are inspired by the Pagan four-element view and my love and respect for the Earth.

The names I use for the Holy Mother and Holy Father were taken from the Old Testament. ‘Asherah’ is the name that the Old Testament often uses for the Goddess, albeit, primarily in derogatory narratives (many of us have already returned to Her earlier station of honor!) I chose the name ‘Adonai’ for the God, because it is a name that the Hebrews used for the word Lord. It flowed and felt right for both of their names to begin with the letter “A.” The “ah” sound, as in “A-shera” and “A-donai” is an open flowing natural sound that feels like a sort of ‘primordial beginning’ sound to me, like the sound of the first part of the Hindu chant “Aum.”

In the initial section of my Creation myth, called, “The First Creation” you will find a footnote that explains that the Greek Pelasgian Creation myth was an inspiration. That myth sees the Goddess Eurynome and the God Ophion, as the Primordial Parents of Creation. It includes the symbols of the dove, the egg, and the serpent. The “Second Creation” myths simply flowed forward, as I reached inward to find an alternative view of the Garden of Eden. There is also a brief reference in my Eden story to a sacred couple. Although they are not named this is a covert reference to Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Question 3:
What do you think is the ultimate message or teaching of the Magdalene?
~ Answer:
I think that she has brought us several messages. The Magdalene aligns with some of the symbols of the ancient Goddesses, symbols like the lily, the rose, and the chalice, and she carries similar fertile, fecund and compassionate mother qualities. But I find that she brings additional qualities to the Sacred Feminine, important and unique qualities.

One of these is her tender-heartedness as a form of strength. She is sometimes described as weeping, and that kind of sensitivity can be seen as a strength that opens the door to not only deeper compassion for others, but also to the experience of a deeper personal joy. The strength to ‘feel,’ to allow ourselves to feel all of life, is often healthier than repressing our sorrows, which can have damaging effects. So her model of allowing real feeling to surface, and then the power to move through and beyond sorrow into a rebirth of joy, this to me is one of her most unique teachings. Tears and sorrow have too long been seen as weakness, when these are simply normal parts of our humanity. While we may not enjoy the process, sorrow can ‘grow’ our ability to be compassionate.

Most of us are familiar with the quote from the Magdalene’s gospel in the Nag Hammadi Codices, the line, “and she turned their hearts to the Good.” For me, in context with the rest of the scripture, this is a teaching of good thought and good action. For me, Mary Magdalene’s teaching of “the Good,” is focused on our responsibility for our individual behavior (rather than on large societal movements or ideologies).

Her focus on personal responsibility to bring ‘the Good’ into the world is a guide that suggests that we can observe how we behave and how we relate to one another. The very fabric of society, of groups, and of friendships, needs this as an underlying basis. My view is that when we treat each other in a kindly, compassionate manner, we create a great healing power that can enter not only large political issues but can also live in how we inner dialog with ourselves, and in every word that we speak to each other. Jesus’ teaching that we ‘do unto others as we would have them do unto us,’ takes on intimate personal significance. So, for me, Mary Magdalene asks us to self-monitor and create ‘the Good’ in all of our words and actions to the best of our ability. In addition, the joy that we can create in others through simple kindness, is such an immediate and amazing reward. It is the real evidence of healing in action.

Another difference is that Mary Magdalene walked the earth. She has a human story and yet a Divine Nature. Her human yet Divine persona, teaches us that an experience with the Divine is easy and accessible, and not something that is only reserved for a ‘lofty’ segment of religious society.

Another message from the Magdalene is her guidance for us to revisit the teachings of Jesus. She asks that those who feel uncomfortable with her Beloved, not allow the negative aspects of the history of the church to color his teachings. Jesus' universal teachings of love and compassion, and the teachings that we are all daughters and sons of the Most High, are unchanged. His teachings stand as messages of love. Sometimes his teachings have no relationship to the multitude of rules, regulations, and additional beliefs that the many Christian denominations have generated through centuries of biblical interpretation.

Question 4:
How did your personal life story effect your inspiration to write “The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene?”
~Answer
The inspiration to write The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene, started in May of 2006 when I exited the theater, having seen the film, "The Da Vinci Code." I was suddenly caught up in Mary Magdalene, like many of us. The words crossed my mind that I needed to write a "Goddess Bible." I had no idea what that meant at the time, but as things turned out, The Holy Book of Mary Magdalene was finished in May of 2008, two years later.

My personal life story probably lends itself to loving the Goddess, perhaps because I had an earthly mother who brought her family some challenges, and so as an adult perhaps I subconsciously sought an alternate mother model. But there is a great deal more than that. I first attended a Goddess ritual in 1981. I was part of a generation that expected equal rights for women, and who were open to new spiritual models in a (western) religious practice that women could have a gender-identification with, models that were powerful as well as loving. Later I came into a practice of Goddess-God, and found harmony and beauty in that sacred balance.

While it is easy to see how I came to Mary Magdalene, the mystery remains as to how I was able to bring Jesus into my personal faith. I have always had a deep desire and closeness to wanting to be AtOnement with the spiritual side of life. I really rejoice in a sense of union and adoration that a faith-based religion can provide. But there are many things that happen in life that we cannot explain. And how I came to love and experience Jesus as a loving man as well as a Lord of Light is pretty much in the category of a mystery. But I'm not complaining!

Question 5:
In your view, how does adding the Jesus and Mary Magdalene stories contribute to the strength of the Sacred Feminine?
~Answer:
I feel an immediacy and an intimacy with the Jesus and Mary Magdalene story that for me is unique. I can only say that through them I am having inner-faith-based experiences that I have never had before, new experiences that are flooded with light.

For me, Mary Magdalene brings a healing gentleness along with wisdom. I find these to be strengths that are in contrast to the strength, lets say, of the various Warrior Goddesses. This gentle strength feels bound together with her Sophian spiritual wisdom. I feel that things like patience and kindness are with her, and I dearly love these parts of her. She feels so healing and Jesus’ teachings of love and compassion are in concert with her nature.

Her story with Jesus, integrates the human with the Divine, and provides models that we can relate to from any aspect of our lives. Their story has similarities to other cross-cultural myths of death and resurrection, but my experience of their depth of kindness, gentleness, compassion, and forgiving, feel deeper and more personal that my experience in other sacred mythos. This is of course purely a subjective experience on my part. There are so many ways that people experience the divine, so many roads that lead to the same place.

Question 6:
"Don't you find a huge conflict between the Christian Church-Jesus and the Goddess-Mary Magdalene?"
~Answer:
Not at all. I came to Mary Magdalene by way of the Goddess, and I came to Jesus by way of Mary Magdalene. My internal experience is that the Christian "Church-Jesus" is sometimes not representative of Jesus' teachings. I find that both the Magdalene and Jesus show us the way of love and compassion, not simply in words, but as an active approach to each other and to life. Jesus' teachings were edited, added to, subtracted from, and placed into the belief systems of various Christian churches which sometimes are at odds with each other. I am always drawn back the Jesus that the Magdalene loved, to the heretic who challenged the rigid rules of Jewish Orthodoxy, to the man who loved Mary Magdalene as husband, and to the Spiritual King who taught us to rediscover the Divine spark within ourselves. I find that the Bride and the Bridegroom are in perfect harmony, in both mythos and message.
One last question...Do you think of yourself as a Christian?
Answer: I think of myself as a Grail Steward.

Thank you, Jennifer for letting us in to your thoughts. You can have more conversation with her at her Yahoo group called "The Path of the Grail Steward"and also see more at www.demeter.spiritualitea.net .

Christ Is Not Fully Incarnate Yet

Joan Norton — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:35:13 GMT

    "Christ is not fully incarnate yet". I wouldn't have the nerve to say such a thing but I dreamed it during last summer's Magdalene Feast Day week. It was an exciting week because there were two crop circles specific to Mary Magdalene themes and energies. If we take the view that the crop circles are an interactive phenomena in which our collective minds are participating, the Magdalene themed circles indicate that the feminine vibration on the planet is increasing. The emotions of awe and wonder that are constellated by the crop circles are native to our right brains, the location of feminine energy, and by extension...the Magdalene in our story of Sacred Union. When the men were in dispair, " Mary turned their hearts toward the Good." (Gospel of Mary Magdalene 9:19)
    " Christ is not fully incarnate yet", were the specific words of the dream, with these additional thoughts in my mind as I awoke. " How could He be until a free feminine consciousness is here? Why would he go on without Her? And, "a lone male God is weak." He never meant it to be this way. "Mary hath chosen the better part." Imagine....she chose "the rebel Jesus".


    My women readers will say, " Of course...who wouldn't?" She chose the Light so that we can feel in our hearts that we too "choose the Light".... the way of the future goodness for our world. Mary already knew that Jesus would be one who realized that her tears, her "way of the heart" was to be listened to, for he had returned to her when she wept for her brother Lazarus' death. He had known Lazarus died and not seen a reason to come back, but when he heard of Mary's tears he returned.....and you know the rest of the story. It is said to be the only time Jesus himself cried as well. What a rebel.
     Christ will not be fully incarnate until he stands side by side with a full-hearted woman Sacred Partner, a woman of instinct and prophecy. A woman who knows how to follow her own heart's ways and expects to be supported in them. The "passion narratives" of the Gospels meant to tell us this by giving us a Sacred Marriage story so that we could see a feminine diety choose a male diety "of the heart and the light" to have a baby with. We need to see that a woman's "land and people" are blessed by her choice of a man of heart and light.
     Here's Joan Baez, my favorite Magdalene of today, singing about "the holy kiss that's suppose to last eternity".
     .

The Magdalene Rosary of Sacred Union

Joan Norton — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:00:42 GMT

    Margaret Starbird has identified two sequences of the Magdalene Rosary which offer a way to focus on the mysteries of Mary Magdalene's life story. The first seven mysteries are the Gospel Mysteries of the Magdalene, while the second sequence is dedicated to the Legendary Mysteries of the Magdalene.
     As Margaret says in the Magdalene Circle book, "By meditating on the 'Mysteries of the Magdalene', the most important milestones in her life, a person can connect with a template of this eternal 'never-ending story'--the spiritual journey of the individual soul."
   Here they are.....

                                                            The Magdalene Mysteries

l. Mary Magdalene-Bride and Beloved
   The Gospel Mysteries

1. Mary meets Jesus and is healed of seven demons
2. Mary's tears move Jesus to raise her brother Lazarus
3. Mary anoints Jesus at the banquet at Bethany
4. Mary follows the Way of the Cross
5. Mary stands with the Virgin Mother at the foot of the Cross
6. Mary meets Jesus at the tomb on Easter morning
7. Mary carries the Good News of the Resurrection to the Apostles

ll. Mary Magdalene- Bride in Exile
   The Legendary Mysteries

1. Mary travels with Joseph of Arimathea to safety in Egypt
2. Mary gives birth to her daughter Sarah
3. Mary and her family escape by sea from Palestine
4. Mary's boat with no oars is swept ashore in Gaul
5. Mary preaches the Good News in Marseilles
6. Mary lives out her life in prayer in the cave of Ste. Baume
7. At her death, Mary is assumed body and soul into heaven

***********

    Let's talk about how this contemplative path is working for us as we bring the Magdalene more securely into daily life. For myself, I've started with my new rosary "pathwork" by contemplating first the story of Magdalene being healed and all that might mean for me spiritually. What kind of healing did Magdalene experience? Let me know what you think.
In the traditional practice of the rosary, certain mysteries are said on certain days of the week. We will all find our own way with this and some story sequences will have more meaning than others at different times of our life.
     This morning I was contemplating the story of Jesus being moved by Mary Magdalene's tears to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. What if your deeply felt longings of the heart made a difference and moved the Sacred Masculine (in yourself or a partner) to a supportive action? I found it sad to think about the deaf ear turned on women's values in the world...but hopeful that we are changing this for the better. We're shown in this story that Jesus, the Sacred Masculine potential for our world, is moved by the tears of his Beloved. He loves and honors the Sacred Feminine.
    Here's the Tintoretto painting we've all seen many times, but this morning I'm struck by the quality of Jesus' listening to Mary Magdalene.

The Magdalene Rosary of Sacred Union

Joan Norton — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:18:42 GMT

     I was surprised to see that the Magdalene Circles book is up on Amazon already and that someone blogged about it, Peter Bowden who directs development of small group ministries within the Unitarian Universalist network of churches. Peter has expressed interest in helping "spread the word" about Magdalene Circles, for which we are very grateful.
    In a just-before-it-went-to-press addition, Margaret wrote her story of the creation of her own Magdalene Rosary and the prayers to go with it. She tells how she fell asleep one night praying about her daughter and when she woke up in the morning her rosary beads were lying in 7s rather than the 5's and 10's of the traditional rosary. "It dawned on me that I was being shown a new rosary based on the number seven, a "perfect" number associated with the Holy Spirit and the Divine Feminine." She had a friend rearrange her rosary in this fashion and she has been praying and contemplating this way ever since.
    For her Magdalene Rosary she identified 14 highlights of Mary Magdalene's life in Sacred Union; 7 from the Gospel stories and 7 from her legendary stories. There also is a "Magdalene Prayer" to be repeated on the beads:

            Dear Mary Magdalene, love incarnate,
            Sacred Vessel, Holy Grail
            chosen were you from all women,
            and blessed is your union with Jesus.
            Dearest Bride and Beloved of Christ,
            show us the way of the heart.

    Yes, show us the Way of the heart. Jesus told us we would "do this in memory of Her".....in so many ways.

    If you want to read more about the power of the number 7, it's origins in Goddess traditions and it's Sacred Geometry affiliations, read Margaret's brilliant Magdalene's Lost Legacy, Symbolic Numbers and the Sacred Union in Christianity.

    I have been very, very surprised at the response I've gotten about the Magdalene Rosary. I thought it was something we'd create "later" but it became really compelling, I just had to have one. I woke up one morning with my fingers wanting it ! Two other women wanted one right away too. Margaret had already liked the idea that my sister Sally would make some in case people wanted to pray this way. So here it is

It might be difficult to see the medallion, but it's the Holy Grail Family. If you want to see more you can email Sally at SallyaNorton@sbcglobal.net or see the rosary at   http://www.rubylane.com/shops/sallynortonjewelrydesign for her shop.
   This one is made from garnets. We're designing one from pearls also. And of course you can make your own using the 7 groups of 7 design. We found that there aren't any traditional rosary beads available in the color red.....M-m-m-m.....so we had to create our own.
    I believe that the effect of praying in 7s is a profound way to strengthen the vibrational pattern of the Sacred Feminine in our lives as we re-balance the earth towards the New Creation.  We are each arranging our own vibrational field with the wisdom of sacred and holy geometry when we do this. And don't get me started on how sacred geometry is reflected in the crop circles .
   I'll leave you today with a picture I just found under the heading "Mystical Marriage" on a Bibilical art site. It's Hungarian from 1500.....I love all the crowns, the various Magdalene iconography, and the dragon. There's alot of kinds of strengths of the Feminine there. Who among us hasn't felt we had to tame a dragon?

Crop Circle for the Magdalene

Joan Norton — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:20:40 GMT

    One of the healings I feel passionate about is the growing familiarity between the traditional goddess philosophies and the philosophy of Sacred Union inherent in original Christianity. We are really not so far apart, it's only the one-sided power-oriented version of Christianity that has created an artifical wedge between sisters. Once we understand that the man Jesus was in love with the woman Mary Magdalene,  and understood her to represent "her land and her people" as Queen, the story becomes much less threatening. When I had my own spontaneous "breakthrough of consciousness"(as someone called it) twelve years ago, and Mary Magdalene told me her story , it started out by saying Mary Magdalene was "grateful for the regard with which Jesus held her." He was the embodiment of the loving potential of the Divine and Sacred Masculine and I think he also has been waiting 2,000 years for that idea to catch on. Recently I've been told by two women about dreams of Jesus, both in his Light and Glory. I take this to mean that the wonderfully loving, supportive-of-the-feminine aspects of Christ Consciousness are incarnating in women. Hallelujah for that....
    Since the spectacular "visitation in the cereal crop" of the July 22, 2008 Magdalene Feast Day, I've wanted to see an image which would honor both Demeter, the Goddess of the Earth and Grain, and Mary Magdalene, Queen of Her Land and People. In earlier times cities and their land were under the protection of a goddess and the goddess wore a crown imaged as a wall or tower of protection. Remember that one of the meanings of the word "Magdalene" was "tower or stronghold" ? In the story of Sacred Union that is at the center of Christianity it was understood that the feminine presence of Godde is our stronghold and protection on earth.

   Here's the picture of the Goddess Demeter with the Magdalene Feast Day Swallows Crop Circle as her crown...

Mary Magdalene at the 2008 Gaia Festival

Joan Norton — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:27:36 GMT

    My dream several years ago when I organized a Margaret Starbird-Mary Magdalene event here in Los Angeles was to help bring Magdalene into the Goddess community, and this weekend it finally "jelled". The Gaia Festival's theme of "Mother Mysteries" was perfect for Margaret Starbird's talk about Christianity's "missing wife and mother", Mary Magdalene.  Margaret told the stories of the "flight into Egypt" that was most probably a pregnant Magdalene who had just lost her husband, and of the "journey in a boat with no oars" to the shores of France with Princess Sarah many years later. Of course we all know how their sea journey is still celebrated each year in the French village called "the three Marys". My favorite part of the story is that little   Sarah, dark from her obscurity in her own story, has a new dress put on her each year before she's carried to the sea to re-enact her journey to a new land. This always makes me feel justified about still being drawn to playing with doll clothes.
   At the Gaia Festival we were in a beautiful outdoor spot in the Santa Monica Mountains, perfect for the opening ceremony centered on "speaking the truth of the elements". We circled, we clapped, we spoke about fire, air, water, earth, and the center spiral of mystery. Hummingbirds and dragonflies seemed attracted to us and danced about our heads.   Talented drummers and dancers, healers with their tables on the lawn, lots of books to look at, good food....these are just some of the wonderful things of the day.

   There's Margaret and I, both in our "Magdalene red", raising arms to the glories of Creation.

     Margaret told many, many stories of the synchronicities in her life which have led her along her amazing path of discovery of Jesus' full humanity. She's a very humorous speaker, something you might not feel just from reading her books. She tells in her autobiographical book,  Goddess in the Gospels,   how she was led and guided and shown the way through synchronistic happenings . She has truly lived her life in service and response to God...or "Godde" as she likes to call the Divine.
    It was a literary weekend for me because there were two other Magdalene authors I got to meet. C.A. Thomas came from Boulder , she's the author of a deeply loving story telling of Jesus and Magdalene called King and Queen. It's a nice book for younger women who want the truly romantic tale of their love story with all its authentic time period details.  Shannon Anderson was also there and I was happy to meet her, although we didn't get to talk much at all. You can read more about Shannon's book called The Magdalene Awakening. She was also led by synchronistic happenings to her spiritual awareness about Magdalene and she shares LOTS of metaphysical knowledge with us along the way.
    There are so many more books coming out that tell tales of women's inner experiences of being led to the "re-membering " of the divinity of Mary Magdalene and her Sacred Union with Jesus....maybe you have had one too. Why not write about it and share? Personally, I never get tired of these stories.
     I've noticed that women who've become "emissaries of the Sacred Union" are also telling me about dreams where Jesus visits them in very direct ways. To me, this is a good sign that the balance of masculine-feminine energies which is inherent in the blueprint of Christianity, is making itself known more and more within us. The inner balance of Sacred Complements is the only way to the New Creation, don't you think?
     Here's a photo of little Saint Sarah, the princess in our story, in one of her new dresses.

The Special Kiss

Joan Norton — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:22:55 GMT

The kind of meditation I like is guided journeying where I listen to another's voice to help guide me to a peaceful mood and "set the stage" for me to have a personal inner experience. This kind of journeying to my own spiritual realms allows my soulmind to give me an image , something symbolic meant to comfort me or inform me or lead me on. Or just intrigue me. In The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Jesus says to the Magdalene "Where is the nous, lies the treasure", the nous being that part of our spiritual minds which engage with our earthly personalities.
   In a meditation called "The Special Kiss" I've created a short guided journey to take you to the feeling of the Beloveds in the Garden, to a place where you can expect to encounter your own inner beloved, creating your own inner Sacred Union.
   These guided journey meditations are from 14 Steps To Awaken the Sacred Feminine, Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene , by myself and Margaret Starbird, to be published in May 2009 by Inner Traditions. Here's the picture we used on the cover.....

Magdalene at Autumn Equinox

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:24:54 GMT

     Dr. Andrew Weil's best advice for self healing is "Just breathe" and Autumn Equinox is when our Earth, our bodies, our souls, and our sacred stories reflect the need for a deep, deep breathe.
    Mary Magdalene approaches the cave at this time, in the descent aspect of her archetypal journey of the cyclic renewal of the year. As we restore the Sacred Union stories of original Christianity , we can see that they are the ancient stories of the turning of the year...with all their inherent psychological, spiritual, physical wisdom for us.
     The Light is waning, the crops are harvested (the crop circles are mostly gone!), the green is withdrawing from the leaves into it's Mystery of renewal, and our heart's energy begins to turn inward as well. Mary , the one called "the Magdalene" has let her Beloved go into death, gone forever in her mind. We see her in so many beautiful paintings with her hair let loose to her most natural self, weeping at her loss. This is the human picture , the "as below" , of the descent phase of the great universal cycle of renewal. We understand it on the earthly level as growth slowing down, energy withdrawing from plant life and animal life, things beginning to go inward. It's a time for separating, taking stock, taking a big long healing breath.   In the spiritual cycle of renewal pictured in Christianity it's Mary Magdalene's loss of the Beloved and her solitary path to His  tomb.
     We begin to allow ourselves the outbreath of the year. We allow the growth of summer to leave, we begin to contemplate the goodnesses left behind, and we allow the disappointments to go to the compost pile. Life ever- renewing. The Mystery of the return of Light awaits.

Crop Circles and the Kilmore Window

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:37:27 GMT

     As the crop circle season in England ends, the pictures of them are not in green, vibrant with life. Where are they now? They're in our minds as vibrational thoughtforms, influencing our ongoing creation of our own lives.
     What happens to us when we have a home altar of loved spiritual objects also happens to us when we look at and think about a crop circle design. We imbue our "inner space" with the mind and heart values of our Godde when we look at a picture or statue of Jesus or Magdalene. Physiologically, our bodies begin manufacturing chemicals which create a beneficent state of mind and emotion, and all those around us begin to benefit. Love and peace spread. And all we've done is look at our home altar with its beloved objects. Or at the new cathedrals in the crops.
     When I look at the Kilmore stained glass window of Jesus handfasted with Mary Magdalene, my body relaxes and I remember "union with all things." And my woman-self remembers that the Sacred Masculine wants to protect and cherish me.
     As these thoughts come to my mind, I have inadvertently created a little more harmony in my body and a little more sacredness in my environment. I've allowed more of "As Above" to be "As Below". My physiology has relaxed and begun to create the endorphins of happiness.
     When I work on a beautiful dream with a client, a dream with a gorgeous visual image of deep meaning, I often say to draw it and put it up on the wall to look at. Seeing it over and over creates thought and feeling that create better health as well as a more meaningful experience of life. Everyone knows that visualizing "makes it real".
     The Rossetti Magdalene painting creates thoughts of abundance, well being, and expectation of divine goodness.....imagine what those thoughts do for your health.
      That's what the Sacred Geometry designs of the great cathedrals do for us and that is what the crop circles do for us. Sacred sites are understood now as vibrational areas which influence our minds and hearts for the better, they improve us. The altar in your home is also doing that, and the crop circle designs are doing that.
     Other people can talk and teach about the specifics of the vibrational geometrics which undergrid our physical reality. We only need to know that the crop circles speak the language of the sacred harmonies of life, just like the Kilmore window does.
     Look here to remember that you are the "key to creation", which is your archetypal mother genetics, your mitochondrial DNA, your Goddess of All Creation, your sacred vessel ever renewing.
     Look here to remember Sacred Union as the central process of all life, the love of All for All.
    And of course, look here to see the picture of our Jesus and Mary Magdalene, Beloveds in the Garden living the story of Life.

Crop Circle Dreams

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:43:07 GMT

     As the crop circle season, the growing season of nature, comes to a close and into harvest time, a pretty wonderful design has appeared. As you know, these are cooperative ventures between heaven and earth, masculine and feminine, body and soul, earth and "other", ushering us into the New Creation. You already know that I believe our individual minds, in their collective togetherness, are the consciousness of Earth, so you could say that the crop circles are "us" talking to "us" . You might say that the crop circles are our own Sophian wisdom speaking in symbols from all time and all places. She combines familiar symbols of depth spirituality in new ways, showing us the path of potential harmony of our New Creation.
     This last Friday August 15th in a field in Wiltshire there appeared our familiar Christian cross but created entirely by swirling circle shapes. There's not a straight line in it. It's as though the original meaning which is central to Christianity, the Sacred Marriage, is expressed in this "message in the wheat". It's a Celtic design signifying Union of masculine and feminine, echoing even earlier Hindu (and I'm sure many other cultures) cross designs which mean Sacred Union is the center of life.   There are 11 circles within the overall cross design, swirling to a center circle where the arms of "heaven and earth", body and mind, meet. There is also an implied 5-pointed star in its sacred geometry, which we all know as the path in the cosmos of the planet Venus, the Goddess Herself.
    They say the crop circles have something for everyone. I realized the other day that I'm loving them in the same way I love working with people's dreams, which are always full of the "hand of God" in symbolism. The crop circles come so fast during this season, each one simply magnificent in its mystery and meaning. Just like dreams, the symbolism pours forth profusely night after night. I've had significant dreams twenty years ago that I still ponder and realize new meanings about. It's a good thing there are people cataloging the crop circles and doing the scientific tests on them because we will be gaining insight for ourselves about us from them for years and years to come. If you want to keep track of them try the Crop Circle Connectorand BLT Research
     I invite you to look at the Crop Circle Cross and let its various symbolic elements speak to you and let me know what you think about it. Dream symbols are always more potent when we work on them together, their meaning is never a matter of one person's interpretation. It's our New Creation, let's create it together.

Crop Circle Dreams from Her

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:38:46 GMT

     There was one story about a crop circle in Canada that I liked. I take the crop circles as messages of Eros, of relationship, of the Sacred Union between heaven and earth, earth and sky, body and mind. They are Her, they are Goddess, they are the Magdalene in modern form and modern voice. She of the Ten Thousand Names.How challenging it is that she speaks in mathematics and Sacred Geometry ! Luckily She speaks in Beauty and Hopefulness at the same time that She speaks in number, proportion, and ratio. She has something for everyone.
     The circle appeared in the Quamichran Lake area of British Columbia in a protected area where original prairie grass is being reintroduced, restoring the land to its natural state. This crop circle has a triangle in the middle surrounded by six swirling shapes. As pioneers settled this area they planted grass for grazing animals , so as it is being restored to its natural state, there is a mixture of these types of grasses growing together. The miracle of this crop circle is that all the newly restored prairie grass was left standing, not flattened at all to form the crop circle shape. The intelligence of the Goddess and the Light picked and chose which grass to use to create the triangles and the swirling shapes. People are always looking for clues that the crop circles are "Mystery made" and I think this is surely one of them.
     Everyone was waiting anxiously to see what the crop circle would be on August 8, 2008, because that was an auspicious day in the modern spiritual story of the changing of the Age, the coming of the New Creation. As you know, the date identified with this change is 2012, with important times of potency once a year. This year's is the 8-8-08, next year's the 9-9-09, etc. These are days when we can do alot for ourselves by concentrating our minds and hearts on positive changes in our lives. Of course, images speak to our hearts and help solidify our positive thoughts. The Sacred Union Circlemakers of Mystery didn't disappoint and gave us an enormous circle eight crop design which appeared "below Milk Hill" in Wiltshire, England.
     When I read about the crop circles I get dismayed that the language often tends to repeat the same old gender problem of masculine identification of Mystery. There's a tendency to describe these "messages of hope" as happening to the earth, the earth being the recipient of superior knowledge "from above". As if she's just lying there, inert, while a smarter being from outer space is carving messages on her body . Where have we suffered this fantasy before? Everywhere for the last umpteen years of patriarchal misogyny. The shapes She is creating for us to look at are the shapes of Her sacred geometry, Her system of relationship between things. She's encouraging us to remember that we have an innate system of harmonious balance in our body/mind/heart. She's showing us with Her body that our bodies have the wisdom to create a better world. She's saying "As Above, So Below", and the "Below" is your body's intelligence. We've been so dissuaded from our own Wisdom that it's easy to forget that we have the necessary intuition and feeling in our bodies to create better harmony in our personal lives, and therefore in the world.
     Those who wrote down the stories of the previous change of the Age, the stories of Jesus and "the Good News", told us that the feminine face of God is called "the Magdalene" . She is called that for her role as "Protectoress of the People and the Land". She was called the Magdalene because she is the body, she is the land. Her number in Sacred Geometry is 153 and her shape in Sacred Geometry is the Vesica Piscis, the "womb of all subsequent shapes". She comes to us in story as Mary Magdalene, Beloved Bride. She comes to us today as the stories in the crop circles, messages of hope and good news for the New Creation.

Magdalene's Feast Day Crop Circle Again

Joan Norton — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:55:53 GMT

     Goddess in her swallow guise leads the growth of the Mary Magdalene Feast Day Crop Circle outward from the chalice-womb-vesica piscis shapes in the middle....She leads towards above and towards below at the same time, stretching our knowledge of who we are. She's so huge here in the crop circle, with the three magnificent birds in the middle each holding three circles. You can feel the safety of being enclosed in her wings and you can feel the urge to fly at the same time. A circle invites comfort and belonging, as well as growth into new circles of life.

     Where have I seen those swallows before? Yes of course, Goddess has always come in her bird form to link the worlds together. She who takes us from earth to sky and back again to ourselves. She is that part of ourselves that can safely fly to new heights and new dimensions and come back always to nest in the mud. The swallows return again to Capistrano and nestle in the church's rafters. Look where she returned to create a Sacred Union crop circle in Wiltshire.
    The swallow was one of Inanna's symbols for her role as the bestower of life and fertility. She represents the cyclic nature of everything and the very pulse of life in our bodies. Her swallow tells us we can trust there are great rhythms of growth and it's safe to stretch beyond our usual boundaries.
     The crop circles are surely doing that with their mysterious appearance over night, sometimes accompanied by orbs of light. They are always in the kindest harmony with the Great Mother, never damaging plants in any way. The stalks of grain are heated up mysteriously from the inside, their nodes expanded outward to create a bend. The grain is often laid down in intricate weaving patterns , bent first some inches off the ground. (the man made ones can't hope to replicate the complexity of this)  The grain always continues to grow, restoring itself upright to reach for the sun again. Seed heads taken from the crop circle grain and planted sprout with extra strength and grow extra strongly. It's as if the Mother of All is happy with these formations, having communicated herself to us.
     In the Egyptian stories of love and death and renewal into life again, Goddess as Isis became a swallow in her search for her lover, Osiris after death. It was in her swallow guise that she conceived new life again, "fluttering around the pillar" to bring the Son to life. She links the worlds together in this way.
     There is a young man in the Netherlands named Robert van den Broekewho lives near fields in which crop circles appear regularly. He's very sensitive to the energy of their approach, becoming agitated and intuitively seeing the circle shapes to come. He often describes his experience as "feeling Mary" when crop circle energy is gathering. Most people's religious frame of reference is the Virgin Mary, but we understand his feeling to be the more complete Mary, "the Magdalene", the "Woman Who Knows the All".   He is experiencing the energy of Eros between the dimensions, the relationship between the seen and the unseen worlds which results in a circle formation. You can't "sense" the Divine Feminine without knowing She's talking about relationships between things in her Web of Life. She's always weaving. And of course our Mary has a bird sacred to her as well, the dove. Even though the patriarchal story begun in the Old Testament tried to obliterate the Goddess of Forevermore, we still feel her magic in the dove. And now we see her magic in the crop circles made with her body, in her cereal grains.
   In the medieval times of Mary as the May maiden, reminiscent of all goddesses of abundance, women warned others to never hurt the swallows nests , they were thought to be as sacred as the chalice in the church. Their nests are like little chalices, little wombs, little earthen vessels, little "alabaster jars" of Mary.
    People have discovered that the crop circles appear where water is especially plentiful below the land, as if to say these are messages of the water of life continuing to carry us forward. And they repeatedly appear in the sacred sites of Celtic lands in England. They're most plentiful where Celtic Christainity is rooted in the web of Goddess which came before, but they have also now appeared in 29 other countries. They want us to know the magnificence that we are, the sacred geometry within our bodies. It's our own personal instincts which can perceive these sacred patterns and follow them in our own lives, creating ourselves and our world anew.
     Goddess, or to use Margaret Starbird's word Godde, is with us right now, inviting us with her wings to trust in stretching our knowledge of ourselves as we each form circles of the New Creation within our own lives.

Magdalene's Feast Day Crop Circle

Joan Norton — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:59:03 GMT

     My sense of the mysterious sacred is heightened today, beyond the fact that it's Magdalene Feast Day on the world-wide church calendar. A new crop circle appeared in the last few days which has as one of its mathematical formulas the sacred Magdalene number of "153". It is three interlocking circles forming four vesica piscis, and four "circles with a spiritual center".   The circles have radius lines and there is a cross-hatch pattern forming a "net of 153 fishes" in two center sections.
     You can see it's beauty here.....
     The science of sacred numbers provides us with a mathematical blueprint of the physical universe in it's harmonious and balanced condition, the one we try and try to emulate in our own lives. There are number equivalences which express the Divine Feminine Principle, as well as the Divine Masculine. The beautiful cooperation in love between these two is, of course, the idea of the Sacred Marriage. The space created by two interlocking circles is sometimes said to represent this idea. A vesica piscis is both the Womb and Matrix and Sacred Vessel of the Goddess and also her ability for cooperation in love with all life.
    The Magdalene Feast Day Crop Circle expresses this in a symbol on the land, huge and dramatric from the air; tender and sensitive in it's interaction with the plants of its creation. Did you know that the crop circle's stalks of barley or wheat or mustard are most often gently bent uniformly at a node to form the circle's pattern? They're not crushed. It is as though these formations are cooperation itself, cooperation between the Earth and the "unknown". That's another way of expressing the idea of Sacred Union.
     The crop circles are symbols of communication and connection with the "new" unknown of the cosmos. The Mother Earth is in relationship with the cosmos.....She is communicating.
      The crop circle mandalas are created cooperatively with an unknown energy using the physical world of Her Body, which in our Christian story is Mary Magdalene. The earth is not having something "done to her" by force, she is cooperating in creation of something entirely new. The New Creation.
     Mary the Magdalene, Queen of the Earth, has said "Yes" to the Cosmos.

Mary Magdalene Loves Jesus the Gardener

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:40:46 GMT

   In the universal story of the Divine Lovers, they always meet again after death in the garden, as life continues her cycles. In our Christian version of the story of Sacred Union, Mary Magdalene is weeping at the death of Jesus when he comes to her again, in the guise of a gardener.   John 20:15 "She, supposing him to be the gardener, ...."
    There are many paintings of this scene of Mary Magdalene and Jesus meeting again in the garden. Most of them concentrate on the "Noli me tangere" interpretation of the scene, "don't touch me". It would seem that as the Goddess' story of Sacred Marriage lost its standing as a divine partnership story, the idea that Christ didn't want to be touched by a woman became more compelling. When you look at these many paintings you will see Christ leaning away, gesturing away, pushing away a longing Magdalene. He looks superior most of the time, eager to get away to Heaven.
     How could it be an accident that through the eyes of the Sacred Feminine, the divinity of GodHerself, that Mary Magdalene saw a gardener when he returned to her? The theme of Sacred Masculine as a "husbandman" echos earlier tellings of the story of Divine Love in the Garden of Life. Inanna speaks this way to her divine lover, Damuzi, "come plow my furrows". Great love is earthy love. In her moment in the garden, Mary Magdalene is recognizing that Christ is the heavenly gardener on earth, one who is in right relationship to earth, body, and Goddess. A gardener takes care of the garden and the garden takes care of the gardener. (thank you, Margaret Starbird for saying this) It's a relationship, not a separation and a superiority.      A gardener understands interdependency of all things. It's the Gardener Christ who we need and that's the one who Goddess first saw in resurrection.
     There's one painting from 1581 by Lavinia Fontana called "Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene" that is very different from the others, showing a Jesus looking fondly at Mary and gesturing in love, not warning. He has on a gardener's hat and holds a shovel and doesn't look like he wants to run away from her. She has her familiar red billowing dress, her sandels with the "X" straps(heretic symbols), her long flowing hair, her alabaster jar, her look of love. The flowers at her feet are the same type as in the Unicorn tapestries, which have specific meanings in "the language of love". Images of the Sacred Marriage story. Behind her is the Womb/Tomb symbol of the Goddess.
    Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this artist from the 16th century was a woman, described as being very successful and "still had time to have 11 children". You can see her beautiful painting of Jesus the gardener at http://www.biblical-art.com , search "Fontana, Lavinia".

                    How can I feel bereft when I'm shown my Husbandman is here?
                    The One who protects the new growth.
                    The One who knows the ways of the Earth Herself
                    The One who lives within the cycles of Nature
                    The One who places himself in receptivity to Her

What Does Goddess See in Jesus?

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:47:05 GMT

    Abundance and Goodness are surely attributes of the Goddess that attract us to Her in all Her forms. I love the picture of Rhiannon the Celtic Great Goddess Queen riding her "unearthly" white horse through the land which is rich with growing, reminding folk of Her fruitful abundance. Seeing the white horse in processions and parades is still a remnant, a reminder of Her bountiful earth and Her care for us.
     No wonder women drifted away from Christianity, how can it compete with the billowing colors of Goddess as May Day? When we claim Mary Magdalene as Bride, we reclaim the colors of Goddess.
    May Day with its "anointing rituals", its Sacred Marriage rituals of mating and "the new" which comes from Union. "The new" is not just a new child born of sacred union, it can also be a new realization, a new attitude, a new capability, a new level of consciousness, or even a New Age or a New Creation. It's metaphor is sometimes called "Light" and it is born of the union of the feminine and the masculine energies of God.
     Sacred Union is the provenance of Goddess' expression of the goodness of life, the essential goodness of our own loving potential for creation of a better world together.
     An anointing ritual expresses these archetypal themes and their wisdom. Perhaps it is the centerpiece of the Gospel, the part of his story which Jesus was very insistent on "getting it right". Don't bother her,he said, she will use this oil to anoint me at my burial and you will do this in memory of her. We might easily say that Jesus and Mary Magdalene's intentional creation of an anointing ritual, a sacred marriage, was their expression in their time of Goddess' timeless wisdom of the goodness of life.
     He was in favor of the goodness of everyday life on earth, not the merchandising and exploitation of life. He was in harmony with the goodness in life, surely an attribute of the Goddess. He named the problem as those who refuse to realize goodness (Goddess) in John 3:20 when he said, "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." To say "hates the light" is to say "hates the new which is born of the   union of heaven and earth".
     In Jesus, Goddess must have seen a willing partner to honor Her values and Her "ways of all women", a loving representative of all that is sacred in the positive masculine face of God. I think he is waiting for us to restore his Bride, his Magdalene, so we can go forward together again.

    You can listen to some short "lullabies" of Sacred Union on my podcast at http://marymagdalenewithin.podomatic.com

http://marymagdalenewithin.podomatic.com

What Does Goddess See in Jesus?

Joan Norton — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:41:27 GMT

     All religions grow and change over time, and also deteriorate and crumble with their civilizations.  Our Christian religion went along the path of patriarchy long enough to see the possible extinction of the planet because of lack of regard for values of the Mother. But no more, we're now in the lucky time of turning it around and seeing some healthy feminine values at the heart of Christianity. We now see that there was a goddess there and that Jesus knew it .
     "We want to express the gratefulness that Mary Magdalene felt in experiencing the regard with which Jesus held her. And to this end, we ask Mary to speak now.....". Those were the words said to me in 1996 when I was channeling what I called "Cosmic Intelligence" and which named itself "Energies of Grace". I wasn't looking for contact with Mary Magdalene but that's what broke through that morning. I've thought about this alot, that Mary Magdalene's consciousness in it's soul state wanted to make sure we know that she was grateful for the way Jesus treated her. Apparently he held her in high regard, as well as loving her.
     I wonder what that was like. I wonder why Goddess chose this man to represent the Sacred Masculine?
Magdalene's channeled soul voice told me the story this way, "My heart was magnetized to him, and as if in dreamtime, he came to find me. This was a man, remember this. He came to me in wonder, with a look in his eye of curiosity at his own feelings. I could not know his feelings but I could see his actions and feel the softness of his words. I loved him and wondered why. He said he knew there was teaching for him from me, this he knew for sure. I just listened. What kind of man would love and say he wished to learn from me and knew not what it was he came to learn? He was not to conquer, he was not to 'have' me...he said he was to learn. And thus I came into his story." (The Mary Magdalene Within, pg.13)
     That must be one of the reasons, that he was a man who was not afraid to say he needed to learn from the woman he loved.
     I find another reason Goddess chose Jesus to be our archetypal pattern for the Sacred Masculine in the story of raising Lazarus from the dead. For this piece of learning, I thank Margaret Starbird. It comes from our book Mary Magdalene:The Way of the Heart.(Inner Traditions,Spring '09). You all know the story but you may not have noticed how much Jesus is influenced by Mary Magdalene in it. John 11 tells us that Lazarus was deathly ill and Jesus was told this but said he'd stay two more days where he was, not going home to his family at Bethany. He behaved as though it was all worked out and knew what would happen, no need to rush. A lesson was at hand. But when he came back home, "Mary fell down at His feet, saying to Him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.Therefore,  when Jesus saw her weeping,....He groaned in the spirit and was troubled... .Jesus wept." (John 11:32-35).
     He was troubled only when he saw his wife, his Sacred Partner, weeping. He was effected by his wife's hurting heart and it made his spirit groan and he wept with her. His heart was moved by her heart.
     How pleasing it must be to Goddess to tell us this story of the Sacred Masculine who is moved by the tears of his wife.
     There's more to say on this subject, but I'd love to hear from you too. As we go into the New Creation, remaking and re-loving our world back into balance, we need to know what is the Sacred Masculine to us.

Do you dream of the Magdalene?

Joan Norton — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:34:20 GMT

     There is a beautiful 14th century altar piece with the familiar Mary Magdalene and a worried looking "Authority Father". We see Mary's symbols of red clothing, a jar of special oil or ointment, a look of "all knowing", and long beautiful hair. Her hair is most often red or blonde, and it's almost always loose and flowing.
     The lore of the Goddess from time immemorial has told us about her hair; how beautiful, magical, mystical is Her hair. No matter the insults, denigrations, mistellings of her story that Mary "called the Magdalene" has endured, she seems to have always kept claim to the glory of her hair. Painters and sculptors through the last
2,000 years have felt compelled to keep her hair long and beautiful. Apparently hair was so very potent an attribute of Woman that St. Paul needed to proclaim it forbidden in church. Woman's hair should be covered "because of the angels" (1 Corinthians 11:10), referring to a belief that women's hair would draw demons into the building.   By that time, of course, the Magdalene's fate was sealed , even though Jesus had said so explicitly , "Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of in memorial of her..." (Mark 14:3-9 ) In Memory of Her.

     Before Jesus the Christ and Mary the Magdalene stepped onto the world stage as Divine Couple, Isis and Osiris were the ones to enact the stories of Sacred Union on all levels, and hair was a potent force in those stories too. When Osiris died and Isis was in her lamentation period, she cut a lock of her hair to place on his burial garments. And when she was bringing to effect the resurrection of Osiris, it was her hair spread over him which represented the Life Force which brought him back. It was said that her hair created the warmth which started his heart again, and allowed her to conceive a child. And there we have the story of the life cycle within the Sacred Union, restoring her bounty to earth.
     Legends have it that Mary Magdalene was with child after she had played her part in enacting the ancient story of creation and re-creation. Her "Princess Sarah" of "the journey in the boat with no oars" went underground in the European tales of the fate of the feminine world soul . Mary the Magdalene also lived through the feeling and intuition and love of the artists who brought her alive, with her long flowing tresses of power and magic and beauty. Perhaps her stories of the great love between she and Jesus met up with northern European stories of glorious women diety like Rhiannon and Gwenhwyfar. Both of these goddesses were said to have long, long beautiful hair and both inspired the love of the best of the kings. We know that the fair Guinevere was known, as was Mary Magdalene, as "female wisdom"...The Woman Who Knows the All.    Rhiannon was Britain's woman diety with long and powerful hair, and she most often came riding to people on an enormous white unearthly horse. One of our Christian stories (Revelations xix 11-14) tells us that Jesus will return on an unearthly white horse.....we can only hope that it belongs to the Goddess Rhiannon.
     "Seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house, thou gavest me so water for my feet: but she hath wetted my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet." (Luke 7)
     Her love flows easily like her unbound hair, she is the love capacity of the Goddess, the wisdom of the Goddess to love the Sacred Masculine with whom she creates life.

Do you dream of the Magdalene?

Joan Norton — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:48:24 GMT

     How could snake dreams be related to our beloved Mary Magdalene? It's through one of her titles, "The Woman Who Knew the All", meaning she is earthly representative of the wisdom of life which has always been called "Goddess".   Wisdom has always been associated with our souls, in both men and women.    That said, here's the dream..."I'm somewhere else. There's a dead snake. Only its skin is left and its being used as medicine. I'm suppose to have some. I'm not thrilled but I'm not repulsed. It's dry and that helps."
     Have you had snake dreams? Lots of people do. When I was young and not-so-young I had them and the snakes were always very frightening to me, activating fear. I think I've struggled to get into a good relationship with the feminine principle, the well of wisdom which is my Beloved soul. So, I was "out of kilter" with  the masculine-feminine balance of a Pilgrim's path of self realization.
     The early Christian people we know of as the "alternative church" or the heretics, used symbolism to express their personal paths of enlightenment, their personal inner journeys to closeness with their "Beloved". We know now that the little wire squiggly shapes that individual papermakers  used to create a permanent mark in their papers were actually their "advertising"..."branding" .....of their beliefs.  Thank you Margaret Starbird for bringing these mysteries out for us in your books! Through these symbols the early Christians placed their "Pilgrims' Progress" in the context of the perennial search for the soul within, and the happiness and peace which comes with it. Imagine that these brave souls in 1282 and into the next few hundred years were exterminated for what we know as a birthright now, the right of self knowledge.
    The snake was one of the watermarks made in the papers of these early Christians and it's meaning was regeneration and salvation through renewal. To be on a pilgrim's path meant being constantly born again, to "pass by again the spots where previously she had gone astray."   That's a good description of the path our dreams put us on, continually revisiting issues in order to see them from a different angle and to continually gain wisdom about one's problems.
     One reason snakes are a symbol of regeneration and salvation is because they shed their skin periodically and grow into another "self". Another reason is that their wavy movement is like water and water is the Great Mother of All. Remember Mary's title as "the Magdalene"? that was a way of saying that she was a human woman representing the Great Mother, the Goddess and her Wisdom of the All. We even say now that the ocean is the source of all life, that life began in the ocean.  That gives the idea of why the wavy-ness of the snake symbol means wisdom of "the All" and constant renewal. If we place ourselves in receptivity to the wisdom of our soul life, we will be constantly renewed and regenerated.
     When I was young it was the startle factor of snakes that I didn't like and that's how they were in my dreams too. I've worked long and hard to develop receptivity to my inner path where Sacred Union lives, so I feel pretty good about this dream.....
     "There's a snake but I'm not afraid. She is bright turquoise with gold vesica piscis shapes along her back. I feel grateful tht she's so brightly colored that I can see her easily."
     I think it's that way for many women now about the Sacred Feminine, She is so brightly colored that we can't miss her. And for Mary the Magdalene too, she is becoming so brightly colored that we can't miss her.

     xoJoan

Mary Magdalene Meditations

Joan Norton — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:16:26 GMT

Hello friends of the Magdalene ,

Do you ever want to take a couple minutes to go within and feel the loving presence of the Magdalene energies? I've started an internet podcast page to do just that and I'll be adding meditations frequently. If you subscribe (free) we'll send notices whenever there's a new one. I call it "Lullabies from the Divine Feminine" and here's where you can find me.... http://marymagdalenewithin.podOmatic.com

Every time I'm able to breath and "Remember Myself in Her", I feel a little more harmony in my world.

In Her Name,
Joan