The infamous arrest of the Knights Templar was carried out on Friday the 13th of October, 1307. The day lives in the memory of Westerners, though they may not know why it is so “dangerous.” It actually goes back to the Hebrew Bible, the book of Esther, when the evil Haman persuaded Esther’s husband, the King of Babylon, to arrest and execute her people, the Jews, en masse. Ultimately, I think scholars will agree that the faith of the Templars was based on ancient “Ebionite” or ”Judaic-Christian” roots that included the full humanity of Jesus (including marriage and parenthood).

I’ve just finished reading two very interesting books, following up on the recent airing of a documentary on the History Channel called “The Grail in America.” The basic text supporting the film was Scott Wolter’s “The Hooked X,” while the novel, Cabal of the Westford Knight by David S. Brody, is a very informative follow up. Both books fully support the idea that the “great secret” described in my Tarot Trumps and the Holy Grail was the survival of descendants of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.– It’s interesting that artifacts on the east coast of the US (New England) and Canada have surfaced and support the claims that heirs of Templar traditions (engineering and sacred geometry, among others) attempted to settle in the “New World” a century before Columbus. Assertions have been made for decades that some Templars survived and fled by ship to Scotland (which was under interdict at the time of their arrest). Perhaps their descendants were eager to find a place that was beyond reach of the Vatican and the Inquisition… why not sail west?

Interesting lore….

peace and well-being,
Margaret
“The Woman with the Alabaster Jar”
www.margaretstarbird.net

I guess it’s time to ask the question, “What is a Goddess?”

Many theologians identify “God” as pure energy, personified in a
masculine image (like the Almighty Father in Michelangelo’s “Creation”
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But everyone knows that “He” is
not really “the One”–who is ineffable and defies description. Judaism
and Islam allow no images of God because God is beyond all human
ability to create such an image.

Yet we know of many “gods” in the ancient world… Could we say that
they are “incarnations” of the masculine attributes of “God”? and,
given this, might we then say that Mary Magdalene is an “incarnation”
of the “Goddess” attributes of wisdom/compassion/love?

I believe that just as Jesus embodied the Jewish tradition of Yahweh
as the “Bridegroom of Israel,” Mary Magdalene embodied their tradition
of the “Daughter of Sion” as Bride (as in the rabbi’s interpretation
of the Song of Songs that has so many verses in common with an ancient
liturgy honoring Isis and Osiris). The Jesus/Mary Magdalene story was
a “personification” of the ancient and archetypal marriage covenant
between “God” and his Beloved–His chosen people.

peace and well-being,
Margaret
“Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile”
www.margaretstarbird.net

May 23 is when the little town of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer begins to celebrate the festival of St. Sarah the Egyptian and the three Maries… (Mary Magdalene, Mary Jacobi and Mary Salomé) who allegedly arrived on the shore in “a boat with no oars” in c.AD 42…. apparently (according to French legend) bringing with them the Holy Grail and the “good news” of Christianity in their hearts (though it had yet to be written!)

The townspeople escort St. Sarah’s statue, dressed in seven layers of beautiful gowns created by tribes of Gypsy women, to the sea. Gypsy men on white horses carry the statue on a platform and stand in the waves while the crowd signs hymns and shouts “Vive Ste Sarah!”–

There are several suggestions as to why Sarah is black: she is “Egyptian” (i.e. born in Egypt), she is obscure (allegedly the maid-servant of the Maries, “just like Cinderella”) or, the one I consider most probably, she is a “hidden” offspring of the lineage of King David, whose heirs, “once white as milk, are now black as soot. They are not recognized in the streets” (Lamentations 4:7-8)… The bearers of that royal line are now political refugees in a foreign land…hoping to evade notice of the Romans who might seek to destroy them (as they did other relatives of Jesus in the first century). There is only one child on the boat in the French legends–and her name “Sarah” means “princess” in Hebrew.

Who do we say she is?

peace and light,
Margaret

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Professor Mary Ann Beavis posted in with this intriguing connection:

I say that she's Kali-Sarah, the christianized goddess of the Romany,
originally from India (hence, the veneration of the dark goddess Kali).

Mary Ann

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I then asked Margaret what legend is it where we see the little princess Sarah in the boat with no oars.

Scroll down below St Sarah’s picture and read Margaret’s answer…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hi, Katia,

Today, May 24, is Saint Sarah’s actual feast day.

The legends about St. Sarah stem from an long-standing oral tradition and have several variations. They were not available in any extant written form until after the Inquisition was securely entrenched in Southern France, so our chances of hearing the complete and unabridged story of St. Sarah are slim and none. Jacobus Voragine’s Golden Legend names “Marcelle” as the servant of Martha (Mary Magdalene’s sister), who travelled with the other refugees from Jerusalem in the boat with no oars. But at St. Maries de la Mer, this “serving girl” is called “St. Sarah”–based on legends apparently indigenous to the area. One late version of the story says that Sarah the Egyptian (also called Sarah the Black) was an gypsy queen who welcomed the refugees to France when they arrived, but since the gypsies themselves didn’t show up in Europe until the 14th century, that account can’t be the true version.

Wikipedia has a piece on St. Sarah here.

And here is the Golden Legend section on the topic.

and this blog entry called Celebrating with Saint Sarah has interesting info:

Here’s my story (longer version is published in my “Goddess in the Gospels.” While my husband was the district engineer in Nashville, TN, we were invited to go out dinner with a group French mayors and their wives who were visiting. At the time, I was totally immersed in “Grail” research and found myself sitting next to a French woman who was the wife of one of the deputy mayors. I asked her about the early Christians on the shores of France and she lit up like a torch…. she had been to all the shrines of the Black Madonnas and to St. Maries de la Mer and knew all the “lore.” She told me about St. Sarah, and when I asked who she was, Madame Capolla told me that Sarah was “the little girl on the boat” with Mary Magdalene and Martha and Lazarus and the others who came from Jerusalem. When I got home I looked up “Sarah” in my concordance and discovered that it means “Princess.”

Madame C. later mailed me several pamphlets and booklets from the shrines and Stes Maries, including pictures of St. Sarah dressed in her beautiful organdy and brocade dresses (piled on top of one another). The parallels with Cinderella (another princess from a far away land who is alleged to be the servant of her relatives) are obvious, along with the quote I provided from Lamentations about the faces of the heirs of King David, “now black as soot.”—

I personally think this story was so dangerous in the Middle Ages that it was couched in symbolism and told as a myth or legend. The “fossil” left for evidence is the title “Sarah” (princess) given to the child/servant (whom Voragine names “Marcelle”–but then, Voragine was a Roman Catholic bishop, so perhaps he was providing deliberate misinformation in his Magdalene story (most of which reads like pure fiction anyhow!).

peace and light,
Margaret
“The Woman with the Alabaster Jar”
www.margaretstarbird.net

Mary posted:
>….My research has told me that The Mothers of Arles Festival is held on the 24th ( from Juno Covella and The White Goddess) or this
> festival is celebrated from May 24-28th (The Grandmother of Time, Z. Budapest). I am curious to know how the 23rd of May fits in?
> Did you get this date from another text or have you visited Arles to see it taking place today?

________________

I have been to Les Saintes-Maries-da-la-Mer for the festival of Saint
Sarah and the “Maries” —which begins on the evening of the 23rd of
May with music and street dancing. Gypsies and tourists flock to the
town to celebrate the “vigil” of the festival. The 24th (today) is the
actual feast of St. Sarah, whose statue is kept in the crypt of the
basilica. A local bishop says high Mass in the basilica (“Our Lady of
the Sea”) in her honor, and then Sarah’s statue, bedecked in fabulous
finery, is taken from the church and escorted to the sea. Tomorrow (25
May) is the feast of the “Maries.” Their replica of two women with
covered chalices standing in a blue boat is lowered from it’s position
above the altar and is escorted to the sea, similar to the Sarah
parade and ceremony on the 24th. I’m not sure how this folk festival
ties in with other ancient “Goddess” celebrations, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if it did! Syncretism of ancient goddesses of love and
fertility abounds in the region: Isis, Juno, Cybele, Venus, Diana et alia.

peace and well-being,
Margaret

The red egg and the skull that are so often associated with the Magdalene?
Without interfering with the other attributes out there, he suggests: the red
egg points to the first chakra, where in most of us lies the sleeping kundalini
princess will awaken; the skull points one not to death but to the seventh
chakra, where dwells the Awakener. The mystic marriage of these two occurs, of
course, in the fourth chakra, the sacred bridal chamber where the two combine.

I merely share the jotting. I have little to say about it, except to note the
thinking on it leads one to some sublime perceptions indeed. As I’ve been
wearing the Magdalene mysteries medal for some weeks, I am often reminded of
these symbols. Synchronistically, to my immediate right at my computer keyboard
for several years has been a crystal skull (full of rainbows) and a blood red
egg shaped naga eye crystal from Thailand. For at least two years I’ve been
wondering what on earth they’re doing there, and why did it seem so in
appropriate to move them.

Early this week, reading Tau Malachi’s words, I understood.

I tell you, if we just give it half a chance, life can be grand.

All be well,

Scott

I was so engrossed in Growing Up Without the Goddess that at times I became detached from reality, as though I was in an alternate world — which, when I forced myself to put down the book, I realized I was — Sandra Pope’s world! Her story is BEYOND riveting; it is soul-bonding. 
This author, with her hypnotic, almost mythical writing style, peels back the layers of human nature and expresses it so profoundly that you just can’t stop reading. I literally couldn’t tear my eyes away from the page waiting for the next thing to happen. And this is a true story! Truth is more exhilarating than fiction. It reads like a combination of The Secret Life of Bees and Rich Man, Poor Man. 
It is healing to read this book. The author says it was healing to write it. You will enter her world and hold it in your heart. 
If you have your own embracing the Sacred Feminine story, you must read Growing Up Without the Goddess, find your voice, and write YOUR story. It needs to be told, needs to enter human consciousness in these significant times, just like this book…

14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene…
Tuesday evenings for 14 weeks beginning April 7th from 7:30-9:00.

Atlanta Unity Church, 3597 Parkway Lane, Norcross, GA 30092.

Please join us for this weekly gathering based on the newly released book by Margaret Starbird and Joan Norton.

Come be immersed in the archetype of the sacred feminine known as “history’s most misunderstood woman.” Through reflection, meditation, and journaling you will experience the awakening of your inner sacred feminine in this expanding path of women’s spirituality.

$16/wk Space is limited; pre-registration requested.

Facilitated by D’Ann Baldwin
Contact D’Ann @;newearthfeminine@gmail.com  678-644-9698

Click here to listen (27 minutes)

Come back to this page when you’re done listening and then play the video below for our closing hymn, Ave Maria No Morro sung by Andrea Bocelli, the blind tenor of Tuscany with beautiful art slides of Mother Mary, our Christian Goddess.

And here’s an ethereal sounding Ave Maria No Morro sung by Klaus Meine of the rock band, Scorpions. 

Thanks to Margaret Starbird , Joan Norton and Jennifer Reif for the material for this “sermon” which includes a brief guided meditation from Joan and Margaret’s brand new book, 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene.

Magdalene called Companion by James Kessler

Margaret Starbird writes:

I just received the link to a rather amazing “portrait” of Mary Magdalene that the Christian artist, James Kessler, calls “Companion” (the epithet given to Mary in the Gospel of Philip).  I thought some of you might like to see it:  Www.InChristVictorious.com

Mary Magdalene and Jesus depicted as married. Stained glass window of a Dervaig, Scotland church, circa 1908

I endorsed this book [Mysteries of the Bridechamber: The Initiation of Jesus and the Temple of Solomon ] for ITI when it was published last year. I thought the book was remarkable in many ways– but I was sad that Victoria LePage couldn’t fully embrace Mary Magdalene as “true Bride”—In my view, she missed a golden opportunity to celebrate the “Sacred Marriage” at the heart of the Gospels. 

Apparently that “leap of faith” is too difficult for many people — We’ve all been taught to honor the “spiritual” as “high” and the “physical” as “low”–not understanding that they are ONE/ warp and woof of the same tapestry of Life.

I believe we were all “brainwashed ” by the early Gnostic Christians “denial” of the “divinity” of the physical body / flesh as “counterpart” and “consecrated vessel” of the “Spirit.” As my friend Mary Beben so succinctly states, “Spirit fell in love with Matter and united with Her to create the “Cosmos”—it’s a bit like ”wave and particle” theory… the “unseen” is “ONE” with the visible. The word for mother in Sanskrit is “matr”–the root of “material,” “mater” (mother), “matrix” et alia….

This is the ultimate “integration of opposites” which we celebrate at the core of the “Sacred Union” in all mythologies…and at the heart of the Christian story.

It is the real meaning of the “nativity” of Jesus, “the Divine became Flesh”— the doctrine of “incarnation.” The sad thing is that we all were taught that the ”Divine” became flesh ONLY in Jesus (a one-time event). We fail to grasp that Jesus came to show us that the “Divine” takes flesh in each of us… that We are called to be the incarnation of “Godde.” So our “earthen vessels” (our bodies, fearfully and wonderfully made!) are consecrated containers– 

I believe that one of the reasons that Mary Magdalene carries a “precious box of perfumed ointment” is to remind us of the “sacred container” for which she is the “personification”—model of our own physical “union” of flesh and divinity….

So I wish Victoria LePage could have made that last “leap” –to embrace the “incarnation” of “God in us” (Emmanuel!)….to include Mary Magdalene as “Bride” and “Divine Counterpart.”

The Dervaig window at the “Church of Mary” shows Jesus with a halo, his Bride without a halo. The artist was showing that Mary was “human”– Jesus was Divine. But, in fact, She, too was “Divine”–the “incarnation” of the “Feminine Face of God”—THIS is the doctrine I feel needs so desperately to be corrected in our time….

love and blessings,

Margaret

To read the discussions that ensued after this post, please visit our GoddessChristians forum starting with Message 20898.

The Maria Sanchez Show KVTA July 22 Joan Norton

–Katia