Do you dream of the Magdalene?

from Blog Mary Magdalene Within)

There is a beautiful 14th century altar piece with the familiar Mary Magdalene and a worried looking "Authority Father". We see Mary's symbols of red clothing, a jar of special oil or ointment, a look of "all knowing", and long beautiful hair. Her hair is most often red or blonde, and it's almost always loose and flowing.

The lore of the Goddess from time immemorial has told us about her hair; how beautiful, magical, mystical is Her hair. No matter the insults, denigrations, mistellings of her story that Mary "called the Magdalene" has endured, she seems to have always kept claim to the glory of her hair. Painters and sculptors through the last 2,000 years have felt compelled to keep her hair long and beautiful. Apparently hair was so very potent an attribute of Woman that St. Paul needed to proclaim it forbidden in church. Woman's hair should be covered "because of the angels" (1 Corinthians 11:10), referring to a belief that women's hair would draw demons into the building. By that time, of course, the Magdalene's fate was sealed , even though Jesus had said so explicitly , "Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of in memorial of her..." (Mark 14:3-9 ) In Memory of Her.

Before Jesus the Christ and Mary the Magdalene stepped onto the world stage as Divine Couple, Isis and Osiris were the ones to enact the stories of Sacred Union on all levels, and hair was a potent force in those stories too. When Osiris died and Isis was in her lamentation period, she cut a lock of her hair to place on his burial garments. And when she was bringing to effect the resurrection of Osiris, it was her hair spread over him which represented the Life Force which brought him back. It was said that her hair created the warmth which started his heart again, and allowed her to conceive a child. And there we have the story of the life cycle within the Sacred Union, restoring her bounty to earth.

Isis and Osiris painting by Susan Seddon Boulet

Legends have it that Mary Magdalene was with child after she had played her part in enacting the ancient story of creation and re-creation. Her "Princess Sarah" of "the journey in the boat with no oars" went underground in the European tales of the fate of the feminine world soul.


Mary the Magdalene also lived through the feeling and intuition and love of the artists who brought her alive, with her long flowing tresses of power and magic and beauty. Perhaps her stories of the great love between she and Jesus met up with northern European stories of glorious women diety like Rhiannon and Gwenhwyfar. Both of these goddesses were said to have long, long beautiful hair and both inspired the love of the best of the kings. We know that the fair Guinevere was known, as was Mary Magdalene, as "female wisdom"...The Woman Who Knows the All. Rhiannon was Britain's woman diety with long and powerful hair, and she most often came riding to people on an enormous white unearthly horse.

One of our Christian stories (Revelations xix 11-14) tells us that Jesus will return on an unearthly white horse.....we can only hope that it belongs to the Goddess Rhiannon.

Rhiannon painting by Stevie Nicks

Rhiannon by Stevie Nicks

Rhiannon rings like a bell throu the night

And wouldnt you love to love her

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight

And who will be her lover

All your life youve never seen a woman

Taken by the wind

Would you stay if she promised you heaven

Will you ever winShe is like a cat in the dark

And then she is the darkness

She rules her life like a fine skylark

And when the sky is starless

All your life youve never seen a woman

Taken by the wind

Would you stay if she promised you heaven

Will you ever win

Will you ever win

Rhiannon

"Seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath wetted my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet." (Luke 7)


Her love flows easily like her unbound hair, she is the love capacity of the Goddess, the wisdom of the Goddess to love the Sacred Masculine with whom she creates life.