All posts by amclaughlin2014

Member of Community of Grey Sisters of Pembroke; Masters Degree in Religious Communication, Loyola University, Chicago; Author: Called to Egypt on the Back of the Wind (2013) Planted in the Sky (2006) both published by Borealis Press, Ottawa Canada www.borealispress.com Retreat facilitator: The Wooing of the Soul (2013) The Sophia Salons, beginning in February 2016, offer journeys to one's own inner wisdom for small groups of women. For information: amclaughlin@sympatico.ca
Baba Yaga Crone Threefold aspect of the, Brigid as Face of Sacred feminine, Dolores Whelan, Sacred Feminine

Brigid: Cailleach and Midwife for a New World: Part Two

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Dolores Whelan continues:

A story from the Celtic tradition that illustrates the importance of the cailleach and her energy is the story of “Niall of the Nine Hostages”. Niall and his four brothers come to a well to get a drink of water. The well is being guarded by an old woman who represents the cailleach or hag. When the first brother goes to the well, she tells him that if he wants to drink the water, he must give her a kiss. He is horrified and refuses; she sends him away. The other three brothers go in turn on the same errand, and each refuses to kiss the hag.

crone

As the story goes:

Then it was Niall’s turn. Faced with the same challenge, he kissed the old hag and embraced her. When he looked again, she had changed into the most beautiful woman in the world.

“What art thou?” said the boy.

“King of Tara, I am Sovereignty . . . your seed shall be over every clan.”(1)

This story suggests that in order to have access to the life-enhancing energy represented by the water in the well, it is necessary for the young masculine to embrace this particular and perhaps unattractive aspect of the feminine energy.

Why is this so? The cailleach represents the wisdom gathered by living in right relationship with the earth, something that requires reflection, stillness, and attentiveness. It knows more clearly what is needed and what is possible in each situation, and it is aware of the consequences of particular actions. It knows how to proceed slowly; it understands the value of times of waiting and times of allowing. It knows how to be and how to act.

So how can we, you and I, begin the journey back towards wholeness and balance?
Brigid in her cailleach form can help us to embrace these difficult and fearful aspects of our lives. The cauldron, a central image in both the Celtic and other traditions, is a vessel for transformation and transmutation. In many stories, the cauldron is first filled with unpalatable raw things, which then are used to create a nourishing soup using the transforming energy of the universe through the action of fire and water.

The transformation of the contents of the cauldron is supervised by the cailleach energy, which works inwardly, quietly, and slowly to bring about an unforced and timely rebirth. The transformation of the cauldron’s contents concentrates their essence and offers them back in a new and more suitable form.

From this process, we learn that the possibility of transformation and re-birth always exists, no matter how devitalised something appears to be. A new rebirth can be achieved when we submit ourselves and our concerns to the inward and slow transformational energy of the cauldron and the cailleach.

Philosopher Richard Kearney in his poem “Bridget’s Well” speaks of the importance of this inward and downward journey and suggests that it is the only way to access the life-giving and inspiring fire of Brigid that lies underneath the water.

I will rest now at the bottom of Bridget’s well
I will follow the crow’s way
Footprint by footprint
In the mud down here
I won’t come up
Until I am calmed down
And the earth dries beneath me
And I have paced the caked ground
Until smooth all over
It can echo a deeper voice
Mirror a longer shadow (2)

This poem suggests the importance of that deep journey to the well where the source of new life and the fire of passion is found. At Imbolc (Feb 1st) the tiny spark of new light discovered in the deep womb darkness of the winter solstice has grown sufficiently to safely emerge from that inner world and begin to transform winter into spring ! At this time Brigid appears as the fresh maiden of springtime emerging from the womb of the cailleach, queen of winter. Here Brigid embodies the energy that breathes life into the mouth of dead winter. The energy of Brigid at Imbolc is the energy of Yes, and it can only emerge from the place of stillness!

Brigid is also closely associated with the life- giving aspect of fire, a fire that doesn’t burn but which can never be fully quenched. When this fire comes from a clear and deep space, as happens following the inward journey, it will be significant and filled with truth and potency.

 

This life-giving fire will act within individuals, within the land, in the relationships between the people and their land, fanning the fires of creative endeavour so that all life forms can partake in the symphony of new life emerging each springtime! The fire discovered through this deep journey is an inner light which guides each of us to find our next step!

Richard Kearney in his poem “Brigit’s Well” also speaks of the re-emergence of a new fire born of a deeper place within:

Then the fire may come again
Beneath me, this time
Rising beyond me
No narcissus- flinted spark
Behind closed eyes
But a burning bush
A fire that always burns away
But never is burnt out (3)

I believe that the archetypal energy of Brigid, the embodiment of the divine feminine, present within the essence of the Celtic tradition, has the capacity to lead and support us in transforming the present wasteland into a new life- sustaining society. For this to happen, it is necessary for us to understand that the archetypal energy that Brigid represents is a real aspect of the human psyche, one that has been largely dormant over the past few hundred years, but is now re-emerging.

Each of us can become keeper of the Brigid flame by developing and living those qualities and values that distinguished her. As we align ourselves with her archetypal energies, she supports us to courageously and safely face the demons of this time. She teaches us how to stand still in a wobbling world, to act as a unifying force, to hold the space of possibility and so become agents of transformation.

Dolores Whelan  (doloreswhelan.ie)  reprinted with permission

Notes/references:
1 Amergin Jan de Fouw Amergin Wolfhound Press Dublin 2000 ( afterword )
2, 3 Richard Kearney quoted in Stephen J. Collins The Irish Soul in Dialogue the Liffey Press Dublin 2001 p 147

Brigid as Face of Sacred feminine, Dolores Whelan, Sacred Feminine

Brigid as midwife of a new world

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During her workshop at Galilee in February 2014, Dolores Whelan taught that it is no small task to integrate the divine energy of the sacred feminine within oneself. We only do one piece of the work but each piece joined together with the others creates a quantum shift. Dolores said that the crime is to believe that we have no power. We need to ask, “What choices do I have here?” If we say, “there’s nothing I can do,” Dolores responds, “OH YES THERE IS!”

dolores-img

Dolores Whelan doloreswhelan.ie

In her article, “Brigid: Cailleach and Midwife to a New World”, Dolores Whelan shows how Brigid assists us in this great work which is our great work. Because of the richness, the timeliness, the importance of this refection, I am dividing it into two parts, with the second to follow next week.

Reflecting on the turmoil present in the world today it is clear to all but those steeped in denial, that all is not well. It seems that something ails us humans; something that causes us to live in ways that disrespect our mother, the living earth, and all our relatives. We ask what is it in us humans that create such a restless world where there is little sense of belonging, nurture or home and which causes so many of the species with which we share this planet to suffer?

The exclusion of the Feminine energy in our naming and understanding of the Divine is reflected in a corresponding absence and valuing of feminine energy in all aspects of life in western society. The devaluing and exclusion of the feminine energy over the past centuries has created a distorted story about life which has resulted in a world whose shape and vibration creates disharmony.

So how do we find our way back to a more harmonious way of life? If we know what is missing and what ails us, it may be possible for us to make the journey back towards wholeness and health.

At this time many people are becoming aware of the wisdom of the feminine. As this happens, the absence of genuine feminine energy present in most institutions, both religious and secular, throughout western culture, becomes obvious. To include the presence of the divine feminine energy in creating a world whose shape is more wholesome requires a fundamental reclaiming of the essential role of the feminine in all aspects of life. In order to create change within the physical world and in our society it is necessary to change the dreams and stories held within the imagination of a society.

Reconnecting with and re-membering the spirit and archetypal energy of Brigid, in both her Goddess and saint manifestations, is an essential task of this renaissance. Brigid, although normally associated with the maiden and mother aspects of feminine energy, is also expressed in the cailleach form, as indicated in the prayer “Molamid Brid an mhaighean; Molamid Brid an mhathair; Molamid Brid an cailleach” (Praise to Brigid, the maiden, the mother, and the crone).

maiden_mother_crone_jpg_320_320_0_9223372036854775000_0_1_0

 

What then is the energy associated with the hag, crone, or cailleach aspect of the divine feminine? The cailleach is the embodiment of the tough mother-love that challenges its children to stop acting in destructive ways. It is the energy that refuses to indulge in inappropriate personal or societal dreams. It is the energy that will bring death to those dreams and fantasies that are not aligned with our highest good. Yet, this cailleach energy also will support the emergence and manifestation in the world of the highest and deepest within us. It will hold us safely as we embrace the darkness within ourselves and our society. It is an energy that insists that we stand still, open our hearts, and feel our own pain and the pain of the earth. This is the energy that teaches us how to stay with the process when things are difficult. This energy will not allow us to run away! 

Her way of being is a slow, inwardly focused way, with minimum outward activity: a way that values times of active waiting that pays attention and allows life to unfold.

An essential part of the journey that all the great heroes and heroines in world mythologies undertake includes facing and embracing the energy of surrender, darkness, and death. The hero or heroine learns the next step required in their outer world journey only by submitting to and being initiated into the dark world of the cailleach.

Through this initiation the mature masculine power can emerge and lead each one to find their true path. When this happens the action that follows will be in the service of the true feminine and bring forth wisdom and compassion creating new life, vitality, and sustainability.

Because western society is currently dominated by the young masculine energy, present in both men and women, characterised by its “can do” attitude, there is an urgent need for each of us to make this heroic journey with the cailleach, so that we will become agents for the transformation of our society.

Brigid as Face of Sacred feminine

Brigid as Archetype

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Above us, the young moon glowed, a silver white earring in the early evening sky. More than a hundred women entered the labyrinth, moving quickly, purposefully, along its pathways towards the centre. There, a smooth-barked tree lifted her leafy arms. There, each woman paused, removed a shawl or a scarf to fling over the branches where it would receive the dew of Brigid’s blessing at dawn.

This ritual, usually celebrated on the eve of February 1st, was part of a weekend Brigid Festival which I attended at Brescia College in London, Ontario in May of 2015.

As Sophia may serve an archetype for our lives, so may Brigid. As archetype of the Sacred Feminine, Brigid differs from Sophia in that she was honoured as goddess both among the ancient Irish peoples, and later by the Celts. Christianity honours a real historical woman named Brigid who was born in 5th Century CE Ireland. Though she left us no written records, this Brigid was founder and Abbess of a Community in Kildare which, in the tradition of early Celtic Christianity, welcomed both men and women into its monastic life. Brigid’s role was akin to that of Bishop. By the time the first biography of Brigid appeared in the sixth century, some one hundred years after her death, the stories, legends and facts were woven together into a vibrant whole where Brigid as goddess and Brigid as saint intermingle.

Brighid by Jo Jayson

Brigid Painting by Jo Jayson

At the Brigid Festival, I met many women seekers, hungry for a spirituality that would honour them as women, welcome them as they are, and offer guidance for living in these new, pathless times. Through the days of ritual, of listening and sharing with my companions, I discovered that for many contemporary women Brigid is an archetype, drawing them, bringing them home.

“Brigid is the acceptable face of women’s divinity”, Mary Condren told us. National Director of Woman Spirit Ireland, and Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Mary was the keynote speaker and guide for the festival. Her research for a long-awaited book on Brigid is a seemingly endless process of pulling up a thread only to find a cluster of many more threads underneath, Mary said. Now exploring the Cailleach (Crone) aspect of the threefold presence of the sacred feminine, Mary is discovering how central the Cailleach tradition was in ancient times.

By uncovering old pilgrimage paths and excavating ancient ritual sites in Ireland, researchers are finding many earlier aspects of the sacred feminine that were then “folded into” the Brigid tradition which in turn was interwoven with the 5th century abbess, Saint Brigid. Mary Condren longs for Adrienne Rich’s “dream of a common language” that would bring the Cailleach/Brigid tradition into harmony with the Christian tradition.

The language of sacrifice that once meant an offering is used today as a weapon in the hands of patriarchy, celebrating the deaths in twentieth century wars, then engaging in a lucrative arms trade in the many wars across the planet: legitimizing weapons through honouring the war-dead. Yet mercy was the beatitude Brigid chose when she took her veil. Mary Condren believes that the difference between mercy and sacrifice encapsulates the difference between a thealogy (based on feminine values) and patriarchal traditions.

Brigid’s cloak is a symbol of protection and of the creative womb of the earth. Collecting dew on the Festival of Imbolc (as we did by leaving our shawls and scarves on the labyrinth tree overnight) is an ancient feminine ritual. Mary’s research into dew in the sacred writings of many religions (including Kwan Yin where the dew symbolizes compassion and in the Hebrew Bible) shows the longevity of this tradition.

The dew of mercy becomes in Christianity the blood of sacrifice, the redemptive liquid of patriarchy. Yet Brigid’s life and tradition offers an alternative to sacrifice in the practice of self-fragilization, a willingness to allow oneself to be vulnerable, to enter the darkness, to enter the well, and still to remain whole.

Brigid is honoured as a poet because the task of the poet in ancient Ireland is to call the king to act justly. Mary Condren asks, “Who calls our leaders to justice? to integrity? to compassion?”

At the sacred well, we align ourselves with the call to speak truth to power; we align ourselves with what we are called to do with our lives. Brigid’s fire is an inner flame that does not burn out. Mary Condren suggests that we cultivate that inner fire of purification and protection rather than the spectacular destructive fire of sacrifice.

Power rose within and among us over that May weekend as we danced, sang, performed sacred ritual, listened to the teachings of Mary Condren and Starhawk and learned from the women gathered together whose lives are inspired by the Fire of Activism and nourished by the Waters of Compassion.

On the evening before the Festival, Starhawk spoke to some five hundred people about the crisis facing our earth. For her sacred text, she chose Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything. For hope, inspiration and direction, Starhawk, whose faith roots are Jewish, called upon Brigid, pausing in the midst of mind-numbing facts and photos of burning oil wells, flooding seas, nuclear disasters, polluted waters, land ravaged by drought to sing the chant: “Holy Well and Sacred Flame” then to ask, “What Would Brigid Do?”

Starhawk suggested Brigid’s responses: honour water so that to defile it would be morally unacceptable; transform polluted waters (there are ways to do this!), rehydrate the earth; promote an alternate world-view based on interdependence where good food and fresh water are available to everyone; leave the oil and gas in the ground; work towards a low carbon future, finding ways to sequester carbon in the soil; engage in activism that will create enough power to bring the powerful corporate polluters to our table; stand up to say NO to oil pipelines; organize locally using whatever gifts and skills we have: educating/ researching/ negotiating/ mobilizing/acting. Find our power, find our gift. Stand with the indigenous people and with them take our responsibility as guardians of the earth. Community is an antidote to Climate Change.

Starhawk called “austerity” programs a form of theft: a neo-feudalism. Brigid’s life teaches that generosity creates abundance. We need a new imagination to face down the fear that arises from “scarcity thinking”. Blessed and accompanied by Brigid, how might we drink more deeply of her Holy Well, how might we make a larger space in our lives for her Sacred Flame to burn brightly?

Sophia as Archetype of Spiritual Wisdom, Sophia as Mystic

Sophia as Mystic

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In Goddesses in Older Women (2001), Jean Shinoda Bolen speaks of Sophia as an Archetype, Friend, Inner Guide that women may feel drawn to in their wisdom years.

“The mystic is an aspect of the Sophia archetype that is evoked by numinous experiences.” Words used in an attempt to describe numinosity are “awe, beauty, grace, divinity, ineffability”. Bolen writes that “a numinous experience is the defining moment for the woman who becomes a mystic.” After this, knowing God in this way “becomes the central focus of her spiritual life and her spiritual life becomes her life…  she seeks to enter and stay in a mystical union with divinity.” (pp. 27-8)

 

Bolen notes that a woman with the Sophia archetype may be drawn to a Contemplative Community, either an Eastern Ashram or a Western Cloister such as many of the Medieval Women Mystics joined. However, she adds, “since mystics directly experience divinity and women (especially older ones) no longer automatically defer to hierarchy, question dogma and are aware of sexism”, they also leave these communities if they find the beliefs of a religion “constricting and in conflict with what they deeply trust is true for them”. (p.28)

With the greater freedom that women enjoy today, many “are inspired by their mystical insights” to seek a more “personally meaningful life”. Bolen notes that though most would not define themselves as mystics, “their mystical experiences are at the core of what they are doing with their lives”. Freed from the need to conform to what an institutional religion may define as mysticism, “women are redefining spirituality” writes Bolen. (p. 28)

Bolen tells of the writer Anne Bancroft who set out to find “authentically feminine insights and ways of being that differed from male thoughts about spirituality”. Bancroft found that “women tend to see all things around them as revelatory, revealing totality and completeness and a numinous quality. To see things in this way a certain attention has to be given, which women are good at. It is not the kind of attention with which one acquires knowledge, but rather that which happens when one lets go of all concepts and becomes open to what is there.”( Bancroft in Weavers of Wisdom 1989, cited on p. 29)

Bolen writes that Bancroft found in her study that women mystics “renewed and cultivated their mystical relationship with the sacred in their own way; in nature, in creativity, in contemplation, in a deep connection with another person, and had a life other than being a mystic… ” Their mysticism provided light for their particular path, as for Joanna Macy, whose “mysticism matured through Buddhist meditation and deepened her already-formed concern for social justice; this led her to become an anti-nuclear and ecological activist.” As a practitioner and teacher of “deep ecology”, Joanna uses a “meditative and active imaginative way of listening to plants and animals and even stones, to reach a deeply-felt mystical sense of a web of life.” (p. 29)

Bolen adds that mystical experiences may also inspire writers, poets, artists. She cites Meinrad Craighead as “an artist whose mysticism and paintings have become inseparable.” (p. 29)

Yet the difficulties encountered in describing one’s mystical experiences and in having them understood lead many “contemporary Sophias” to become “closet mystics”, writes Bolen. “Many women who have attempted to describe their mystical insights and found themselves having to defend or justify them arrive at the conclusion that it is enough to live with this connection…” (p. 30)

On this aspect of the Sophia, Bolen concludes: “When Sophia is not only a source of mystical insight but is also the archetype that fully engages the attention of a woman, then it is accurate to say that she is a mystic and her Self-directed task is to find a means of expression and a way to convey the insight she has acquired.” (p. 30)

Greece 2015 138

And what of you, who are now reading these words? How does the Sophia archetype show up in your life? When have you experienced the numinous? Have you felt drawn to pursue that “knowing of God”as a life path? Do your mystical experiences shed light on your calling in social justice or poetry or art or service?

Please email me your thoughts: amclaughlin@sympatico.ca

If you would like to know about the monthly “Sophia Salons” offered here from February to May 2016 in the Ottawa Valley of Central Canada, send me a note asking for the information using the email address above.

Sacred Feminine, Sophia as Archetype of Spiritual Wisdom

Sophia as Archetype of Spiritual Wisdom

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Sophia: Who or What is She? Where may we find Her? How might we come to know Her?

These questions draw me here to my computer each week. For the past fifteen months, I have been offering you what can only be a whiff of Her presence, a hint at Her activity in our lives, a suggestion of how She longs to befriend and guide us, how She seeks us as co-creative partners in Her work.

I have offered you a few of my own experiences, but mostly I have shared with you the discoveries of other seekers. Through their luminous writings on Sophia as She emerges in the Hebrew Scriptures, in ancient stories and mythology, in poetry and mystical experience, they continue to open new portals, new ways of knowing and experiencing Sophia in our own lives.

Today I share with you insights from Jean Shinoda Bolen’s 2001 book, Goddesses in Older Women. As I read it last evening by the fire, I found my awareness of Sophia expanding through seeing her as an archetype. It was Carl Jung who taught us that we hold within us ancient knowings/images inherited from our earliest ancestors: archetypes of mother /lover /friend/warrior/father/son/wise one/ teacher/daughter… and so on. In The Search for the Beloved (1987-1997) Jean Houston writes of a realm where these archetypal guides dwell, a place of myth and symbols, of sacred time and sacred space, a “container of that which never was and is always happening.” (p. 24)

(I)t is the place where the self joins its polyphrenic possibilities, including the gods and goddesses and their courts. In Sanskrit these celestial beings are referred to as yidams, the personified “rivers to the Ocean of Being.” The gods — Athena, Asclepios, Sophia, Shiva, Quetzalcoatl, and thousands of others — are those forces that have been crystallized in human cultures and worshipped as personalized emanations of a greater unknowable and unnameable power. Sometimes they assume a humanized form, as did Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and Zoroaster. We may feel a particularly loving resonance with such beings who have been elevated to godhood. By virtue of this identification, we are evoked to become much more fully what we can be in the depth and breadth of our existence. (pp.24-5)

Jean Houston’s description is helpful as it places Sophia in a sacred realm, beyond the human/historical and yet accessible to us, “as the contact point for sacred time and sacred space”. (p. 24)

Now when I turn to Jean Shinoda Bolen’s writings, I have a clearer sense of how Sophia appears in our lives as Archetype of Wisdom. And I recall the frisson I experienced when I read in She Who Is (Elizabeth Johnson, 1992) the suggestion that Jesus was himself the embodiment of the Sophia archetype! Johnson writes that Jesus lived the qualities of Sophia as described in the Hebrew Scriptures, but his historical entry into time was during a period when a woman would not be accepted as a spiritual teacher.

In Goddesses in Older Women Bolen speaks of Sophia as “a forgotten goddess figure within a monotheistic, patriarchal religious tradition that denies feminine divinity” (p.25) Describing Sophia as “the archetype of spiritual wisdom or soul knowledge,” Bolen writes:

Sophia’s wisdom is insightful, it is what we know through gnosis….Gnostic or noetic…knowledge is what is revealed to us or intuitively perceived as spiritually true. I think of gnosis as what we “gknow” at a soul level, it’s what we know “in our bones”…. At a soul level, we can know that we are spiritual beings on a human path, or know that life has a purpose, or know that we are loved, or know God, or know that we are part of an interconnected universe. (p. 26)

For Bolen, “gnosis” is “an intuitive process of knowing oneself at the deepest level” akin to the Jungian concept of connecting to the Self where with soul knowledge we sense our life as meaningful. “What we know through a connection with the Self is divine wisdom,” Bolen writes. “This is a wisdom that isn’t the exclusive possession of authority above us; it is the wisdom that dwells in us and is everywhere.” (p.27)

What we call “women’s intuition” is also an aspect of gnosis. Bolen writes:

Far from mysterious, it’s a combination of noticing what is going on and processing what we are noticing in an intuitive way. It has to do with knowing people, of assessing character, of seeing through the façade – it’s insight into the presence or absence of soul. The click! insight that sees the underlying sexism or power politics in a situation is gnosis. The Aha! that happens when something important to you suddenly makes sense is gnosis. The moment when you know that your spouse is unfaithful, is gnosis. That inner twinge of a guilty conscience is gnosis. (p. 27)

Bolen concludes her reflection on Sophia as Archetype of Spiritual Wisdom or Gnosis with these words:
Growing older and wiser is a lifelong process that accelerates in the third phase, especially if you heed gnosis in yourself. This is how the archetype of Sophia becomes known to you. She is a way of knowing, a source of inner wisdom as well as an archetypal wisewoman. When Sophia dwells in you, you perceive the soul of the matter or soul qualities in others. (p.27)

Next week: “Sophia the Mystic”

Jean Houston, Journey to Greece, Meeting Mary on Paros Island, Sacred Feminine

Travelling with Sophia

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Even to think about (Wisdom) is understanding fully grown;
be on the alert for her and anxiety will quickly leave you.

She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of her
and graciously shows herself to them as they go,
in every thought of theirs coming to meet them.

(Wisdom 6: 15-16 Jerusalem Bible)

Poring over notes from the Greece Journey, I seek a place of re-entry, so that I might invite you back inside the deep teachings, the healing processes, the beautiful sights, sounds, stories of our travels in that blessed land. Once again my memories turn to Sophia, the Greek name for Wisdom. Icons of Mary, such as the ones I showed you from the Church of the Hundred Doors on Paros Island, abound in Greece.

For the Greeks, Sophia is a loving presence, close, active, supportive, loving, healing, often seemingly conflated with Mary. I turn again to last week’s posting for Epiphany, find the quote from Chapter 6 of the Book of Wisdom (see above). And then I decide to share a deeply personal experience.

In Holy Week of 2015, I was taking some retreat days here in my riverside home in the woods. As happens when the mind is quiet, dreams came. In one, I found myself in a darkened room, where my teacher Jean Houston was showing me framed depictions of the work I have begun in recent years: a promo for my Irish play, “The Wooing of the Soul”, my book Called to Egypt on the Back of the Wind, the retreats I facilitate…

Further into the room, the darkness was deeper. I understood I must go there alone in order to encounter the Sacred Feminine, the Presence of Sophia. The dream ended there, but stayed inside my heart like an unfinished story. A few weeks afterwards, as I was wondering whether I should consider the Greece Journey, I remembered that dream. Would I find there the presence that awaited me?

On our last morning on Paros Island, before departure time for our ferry, I was walking through the streets of the town, hoping to find the shops open. They were shut tight, but on a narrow side street, I chanced upon a tiny white building whose door stood invitingly open. Inside, I found a small darkened chapel. On two walls were Icons, glowing in the fiery red light of lamps.

The Icon on the wall to my right was of Mary/Sophia. I gazed at her calm lovely face. It seemed that she gazed back. I stood there, unable to move, drawn to rededicate my life to her. Still I could not go. Then I noticed the child she held. At once I recalled the Inuit tale of the Sealwoman who set her son (her spirit) on the shore in the moonlight for his task was to become a drummer, a singer, a storyteller. She promises him, ” I will breathe into your lungs a wind for the singing of your songs.”

I understood that I must do the same: send my recovered spirit out to tell the stories, trusting that she, Wisdom-Sophia, would “breathe into (my) lungs a wind for the singing of (my) songs”… I was filled with joy and gratitude. I took this photo before I left the small chapel.

Greece Paro dark chapel t2015 174

It was only later, on the ferry back to mainland Greece, that I remembered my dream of the darkened room and the Sacred Feminine Presence who awaited me there.

Truly Wisdom-Sophia  herself walks about looking for (us) and graciously shows herself to (us) as (we) go, in every thought of (ours) coming to meet (us).

Here is a poem by Jan Richardson to give heart to us in all our journeys:

For Those Who Have Far to Travel

A Blessing for Epiphany

If you could see
the journey whole,
you might never
undertake it,
might never dare
the first step
that propels you
from the place
you have known
toward the place
you know not.

Call it
one of the mercies
of the road:
that we see it
only by stages
as it opens
before us,
as it comes into
our keeping,
step by
single step.

There is nothing
for it
but to go,
and by our going
take the vows
the pilgrim takes:
to be faithful to
the next step;
to rely on more
than the map;
to heed the signposts
of intuition and dream;
to follow the star
that only you
will recognize;
to keep an open eye
for the wonders that
attend the path;
to press on
beyond distractions,
beyond fatigue,
beyond what would
tempt you
from the way.

There are vows
that only you
will know:
the secret promises
for your particular path
and the new ones
you will need to make
when the road
is revealed
by turns
you could not
have foreseen.

Keep them, break them,
make them again;
each promise becomes
part of the path,
each choice creates
the road
that will take you
to the place
where at last
you will kneel
to offer the gift
most needed—
the gift that only you
can give—
before turning to go
home by
another way.
—

Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace
– See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2016/01/02/epiphany-for-those-who-have-far-to-travel/#sthash.jTkLHSWC.dpuf

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Epiphany: A Celebration of Wisdom

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Wisdom is bright, and does not grow dim.
By those who love her she is readily seen, and found by those who look for her.
Quick to anticipate those who desire her, she makes herself known to them.
Watch for her early and you will have no trouble;
you will find her sitting at your gates.
Even to think about her is understanding fully grown;
be on the alert for her and anxiety will quickly leave you.
She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of her
and graciously shows herself to them as they go,
in every thought of theirs coming to meet them.

Wisdom 6: 12-16 ( Jerusalem Bible)

The Twelfth Night of Christmas invites a celebration of Wisdom. In her book In Wisdom’s Path  Jan L. Richardson writes: The Feast of Epiphany began as a festival of the Eastern Church which celebrated the appearing of Jesus, focusing on the events of his birth and baptism. In the Western Christian tradition, Epiphany has … focused on the coming of the wise men to welcome Jesus. At its core this holy day offers an invitation to wrestle with the mystery of the incarnation, to recognize the multitude of ways that the sacred takes flesh and to welcome the divine into our midst.

Elsewhere Jan has written of the women who must also have come to welcome the radiant new life:

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Wise women also came.
The fire burned
in their wombs
long before they saw
the flaming star
in the sky.
They walked in shadows,
trusting the path
would open
under the light of the moon.

Wise women also came,
seeking no directions,
no permission
from any king.
They came
by their own authority,
their own desire,
their own longing.
They came in quiet,
spreading no rumors,
sparking no fears
to lead

to innocents’ slaughter,
to their sister Rachel’s
inconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came,
and they brought
useful gifts:
water for labor’s washing,
¬fire for warm illumination,
a blanket for swaddling.
Wise women also came,
at least three of them,
holding Mary in the labor,
crying out with her
in the birth pangs,
breathing ancient blessings
into her ear.

Wise women also came,
and they went,
as wise women always do,
home a different way.

Jan L. Richardson
(www.janrichardson.com)

As we enter a new year, we welcome Wisdom into our lives, knowing that “for those who love her, she is readily seen, and found by those who look for her”. Companioned each day by Wisdom, we shall, like the wise women in Jan’s poem, experience a fire burning in our wombs. Like them we will not seek permission of any king or ruler to do what Wisdom requires of us. We will set out on our own authority, our own desire, our own longing, trusting that for us,, as for them, the path will open under the light of the moon.

Mary Mother of Jesus

Living With Mary After Christmas

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Slowly, slowly, the magic of Christmas fades, but our task of nurturing new life has only begun. We move into the heart of Mary, learning with her to ponder in our hearts all that has been brought to birth within us, to cherish the memory of the wonder we have experienced.

In this poem, Jan L. Richardson reminds us of the radiant darkness, still pulsating with remembered joy:

Departure

Night has fallen again:
the star
gone,
the shepherds
departed,
the angelic voices
stilled,
the wise men
going home
some other way.
The birthing stains on the ground
will soon be covered over by the traffic of other travelers.
But on the wall of the cave
a bloodied print
the size of the hand of a man
who listened to dreams
and would not leave her,
and the animals
quiet again
but with a knowing look
in their eyes
and all around
all around
a radiant darkness.
Jan L. Richardson

This is profound mystery. For Mary. For each one of us who carries the Holy within us, seeking a place of birth. We walk the dark road, with Mary, in hope.

We walk companioned by one who knows our struggles to maintain our trust in the face of inner doubts and outer calamity. We walk with one who loves us and encourages us until we are ready to give birth to the Sacred within us.

And we seek, we require, the blessing of others as we nurture the new life being birthed within us. Here is the blessing that poet Jan L. Richardson imagines Elizabeth speaking to Mary. May we receive this blessing for the birthing of new life promised in and through us this Christmas:

In blood
be thou blessed.
In flesh
be thou blessed.
In all you choose
in all you hold
in all you gather to you
be thou blessed.
In all you release
in all you return
in all you cast from you
be thou blessed.
In all that takes form in you
be blessed
in all that comes forth from you
be blessed;
in all thy paths
be thou forever blessed.

Jan L. Richardson

Greece Paro dark chapel t2015 174

Jean Houston, Meeting Mary on Paros Island, Sacred Feminine

The Greek Holon Journey: Meeting Mary

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On the Greek Island of Paros, we come upon a magnificent Church, built by the Roman Emperor Constantine to fufill a promise made by his mother Helena.

In 326, St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, sailed for the Holy Land to find the True Cross. Stopping on Paros, she had a vision of success and vowed to build a church there. She founded it but died before it was built. Her son built the church in 328 as a wooden-roof basilica. Two centuries later, Justinian the Great, who ruled the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565, had the church splendidly rebuilt with a dome. The emperor appointed Isidorus, one of the two architects of Constantinople’s famed Hagia Sophia, to design it.

 

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Calliope (Kapi) our guide tells us of the history of the Church of Panagia Ekatontapyliani (Our Lady of a Hundred Doors), the oldest remaining Byzantine church in Greece.

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Inside we come upon two large, luminous icons of Mary. Affixed to the lower frame of the icons we see images made of gold and silver in shapes depicting eyes, legs, arms….. Our guide, Calliope, tells us that these are offerings given in thanksgiving for a healing. Kapi reminds us that we saw something similar in the Museum: plaster representations of an arm or a leg that was healed, offered in thanksgiving to the healer god Asclepius.

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Greece silver eye in thanks to Mary 2015 139

The dogmas change; the traditions go on, Kapi comments, revealing yet another way in which Greek spirituality is part of a continuum from ancient days. Where once the Greeks sought healing from Asclepius, they now turn to Mary in their need.

On this beautiful island in the Aegean, the mystery of Mary of Nazareth confronts us. A woman wrapped in silence, the one who waits in the shadow for the great birthing, who “ponders in her heart” the wonders that follow upon the coming of her child.
As we prepare to celebrate the Birth of Jesus, the One whose coming brings Light at the darkest time of the year, Mary is a companion, a guide, a friend who walks with us in the darkness.

Mary has left us no written word. The little we know of her from the Gospels is sketchy at best, her appearances brief, her words cryptic. Yet her influence on Christian spirituality is staggering in its power.
Who is this woman, and how has she risen from a quiet life in the outposts of the Roman Empire to become, as the Church proclaims her, “Queen of Heaven and Earth”?
When we first meet Mary in the Gospels, she is being offered an invitation.Here is how the Irish poet John O’Donohue imagines the scene:

Cast from afar before the stones were born
And rain had rinsed the darkness for colour,
The words have waited for the hunger in her
To become the silence where they could form.

The day’s last light frames her by the window,
A young woman with distance in her gaze,
She could never imagine the surprise
That is hovering over her life now.

The sentence awakens like a raven,
Fluttering and dark, opening her heart
To nest the voice that first whispered the earth
From dream into wind, stone, sky and ocean.

She offers to mother the shadow’s child;
Her untouched life becoming wild inside.

Where does our story touch Mary’s? Where are the meeting points? What are the words waiting for the hunger in us “to become the silence where they could form”? This might be a question to ask in our daily contemplative time… when our hearts open, will they also become a nest for a new birthing of the Holy?

From Jean Houston, we have learned that now there is no time for us to modestly refuse any call that smacks of greatness. The urgent needs of our time require a “yes” to the conception, followed by the birthing, of newness.

Here are Jean’s words, reflecting upon the call of Mary, the call of each of us:
Just think of the promise, the potential, the divinity in you, which you have probably disowned over and over again because it wasn’t logical, because it didn’t jibe, because it was terribly inconvenient (it always is), because it didn’t fit conventional reality, because… because… because….What could be more embarrassing than finding yourself pregnant with the Holy Spirit? It’s a very eccentric, inconvenient thing to have happen.
(Jean Houston in Godseed p. 38)

Eccentric. Inconvenient. Perhaps. But nonetheless it is our call. Mary’s story gives us the courage to say “yes” without knowing where that “yes” may lead. It is enough to know that certainly our own life will become, like Mary’s, “wild inside”.

 

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The Greek Journey: Seven

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Part Two: The Heroic Journey (Mount Pelion)

Under an Ancient Tree on Mount Pelion we revisit our lives as a journey, find where we are now in the story, share that with our companions, and turn the journey into a play.

The Road of Trials, the Belly of the Whale
Dorothy is offered Guidance, but not a map. “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” What in the Hero’s journey is a road of trials, often for the heroine includes a time of what Campbell calls being in the “belly of the whale”. In the Wizard of Oz, this is symbolized by the poppy fields where Dorothy and her three companions suddenly fall deeply asleep under the spell of the Wicked Witch.

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The Belly of the Whale takes us by surprise, for just when we know what we must do, just when we manage to fool the guardian and pass the gate, we find ourselves blindsided… by a depression, an ingression, a call to the depths of being. Though we are clear about our mission, we are not yet prepared. The Belly of the Whale gives us preparatory time, time for deep inner work. We enter our own depths, the source place for all endeavours. Find your form for this inner work: drawing or dance or journaling or music or drumming or nature or working with an archetype. When you discover who your archetype is, you have guidance. You are put on the path.

“You may not know what your archetypal guidance is, but your archetypal guidance knows who you are.”(Jean Houston)

Live in the Temple of Inner Abundance where you are the womb of your new becoming. Choose your daily practice and be faithful.

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Assisted by her friends, Dorothy wakens and all four approach the Emerald City, once again facing a guardian at the gate who will not allow them to see the Wizard. Dorothy’s tears as she speaks of her longing to see her Aunt Em break down his resistance.

Yet the Wizard, when they at last meet him, refuses to grant their request until they fulfill an impossible task: Bring me the broomstick of the Witch of the West!
The challenge here is to discover the task that you never believed you could do, but the Wizard of the inner sanctum of yourself always knew you could, and if you did, would change the nature of your belief about yourself….Your inner Wizard…the Friend, stands before you and asks you to recall the “impossible things” you have done…. Now the Friend-Wizard asks you to consider what “impossible things” you have yet to do in the near future. The Friend- Wizard also asks you to imagine as vividly as you can actually doing it, with all the difficulties and acts of courage that it may require. Remember that you have allies, a Protector and the Friend to help and accompany you. (Jean Houston in The Power of Myth and Living Mythically p.202)

Emergence with Amplified Power
You discover now that your expectations become magnets, drawing to you what you need for your task, your life work. You have entered the path of wisdom, and with her come all good things. You experience the grace of ABBONDANZA. You are moving into the fullness of life. Your entelechy holds the seed of what you truly are and draws you into the magic and mystery of being “a local outcropping of the Godself in time”. (JH)

The life force of Toto (“Run, Toto, Run), the support and cleverness of her three friends, and finally the life force of water accomplish the impossible. Dorothy and her companion return to the Wizard in triumph.

Return with Elixir

You begin to embody the deep happiness that is your birthright. You heed the call to live the WHY at the centre of your life.

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And so Dorothy returns home, changed by her adventures, companioned within by those whom she met and loved in Oz :

“Home” is that land to which one returns in a deepened condition after the trials and adventures of initiation. It is now a realm that was perceived in Oz, but can be felt in the here and now as the deepened and extended land. You have brought back with you now mindfulness, heartfulness and courage….You have gone home to Kansas, but not before you have grown up in Oz….You have returned a mythic being, and, like Dorothy, you now have the chance to green the wasteland of your own particular “Kansas” with your newfound knowings. (Jean Houston in The Power of Myth and Living Mythically pp. 210-1)

We sit beneath the great plane tree and ask ourselves:

Which part of the journey am I now experiencing?

What do I need to do at this stage?

What do I now understand?

What happens next?