Greetings and Happy Mabon! Mabon is the wicca holiday for the Autumnal Equinox. It's a celebration of the harvest and a time of balance between men and women as the sun and moon are in the sky the same amount on the 20th and 21st. It's also a full moon! Tradition dictates wine, apples, bread, and pomegranates are shared and protection spells are worked. In the olden, Celtic days, the High Priestess and the King/High Priest would have ritual sex before their subjects in the practice of Hieros Gamos or Sacred Marriage. Very exciting. Today, I want to honor and define the Goddess in the form of Mary Magdalene, the female Christ, the wife and spiritual equal to Jesus. I've spoken before about Mary's role as a prostitute coming from her role as a daughter to be bartered, but it turns out there is more to the story.
Mary came from a good house that might have sent her to Egypt, to learn to be a High Priestess. She was also rumored to be wealthy and from her own pocket Jesus's campaign was funded. It turns out that Jesus's followers were also women and that Mary was like their christ. These women, however, were not attached to any man, and so when they walked alone in the streets to temples, or in large groups with single men, they were called loose, easy women by just being so available in public. But Mary was anything but. "Mary being cast in the role of repentant prostitute for so long, speaks of the Church’s attempts to denigrate the powerful sexual attributes that can be seen in the goddess religions of old. But like the goddesses of old, women and men related to the sexually erotic feminine archetype being represented by the Magdalene and despite the attempts of the Christian fathers to repress and manipulate her image, she has remained loved and revered and touches both men and women with her sacred sexuality." She was Jesus's equal and his partner in his spiritual practice. "She is the one who washes his feet and anoints him and who witnesses his death and resurrection. She becomes the woman mentioned most often in the New Testament."
But what more characterizes Mary? Her colors are white and blue, like the High Priestess in the Tarot, an Archetype of Mary. She loves the earth and animals and plants and probably had green eyes like her lover, Jesus. She has an affinity for roses, the five petaled rose being her symbolic flower. She may have been a disciple of Isis. She was likely lovely and had long red hair. She is depicted in many movies and tv shows. Through these I will explore her traits further.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is That 70's Show. Donna Pinciotiti is an archetypal Mary Magdalene. She has red hair, wears roses, is smart despite her "bimbo-like good looks", she questions her society, gender and father. She is involved in an innate relationship with Eric, a certain christ figure. She even displays the tendency Mary Magdalene had to be possible more masculine, or forceful and effective, than Jesus. It is even suggested that Mary was like a man in a woman's body and Christ was like a woman in a man's body. The beginnings of Christianity were likely based in gender equality, since on the next plane there is no gender. Mary and Jesus held each other as equals, separate from a society of gender inequality. Donna also comes from an Italian bloodline and her father wears the phallic pepper/horn of Italy on his neck. Not only does this represent a kingdom she would be leaving for Eric, the essential Mary/Jesus narrative, it is the very kingdom that suppresses her Archetypal self's public image for centuries. That 70's Show is basically the poster story for Mary and Jesus. Mary/Donna, is a well bred woman who leaves her high life for a fringe philosopher type/Eric. These two also display the story of Mary and Christ as sometimes having to be separated. I've noticed in Magdalene/Christ plots that often Mary and Jesus must be split for stretches of time. Such as when he's crucified. Which was a big magic show Mary and Jesus supposedly put on to fool the Romans and get them off his back. Long story. Anyway, Hot Donna, ladies and gentlemen:
Also Community's Britta Perry is a Mary Archetype. She demonstrates a sever anti-establishment attitude and while her sex life may be poor, she actively engages the Mary identity's sexual nature. She also displays parts of Mary's shadow. The term Bloody Mary denotes the idea that within the cannon of archetypal feminine traits is the death principal. Men are technically life while women are responsible for death, even tho we give birth... it's complicated. Anyway, women are the ones who see what is deep and imbalanced, what needs to end, and often when, since women are also time to men's space. We destroy false bases and topple men's towers; we crash and end bad parties and give birth to children who ruin their father's kingdom. We bring death to the system, to the ill-gotten, rancorous, negative systems. It's just part of the Mary energy and Britta has it; it's why she's associated with death and is the worst and a buzz-kill lol. Mary is also associated with Mary Jane, something Britta advocates. Nancy Botwin of Weeds is a major Magdalene figure. She is an advocate of weed, death and sex and brings ruin to many corrupt systems. Weeds is a wonderful show full of depth and mystery with a great soundtrack and a sexy cast. ;)
The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. Dorthy leaves her kingdom in Kansas to go on an adventure with three Christ-projections. She has red hair and blue and white clothes. She works with sparkly red shoes, a symbol of vibrant sexuality and charisma. In the beginning of the movie, she deals evenly with some old guy and he calls her a dog (a masculine animal) and recognizes her masculinity as being strong and pure. In the end, she discovers the system is wack and that the wizard is a fake.
Harry Potter's Ginny has red hair and comes from this giant kingdom of men. She also displays enormous talent and power and can understand the need to wait, and be separate from Harry when he has to save the world. Hermione is another version of Mary as the smartest witch around, Ron being the "feminine", red-haired one in their relationship.
The movie A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves is super romantic and sexy and lovely. Keanu has just come home from the WWII to find his wife cheating on him. He meets the Mary figure on a bus, but she is pregnant with her uncaring professor's baby. He escorts her to her family's Spanish vineyard in California and claims to be her husband and the father of her baby. He must prove himself to her family but above all to her jealous father. This photo is from a sexy scene where frost descends on the vines and everyone must don these wings and flap warm air onto the grapes. It's wonderful and slightly old, so it has a nice, thoughtful tempo with a lot of emotional action and really rich dialogue.
Crazy Stupid Love with red-haired Julianne Moore and Emma Watson is a Jesus/Mary story. So is Dirty Dancing and Footloose. The Footloose girl comes from her preacher father's "kingdom" of Christianity, and Baby comes from money. Kevin Bacon and Patrick Swayze are their gyrating Jesus's.
Moulin Rouge is a really intense tale of the "Divine Prostitute" Mary. Nicole Kidman's hair is a lovely, Magdalene red. The lesson here is that having too much unholy sex, esp for money, literally sucks the life out of you and you get tb and die. Seriously, though, promiscuity is bad for yo spiritual health. But the film is great and the endeavor the Jesus/Mary embark on is this super meta play and everything becomes a projection of everything and its just so great. Plus these two look so good together. I love this film and I cry every time.
Also directed by Baz Luhrmann is the new Great Gatsby, the tale of what would be if Mary never left her place in high society to be with Jesus/Gatsby and how it ripples out and ruins lives. The red-haired Myrtle is the shadow/Divine Prostitute Mary to Daisy's light High Priestess Mary. Yeah, the story of Mary and Jesus is not always great. Jesus gets crucified and Mary's reputation is put on trial, which is like a female crucifixion. Other movies where Mary and Jesus were brought together, but not necessarily for their pleasure, but for their purpose, are Pocahontas, Gladiator, Edward Scissorhands, Shakespeare in Love, Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Isolde. TV shows like Buffy and Sailor Moon have flavors of the sort of tragic, fated Mary/Jesus love story.
But sometimes there are happy endings to the Mary/Jesus story. I mean, Jesus does survive his crucifixion and he is reunited with Mary and they go off to roam France and England. But like in That 70's show, the strongest thing about this Mary/Jesus pair is how they positively affect everyone around them with their love. At the end of the day, Mary and Jesus were a couple, an example of the ideal union, the perfect combination of mental, spiritual, and sexual compatibility. Technically, their DNA was perfect as they were the sort of restored Adam and Eve, the ideal example, the true path through this life back to the spirit world. Of course, each of their kingdoms fights their love as matter fights spirit, and they fight back; for each other, and for the people that look up to them as the Christ Couple. It's a tale as old as time. it never gets old and it will never die. Even in medieval drama, the story of the Magdalene and the Christ is hidden but apparent. Mary and Jesus may not be united in the light of our world, but we know their perfect love lives on here, in the sexy shadow. ;)
quotes from the wonderful website
http://goddessofsacredsex.com/the-goddesses/
