SpiritMaa

Book Review: Magdalene Rising, The Passion of Magdalene

While reading Elizabeth Cunningham's Celtic pre-quel, Magdalene Rising, I was moved.  I found myself crying with recognition at the very tantric parts of the story.  When she anoints the skull she finds by the sacred pool with her own menstrual blood….  When sex is discussed as ‘friendship of the thighs…. ‘  When she takes the name Maeve, after the warrior queen, ‘the intoxicated one,’ who had nine husbands, and 30 men a day if she chose….   When I read, ‘if you can face your fears, you will find all that you need right there….’ When snakes were making love to Maeve during her 3 day initiation…during the discussion of the power of the snakes within, the kundalini… As I saw Maeve go ‘toe to toe’ with Esus (young Jesus) in druid school, as I saw her acting as guide in his life on the subtle levels: shape-shifting into dove form, as she would in the next book,  anointing him, naming him, calming the storm, saving his life, over and over…. I was so moved I had to reread her first book The Passion of Magdalene. 

Felt its power in a different way this time.  Really this is the story of Magdalene before it’s his story.  The pain she had (?) to go through to choose meeting Esus again...The call of the goddess in a foreign land.  Being recognized as a priestess even as a slave in Rome. Owning her healing power, the fire of the stars… Channeling the goddess under a new name.  How could anyone be so strong?  To not have anger about being raped (well Esus healed the pain of her first rape).  But what about the others?  Where is that anger????  What kind of pain to find her lost foster father in the land of the oppressor right before his death?  Is it believable that she can be a lover of the world, become a sacred sexual priestess without dealing with all this pain? Get whipped, and almost stoned….  Or were the periodic healings (from the prophetess Anna, from Mother Miriam) enough to carry her through? How could she have been so plugged in, so well trained shamanically on the Celtic Island of Women, so loved, have so much power, and still have to go through all this?  Is it like she tells Yeshua, one has to be lost to become found?... 

She goes head to head with him, even when he wants to marry her.  He has to accept all of her, goddess worshipper, priestess, sacred whore – all of it. Isn’t it great when Yeshua (Jesus) compares her to Kali?  I also love it when she challenges his jealous, vengeful god….   When she asks about outcast demons – saying maybe like other outcasts, they need a job to do to keep them out of mischief.  And it being her idea to give the disciples the healing energy: fire of the stars… teaching them to love whoever is in front of them like the beloved… 

The thread through the whole story, Maeve’s link to the story of Isis, her terrible task to search for the pieces of her beloved and re-member him foreshadowing the ending we all know is coming… But in between, the honoring of the ‘kingdom’ as the feast – the feast here and now on earth – with the goal to bring everyone to the table….  Near the end, Jesus submits completely to her-- asks her to anoint him with her menstrual blood.  When he is on the cross, she shares his pain, telling him she will never forsake him. And the ultimate tantric Isis-like thing… to make love with Jesus after he crosses over, to love him back into life in her form as goddess…. One thing’s for sure, though this is the story of their love, more than that, it’s her story…A story of magic, of love, of life,of survival, of pain and numbness, of reclamation of power and sexuality, of the call of the goddess, certainly not only the act of death, one death in particular….  Is it really all a dance -- meeting, parting, loving, leaving as Maeve says it is ??.... 

Elizabeth Cunningham is channeling one tantric full-on powerful Mari Magdalene in these two books!