Feast Day for MM

(Photo from Pinterest)

Today is Mary Magdalene's Feast Day.
And within this torn world on the brink of transformation, I always try to find a way to celebrate Mary and her message especially on this day. I'll probably go back and reread some of Harvard-trained theologian Meggan Watterson's book Mary Magdalene Revealed as well as some passages from the Gospel of Mary (found at an antiquities market in Cairo in 1896 rather than Nag Hammadi where many of the other newer ones were found.)

I think some of my family and friends wonder at my fascination with Mary Magdalene, having come from almost zero religious background, not being taught the Bible, and having a lifelong resistance to any notion of organized religion.

In the last several years, Mary has had a spiritual resurgence, a renaissance. She's been given a reprieve. After centuries of being labeled a prostitute, she is now known as the Apostle to the Apostles. As I began to see her as the embodiment of the Divine Feminine and learn more about what this meant, I was guided to put her into my novel. I did meditations requesting her presence and in 2015, I physically traveled to the South of France to visit her cave near Aix-en-Provence.

In both her book and her blog post for this Feast Day, Meggan Watterson discusses the passage in the Gospel of Mary where she asks Christ, "Does a person who sees a vision see it with the soul or with the spirit?"
Christ answers, "A person does not see with the soul or with the spirit. Rather the mind, which exists between the two, sees the vision..."

Of the three copies of the 3rd century Gospels of Mary recovered, two are written in ancient Greek, one in Coptic (an ancient Egyptian). In ancient Greek, the word for mind is nous and means The Spiritual Eye of the Heart.

According to Cynthia Bourgeault in The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, as the disciples are mourning, Mary tries to console them, reminding them that Christ has "... prepared us so that we might become fully human." The modern translation of the words 'to become fully human' is Anthropos: A completed human being, or generally interpreted as the integration of the opposites of oneself, specifically integrating the male and female aspects of the human psyche.  Bourgeault believes that in both the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas, this is the heart of Christ's vision of transformation.

Several years ago, while on a writing retreat, I did a meditation requesting Mary Magdalene's presence and guidance before having read either of these books. I had sat in meditation several times over months with my request without hearing any real message. But on this day, I did a few things differently and a message came through loud and clear. It said, Look to what is in your heart. I understood that it meant that each of us need to look deeply at the motivation behind our actions and determine if they come from the ego or the heart.

It's my belief that our current political state of affairs and White House resident are symbolic of our collective energy of the ego run amok. We're seeing what happens when the masculine is given free reign without the feminine being integrated, accepted, cherished. It's the balance we're missing. So when I revere the Divine Feminine, it's not meant to cancel out the masculine but to bring more of a balance between the two.

So I will continue to try to look at my own motivations, to see things from the eye of the heart, from the eye of love, as Meggan describes it, "a love that transforms everything."

Mary Magdalene Revealed

Happy MM Feast Day! 

It's July 22nd again where priests, monks and sisters 

carry Mary Magdalene's remains throughout the streets of Provence

and elsewhere to celebrate her.

And I have been waiting for this book by Meggan Watterson! 

It's one of the few books I've ever pre-ordered

so it was even more of a gift when it showed up in the mail. 

Meggan Watterson is one of the well-educated scholars I admire

on the Divine Feminine and Mary Magdalene herself. 

If you're interested in this subject, 

and you don't already follow her on FB or IG,

do so! 

To find the book on Amazon,

click HERE. 

And discover the Christianity the world hasn't tried yet. 

(Photo copyright: Kirsten Steen)

Mary Magdalene's Feast Day and... Beauty

On this day in Provence, in the South of France,

this reliquary, said to house part of the tibia 

and a lock of hair of Mary Magdalene,

is brought out and sent through the town in procession. 

And around the world, she is honored

as representing the Divine Feminine and its resurgence.

While there are probably countless definitions of this concept,

for me it is about bringing back balance,

with both masculine and feminine energies, 

to the patriarchal world and time we find ourselves in. 

It's about living within our power,

about empathy and understanding, forgiveness of others, 

about healing and the sacred of your own feminine energy. 

It's about High Priestess energy. 

(Visitor's notes to Mary Magdalene in her cave at La Baume)

And this weekend, on the eve of the Magdalene's Feast Day,

we also celebrated and honored another red-headed Marianne.

My friend of thirty years passed last week

and many of her friends gathered in her backyard garden, 

filled with the flowers, images, fairy lights and people that she loved,

to honor her, to feel her, speak of her,

to hold on and to let her go with love. 

She was/is a High Priestess of Beauty, 

creating it everywhere she turned,

from morning to night. 

And many of the things I mentioned about the Divine Feminine

are the things people spoke about my friend and honored her for. 

In one area of her decorated yard sat a table 

with a bouquet of beautiful pieces of paper 

and a canister of colored pencils. 

And from her pear tree, budding with fruit, hung colored ribbons. 

The tree, surrounded with bouquets of flowers, 

 became a Blessing Tree where many of us wrote wishes or blessings to her

and hung it from the tree's ribbons. 

Go in peace, Beauty! 

Your heart has filled us with such richness.

May you soar high and free

and tease us often with glimpses. 

I will miss you forever!  

Marianne 'Octavia Hunter' Galloway 

* 1/7/67- 7/15/18 *

(Photos copyright: Kirsten Steen)

Happy Magdalene Feast Day~ July 22nd

Two years ago in June, I made the journey to La Baume, 

Mary Magdalene's cave in the South of France. I started out nervous though excited to make the trip to the cave in Provence alone but in the end, I was determined to protect that sacred space of my own pilgrimage. And I've struggled to process what the journey meant for me. 

It was a breaking out... of my perpetual fear, out of my comfort zone and my reluctance and avoidance of "religion." It was a diving in... to Gratitude, into the Sacred, into myself. It was a partial melding of my own spirituality, which I've been cultivating since I was 19, with the powerful spirituality of the ages. 

Everything I needed while there opened itself up to me literally within seconds, as if there were absolutely no lag time between the thought of what one wants or needs and the universe providing it. It was twenty four hours of pure awe and full on Power. In fact, everything I needed to get myself there to make the journey opened itself up to me easily as well. And I've been there in my mind nearly every day since. And been changed by it. I have felt called, as one of the many voices, to help bring forth her message which is why she became part of my novel. And I'm excited to have made the commitment to make the journey again with someone who has wanted to go and with my partner who had to miss the trip last time. 

You can read about my journey and see photos of the cave and surrounds here in 

Part 1 and Part 2.

(Photo copyright: Kirsten Steen) 

St. Mary Magdalene Feast Day~ July 22nd

One month ago, I made my first pilgrimage.

I traveled to the South of France and while there,

 made the trek to La Sainte Baume,

the cave about 40 kilometers from Aix-en-Provence

where Mary Magdalene is said to have lived the remaining 30 years of her life.

And while there will be a more in-depth post with photos about the cave

and how she arrived there,

I thought it appropriate to at least post one photo on this day,

Mary Magdalene's Feast Day. 

We had hoped to do the Camino to 

Santiago de Compostela in Spain this spring/summer

which takes about 45 days.

Instead, being unable to make the trip this year,

 I was thrilled to make the 45 minute walk up the mountain to MM's cave, alone. 

The cave is also said to hold the relics of Mary Magdalene,

a piece of the tibia and a lock of hair

and on this day, the relics are carried through the town. 

And while these relics have made their own pilgrimages
to be greeted by thousands of followers,
they are mostly kept inside the cave
in this gorgeous reliquary
adorned with angels.

My own trek to this amazing place
has been not only about research for the novel
but my own spiritual journey,
bringing light and awareness,
honoring the sacred value of the feminine within ourselves,
our culture, our spirits, our psyches.
It is about the Divine Feminine,
about balance and wholeness,
about recognizing and acknowledging the power,
the sacredness and the necessity of the feminine as equal
and in balance with masculine energy in the world.

So in honor of Feast Day,
go out this week and do something,
create a ceremony of any kind
that symbolizes the return of feminine energy
and its balance with the masculine.

If nothing else,
go to that healing place within,
that place you know you have but have barely begun to explore,
and nurture it
in yourself...
or someone else.

(Photos copyright: Kirsten Steen)