Events for The Passion of Mary Magdalen-responses

Maeve

Katelan and I went to hear Elizabeth Cunningham, the earth goddess/shaman from High Valley at Quest Bookshop today. I hardly know how to describe it - but I was very moved by the new old story of the Celtic Mary Magdalen. It is described simply as "a novel". It WAS, in fact, a deep understanding of the divine in human beings and our place in the spiritual development of others - not religious, but SPIRITual. One story's pivotal moment came when a "Voice" said: see the god in him (a boy who "came of age"). Maeve was a prostitute, a whore, and became the embodiment of the priestesses of the temples in Greece who made love to men in the vein of the Divine Rite. Those who read "The DaVinci Code" will find this very satisfying, I believe. And it is in three, stand-alone parts: a Magdalen Chronicle.

Maeve may have been the "speaker", but Elizabeth was the vessel: she was luminous, lit from within by the spellbinding gospel she told (She called it archetype*.) of the story of real love, divine love, human love. With all its sloppiness and expletives and casualness and heartbreak and intimacy. Why do I say "love" instead of "history" or "fable" or "spirituality" or even "legend"? For this, I will quote 1 Corinthians: 8-13 (Yes, Elizabeth, ordained Interfaith minister and daughter of an Episcopalian minister, I do own and READ a bible. **):

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a [man], I gave up childish ways. for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Although she'd obviously done her thorough research, both historical and biblical, Elizabeth had Maeve speak in modern language, deliberately sounding anachronistic because she wanted the full effect and MEANINGS of the words so the character of the people and their actions lived for us. When she wrote this exquisite work, I can only know that she channeled Maeve - and the "others", one of which was Jesus (yes, THAT Jesus). Elizabeth's explanation? "They (as in, the "characters" in her novel) spoke to me." Exactly.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for this all-around labor of love. Please keep going.