Month: May 2016

May 24 is St Sara’s FeastDay, Cinderella, Holy Grail

St Sara Procession of the Gypsies France
Annual May 24 Procession of the Gypsies Honoring St Sara

Margaret Starbird writes:

May 24th is the celebration of St. Sara (the Egyptian) at the little town of Saints Maries-de-la-Mer on the coast of France. Legends about this dark saint differ, but one insists that she was pre-adolescent girl on the boat that brought Mary Jacobi, Mary Salome and Mary Magdalene, political refugees from Jerusalem, to France in AD 44. The oral tradition goes way back into forgotten origins, but the story has some very poignant hints about this little girl on the boat. Her name Sara means “princess” in Hebrew and she is said to have been the servant of her relatives….. (just like Cinderella—another “sooty-faced” princess,”lost” or “locked away” in our Western fairytale). In the little novella published as the Foreword to my “Woman with the Alabaster Jar,” I suggested that Sara was born in Egypt after the Crucifixion of Jesus and was the daughter of Mary Magdalene—who is proclaimed to have brought the “Holy Grail” (sangraal)

St Sarah / Sara adorned for her annual procession
St Sara / Sarah of Egypt, honored in France every year – is she Jesus & Magdalene’s Daughter?

to France. The Old French word “sangraal” is misleading when it is divided after the “n”: san graal or “holy Grail.” When you divide the word after the g—“sang real”—it means “blood royal.” One does not carry the “blood royal” around in a jar with a lid…. it flows in the veins of a child of royal lineage, in this case, the daughter if the Davidic line of Israel’s kings. An interesting prophecy occurs in the Hebrew Bible in the book of Lamentations: “Then princes of Judah, whose faces were once white as milk are now black as soot. They are not recognized in the streets” (Lam 4:7-8). The darkness of this little princess, born in Egypt, may be symbolic of her status as a dis-inherited exile of her native Israel—obscure and hidden in the annals of Western history books….

St Sarah, the Sooty Faced Cinderella girl Saint
St Sarah, the Sooty Faced Cinderella girl Saint

Today the Gypsy procession in Stes. Maries-de-la-Mer will accompany Sara’s statue from the Church of Our Lady of the Sea to the Mediterranean beach, shouting as they go: “Vive Sainte Sara!” commemorating the story that says she is one of the boatload of Christians who brought the Gospel to Western Europe. The festival begins tonight in Stes. Maries with street dancing and gypsy concerts and culminates with the procession of the effigies of the two Maries (Marie Jacobi and Marie Salome) in their blue boat to the sea on the 25th. Various websites have photos of the festival and processions…. very picturesque!

Peace and light,
Margaret
http://margaretstarbird.net/the_woman_with_the_alabaste.html
“The Woman with the Alabaster Jar”

Margaret Starbird on Mount St Helens, Magdalene, Sacred Marriage in Christianity

May 18th was the anniversary of the first 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, an event my friends and I considered hugely prophetic. I am a member of a small Roman Catholic prayer community “Emmanuel” that has received incredible “revelation” over a period of years—some of it outlined in my 1998 book, “The Goddess in the Gospels,” relevant to our on-going efforts to reclaim the Bride and the Partnership (Sacred Union) at the heart of the Gospels.

Mount Saint Helens Mt St Helens Magdalene Margaret StarbirdThe mountain (named for a British explorer) bears the name of the Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena who prayed for decades for the conversion of her son to Christianity. It erupted on Pope John Paul II’s 60th birthday (May 18, 1980) and again, a much smaller eruption, on the following Sunday, May 25, the feast of Pentecost. The first eruption of the “fire mountain” caused incredible devastation. The lake that spilled its waters down into the coastland below was called “Spirit Lake.” I knew the place well—our family had spent a fishing vacation there in 1973. We had eaten our dinners in the lodge owned by Mr. Truman—dinners cooked by his wife.

For these reasons, on noticing these dates, I immediately associated the volcano with the Institutional Roman Catholic Church. The Scripture passage I received when I prayed over the volcano’s eruption was from the prophetic book of Jeremiah:

“Beware. I am against you, destroying mountain. I will stretch forth my hand against you, roll you down over the cliffs and make of you a burnt mountain.” (Jer. 51:25). Reading this passage, I was horrified! I was convinced that God was talking about the Church in its present condition. At the time I had never even heard of pedophilia, but I knew about the Vatican Bank scandal and other abuses of power.

Several months later another explosion of Mount St Helen’s occurred, this one on 22 July–the Feast of Mary Magdalene–which in that year fell on the “9th of Av,” the day when Jews in Israel go to the Western Wall to mourn the destruction of their Temple—not once, but twice! One of my prayer group “kinswomen,” who lived in Tel Aviv at the time, planned to go to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem on that day in 1980 and had asked our prayer group to be with her in prayer mourning for the Temple that has not been rebuilt. We had each performed a “novena” in preparation for this event in solidarity with those who mourn the Temple.

The “synchronicities” and connections of these dates on Mount St. Helens’ eruptions were, I believe, enormously prophetic. At the time, my prayer group friends and I had been shown to record dates of important current events and interpret them with a view to the Church calendar of feast days. We all thought that the implied implosion of the Church (Mt. St. Helens)  had to do with the Vatican bank scandals and the cover up of the rumored murder of John Paul I (a ‘story rarely told’). We had as yet no idea of the other devastating internal problems brewing in the Church that included the massive cover-ups of pedophilia.

Here’s what the Mount St. Helens Volcano revealed when we prayed about it:

A damaging implosion would come from within the Church
It would occur during the “watch” of John Paul II
It would cause an the waters of the Holy Spirit to be poured out into the earth (Pentecost, Spirit Lake poured out). The Church was no longer to be the “custodian” of the “waters of Spirit and Truth.”
The denial Jesus was “true man” would be an issue. (Mr. “Truman” had stayed on the mountain and was buried in the slide). He had refused to leave because his WIFE was buried at the site of his fishing camp).
The “Temple” in Jerusalem could not be rebuilt because of the loss of the “Blueprint,” including the denial of “Mary Magdalene” and all she embodies: the “Sacred Feminine,” the “Bride,” the physical body, relatedness to the earth, kinship of all people, feminine wisdom, intuition. 
The model of “Sacred Union” was broken in the cradle of the Christianity–waiting to be restored!

The “revelation” of Mt. St. Helens is discussed more thoroughly in chapter 3 of my book, The Goddess in the Gospels:  http://www.margaretstarbird.net/the_goddess_in_the_gospels.

The systematic denial of the Feminine as “Bride and Beloved” is a core problem underlying the sex and power abuses by priests—a devastating “design flaw” of the early Church perpetrated into the present with tragic consequences.

In memory of her–
Margaret

Margaret Starbird on Oils & Magdalene, Mother Ruah, Song of Solomon

Klaus Mailahn posted:

Oils as symbol of Divine Mother Ruah / Ruach

Last night at BibleTV I saw an interesting sermon of famous US-preacher Bayless Conley. At the beginning he spoke of the Holy Spirit (we call Mother Ruah / Ruach). One of Her most important symbols has been oil, especially oil of anointing and oil for lamps! This special assignment seems to be an indication for the connection between Mother Ruah and Mary Magdalene. For oil of anointing brings to mind Mary Magdalene appearing as Sulamith in Song of Solomon / Song of Songs. Oil for lamps of course has to do with light – and Mary Magdalene is the Pure of Light in the Pistis Sophia and the Illuminated in the Gnosis. William Henry in one of his books calls Her in his subtitle “Illuminator. The woman who enlighted Christ”. In the Revelation 12, Mary Magdalene appears as The Woman clothed with the Sun.
We now can understand better why Hippolyte of Rome (170-236) in his Commentary on the Song of Songs associates Mary Magdalene with Ruah, particularly here:
On Song of Songs 4:1f.: “Look, my friend, my lovely, your are beautiful, your eyes are like doves.” The bridegroom calls this out to Sulamith, in Hippolyte’s opinion, because he has seen the Holy Spirit (Mother Ruah). So Sulamith is associated with Ruah. Writing about the Song of Songs 3:1-4 Hippolyte identifies Sulamith with Mary Magdalene, calls Her “Apostle” and “New Eve”. Commenting on the women going to the tomb of Christ he writes: “Oh, the new instruction, Eve becomes Apostle!”

Mary Magdalene and the Force

On Song of Songs 2:5: “Anoint me with oil and gather apples”. Here Hippolyte defines the oil of anointing as “the force teaching us all, fortifying Christ to the inner human”. So this means Mary Magdalene’s oil of anointing strengthens our connection to Christ. And the apple of Eve is the old symbol of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, identified with Mary Magdalene.  For more on Aphrodite and Mary Magdalene see Ariadne Green: “The mythology of Jesus and Mary Magdalene” http://www.newageinfo.com/myth-Jesus-Magdalene.htm

Margaret Starbird writes of Magdalene the Myrrhophore

Thank you for posting this, Klaus. The connection between Mary Magdalene as “ointment bearer” (Myrrhophore) and the Bride in the Songs of Songs [Solomon] is of immense importance! In the Song of Songs / Solomon, the fragrance of the bride wafts around the king at the banqueting table. In John 12, her fragrance “filled the house.” In both case the fragrance is “nard.” The only passages in all of the Judeo-Christian scriptures where “nard” is mentioned are the Song of Songs and the anointing of Jesus in all four Gospels by “the woman with the alabaster jar.”—

Here are several quotes referencing the “oils” or “fragrance” of the bride:

While the king was on his couch, my nard gave
forth its fragrance. (Song of Solomon 1:12)

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of
pure nard and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped
them with her hair. (John 12:3a)

How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride.
How much better…is the fragrance of your oils
than any spice! (Song of Solomon 4:10)

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume…
and Jesus said, “Leave her alone so that she might
keep it for the day of my burial. (John 12 3b, 7)

The only anointing of Jesus during his ministry was by the woman whom Luke calls a sinner, but John names: She is Mary, the sister of Lazarus. As I pointed out recently on this list, the “Vesica Pisces” associated by gematria (153) with Mary Magdalene’s title is used as a symbol for the “anointing by the Holy Spirit” in Christian art—

Here’s what I posted a week or two ago: “Often when you see a medieval sculpture of Christ seated in glory, he is surrounded by the “vesica piscis” () symbol (the yoni) which is universally associated with the goddesses of love and fertility. In Christianity, the meaning of the () is “anointed by the Holy Spirit”—acknowledging that She is feminine….

In the Gospels themselves, Jesus is anointed by a woman named twice in John’s Gospel (11:2 and 12:3). She is Mary, the sister of Lazarus, associated in Christian art and tradition (until recently!) with the Mary whose title is “the Magdalene,” the one who cries at Jesus’ tomb and meets him resurrected in the Garden on Easter morning.”

This association of the “anointing” with the “Bride” derives from the rituals of fertility cults of the ancient Near East where the bridegroom was anointed by his “Bride” as a prefiguring symbolic of the anointing of the male by the female during coitus. The “vesica piscis” symbol is equated universally with the yoni. Greeks called the symbol the “Matrix,” the “womb,” the “doorway to life” and the “Holy of Holies” – literally the “bridal chamber.” So the use of the vesica piscis in Christian art is a “carry-over” from the ancient rites of heiros gamos—the marriage of the Sacred King and his Holy Bride, who is the representative of the Goddess of the land and people.

Mary Magdalene is clearly cast in the role of the Bride in the Gospels—clearly the instrument of the Holy Spirit anointing the King in advance for his death and burial.

In memory of her,
Margaret
www.margaretstarbird.net
“The Woman with the Alabaster Jar”