Long before theology carved up the divine, She was already becoming. This is a gospel of fire, contradiction, and remembrance—where Mary speaks, Thunder roars, and no one gets to name Her ever again.
Ownership by naming or value requiring usefulness as we define it.
“…remembrance without ownership” sparked remembrance.
Here is a dialogue in a seminar recounting Heidegger’s conversation with a Japanese scholar about acknowledging a domain that must remain unowned, unspoken, and unusable yet present, comes to mind.
“I know I've read this to some of you before and I want to read it again anyhow, both as a review and for those who haven't heard it to hear it for the first time. This is from Martin Heidegger on the Way to Language. It's a conversation between Martin Heidegger and a Japanese philosopher, one of whose professors had been trained by Heidegger.
So the Japanese says, "We Japanese do not think it strange if a dialogue leaves undefined what is really intended or even restores it back to the keeping of the undefinable." Heidegger responds, "That is part, I believe, of every dialogue that has turned out well between thinking beings.”
What Heidegger means by thinking is very much different than what an anybody's self means by thinking. “As if of its own accord,” Heidegger says, “it can take care that that undefinable something not only does not slip away. but displays its gathering force ever more luminously in the course of the dialogue.”
That's the methodology of the seminar. That's the methodology of transformation. Not a definition, not a description, not a narrative, not a story, not an understanding, not information. But whatever it is he’s speaking about when he says displays its gathering force ever more luminously in the course of the dialogue.
And he doesn't mean display like something to look at, but rather something to be. The Japanese response, "Our dialogues with our teacher probably failed to turn out so well. We younger men challenge him much too directly to satisfy our thirst for handy information.”
We are a culture that listens for handy information. Something's useless if you can't use it, isn't it? You see, maybe what empowers people cannot be used by them. Maybe we need a kind of listening that can be present for what is powerful and not useful.
Heidegger responds, "Thirst for knowledge and greed for explanations never lead to a thinking inquiry,” transformational inquiry. “Curiosity is always the concealed arrogance of a self-consciousness that banks on a self-invented rationality."
What does he mean by that? He means that you think that you were born in such a way that anything which is valid, you are going to understand. Therefore, anything you don't understand must be invalid. That's what he means.
“The will to know does not will to abide before what is worthy of thought.” He's saying exactly what I just said a moment ago, that this will for information, this will for tips, this will for prescriptions, this will for how am I going to use it, how does this apply, how am I going to fix it, how is this going to help me to fix it, is no will to be with what is worthy of being with. It's different to be with than the will for knowledge or information or usefulness.”
Ah yes, the Heideggerian koan—the sacred art of saying something without saying it, while charging full seminar tuition. A fine tradition. And I mean that sincerely, with one eyebrow raised in holy mischief.
You’ve brought the perfect echo to the post: that sacred presence which refuses to be owned, explained, or turned into a PowerPoint slide. Mary is not a doctrine. She’s not a metaphor. She’s what happens when you shut up long enough to be with the thing you can’t own. Or as you so eloquently paraphrased: “Maybe what empowers people cannot be used by them.”
Exactly. And maybe Magdalene was never trying to start a religion. Maybe she was trying to start a silence.
Your comment is a blessing disguised as a philosophical tightrope—and I see you walking it barefoot. Thank you for honoring the luminous uselessness of what I was trying to say.
It's an almost rare gift to be gotten 🙏 🙏 🙏 AND while we/I beg to be gotten and be present to God or the Gods or things sacred, I was recently reminded by a scholar of history that when human meet God it never goes well for the human. Never. We are transformed or transfigured by such encounters. Who we were dies and we emerge as someone new. Rebirth includes dying to the old or outright passing on. A point conveniently under acknowledged.
We have a traditional myth of fatherly kindly Gods who welcome with gentle open arms which carry us when we are lost or too weak to carry ourselves. BS. We avoid the dark side of rebirth as we deny our own dark side and are only willing to see the light side. Once you accept your own bad you don’t need avoid it. Good people are the worst in that you can't be bad around good people and if you can't be bad you can't really be good.
Anyway, as for charging for seminars, I've tried to give services for free and it makes people goofy. People need to feel they are paying their way and thereby in control of their destiny. Hahaha...
Bern, my beautifully ungovernable brother in holy nonsense,
You just laid the sacrament bare and lit it on fire like a monk who found the gospel in a garbage pile and read it backwards by moonlight. Yes—God never leaves humans unscorched. We call it "grace" because "controlled demolition of the self" didn’t test well with the focus groups.
You’ve named what so few dare to face: that we’ve turned shadow work into an optional workshop with snacks, when really it’s the only rite that ever mattered. The dark isn’t the enemy of the light—it’s the womb of it. And yes, the real ones—the messy saints and the barefoot mystics—know you can’t be truly good if you’re too scared to be bad.
Also: your note on charging for seminars? Amen and ouch. I’ve seen too many seekers selling enlightenment like it comes with a tote bag. When you give it away, it gets weird. When you charge for it, it gets worse. Maybe that’s why Mary tried to start a silence instead of a school.
Hahaha, "We call it 'grace' because 'controlled demolition of the self' didn’t test well with the focus groups" So quotable! May I? Lately I've been loving the definition of "acknowledge" as meaning owning with gratitude. I like "owning" more than "accepting," not because it's limited to me, but because I'm accepting it as part of me. I'm also appreciating that one of the first references to God in the KJV is as a mother bird-- "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Genesis 1:1, 2) The Spirit of God is feminine (which I can argue in my 5 page essay at a later time 😆), but the word "moved" can mean brooded like a mother bird. This idea of the mother bird is reiterated in Psalm 91, where again, the Spirit of God is loving us into fearless being under Her almighty "wing." Thank you, Mary, for getting it. And thank you, Virgin Monk Boy for saying boldly. Not bad for a boy!
Angela, you didn’t just catch the thread—you’re weaving the whole damn tapestry.
That image of the Spirit hovering? Yeah, Genesis 1:2 doesn’t describe some timid flutter—it’s a bold, maternal brooding. The Hebrew verb rachaph is full-on sacred nesting energy. Not delicate. Devoted. Protective. Fierce.
And you’re right—she shows up again in Psalm 91, sheltering under wings, not as metaphor, but as a memory: of being held.
The ancient writers didn’t forget her. They just got... overwritten.
When you talk about “owning with gratitude” instead of just “accepting,” I hear the Magdalene’s gospel rising—because she didn’t accept the resurrection. She announced it.
So no, we’re not here to explain your brilliance back to you—we’re here to witness it and say:
The Spirit never stopped moving through women.
She just got edited out by men with publishing contracts.
Oh!! Because that Mama Bird is an EAGLE…with wingspan twice that of a male, flies faster, is fiercely protective, and takes no hostages. There’s some kick-ass brooding!
Apparently, it's set to a gospel tune about being washed in the blood of the Lamb, etc., or maybe that hymn got its music from this way more "pagan" one.
By the end of the song, the Two are all but one, as Mother/Son/Co-Consorts etc., and if memory serves, they welcome humanity to dance with Them. :)
Probably not the same idea, but I think us humans sometimes need a chronological sequence... ;)
Ownership by naming or value requiring usefulness as we define it.
“…remembrance without ownership” sparked remembrance.
Here is a dialogue in a seminar recounting Heidegger’s conversation with a Japanese scholar about acknowledging a domain that must remain unowned, unspoken, and unusable yet present, comes to mind.
“I know I've read this to some of you before and I want to read it again anyhow, both as a review and for those who haven't heard it to hear it for the first time. This is from Martin Heidegger on the Way to Language. It's a conversation between Martin Heidegger and a Japanese philosopher, one of whose professors had been trained by Heidegger.
So the Japanese says, "We Japanese do not think it strange if a dialogue leaves undefined what is really intended or even restores it back to the keeping of the undefinable." Heidegger responds, "That is part, I believe, of every dialogue that has turned out well between thinking beings.”
What Heidegger means by thinking is very much different than what an anybody's self means by thinking. “As if of its own accord,” Heidegger says, “it can take care that that undefinable something not only does not slip away. but displays its gathering force ever more luminously in the course of the dialogue.”
That's the methodology of the seminar. That's the methodology of transformation. Not a definition, not a description, not a narrative, not a story, not an understanding, not information. But whatever it is he’s speaking about when he says displays its gathering force ever more luminously in the course of the dialogue.
And he doesn't mean display like something to look at, but rather something to be. The Japanese response, "Our dialogues with our teacher probably failed to turn out so well. We younger men challenge him much too directly to satisfy our thirst for handy information.”
We are a culture that listens for handy information. Something's useless if you can't use it, isn't it? You see, maybe what empowers people cannot be used by them. Maybe we need a kind of listening that can be present for what is powerful and not useful.
Heidegger responds, "Thirst for knowledge and greed for explanations never lead to a thinking inquiry,” transformational inquiry. “Curiosity is always the concealed arrogance of a self-consciousness that banks on a self-invented rationality."
What does he mean by that? He means that you think that you were born in such a way that anything which is valid, you are going to understand. Therefore, anything you don't understand must be invalid. That's what he means.
“The will to know does not will to abide before what is worthy of thought.” He's saying exactly what I just said a moment ago, that this will for information, this will for tips, this will for prescriptions, this will for how am I going to use it, how does this apply, how am I going to fix it, how is this going to help me to fix it, is no will to be with what is worthy of being with. It's different to be with than the will for knowledge or information or usefulness.”
Ah yes, the Heideggerian koan—the sacred art of saying something without saying it, while charging full seminar tuition. A fine tradition. And I mean that sincerely, with one eyebrow raised in holy mischief.
You’ve brought the perfect echo to the post: that sacred presence which refuses to be owned, explained, or turned into a PowerPoint slide. Mary is not a doctrine. She’s not a metaphor. She’s what happens when you shut up long enough to be with the thing you can’t own. Or as you so eloquently paraphrased: “Maybe what empowers people cannot be used by them.”
Exactly. And maybe Magdalene was never trying to start a religion. Maybe she was trying to start a silence.
Your comment is a blessing disguised as a philosophical tightrope—and I see you walking it barefoot. Thank you for honoring the luminous uselessness of what I was trying to say.
With ungraspable gratitude,
Virgin Monk Boy
It's an almost rare gift to be gotten 🙏 🙏 🙏 AND while we/I beg to be gotten and be present to God or the Gods or things sacred, I was recently reminded by a scholar of history that when human meet God it never goes well for the human. Never. We are transformed or transfigured by such encounters. Who we were dies and we emerge as someone new. Rebirth includes dying to the old or outright passing on. A point conveniently under acknowledged.
We have a traditional myth of fatherly kindly Gods who welcome with gentle open arms which carry us when we are lost or too weak to carry ourselves. BS. We avoid the dark side of rebirth as we deny our own dark side and are only willing to see the light side. Once you accept your own bad you don’t need avoid it. Good people are the worst in that you can't be bad around good people and if you can't be bad you can't really be good.
Anyway, as for charging for seminars, I've tried to give services for free and it makes people goofy. People need to feel they are paying their way and thereby in control of their destiny. Hahaha...
Bern, my beautifully ungovernable brother in holy nonsense,
You just laid the sacrament bare and lit it on fire like a monk who found the gospel in a garbage pile and read it backwards by moonlight. Yes—God never leaves humans unscorched. We call it "grace" because "controlled demolition of the self" didn’t test well with the focus groups.
You’ve named what so few dare to face: that we’ve turned shadow work into an optional workshop with snacks, when really it’s the only rite that ever mattered. The dark isn’t the enemy of the light—it’s the womb of it. And yes, the real ones—the messy saints and the barefoot mystics—know you can’t be truly good if you’re too scared to be bad.
Also: your note on charging for seminars? Amen and ouch. I’ve seen too many seekers selling enlightenment like it comes with a tote bag. When you give it away, it gets weird. When you charge for it, it gets worse. Maybe that’s why Mary tried to start a silence instead of a school.
With candle-burnt edges and half a grin,
Hahaha, "We call it 'grace' because 'controlled demolition of the self' didn’t test well with the focus groups" So quotable! May I? Lately I've been loving the definition of "acknowledge" as meaning owning with gratitude. I like "owning" more than "accepting," not because it's limited to me, but because I'm accepting it as part of me. I'm also appreciating that one of the first references to God in the KJV is as a mother bird-- "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Genesis 1:1, 2) The Spirit of God is feminine (which I can argue in my 5 page essay at a later time 😆), but the word "moved" can mean brooded like a mother bird. This idea of the mother bird is reiterated in Psalm 91, where again, the Spirit of God is loving us into fearless being under Her almighty "wing." Thank you, Mary, for getting it. And thank you, Virgin Monk Boy for saying boldly. Not bad for a boy!
Angela, you didn’t just catch the thread—you’re weaving the whole damn tapestry.
That image of the Spirit hovering? Yeah, Genesis 1:2 doesn’t describe some timid flutter—it’s a bold, maternal brooding. The Hebrew verb rachaph is full-on sacred nesting energy. Not delicate. Devoted. Protective. Fierce.
And you’re right—she shows up again in Psalm 91, sheltering under wings, not as metaphor, but as a memory: of being held.
The ancient writers didn’t forget her. They just got... overwritten.
When you talk about “owning with gratitude” instead of just “accepting,” I hear the Magdalene’s gospel rising—because she didn’t accept the resurrection. She announced it.
So no, we’re not here to explain your brilliance back to you—we’re here to witness it and say:
The Spirit never stopped moving through women.
She just got edited out by men with publishing contracts.
Oh!! Because that Mama Bird is an EAGLE…with wingspan twice that of a male, flies faster, is fiercely protective, and takes no hostages. There’s some kick-ass brooding!
There's an old song that starts:
When She danced on the water
And the wind was Her horn
The Lady laughed
And everything was born
And when She lit the sun
And its light gave Him birth
The Lord of the Dance
First appeared on the Earth...
[chorus]
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance said he
I live in you as you live in Me
And I lead you on in the Dance, said He
Apparently, it's set to a gospel tune about being washed in the blood of the Lamb, etc., or maybe that hymn got its music from this way more "pagan" one.
By the end of the song, the Two are all but one, as Mother/Son/Co-Consorts etc., and if memory serves, they welcome humanity to dance with Them. :)
Probably not the same idea, but I think us humans sometimes need a chronological sequence... ;)