The Mayan Calendar End Date and the Age of Aquarius

This posting is the beginning of several I feel called on to make as we approach the end of the year, the end of an era, and the now famous December 21, 2012 Mayan Calendar end date. These postings are excerpts from my soon-to-be-released book, Lady of the Sea: 2012 and the Goddess Who Birth the New Age. This one is from Chapter 8:The Birth of the Universe and the Changing of the Ages.

In the many years since I began studying it, the Mayan calendar has become quite the popular topic, particularly as a vehicle for the inevitable and endless number of sensationalistic doomsday predictions that seem to arise whenever any astronomical phenomena is popularized. As I write this, a new movie has just been released in which the calendar’s end date is being said to be the end of the world! In actuality, the calendar points to the end of one World Age and the beginning of another, as we have noted above.

Work on decoding this calendar has been done by several scholars (most notably John Major Jenkins and the late Jose Arguelles), but the one whose theories are most applicable to this book is John Major Jenkins. In particular, his hypothesis about the meaning of the calendar’s end date of December 21, 2012, is of special interest.

According to Jenkins, the Mayan calendar’s end date represents, astronomically, the conjunction of the Mayan constellation of the Sacred Tree (the Milky Way’s dark rift area) with the plane of the ecliptic and the winter solstice sunrise point. Jenkins says that according to the calendar, this conjunction represents the end of one age and the start of another. The dark rift is located within the Sacred Tree constellation, which is also the direction of the galactic center. The dark rift is also considered the road to the Underworld, as well as the birth canal of the Mother Goddess. Both of these images suggest a place, or portal, for the emergence of a new life-stream or current of stellar energies. (1) And since the galactic center contains a black hole, this Sacred Tree/ecliptic conjunction is also a conjunction to that black hole.

This tells us that Mayan calendar end date is the apex of the actual moment of the end of one age and the birth of the energies of incoming new age. Thus, although the Mayans used different terminology, the end date is most likely related to arrival of the Age of Aquarius. But I think it’s more than that. Since the start date of the Mayan calendar was 3114 B.C. I would suggest that the calendar end’s date and the World Age it represents is not just an astrological age but also the beginning of an astrological season.

These things having been said, these conjunctions happen over a span of time, during which their energies are perceived and experienced, before coming to this moment of exactness. Thus the actual birth is not really one moment in time, but, as with human birth, the “baby” emerges slowly, and only after several pushes on the part of the mother. Over the last 20+ years there have been several other significant astronomical transits and alignments that, from an astrological point of view, might be said to be “pushes” which are opening the way or setting the stage for the 2012 event.

December 21, 2012 may just be the moment in time when the new stellar energies from this galactic center’s black hole come pouring out the strongest in our direction, although it will take a while for these to be embodied and manifested here on earth; perhaps hundreds of years.

Birth requires a mother, so it is interesting to find that there is a very significant astrological feature to the sun’s rebirth at all winter solstices, including the one of 2012. At midnight on solstice night, the zodiacal sign rising on the eastern horizon is that of Virgo, the Virgin Mother who births the divine Sun-child—the light born from the time of deepest darkness.

The nature of this divine Sun-child and its Mother, and what the new age might be like, will be the subject of the next posts.

1) Jenkins, John Major; "The How and Why of the Mayan End Date in 2012 A.D." The Mountain Astrologer, Dec. 1994 

Mary Magdalene is in the News Again

photo (c) Karen King

Mary Magdalene is in the news again. Previously labeled by the Church as the ever-so-repentant prostitute, her story has been reevaluated in recent years with the discovery of several apocryphal texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Mary—all of which date to between the 2nd and 4th centuries. Combining what’s found in these sources with what’s mentioned of her in the New Testament, a new picture emerges—that of a beloved disciple, favored by Jesus because of her innate wisdom and her deep understanding of his teachings.

There are suggestions in these texts that may imply she was more than that—that she was quite likely his most important apostle, his spiritual partner, and may have even been his wife.

And that’s why she’s been in the news again recently. On Sept 18th biblical scholar Karen King announced that she had obtained a papyrus fragment, dated to the 4th century, in which Jesus referred to Mary Magdalene as “My wife.” 

This is the first known definite reference to Jesus being married.

The text is in Coptic, an Egyptian language, and Professor King thinks that it may be a copy of a text originally written in the 2nd century, probably in Greek. Of Mary, it also states in the next line, “She will be able to be my disciple.”

Almost immediately the naysaying started. People threatened by the thought of a non-celibate Jesus immediately began calling it a fake. Within a few days the Vatican, which had never actually seen, touched, or examined the papyrus, declared it to be a fake or forgery. And of course, if it turns out that Jesus actually had been married, then all the arguments about celibacy and a male-only priesthood that the Catholic Church uses to deny spiritual authority to women would go right out the window.

[ Vatican Says Papyrus Referring to Jesus' Wife is Probably Fake ]

One important thing about this new discovery is that Karen King is a very conservative biblical scholar who has never believed that there was any real evidence that Jesus was married. So for her to use the word wife in the translation of this papyrus is significant. The Coptic word used was hime, sometimes rendered as shime. Professor King went to great lengths to have the papyrus properly authenticated and dated (though more testing is yet to be done on the ink) before releasing the news about it to the world just before she attended a conference of Coptic language scholars in Rome on Sept 18th. So it was only after much consultation and very careful thought that she came to a conclusion about how to translate the words on the papyrus.

At issue here is the word hime, or shime, which is found in the 4th line. When I first read the details of the papyrus I consulted a couple Coptic dictionaries online and discovered that the word is the generic term for woman but can also mean wife; the meaning may often be determined by the context in which it is used. The context in this papyrus is that in the previous line, the 3rd line, we find the following:  

“.....deny. Mary is worthy (or not worthy) of it.” while in the 5th line Jesus says, “She will be able to be my disciple.” 

This exchange sounds very much like Jesus defending Mary, his wife, to his disciples and telling them that she is indeed worthy of being his disciple (or not worthy of their criticism, if you read the line’s translation to be “not worthy,” rather than “worthy”)

This is reminiscent of the exchange between Jesus and Peter found in Logion 114 of the Gospel of Thomas:

Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." 

The Greek word used here for male was anthropos, which actually means “perfected human being,” rather than one is who is physically male. (1)

In the Gospel of Philip, which was written in Greek, the term used to describe Mary Magdalene’s relationship to Jesus was koinonos, which means companion, but in the sense of an intimate companion. (2)

“There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.” 


It can also mean partner, or associate; a closely related word is koinonia--which is frequently translated as fellowship, but it can also mean mating.

The Gospel of Phillip says, “Jesus loved Mary more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her on her....” The text drops off here and it is not known whether he kissed her on her mouth, her cheek, her forehead, her hand, or another part of her body.

But by these mentions we can tell that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were very close. He loved and respected her very much, and apparently displayed this in front of his disciples at a time when such public displays of affection were fairly scandalous.

The Gospel of Mary tells us that even after his death Jesus continued to visit Mary in vision, to teach her. The disciples knew this, and the Gospel of Mary records a conversational exchange wherein they ask her to tell them what the Savior has taught her. But when she does so the disciples, especially Peter and Andrew, are upset and jealous that he didn’t impart such a valuable teaching to them, but rather to her, a mere woman. 

The apostle Levi (Matthew) comes to her defense saying,

"Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on the perfect man and acquire him for ourselves as He commanded us, and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Savior said." 

So while the word hime on this papyrus undoubtedly means woman, does it also mean wife, or  female companion, or female spiritual partner? I think a good case can be made for all three. But since no one’s ever likely to find a marriage certificate, we may never know.

And perhaps it doesn’t actually matter. Whether wife, close companion, or spiritual partner, it is clear that Jesus held her in high regard, loved and respected her, and entrusted her with his most special esoteric teachings—at a time when women had no real power in society or spirituality. That fact may tell us all we really need to know.


Notes:
(1) Leloup, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, 171
(2)  Who's Afraid of Married Jesus  Forbidden Gospels Blogspot

Stained glass window by Stephen Adams, Kilmore Church, Scotland, Isle of Mull

 

The Divine Presence -- Ruach HaKodesh, Shekhinah, and the Sabbath Bride

According to the Bible, the Presence of God, which was also referred to as the Spirit of God, dwelt with the Hebrew people and manifested itself in several ways over time. The first way noted was as the divine breath, the Ruach HaKodesh, which hovered over the waters of the primeval deep, the Tehom, (a word related to and with the same meaning as the name of the Babylonian mother goddess Tiamat). The Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters, and creation began.

In the Book of Exodus the Presence of God manifested to Moses as the Burning Bush.

During the Exodus itself, the Spirit of God manifested as a Pillar of Cloud by day and a Pillar of Fire by night to guide the people along their way.



In the Tabernacle (or Mishkan)—used for worship during the Exodus—the Divine Presence manifested as a brilliant light which had a burning and sometimes destructive power. Sometimes the Divine Presence would manifest as a cloud above the Tabernacle.

 When the Temple was built, the Divine Presence resided in the temple’s most sacred precinct, the Holy of Holies, a chamber that could only be entered by the High Priest on the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana as he went in to make the sacrifice of Atonement that absolved the sins of the nation and allowed it to move into the new year. When the Presence manifested in the Holy of Holies, amidst the clouds of fragrant incense, the Presence showed itself as the bright shining “glory” of God, which appeared to the priests and was sometimes evident on their faces after they left the sacred enclosure. Moses was said to have shone with God’s glory when the people saw him after he’d come down from the mountain after receiving the Ten Commandments. 

In the New Testament stories, the Presence/Spirit of God manifested itself as the dove (symbol of the Goddess in ancient times) that hovered over Jesus during his baptism by John in the Jordan River, as well as the Voice that declared him “beloved son” at that time, the tongues of fire that appeared over the heads of the apostles at the first Pentecost, and the wind that heralded their appearance.

And so it was said that the Presence of God dwelt with the people. The Hebrew word used for this is shakan, which means “to dwell with, or dwell within.”  This is a feminine word—just as Ruach HaKodesh, or Holy Spirit, is a feminine gendered word.

This indicates that the Presence of God was seen to be a feminine presence. At first, the goddess Asherah may well have been the Presence that dwelt in the Sanctuary since she was worshipped as Yahweh’s consort and bride in the Jerusalem Temple for over 2/3 of its time of existence. But in later years, the Spirit of God who dwelt in the Temple began to be referred to as the Shekhinah, from the Hebrew shakan.
                                           
In Israel’s darkest hours, such as their defeat at the hands of the Babylonians, the Romans, and finally, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, it was thought that God’s Presence—the Shekhinah—had left them, and that the reason for this was because the people had in some way broken their covenant with God, perhaps by worshipping pagan deities or some other form of disobedience or disrespect. When this happened it was felt that the bonds between the realms of heaven and earth had been torn apart, and only that when these bonds were repaired would the Presence of God, the Shekhinah, return to her people. The 6th century prophet Ezekiel had visions of both her departure and return.

The 1st century A.D. destruction of the Jerusalem temple was particularly devastating for the people. The Shekhinah’s sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, no longer existed. She had no residence, no place to be. The people felt that the Spirit of God had left them.

The temple’s sacred treasures, such as the menorah—the seven-branched golden  oil lamp made in the form of a stylized, flowering almond tree—were carried off to Rome. The menorah’s blossom shaped lamps represented God—the Life Force—in the form of Light, while its stem and branches represented the Tree of Life...a worthy representation of both the Divine Spirit’s presence and its manifestation in the physical plane.




The defeat of Israel and the temple’s destruction resulted in a loss of national identity and a feeling of being deserted by God. This caused many people to flee into exile.

Later, Talmudic tradition taught that God’s Presence/Spirit, the motherly Shekhinah, had dwelt not only within the Holy of Holies but within the very life of the world itself. She did not desert her children; her love for them was so great that she went into exile with them.

Because there was no longer a temple in which to worship God, the religion centered ever more around observance of the Sabbath (called Shabbat), a remembrance of the seventh day of creation—which God had decreed must be a day of rest to commemorate his own rest after six days of creating the world. The Shabbat was considered a sacred and blessed day, a day of delight.

Traditions grew up around Shabbat: blessings recited over the candles to usher in Shabbat, eating of the Challah, chanting the Kiddush blessing over the wine, the sacred duty of married couples’ lovemaking, and chanting of the Havdalah ceremony the next evening as Shabbat ended.

Over time, and unsurprisingly, the sacred occasion of Shabbat became personified as the Shabbat bride or queen. This is remembered every Friday night when the candles are lit by the woman of the house and many Jews welcome in the Shabbat by singing or playing a traditional song that refers to the Shabbat as a bride. When Shabbat ends the following evening as the first three stars appear in the sky after sunset (quite often Venus and Jupiter are among these), the Shabbat queen is bid farewell in the Havdalah ceremony, which involves song, wine, fragrant spices, and a candle which is extinguished in the wine.

One wonders if these ceremonies reflect a dim memory of a time when the Hebrew goddess was known, loved, and regarded as the bride and consort of God the Father.

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 Bread of Heaven

"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
   
But the people defended their worship of her, saying,

    "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

The Temple of Solomon, the first of the Hebrew temples, was designed to be a model of the cosmos. The two most sacred precincts of the temple were called the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. These two precincts were separated by a special curtain that represented the border between the material and immaterial universe. It was woven of colors that represented the four elements of the natural world—air, fire, water, and earth. The Holy of Holies was the most sacred spot in the whole temple. It represented the timeless, immaterial, center of the universe, and was the place where the Presence of God, who was also called the Shekhinah and the Holy Spirit of God, dwelt. The word Shekhinah is from the root shachan/sakan, meaning “to dwell within,” with the additional implication that the dweller was a royal presence.

The Holy Place contained the sacred objects and implements necessary to the rituals of the temple, including the weekly offering of shewbread, or “Presence bread” which sat upon a special golden table. The Presence Bread was called the most holy food, most holy meaning that it had the ability to impart holiness to those who ate it. Twelve loaves of this special bread were baked fresh weekly. They sat on the table for the week, from Sabbath to Sabbath, becoming sanctified with the holiness and Presence of God in the Holy of Holies. On the Sabbath, an invocation of the Presence of God’s Holy Spirit into the bread was performed and the holy bread was eaten by the temple priests.

This weekly ritual of the sacred bread was, according to author Margaret Barker, not so much an offering to God but as a ritual of thanksgiving to God for the gift of the divine presence. (1) The  priests were consuming God’s spirit, God’s presence, and thereby partaking, in some small way, of the nature & divinity of God. This ritual was very like what later became the Catholic celebration of Holy Communion.

The priests performed this weekly ritual because they felt God had commanded it. The bread itself was considered an eternal covenant between the Hebrews and their God; the divine injunction for the priests to eat the Presence Bread was considered an eternal statute. (2) In other words, it was an important and mandatory part of the temple ritual.

Wisdom has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.
She has sent out her maiden, and she calls from the highest places of the city,
“Let all who are simple come to my house!”
To those who have no sense she says,
“Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Forsake the foolish and live; go in the way of understanding.”
 — Proverbs 9:2-6

The divine presence—the Shekhinah, the Ruach HaKodesh or Holy Spirit of God—that resided in the Holy of Holies was a feminine presence; we know this because the words referring to it—Ruach and Shekhinah—are feminine-gendered words. The Divine Presence was also equated with the feminine Biblical figure of Wisdom, God’s first creation / emanation, and his helper in the creation of the rest of the universe. (3)

All of this tells us quite clearly that the Spirit of God, God’s very presence in our world, was considered feminine. So the Divine Presence being ritually consumed by the priests of the temple each Sabbath was that of the feminine aspect of the divine, Wisdom, who, “set out her table” and called in “the simple” who wished to walk in the way of understanding (4) —Wisdom, the Goddess who was known in early Hebrew tradition as the Divine Mother Asherah, consort of El, and later, of Yahweh.

It was Asherah, the Divine Mother, who dwelt in the Holy of Holies. It was to the wise Asherah that the people condemned by Jeremiah were baking their cakes and offering their incense and libations.

Later, when strict monotheism became the order of the day, Asherah’s feminine nature was veiled under the more neutral description of “God’s Presence,” and “the Spirit of God,” or the “Holy Spirit.”

In erasing the presence of the feminine aspect of the divine, reformers, re-writers, and later, translators, have argued that Wisdom was not a Being but an abstract principle -- an aspect of the One God. But the evidence that the ancient Hebrew religion did indeed include the presence of the Goddess is found in the form of the Yahweh-Asherah shrines discovered by archaeologists, the countless small female statuettes that have been unearthed, references to the sacred poles known as “asherahs,” as well as the constant indignation of the monotheistic reformers and prophets (such as Jeremiah) concerning the people’s veneration of the Queen of Heaven. 

In the temple, both blood and bread offerings were made. Margaret Barker tells us that the bread  offerings were considered the most important. (5) So important, in fact, that the Sabbath bread ritual survived the destruction of the temple and became the challah bread that is blessed and consumed in every Jewish home during the weekly Sabbath meal.

The bread offering also survived as part of the Catholic mass in the form of the Holy Eucharist, or Holy Communion. The word “eucharist” means thanksgiving; the term “holy communion” implies a communing with the divine. In the Mass, just as in the Jerusalem Temple, the bread is offered to God and the Divine Presence of the Holy Spirit is invoked (the epiclesis). (6) The bread is consecrated by the power of the Holy Spirit, infused with the Divine Presence, and then is consumed by the priest as a means of communing with the Divine. He then distributes it to the people so that they, too, may share in this communion with the Divine.

Several passages in the Gospels equate Jesus with Wisdom, and many of the early Christian writings do so as well. And while Jesus was a wise being, it was thus that the feminine aspect of Wisdom became conflated with the masculine figure of Jesus. The temple ritual of the sacred bread became one in which the Divine Presence was consumed as his body and blood (7), and the concept of Wisdom as an honored feminine being, as the Divine Presence to whom offerings were made, was lost.

(1) Temple Themes in Christian Worship, pp 209-210
(2) __ , p 211
(3) — , pp 209-210
(4) Proverbs 9: 2-6
(5) Temple Themes in Christian Worship, pp 210
(6) The Roman church has changed this, but it is still done in many of the Eastern churches.
(7) Technically, the wine represent his blood. Wine was used in certain temple rituals and may have been representative of the covenant between God and his people. 

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....

Mother Night

Here is an excerpt from Chapter One of my forthcoming book,
Lady of the Sea: 2012 and the Mother Who Births the New Age
(c) Margie McArthur, 2002-2011, All rights reserved.
 

Just as all life on Planet Earth was birthed from Mother Ocean,
So all life in the universe was birthed by the Great Cosmic Mother
Whom we know as the vast dark sea of deep space.
She is the Darkness that gave birth to the Light.
 She is the No-Thing which is full of the potential of All Things
Of old she was known by many names:  
Dame Night, Dame Dark, Dame Nox,
Dame Hell, Dame Wisdom
Mother Night, Mother Darkness,
 Old Fate, Old Veiled One, Old Night,

Nyx

She is SHE -
The Great One, Darkness.
And from her emerged HE – the Limitless Light.
 
From their dance of love
Came forth the Many Other Lights -
Elements, Stars, Planets,
Mountains, Plains, Oceans,
Trees, Plants, Animals...

She is the Mother, the feminine aspect of divinity.
The one who conceives, gestates, births, nourishes,
And ultimately, takes life back into herself.

She is the Birther and yet also the Destroyer.
Queen of Life, Queen of Death,
Queen of Day, Queen of Night
The Great Mother of All

* * *

In the beginning was the Darkness. Limitless Darkness. She was vast and full of potential. No empty darkness here, but rather, fullness, unexpressed. She brooded, like the vast sky over the vast sea. Over time she began to feel, and what she felt was a longing, a pulling, a movement. And as she noticed this, became aware of it, it pulled away from her. It moved outward and came into manifestation as another. It was He, her other self, her Divine Twin.

This first movement of energy, this longing, pulling, as well as her awareness of it, constitute the first manifestation—the Other, the He—coming into being. Light, Limitless Light—the Bright One—born from the Vastness of Dame Dark, the primeval and ever-veiled Chaos or field of possibilities.

As HE came into being they became aware of each other, and a longing for reunion occurred. They merged—as separate beings—making love. Their lovemaking created huge waves of energy, from which all life was eventually sparked into being.

Their first children were the clouds of great, beautiful magellanic stardust. These stardust clouds spun and danced with the joy of life—swirling, glowing, spiraling—finally coalescing into stars beings. These star being often clustered together in great star-swirls called galaxies, and sometimes many galaxies clustered together as families. The stardust and star beings also gave birth: to comets, planets—including our own dear planet—and other celestial beings.

Some of these star beings had special tasks given them by Dame Dark and her consort, the Bright One. These particular star beings are those we now sometimes refer to as Angels and Archangels—terms which mean messengers and high messengers. They were messengers because by performing the specific creation tasks assigned to them—in the language of light, sound, and structure—they were carrying forth the message of the Divine Parents. Some call these beings the Lords of Flame and the Lords of Form, though they were, of course, beyond gender, containing both. So perhaps we should call them the Lords and Ladies of Flame and Form. Or perhaps, we should just call them angels.

Angels go by many names and have many very specific jobs. It is said that there were several whose particular job was to assist in humankind’s evolution into beings who possessed the fire of mind. These angels have, in legend, been referred to by many different names - among them the Watchers, the Grigori, the Sons of God, and the Annunaki, a Sumerian/Babylonian word which means ‘heaven and earth.’
                           
But...from the One came the Two...and from the Two, the Many. From Dame Dark came the Bright One, the Light—and then, all other manifestations of life.

Our star, the Sun, gave birth to our planet, our planetary system, and all life within it. Reaching out, its long arms streaming forth light and energy, it enveloped and embraced our planet Earth and its star-sparkling arms of light flashed streaks and streams of lightning. And in a twinkling of stellar time, the body of the Earth responded to this embrace. Microscopic life forms were sparkled into being as beams of starfire touched the Earth’s surface and  reached down deeply into the heart of the planet. Earth’s starry core responded to this touch, reaching upward in mutual embrace.

Life is everywhere in the universe. Beings floated to Earth on comet tails, they came in on the space winds, on the solar winds. The star-children, tiny living beings of all kinds—water vapors, gaseous vapors, starsparks—speeding through space in their tiny arks of metallic ore, vapor, and stardust. They met and mingled with the tiny beings which had arisen on and in the Earth. They joined, and became one family.

From the dance of the elements and the streaming of stars came forth many creatures on the Earth, including, eventually, humanity. And humanity, knowing that all life is born from a mother, recognized both Earth and Sky as Mother. And in the night sky’s thick band of stars, many saw the nourishing milk of the Sky mother, who is also the Star Mother, and so it became known as the Milky Way.

Esther, Mordecai, and the Feast of Purim

Last Sunday was Purim, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Queen Esther’s heroism in helping save the Persian Jews from extermination at the hands of the evil Haman, viceroy to Esther’s husband, King Ahasuerus. 

Purim is celebrated on the 14th day of the month of Adar, which usually corresponds to some time in March or late February. This year it coincided with the Spring Equinox, which is appropriate since many scholars feel that the feast of Purim may be a commemoration of the ancient Spring festivals of the Middle East -- a Hebrew folktale cast in a quasi-historical setting rather than an actual historical event. The Book of Esther is not mentioned in an authoritative list of sacred writings dated c. 180 BC, so its composition most likely dates to some time beyond 180 BC. 

The story takes place in the Persian empire city of Susa, in the 5th century BC. The Jews had been released from their Babylonian captivity by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 538 BC and some had come to settle in nearby Persia. Among them was a good man named Mordecai. Mordecai later became the guardian of his lovely niece (or much younger cousin), Hadassah (means myrtle, as in myrtle tree), who, for unexplained reasons, is renamed Esther. The beautiful Hadassah/Esther is chosen as bride by King Ahasuerus (thought to be either Xerxes or his grandson Artaxerxes), but he is unaware that she is of the Hebrew immigrant community and she does not enlighten him about it. 

Ahasuerus has a trusted right-hand man named Haman who does everything he can to curry favor with the king and thus become even more trusted and powerful. A decree goes out that people must bow to this highly favored individual but Mordecai refuses to do so. Haman is insulted and becomes angry. Finding out that Mordecai is part of the Jewish community, Haman vows revenge on all of Mordecai’s people; he begins to plot how to kill all the Jews. He starts by getting the king to countenance his plan by convincing him that the Jews refuse to obey his laws. This outrages the king and together they write up the execution order for the Jews and set a date for it. 

Word gets out and Mordecai is distraught for his people. Esther doesn’t know about the decree but she sees that Mordecai is very sad and wonders why. When she finally learns the truth she decides to intercede with the king, heroically defying the king’s decree that no one should ever come to his chambers uninvited. But the king is receptive to her when she arrives, and agrees to a plan she has devised. The truth comes out soon thereafter and Haman’s true colors are shown. He is executed and the Jews are saved.


Or so goes the story. 

People everywhere have celebrated spring festivals and the Middle East is no exception. Spring represents the victory of light over darkness and life over death. It is mythologized and anthropomorphized in many cultures and many ways. During their many years in Babylon the Hebrew people were undoubtedly exposed to the New Year’s Spring festival of Akitu, which celebrated the god Marduk’s victory over the chaos of Tiamat and thus the beginning of creation. This festival took place for 11 days early in the month of Nissanu, which corresponds roughly with the time of the spring equinox. Babylonia’s primary goddess, Ishtar, played a prominent role in these proceedings. While they lived in Persia the Hebrews could not have avoided exposure to the Persian Spring Equinox Festival of Nauroz (also spelled Nowruz, Narooz, etc), meaning “New Light,” which was celebrated as least as far back in time as the Median Empire that predated the Achaemenid Empire—of which Xerxes was the fourth monarch—a time predating the arrival of the Hebrew immigrants by between 10-50 years. 

The name Mordechai is Babylonian and means "servant of Marduk," Marduk being the chief god of the Babylonians. The name Esther is equivalent to Ishtar, supreme goddess of the Babylonians who was linked with the “morning star” planet of Venus. The Talmud refers to Esther as the “morning star.” The Babylonian captivity of the Jews had allowed them approximately 90 years to soak up the religion and culture of the Babylonian empire. 

Even Haman finds his place among the local pagan deities; it is conjectured that Haman is equivalent to the Elamite (i.e. the area around Susa) deity Humman, which is also rendered as Humbar and Khumban. The Elamites and Babylonians were ancient foes; thus Humman was a foe of Marduk, just as Haman was a foe of Mordecai. 

It is quite likely that Purim began as some sort of Spring Festival, but since the Hebrews used a lunar calendar the festival was probably affixed to a full moon and thus the time of its celebration varied.



Notes:
Jensen, P; as found in The Jewish Quarterly Review, April 1899, A New Commentary on the Five Megilloth,Thomas Tyler, p 519

The Serpent was Telling the Truth

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:9;

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Genesis 2:15-17

We all know the story: God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, into a beautiful garden in Eden and told them they could eat of anything growing there save the tree in the center of the garden - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. One day Eve was walking in the Garden and came to the Tree. It was lovely and the fruit looked appetizing and delicious. Just then a smooth-talking “subtil” serpent slithered near and asked her if it was true that God had forbidden her and Adam to eat the fruit of this tree because it would kill them. When she replied in the affirmative, the serpent said:

Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3: 4-5

Eve thought about this for a few minutes. That “subtil” serpent was pretty convincing and Eve, deciding to take the risk that the fruit would bring her wisdom rather than death, took a large bite of the luscious fruit. Finding it quite delicious, she shared it with her partner, Adam.

Eating the fruit opened their eyes in a new way: they suddenly realized they were naked. Not long afterward they heard God taking his usual early evening stroll in the Garden and they panicked, feeling that they must cover their nakedness. Of course when God saw them with their newly made figleaf aprons, he knew immediately what had happened and decided to punish them for their disobedience by banishing them from the Garden—in essence, sending them off to live on their own, without his help or the ease of life in the Garden. He told them it was going to be hard.

He prepared them for their new life with a new set of clothing:

Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. Genesis 3:21

Pictures of this part of the story in your average Bible Stories book usually show Adam and Eve walking around looking a bit like cavemen in their new animal-skin garments. But nowhere in this part of Genesis does it say something like, “And then the Lord God didst whack a deer over the head, killing it, and stripping off its skin, didst make garments for Adam and his wife to clothe their nakedness.”

So I guess we’re meant take this sentence at face value—God made coats of skin to clothe them. He gave them skin, which implies that up to this point they didn’t have any.

What this really means is that he made them physical bodies. Genesis 3:21 is about Adam and Eve’s “descent” from the etheric state of being to the material one. Their new skin clothing was to serve as a “container” for their souls—their etheric essence and true being—and were appropriate for the material realm that they would now inhabit.

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. Genesis 3: 22-24

Even though he was punishing them by casting them out of the Garden—the eternal world of spirit—and into the material world of limits, God was still worried that they might decide to try to eat the fruit of that other tree, the Tree of Life, and thus become immortal, godlike. In Genesis 2:22-24 he has a talk with himself (actually, himselves – but this is a topic we’ve already discussed) about this potential problem and comes to a decision as to what to do about it. He decides to post an angel and a rotating, flaming sword to discourage their re-entry.

What this means, esoterically, is that they cannot simply shed their new physicality at will and return to the spirit realm, the Garden. If they want to return they will now have to work their way back on the terms of the physical realm. This means working hard,earth, tilling the earth, suffering pain, bearing their children in pain, and in general, enduring the limitations, hardships, and sorrows that go along with life on the material plane.

These experiences cause the soul to learn and grow, to discern the difference between good and evil— a lesson that, over time, bears fruit in the form of wisdom.

So in actuality, the serpent was right. Eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil does open one’s eyes, making one more godlike.

But then again, God was right as well. Eating the fruit of that Tree does indeed cause one to die—to the relative freedom of the spirit world—as one is born into the physical world of time, limitation, and learning experiences.