|
Bear & Company 2005 ISBN #159143054-2 There is a great imbalance in our world, a great void that many people, many groups, are working very hard to rectify. That imbalance has to do with the Sacred Feminine, the Divine Feminine, the feminine that has not been simply misplaced, or lost, but that has been forcibly held down, held back, and literally removed from the pages of history. Atilla the Hun did not do this - it was the army of Christian soldiers that did this. The Church itself removed the Sacred Feminine, the Sacred Bride, from its history. She is indeed a "Bride in Exile", and needs to be returned to her rightful status, and her rightful place, beside her Sacred Bridegroom. I very much admire the work of Margaret Starbird. Her voice, her research, at the very least gives one pause for thought. However, there was one small statement in this book that I took immediate exception to. I understand that Ms Starbird made the conscious choice to work with her beliefs and theories within the constructs of the church. Not everyone can do that. Ms Starbird makes the statement that she is taken back by those women that have, by choice, chosen to honor what she terms "foreign Goddesses". There are many paths concerning the Sacred Feminine. The Goddess movement is one of those paths. My belief is that these paths converge on the same ending. Let us have the courtesy to make room for beliefs other than our own. In her introduction, Starbird points out that Mary Magdalene can be seen from several perspectives - as a flesh and blood woman, as a part of the history and mythology of the church, and as an archetype - the archetype of the sacred feminine. She is the lost bride of Christian mythology. Without her, Christ, the Heavenly King, is not whole. In an interesting aside, Starbird's previous book, "The Woman With the Alabaster Jar", became the foundation for the highly popular mystery novel "The Da Vinci Code" (by Dan Brown). While the novel stretched things a bit, the concept of the lost bride was brought into a large field of focus. What we don't encounter in one way, we are often shown in another. The focus of this book is what the actual loss was when Mary Magdalene was forced into the background of history. What we find is that the loss is not just to the church, but to every woman on earth, over many centuries. It is not just about equality, it is about the sacred role that the feminine plays, the universal role that was "rewritten" by the church, and by the patriarchal nature of society. In restoring the archetype of Mary Magdelene, we restore a part of the collective feminine consciousness to ourselves. We regain the connections between ourselves, and our connection with mother earth and our environment. Even in her own time Mary Magdalene was not easily accepted in her proper context. Starbird posits that Mary Magdalene was not a repenitent prostitute, but a wealthy patron of Jesus, one who followed him in his travels, and one who understood and believed in his words. She held a special place in his life, and was considered to be the "Apostle to the Apostles", as she took the message of the resurrection to the other Apostles. Society at this time did not hold women in low regard, they held them in no regard. For Mary Magdalene to hold the position that she did next to Jesus was, at the very least, not considered proper. (Especially as she was privy to teachings that the other Apostles were not.) Aside from not being a prostitute, Mary Magdalene was also not, as has been assumed by some, from the town of Magdala. Starbird makes a very good case that the Greek title "h Magdalhnh", in reference to Mary Magdalene, may refer to several things other than the town of Magdala, and was a title of great honor and prophetic significance. An interesting point here is that the belief that Mary Magdalene meant "Mary from Magdala" persisted through the centuries, despite the fact that no other woman in the Bible has her home town connected with her name. Yet another string that needed to be unwoven was that of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany. As of 1969, the church has disavowed that these two women were one, and separated them in church history. Throughout this book, Starbird gives us glimpses of Mary Magdalene - Mary the Apostle, Mary the Sacred Bride, the Mary of scripture, the Mary of legend and myth. All of these are parts of Mary the flesh and blood person, and Mary the archetypal Bride. Through text, through relation to the scriptures; through a series of beautifully done color photographs from artists such as Peter Paul Reubens, El Greco, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti; and through hearing Starbird's own voice on the accompanying CD, we come to understand who Mary the Magdalene is, and the part she played, and still plays, in the sacred feminine and in the lives of all women. This book is controversial. It will make you think. It is also well researched, and well documented. The threads of this work may well be taken up by one of her readers. I found the book, and the CD, well worth my time.
Bonnie Cehovet
Graphics by Art for the web |
