The Immaculate Conception

Thursday, December 8, 2022 Today, December 8th, is the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I have a few thoughts to offer on this, and what follows is an excerpt from my book - Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age; (c) Margie McArthur, 2014, All rights reserved

The Catholic Church has long held that Jesus had been conceived by divine intervention, without the aid of a physical father. Although born of a human woman, she was declared to be without the “soul-stain” brought about by the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, which was said to be, thereafter, passed on to their descendants—every human being ever born. But how could this be unless his mother was equally free of such sin? The great minds of Christianity pondered this for centuries and came to the conclusion that Mary herself must also be free of sin. But how could a mere human be without the stain of the Original Sin? Several theories were proposed: that her conception was as virginal as that of her son; that God granted her the special privilege of sinlessness at the moment of her conception; that her physical conception had occurred in the normal way, but that her spiritual conception—the infusing of soul into body—was the part that was sinless. As one might imagine, this opened the door to even more thought and theorizing as to the soul condition of her parents, and the part played by normal sexual desire, called concupiscence, which was often equated with sin. So, at one point in its evolution, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception sought to extend the nature of Jesus’s conception—sex-free and desire-free—to that of his mother as well. This version did not make it into the final and formal doctrine, but it was quite seriously considered and debated for many years. During the 1830 apparitions to Catherine Laboure, Our Lady requested that a medal be struck with a prayer on it saying. “Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” This may have served to reignite interest in the subject, since the doctrine was finally and formally proclaimed by the Church in 1854, and thus was only four years old when, in 1858, the Lady of Lourdes said with great intensity and emotion to fourteen year old visionary Bernadette Soubirous, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” While the Church obviously took this to mean the concept on which they’d been considering for years—that Mary’s own conception was virginal and asexual—was correct, it is interesting to ponder what this doctrine, and Mary’s statement, mean on a deeper, more esoteric level. To begin with, the idea of a person being born of a human woman yet fathered by a spiritual power was not a new one. Many other gods, avatars, and prominent spiritual teachers in the ancient world were considered to have been thus conceived. It is not at all surprising to find the Church considered Jesus’s conception to have occurred in this manner; indeed, it would have been surprising had they thought otherwise. But it was quite significant that they decided the same was true of his human mother. This, combined with the fourth century proclamation of Mary as Theotokos—Bearer (i.e. Mother) of God—quite neatly recognized her inherent divinity without actually committing the sin of blasphemy by calling her a Goddess. The word immaculate means very clean, very pure, and without stain. Metaphysically this can be seen to mean the condition of pure spirit—before matter came into being. “Conception” is the first spark in the process of coming into being, into manifestation. Therefore, the phrase I am the Immaculate Conception means one who came into material manifestation by purely spiritual means; no physical realm influences playing a part. This is quite profound, as what it really states is that such a being is inherently a being of pure spirit taking manifestation in human form and is thus both human and divine. This places Mary in the same category as her divine son and other divinely conceived—and therefore themselves divine—avatars of other religious traditions. But this point of view is based on the traditionally Catholic understanding that there is a huge inherent difference and separation between things physical and things spiritual, between human and divine. If one doesn’t accept that position, if one holds that the physical realm is but Spirit in Manifestation, that we are all pre-existent spirits manifesting in human form, then things begin to look different. Seen in this light, the Immaculate Conception may mean that Mary is the very essence of pure Spirit in the exact moment at which it sparks into material manifestation, or begins its movement into physical reality. This would mean she is the Void itself, as well as the Void as it births manifestation, bringing energy into being, light into darkness, and ultimately, energy/force into form. Thus, in her simple statement to Bernadette, the Lady proclaims herself the Primal Source and Creatress.

St. Bernadette and the Waters of Aquarius

 

Today is the 163th anniversary of the first appearance of the Lady of Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous, a 14 year old girl from the south of France.

A shining and beautiful lady appeared to Bernadette in a large, rocky, cave-like grotto beside the River Gave de Pau in 1858 on February 11th, a day that would have been close to the pagan feast of the Goddess Brigid (and the Catholic feast of Candlemas) by the old calendrical reckoning which was still used in areas of Europe. The feast of Brigid, which was also known as Imbolc ("in the belly") and Oimelc ("ewe's milk"), heralded the approach of Spring and its tide of new life. 

From Bernadette’s earliest descriptions of the Lady we learn that she was very young. Bernadette referred to her as “petito damizela,” which means a petite young lady, and said that she looked to be about 12 years old. The grotto was on the side of a massive ancient rock formation known as Massabielle, which means “ancient rock.” The word grotto is used because the cave was not very deep.

It should be noted that both caves and rivers are traditionally associated with the Goddess.

Garbed in a white gown with a blue sash and with golden roses on her bare feet, the Lady appeared to Bernadette a total of eighteen times, praying the rosary with her each time, and during one of the apparitions the Lady instructed her drink from the spring. Bernadette did not see a spring, so began to dig in grotto’s dry ground. After a few minutes the ground was muddy, and soon water came bubbling forth. The spring that Bernadette found today provides hundreds of gallons of healing water per day. At the end of the cycle of apparitions, after repeated requests for her name, the Lady said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

The Virgin Mary’s appearance in Lourdes was at a place that had previously been sacred to the Roman Underworld Goddess Proserpina, and quite likely to a native Underworld goddess before that. Proserpina is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Persephone, the maiden goddess and daughter of the Great Mother who was taken by the Lord of the Underworld to be its queen and his bride; she is the Dark Goddess of the Underworld. In Latin the word Proserpina means something akin to “to emerge, to creep forth,” as germinating plants emerge to the sunny surface of the earth, and as hibernating snakes creep forth from their holes as the weather begins to warm.

Interestingly, there’s a Brigid’s Day rhyme from Scotland that says:

Early on Bride's morn
The serpent shall come from the hole,
I will not molest the serpent,
Nor will the serpent molest me.

Was this serpent a reference to the Underworld Goddess who emerged and brought in the warmth of Spring? I am reminded that Proserpina’s Greek counterpart, Persephone, emerged from her Underworld realm in the Spring.

In addition, one cannot help but notice the similarity of the Lady of Lourdes to other apparitions recorded in folklore of the “White Ladies” — young, beautiful, female spirits dressed in white, who often appeared near the caves and caverns of the Pyrenees, especially those near a water source such as a river or spring, and often the spring was known to be a healing spring.  The White Ladies usually sought interaction with passers-by, and it is interesting that the Lady of Lourdes requested the asthmatic, under-nourished Bernadette to drink and wash in the waters of the spring. Her request resulted in the discovery of this spring, perhaps long hidden in the rocky earth of Massabielle, which is now world famous as a healing spring.

An astrological chart drawn for the day of the apparition shows that the Sun was in Aquarius—the Water Bearer—and the Moon was waning in sign of Capricorn, just a few degrees short of a new moon.

The goddess Brigid – who brings in the time of warmth and new life; the youthfulness of the Lady of Lourdes; the waning old moon as it is leaving Capricorn and moving into Aquarius; the serpent emerging from its underworld home into the light of Spring, the grotto by the river (both symbols of the Great Mother) and the watery realm of the Air sign of Aquarius... All of these together seem to me to point to the emergence of something Very New coming into being. 

How fitting then, that the Lady of Lourdes appeared during the sign of Aquarius, by a river, and that by her intercession a spring of healing waters—long lost and buried under rubble—was unearthed. Healing waters, similar to the Waters of Life that Aquarius, the Water Bearer, pours down onto the thirsty-for-healing world. 

The message here seems to be that the Divine Feminine power, which gives and takes and brings renewal by birthing and nourishing new life in a new season, has emerged from her past obscurity this last 163 years...

To me this apparition was one of many signs that heralded the end of one World Age and the start of a new one.

(Most of the above is excerpted from my book, “Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age” Chapter 10)

 

                                                                        St Bernadette

 

Mother Night, Winter Solstice, and the Chapel of the Stars

 

The Germanic pagan traditions celebrate the feast of Mother Night on the eve of the Winter Solstice. Mother Night marked the beginning of the twelve day long festival of Yule that celebrated the return of the sun. Mother Night was sacred to the Goddess Holle (also rendered as Holla, Holda, and Hulda), and the disr - the ancestral mothers of the people. On this night people gathered to give honor to Holle (or Frigga in the Scandinavian traditions) and those ancestral mothers.

Falling as it does on Solstice Eve, which is the time when Mediterranean and southern European cultures celebrated the rebirth of the sun child, it is hard not to associate the two festivals. While the Germanic cultures did not celebrate Yule as the rebirth of the sun child in the same way as did the Mediterranean cultures, they did celebrate it in terms of a rebirth or regeneration of the light of Sunna/Sol, the sun goddess. No matter which way it’s looked at, Yule—the Winter Solstice—is a celebration of the return of the light, and also a celebration of how light comes forth from the darkness.

I found this to be of great significance. So often the attention is given to the sun child only and not the mother who bore him, except perhaps in a round-about way. Yet here was a festival which seemed to be honoring First Mother, the great mother of all manifest life—Mother Night, she who gives birth to Light (in the form of the stars), and therefore, Life. She is indeed the great Ancestral Mother of all, and the idea of celebrating her on Solstice Eve appealed to me greatly. In the great cosmic scheme of things, Solstice Eve represents the time of her confinement, the time when she labors to give birth.

Let our celebration of the return of the sun child’s light and warmth begin with due honor to the mother who bore him/her—the darkness who gives birth to the light. 

Here is a Vision Journey from my book, Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age, that you may find a useful addition to your Solstice ceremonies.

Create an altar. It can be as simple as a candle on a small table (or even the floor), or one that uses an altar cloth and symbols of the season. I use a midnight blue altar cloth and a beeswax  candle in a safe candle holder. Sit silently before your altar, breathing deeply till you are in a relaxed and receptive state of being. 

Meditate for a few moments on how this is the darkest time of the year; the time when, in the natural world, all life and movement has slowed to a seeming stop before the sun is reborn and the wheel of life begins to turn again. The moment may be likened to the end of labor, when, although the mother is working hard to birth her child, for the rest of the world around her there is a sense of waiting, of regular time suspended, as all focus on the impending birth and await the joyful sound of the infant’s first cry. When you have meditated upon these things, and feel sufficiently relaxed and calm, light your candle and begin the Vision Journey just below.

Journey to the Chapel of the Stars

Become aware now of the Four Directions that surround you—East, South, West, and North—and  focus your attention for a moment on each of them in turn.... In your mind’s eye, see the candle that burns at the center of your altar.... Focus on its flame.... As you gaze at this flame, you feel your own inner flame, the spark of divinity within you, awaken in response.... You watch as the candle’s flame begins to grow, increasing in size, strength, and brilliance..... and you feel your inner flame growing stronger and brighter as well, and your awareness increasing along with it.

With your inner vision, you watch the candle flame grow in size till it becomes a wall of fire, a curtain of flame. You step through the curtain of flame and find yourself in a very different kind of place. You are standing at the edge of a wood, looking into a clearing, in the midst of which sits a small stone building. It is a cold wintery night, and overhead the stars shine brightly in the dark clear sky. The moon has set but the stars are bright and provide illumination.


You walk toward the building in the clearing, and as you get closer you can see it is a small chapel, with three wooden  stairs that lead up to a porch and a wooden door.

You reach the porch, and spend a few moments looking at the carvings on the wooden door…. Then you climb the stairs, push the door open, and enter the chapel, closing the door behind you.

To your surprise, the chapel has no roof ... Starlight gleams down, giving a dim illumination to the interior. You see a floor of roughly cut flagstone, with a spiral carved into one of the larger stones just beyond where you stand. You see a several icons on the chapel walls, several rows of wooden benches that start just beyond the spiral, and at the front of the chapel, a stone altar. You gaze at the carved spiral on the floor, and it comes to you suddenly that you must walk this spiral. You feel incredulous about this because the spiral is so small, you know your feet will not fit within the measure of its lines. But the impulse to walk it is strong, so you step gingerly onto it, feeling large and clumsy, with your foot just touching the opening of the spiral. As you step into it further, the urge to walk intensifies, so you take another step, then another, and another.... As you walk, you become aware that your consciousness is changing, deepening…. Taking the next step you notice that walking the spiral is not as difficult as you thought it would be. You take another step, wondering if you have grown smaller or the spiral larger. With the next step, you know that it doesn't matter… and that somehow, you are doing what is necessary to do.

You have an awareness, now, of those nameless others who have walked this spiral path before you. In your mind you hear a voice say, "Many have walked this path before you and many will walk it after you." As you continue watching your feet move along the spiraling line, the room around you seems to disappear, and the spiraling path you are walking seems to grow larger. A thought comes to you of the soul’s spiraling path into and out of incarnation.... You continue walking, focusing your attention on each step as you take it. With each step, your consciousness expands, and your awareness of your surroundings dissolves… only the path remains, and your feet, treading it…. The spiral grows smaller… tighter… smaller… and tighter, as you spiral inward, step by step….

At length you reach the center of the spiral, and look up. You find that you are within a vast, starry expanse. Directly in front of you the brighter stars seem to form the outline of an oval shape, larger at the bottom than the top. As you gaze at it, noting the dimmer stars twinkling within it, you are aware that "It" is a presence, a feminine presence, and most definitely alive—in fact, pulsating with Life. You realize that She is very lovingly aware of you. Her size and power are awe inspiring; you feel blessing and beneficence radiating from Her. You know that you are in the presence of the Source of all creation. You pause for a few moments to simply BE in the presence of this enormous Being....

As you gaze at her, you notice that there is a particularly bright star gleaming in her center, the area of her heart and womb.... Suddenly it bursts forth brilliantly, shooting out many bright sparks. A large spark shoots toward you, enters you, floods through your being, filling you with its light and enlivening power, and comes to rest in your heart center.... Other sparks shower through the sky and down toward the earth... you sense that they are filling the planet with their divine light, coming to rest in the body of the earth—in the mountains, the plains, the deserts, the rivers, and the oceans... and in all beings, including humans.

As this happens you become aware of a sound… it is the sound of many voices singing a wordless but harmonious melody. The melodious voices stir your soul, open your heart, and expand your being; you feel full of love—love for life, love for all of the wondrous creation, love for all that is.... You spend some time experiencing this....

After a while... you know that it is time for you to return....Looking down, you set your feet once again on the spiraling path and take a step....You begin to walk...to return back the way you have come. You pause and whisper a thanks for the love and blessings you have been given. With the star spark glowing within your heart, you turn, and looking down at your feet, you begin walking clockwise ... out of the spiral ... step after step.... As you walk, the path broadens... and you feel your consciousness begin to shift... Beneath your feet you see once again the flagstone floor of the chapel… and the carved lines of the spiral…. A few more steps... and you step out of the carved spiral... and become aware, once more, of the dimly-lit stone chapel in which you stand....

As you pause there, you sense that something else is required of you....You walk up the center aisle to the altar… and reaching into yourself, you take a spark from the glowing star spark within your heart. You place it upon the stone altar with a prayer....... The spark blazes up for a moment, then sinks into the stone... becoming one with it....

You feel now that it is time to leave. You turn and walk down the center aisle to the back of the chapel. You step over the threshold, out into the night, closing the wooden door behind you. You walk down the wooden steps and out into the clearing. When you reach the center of the clearing you stop… looking upward at the sky... feeling the vast consciousness there. The stars twinkle in the dark sky... and as you gaze upon them, your vision shifts, and you see that the stars outline the form of a woman swaddled in a long hooded cloak. Her womb is glowing, and she holds a child in her arms..... As you perceive this image, you feel her presence and her motherly love.... Then your vision shifts again, and although you still feel her presence, you see only a starlit sky ....

You begin walking across the clearing, and just past the tree line, you see a fire burning in the distance.... You walk toward the fire, and find that each step you take brings you more and more into your normal waking awareness. You reach the fire, step through the flames, and find that you have come back to this time… this place… and into a room where a candle burns.... You are back .... Settle into your body, and when you feel ready you may open your eyes.

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

Peace and blessings to all on these Holy Nights!

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

What follows is an excerpt from my book Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age,
© Margie McArthur, 2002-2016, All rights reserved)

In the Catholic calendar, today, December 8th, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

The Catholic Church has long held that Jesus had been conceived by divine intervention, without the aid of a physical father. Although born of a human woman, he was declared to be without the “soul-stain” brought about by the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, which was said to be, thereafter, passed on to their descendants—every human being ever born.

But how could this be unless the mother of Jesus was equally free of such sin?

The great minds of Christianity pondered this for centuries and came to the conclusion that Mary herself must also be free of sin. But how could a mere human be without the stain of the Original Sin?

Several theories were proposed: that her conception was as virginal as that of her son; that God granted her the special privilege of sinlessness at the moment of her conception; that her physical conception had occurred in the normal way, but that her spiritual conception—the infusing of soul into body—was the part that was sinless. As one might imagine, this opened the door to even more thought and theorizing as to the soul condition of her parents, and the part played by normal sexual desire, called concupiscence, which was often equated with sin.

So, at one point in its evolution, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception sought to extend the nature of Jesus’s conception—sex-free and desire-free—to that of his mother as well. This version did not make it into the final and formal doctrine, but it was quite seriously considered and debated for many years.

During the 1830 apparitions to Catherine Laboure, Our Lady requested that a medal be struck with a prayer on it saying. “Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” This may have served to reignite interest in the subject, since the doctrine was finally and formally proclaimed by the Church in 1854, and thus was only four years old when, in 1858, the Lady of Lourdes said with great intensity and emotion to fourteen year old visionary Bernadette Soubirous, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

While the Church obviously took this to mean the concept on which they’d been considering for years—that Mary’s own conception was virginal and asexual—was correct, it is interesting to ponder what this doctrine, and Mary’s statement, mean on a deeper, more esoteric level.

To begin with, the idea of a person being born of a human woman yet fathered by a spiritual power was not a new one. Many other gods, avatars, and prominent spiritual teachers in the ancient world were considered to have been thus conceived. It is not at all surprising to find the Church considered Jesus’s conception to have occurred in this manner; indeed, it would have been surprising had they thought otherwise. But it was quite significant that they decided the same was true of his human mother. This, combined with the fourth century proclamation of Mary as Theotokos—Bearer (i.e. Mother) of God—quite neatly recognized her inherent divinity without actually committing the sin of blasphemy by calling her a Goddess.

The word immaculate means very clean, very pure, and without stain. Metaphysically this can be seen to mean the condition of pure spirit—before matter came into being. “Conception” is the first spark in the process of coming into being, into manifestation.

Therefore, the phrase I am the Immaculate Conception means one who came into material manifestation by purely spiritual means; no physical realm influences playing a part. This is quite profound, as what it really states is that such a being is inherently a being of pure spirit taking manifestation in human form and is thus both human and divine. This places Mary in the same category as her divine son and other divinely conceived—and therefore themselves divine—avatars of other religious traditions.

But this point of view is based on the traditionally Catholic understanding that there is a huge inherent difference and separation between things physical and things spiritual, between human and divine. If one doesn’t accept that position, if one holds that the physical realm is but Spirit in Manifestation, that we are all pre-existent spirits manifesting in human form, then things begin to look different.

Seen in this light, the Immaculate Conception may mean that Mary is the very essence of pure Spirit in the exact moment at which it sparks into material manifestation, or begins its movement into physical reality. This would mean she is the Void itself, as well as the Void as it births manifestation, bringing energy into being, light into darkness, and ultimately, energy/force into form. Thus, in her simple statement to Bernadette, the Lady proclaims herself the Primal Source and Creatress.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin

Today is the feast day of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. In her honor I am reposting an essay I posted four years ago.
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Here is some music for the day
Vespers Antiphon

Happy Birthday, Mama!

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In my book, Lady of the Sea: The Goddess who Births the New Age, I wrote a short piece about the Virgin of Guadalupe, which I will quote here:

In the early years of Spanish rule in Mexico, during a time in which the Indians were being (often forcibly) converted to Catholicism, she appeared on December 9, 1531, to an Aztec Indian man, remembered now by his adopted Christian name, Juan Diego. It was early and Juan was on his way to Mass when he passed Tepeyac, a hill previously the site of a sacred shrine to the Corn Goddess,  Tonanzin -- whose name means “Our Mother.” He was surprised to hear birds singing -- apparently rare in the winter -- but even more surprised when he saw a lovely young native woman standing near the top of the hill. She greeted him with maternal affection, calling him her “little son.” A golden mist surrounded her, and she was wearing a dress covered with traceries of flowers and leaves, and a blue cloak with  eight-pointed stars on it. (In the past the eight-pointed star has been a symbol of Inanna and the planet Venus) She identified herself as the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and said she wanted a temple built for her at that place.

In the days that followed, she appeared a few more times to repeat the request. It took several visits to the bishop by Juan and a stunning miracle on the part of the Lady to convince the bishop of the truth of the apparition, but the cathedral eventually built on the spot still stands today in Mexico City. And the miracle -- her image on Juan’s cloak, complete with the miraculous winter roses and the moon beneath her feet -- hangs above the cathedral’s altar for all to see. (1)

The more closely I examine pictures of this miraculous cloak, the more interesting it becomes to me.

Her cloak is blue, with stars on it. This would seem to represent the night sky, lit only by stars. Her gown is covered with images of flowers and plants, traced in a deep reddish-gold against a pale rose background, clearly representative of the earth’s plant kingdom. Taken together, the cloak and gown seem to represent the star-filled night sky and the plant-filled fertile earth. She wears a black sash, which to the Aztecs of the area signified pregnancy. She stands upon a crescent moon that is held by an angel. The angel holds the edge of her gown in one hand, and the edge of her cloak in the other, as if to show the union of heaven and earth, and to indicate that she is important in both realms.

She is encased in an oval whose shape is reminiscent of an auric field. She is surrounded by what appears to be rays of light, the source of which—mostly likely the sun—seems to be behind her. All this fits rather precisely with the description of the woman in the Book of Revelation, who was “clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet.” While the Virgin of Guadalupe does not wear a crown of 12 stars as the woman in Revelation does, she does wear a crown (more apparent in the older images than the more recent ones), the spikes of which blend in with the rays of light that surround her.

The woman in the Book of Revelation is pregnant, about to give birth, and “travailing in labor.” As I mention in my book, I feel the woman described in the Book of Revelation to be the Goddess giving birth to the new age—at that point in time, the Age of Pisces. The image of the pregnant Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared in 1531 to Juan Diego, so closely fits this description that it seems to me that she might well be indicating the goddess who births our new age, Aquarius.  While the Age of Aquarius was not was not dawning in 1531, it was just below the horizon – so to speak – and a new way of being was certainly on its way to the world, particularly the “new" world of the American continents.

The Lady also appeared to Juan Diego’s dying uncle, Juan Bernardino, curing him of a disease and telling him the name by which she wished to be known: “The Perfect Virgin, Holy Mary of Guadalupe.”

But Guadalupe is a Spanish word, and the Lady would have spoken to both men in their native tongue. Many believe the word was actually Coatlaxopeuh, which in the Nahuatl language meant “She who crushes the head of the (stone) serpent.” In addition to the fact that there is a biblical reference to the woman  (interpreted as Mary) who will “crush the head of the serpent,” the word Coatlaxopeuh sounded very much like the Spanish word Guadalupe, which was the name of an important Black Madonna shrine in Spain. At least that must have been how the bishop heard it because that was the name given to the apparition and the site. The Spanish word “Guadalupe” actually comes from an Arabic word that is said to mean, quite appropriately in this case,“river of love.” (2)

The Guadalupe apparition was an extremely significant event for many reasons, not the least of which was that it marked a time that, with the intermarriage of the Spanish (and later other Europeans) and the Indian peoples of the Americas, a new ethnicity was about to come into existence. The Lady of Guadalupe is, in a very real sense, the mother of these people, and of all the mixed blood people of the Americas, and may, indeed, be America’s own “Black Madonna.”


Over the course of the apparitions, among the words spoken by the Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego were these: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more? Let nothing else worry you or disturb you.”

Truly, the words of a mother. She is our mother indeed!

UPDATE:  Just after I'd finished posting this I found a most wonderful article about the Lady of Guadalupe. Written by Ani Williams, it has even more detail about the image on the tilma than I have provided! Read it here --
http://aniwilliams.com/?p=5276

Sources:
(1) McArthur, Margie; Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age, pp 78-79
(2) Ibid; also  - wad-i al-hub; Arabic Place Names, www.billcasselman.com/place_names_of_the_world/arabic_place_names_one.htm , and
http://archive.today/5wNax

Images:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe#mediaviewer/File:1531_Nuestra_Se%C3%B1ora_de_Guadalupe_anagoria.jpg
http://www.sancta.org/art/OLG_top_4x6.jpg

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Once again, here is my posting on this Marian feast day, originally posted a few years ago.


The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

It's an excerpt from my book, "The Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age." This book was published earlier this year and is available through Amazon.com

Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age

Cakes for the Queen of Heaven -- Cakes, Collyrids, Communion, and Challah

Cakes, Collyrids, Communion, and Challah

The term “Collyridian” was used to refer to a very early Christian sect, said to be exclusively female, that looked upon Mary as their main deity and worshipped her, baking and offering her little cakes, or “collyrids.” This interesting bit of information comes from the writings of an early church father, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, writing near the end of the 4th century CE. His feeling was that the cult originated in Thrace and upper Scythia, but was also found in Arabia. He considered the cult to be foolish and idolatrous and included it on his list of heretical sects. It should be noted that Thrace (modern-day Bulgaria and northern Greece), Scythia (the Ukraine and southern Russia), and Arabia were all places where goddess worship of some kind flourished. In particular, the worship of Astarte/Anat and Isis was quite widespread at that time.

Some writers note that the Collyridians worshipped Mary as the Queen of Heaven—which definitely links her to the goddesses Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Isis, Hera, and others—and also mention that the Collyridians ordained women as priests.

St Epiphanius had this to say:
"What happens is that certain women decorate a chair or a square stool, spread out upon it a fine linen cloth, and on a certain day of the year put out bread and offer it as a sacrifice in Mary's name.  All the women partake of the bread....  Whether these idle women offer the small loaf to Mary herself in worship of her, or whether they make this worthless offering on her behalf, the whole thing is ridiculous.”

When I read this I was immediately reminded of the Jerusalem Temple’s bread offerings (mentioned in my last blog post)—the Shewbread/Presence Bread that was offered weekly to the (feminine) Presence of God, Wisdom, and eaten by the priests on the Sabbath. I felt strongly that this practice and that of the Collyridians had to be related.

After all, it is known by Jeremiah’s reproof to the people that it was the custom for women to bake “cakes for the Queen of Heaven,” pour libations to her, and pray to her.


    "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."  (Jeremiah 7:17–18)

And it’s known by the people’s response to him that this was a long established part of their religious practice.
                   
    "But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had plenty of victuals and were well and saw no evil..."   (Jeremiah 44:17)


It is known that in the original, pre-captivity Jerusalem temple, bread offerings were made to the Divine Presence (later referred to as the Shekhinah)—the Divine Feminine in her form of “Wisdom,” who originally was Asherah or Astarte. (1). This was most likely the origin of the shewbread offerings, which continued on into the second temple although Asherah and Astarte were gone by then, their cults having been violently removed from Temple practice just before the Babylonian captivity, with  the feminine “Wisdom” being turned into an abstract principle and facet of the (now) supreme male deity.

After the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans and many of the Israelite people scattered to other lands, the bread offerings continued in the form of the challah bread of the Sabbath, a rite which continues to this day. I find it interesting that the Sabbath is often referred to as a queen and a bride.

But in the branch of Judaism that became early Christianity the practice of bread offerings was continued in the form of the Holy Eucharist—the body and blood of Christ, who was seen as Wisdom, an incarnation of the Divine (and previously feminine) Wisdom.

I think it highly likely that the original Collyridians simply carried on this very ancient custom of making bread offerings to the Divine Feminine—Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, the Goddess—who in the Christian era had come to be seen as being embodied by Mary, mother of Jesus.

Nothing else is known of the Collyridians beliefs or practices but the fact that the cakes were offered to Mary, mother of Jesus, and that they considered themselves part of Christianity suggests that they knew about Jesus but considered his mother more important. Some have suggested that the Collyridians may have known the Holy Spirit to be feminine, and considered the Holy Trinity to be the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Mother (Mary).

From Ephiphanius’s account of the Collyridians we learn of what may have been their major ritual—the decoration of the chair and the offering of the cakes. The chair, whose decoration may have been a ritual to turn it into a throne, instantly reminded me of the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose name means “throne”, and also of the “Seat of Wisdom,” one of the many epithets used by the Catholic Church for the Virgin Mary. Both throne and seat imply that the Divine Son—Horus in the case of Isis and Jesus Christ in the case of Mary, both of whom are often pictured as an infant seated on his mother’s lap—emerged from the lap/womb of the mother. And as we have said, Christ was seen as an incarnation of Wisdom, who was, in the Hebrew tradition, originally considered feminine.

Notes:   
1) Barker, Margaret, The Hidden Tradition in the Kingdom of God; also Temple Theology.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

And her months were fulfilled, and in the ninth month Anna brought forth. And she said unto the midwife, “What have I brought forth?” and she said, “A girl.” And Anna said, “My soul has been magnified this day. And she laid her down. And the days having been fulfilled, Anna was purified, and gave suck to the child, and called her name Mary.
(Protoevangelium of James, V 2)





Mary was born of Anna (Hannah), whose name means, in Hebrew, grace or gracious. In Hurrian, a Middle Eastern language spoken in parts of ancient and nearby Syria, Anna means mother. Yet the name is remarkably similar to the ancient Sumerian An or Anu, which  meant the “heavenly one,” or simply, “the heavens.”

The feast of Mary’s birth is celebrated on September 8th, mid-way through the astrological sign of Virgo. We now use the Gregorian calendar, but by the old Julian calendar this date would have been August 29th, which was celebrated in Egypt as the feast of the Nativity of Hathor, and also as new year’s day in the fixed Alexandrian Calendar that was used by the Egyptians from 30 B.C. onward. (James Frazier, The Golden Bough).

September was a time of harvest; the association of the sign of Virgo with harvest time is well known: she is depicted as a winged woman holding sheaves of grain. This woman is Hathor, Isis, other goddesses of the harvest, and for the last couple thousand years, the Virgin Mary.


What is not so well known is that Hathor was associated early on with the Milky Way Galaxy —  she was said to be a personification of the milk that flowed from the divine Heavenly Cow, Nuit.

Hathor’s name means House of (i.e. womb that birthed) Horus. Horus was associated with the sun, as later Jesus would be, and his birth was, like that of Jesus, celebrated at the Winter Solstice. It was also said that Hathor gave birth to Horus each morning, and as he died each night accepted him back into her womb to be born again at the following sunrise.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread.”  Bread is, of course, made of grain, which ties us back into Virgo, the Virgin Mother, and the harvest.

Many of Hathor’s functions were later absorbed by Isis, including her motherhood of Horus and her association with the Milky Way. And, “since Isis was, at the advent of Christianity 2000 years ago, the most popular goddess of the ancient Middle Eastern and Western European world, it is not surprising that her successor, Mary, Mother of the Piscean Age avatar Jesus, should fall heir to many of her titles and attributes.” (Margie McArthur, Lady of the Sea: 2012 and the Mother Who Births the New Age)

As the river of stars that comprised the Milky Way, Hathor represented the earliest expression of the life force of the heavens manifesting itself in the form of stars. The heavens gave birth to the stars –  the light – just as Hathor gave birth to Horus, the light of Sun, and Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Son/Sun and Light of the World.

In addition to being seen as the nourishing starry milk of the Mother Goddess in her form as the Heavenly Cow, the Milky Way was also seen as a river of stars—which is yet another form of nourishment as the lands are nourished and made fertile by the rivers that flow and flood through them. The Nile was seen as the earthly counterpart of the Milky Way. Since Hathor was this heavenly river, this flow of nourishing essence from the sky, the Milky Way, she was also linked to the waters of the earth. Mary’s iconography and lore depict similar resonances. She is Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels, Star of the Sea.

The sun is a star, part of that heavenly river of stars that is the Milky Way, and is our very own heavenly messenger.

Why were Hathor and Mary said to be born in the sign of Virgo, the time of the harvest and beginning of the new year?

The harvest marked the end of a cycle. The time just after the harvest/birth of these divine mothers was, in Egypt, the Time of the Inundation – the time when the Nile flooded the lands, leaving the soil fertile. It was also the time of the rains in other parts of the Middle East; the beginning of the Hebrew new year, which celebrated the beginning of creation, was celebrated less than a month later.

In all ways, Hathor and Mary represented the birthing, mothering, and nourishing of the “child” that was life and light.

Mythologically speaking, stars are equivalent to angels, whose very name means “messengers of God.” The stars shine down upon us from above, their brilliance and beauty beaming us the message of light and life from their vast, dark, heavenly source.

In Canaanite and early Hebrew mythology, Asherah was seen as the Mother of 70 sons. These “sons” became the 72 angels of later Hebrew mythology, and were still linked with Asherah till her shrines were destroyed and her cult in the temple ended by the Hebrew reformer, Josiah.

But later on, the divine feminine, in the form of Mary, was hailed as Queen of the Angels and Queen of Heaven, just as her divine feminine predecessors had been....