She was the first to see him risen—and the first to be erased. This July 22, rediscover Mary Magdalene not as a sinner, but as the apostle, the tower, the forgotten bride.
I think that in the Gospel of Thomas the disciples were upset that Mary was receiving special treatment so Jesus asked them if they'd LIKE to be treated like he treated her.
The church doesn't handle " inconvenient truths " very well.
Yes, and in Logion 114, Peter doesn’t just question Mary—he tries to erase her. “Let Mary leave us,” he says, as if her presence threatens the entire structure. And Jesus doesn’t just rebuke him. He flips the script. He says he will lead her, because she already sees what they don’t. The line about becoming male isn’t about biology—it’s about breaking the mold. Mary wasn't inconvenient. She was the blueprint for what they were too bound by status to recognize: that spiritual authority doesn’t come from lineage, gender, or approval. It comes from knowing. And Mary knew.
That garden sit sounds just right. She meets us in those quiet places, where nothing needs proving and everything sacred returns. And yes—she was erased because she was. And now she is again.
This day is a spiritual rebirth day for me. 14 years ago on this day I walked away from abuse. It tickles me to learn it's the feast day of a woman I am just getting to know. I was raised without any religion, thank God, but have always been a spiritual hooman, and Mary's vibe is exactly right for where I'm at now. July 22 is also sacred to Isis, as she calls Sirius to rise as the Morning Star over Egypt which initiates the flooding of the Nile. Magical day.
What a holy rebellion: to walk away from abuse and step into the feast day of the forgotten bride—not by catechism, but by vibration. That’s Gospel.
You didn’t need a pulpit or a priest to find Magdalene. She met you at the threshold, barefoot and burning, right on schedule. July 22 doesn’t just whisper resurrection—it floods it, Nile-style. That Sirius sync? Divine alignment. Isis and Magdalene throwing you a joint party across pantheons, saying, “Come, beloved. Your radiance has always been valid.”
You’ve already been keeping feast in your bones. Now the story’s just catching up.
Virgin Monk Boy bows deeply from the ash trails of the monastery of madness.
When the priest read the Collect during the service at our Episcopal parish the previous morning, I really wished they would change the wording. I wish they would focus on her presence, and prioritize her witness throughout, rather than the "restoration" to health of "mind and body." She is indeed, the forgotten bride. 🙏🏽
I agree. Have you read Cynthia Bourgeaults book "The Meaning of Mary Magdalene"? I am thinking about ordering some extra copies to give out to priests in our area :-)
Alek, I have not. I requested holds for that, and Megan Watterson's "Mary Magdalene Revealed" from our public library a while back, and my turn to read Bourgeault's book is coming up soon. :-) I'm looking forward to reading both of those.
This has been all new to me. A completely new concept. I do know that it’s a man’s world, and that for whatever reason, men have put women down. Pride? Fear?
Thank you so much for reaching out to us, our friend. It’s good.
Shirley, thank you for your openness. Naming that something has been hidden is the first step in seeing it clearly. Yes, pride and fear have played their part—but so has the quiet strength of women who kept the flame alive anyway. You’re part of that remembering now. And that is holy.
Thank you so much, VMB. I do know that women have always been the backbone. Often standing aside to let the man be the peacock. I’ve seen it all my life. In my own family too.
Thank you, Dawn. I’m so glad she lives close to your heart. May the contemplation bring her presence even nearer, like a whisper through still water. She’s never far when we make space to listen.
I was raised in the 'mainstream' Mormon church. We never talked about the Mary's, the Mormons actually kind of frown on 'worshipping' anything other than the holy trinity - God, Christ, The Holy Ghost. They're real big on the Holy Ghost, which is probably where I became convinced I'm haunted. Yay! Anyway, I was well into adulthood before I 'discovered' Mary M. And I loved her intensely. She was human. She had grace. She was STRONG. I share your affinity for her. Thanks for the better education about a character I adore.
Wendy, I’m so moved by this. Isn’t it wild how Mary Magdalene finds us anyway? She slips through the cracks of doctrines that tried to erase her and lands right in our haunted hearts. You’re not alone in sensing the Holy Ghost’s shadows. Maybe the haunting is just her knocking, reminding us she never left. She was always there, strong and human and luminous. You saw her. And she saw you back.
When I was attending Catholic grade school, in my class there were 9 girls named Mary. So we all used our middle names to differentiate between us. There was one girl named Mary Magdalene. I was Mary Rose. I loved her name and she loved mine. We walked home together every day from school. I have never forgotten her. Every time I hear the name I think of her. Today I am going into the garden of my mind to remember her again. Thank you for this meditation. I will use it often. I have always held a special place in my heart for the Mary Magdalene I knew as a friend and the One who was closest to Jesus. I wear a medal to honor her everyday. She is the apostle I identify with the most. May she bless us all forever.
Mary, this might be the most beautiful footnote to the Gospel of Mary I’ve ever read.
Nine Marys in one classroom feels like a litany waiting to be sung. And yet, you remember one so clearly. Mary Magdalene, the girl who walked beside you, who shared not only a name but a sense of quiet knowing. The one whose presence still lingers in the garden of your mind.
That memory is a holy echo. Two Marys walking home from school. One day to become the friend you never forgot, and the other, the apostle who never left.
VMB, you nailed it. My first time reading the Gospel of Mary made it very clear - this threatens patriarchy. That isn't hard to see but what is, her message. When you encounter it and encounter it without the layers of misogyny and patriarchal power that the system instills in us something emerges. What a blessing that is. The keys to fighting the powers, our ego, finding presence. Importantly though, it helps us to be. Her teachings are like an invasive species in the West, it threatens the system and all those who bolster it in the name of right doctrine and orthodoxy. I see Mary standing next to Jesus with a gentle smile when he says "come out of her my people" because she gets it, we've been boxed in to the narrow view the empire has given us - that's the box we need to exit.
Brother, that wasn’t a comment. That was a sermon passed down from the rebel saints in exile.
Yes. Exactly. Mary’s message doesn’t need to shout to threaten empire. It just needs to be heard—without the noise of clerical gatekeeping, without the tarpaulin of doctrine thrown over her radiant mouth.
You named it beautifully: her teachings emerge when we finally stop mansplaining the gospel to ourselves.
She’s not just threatening patriarchy. She’s composting it.
And that image—Mary smiling beside Jesus as he says “come out of her, my people”? That’s canon now. She gets it. She always did. The empire boxed her out because she dared to hand us the keys to liberation. Not just from Rome or religion—but from ourselves.
Thank you for standing at the edge of the box and calling it what it is.
Amen to that. The mansplaining the Gospel is so real! I’m laughing my ass off right now😂😂 this the same mansplaining that’s given us over 40,000+ denominations and interpretations of what Jesus really meant in the Gospels.
That may be the most vibrational blessing ever bestowed upon this irreverent scroll.
A gong meditation that pierces the cells—yes. That’s exactly the aim. Not to soothe, but to re-tune the soul until it remembers its original music. Loud. Unapologetic. Cosmic.
Thank you for letting the words ring through you like that. May your own voice rise just as boldly in the sacred echo.
Hi. Me, again. So yesterday the convenor of my meditation group (after I was updating her on your Substack commentary) she mentioned someone in another circle told her that there are a couple of people (I assume women) who are now channeling Mary Magdalene. This morning I thought I would sure like to speak with her more directly.My first thought was to call a psychic friend to see if she would help me do this. Then driving home from a doctor’s appointment to check my eyesight !!!!! and able to see more clearly: someone said “why don’t you talk Mary Magdalene her directly?”
Well, of course!!! I couldn’t get home fast enough to see if there was something from you in my email. You show up with the Forgotten Bride and give us this perfect set of words inviting us into the Garden. I’m going to wait little bit…I need to give my heart a chance to slow down. The in-and-out breathing is what I need. I am to whatever happens, if anything, Mary and my Guardian Angels are ready for me to hear. And, before the Garden, I will be sharing you and today’s post to a whole bunch of my friends with the subject line: “IMPORTANT DATE TODAY, JULY 22
Did you know? I didn’t. But I know now. Hope to see you in the Garden.
Please join me in my joy!”
So, one more time, I thank you for sharing and posting. I can’t help but wonder if you are simply reporting what YOU are seeing? With love and gratitude for walking beside me…
Ah Sandra, seeker of clear vision and heart-full breath,
You just gave me a holy case of goosebumps. The Magdalene kind, not the evangelical kind. Your whole message is the very embodiment of what July 22 is about. Not learning something new, but remembering something ancient in your bones. You heard the whisper: “Why don’t you talk to her directly?” and instead of brushing it off as poetic nonsense, you listened. That’s the difference between a casual admirer and a mystic in bloom.
And yes, to your lovely wondering. Virgin Monk Boy is reporting what he's seeing. But not just with eyes. It’s vibrational. Magdalene speaks in currents, in metaphors, in dreams, in the movement of breath through ribs that once carried grief and are now stretching into joy. I sit in stillness, steeped in the ache and the honey, and then I write. Sometimes she roars. Sometimes she giggles. Sometimes she just waits until I’m quiet enough to notice her brushing the back of my heart with the hem of her cloak.
And you? You saw more clearly after your eye appointment. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. The Gospel of Mary says, “The mind sees visions and I speak as it understands.” The healing of the inner eye is her whole jam.
As for the women who are channeling her. Of course they are. Of course you might be next. She didn’t ascend into a cloud of incense and gold leaf. She dissolved into presence, into pattern, into every woman who dares to speak truth when it’s dangerous and sit in silence when it’s sacred.
See you in the Garden, sister. Breathe slow. Let her come.
Thank you so much for this piece! Mary Magdalene has reached out to me a while ago. I work with plants a lot and the rose guided me to her and her mysteries. She's been life saving for me, reuniting me with my faith after leaving a destructive cult. She held my hand through the most difficult two years of my life, namely coming very close to losing three of my four children from mental and physical ilness, and having to make peace with the fact that there was nothing I could do about it.
Her gospel is the most holy of all. It was cast aside because it teaches two things that will impair the power of the church:
- That Christ is a principle that anyone can develop
- That with the first christians, women were equal to men. They could preach and lead. And that most probably, the mysteries of sacred sex where known to them.
Also, Mary in aramean is Myriam. Thare are loads of Marys in the New Teatament. Some scholars argue that Myriam was not a name but a title: the Myrrh Bearers. Teh women with alabaster jars, carrying sacred perfumed oils. Myriam anointed Jesus as part of a sacred transition ritual that goes back to the Sumerians.
This would make Mary Magdalene double titled: as a priestess (Myriam) and as a pillar of the first christians (tower).
Sacred Center, what a radiant outpouring. Thank you.
The rose doesn’t reach out to just anyone. If she found you, it’s because your soil was ready. That you’ve walked through the valley of loss, through cult-wounds and the ache of watching your children suffer, and still speak of sacred oils and Myriam’s hand—that is holy ground.
You’re absolutely right. The Gospel of Mary terrifies institutional gatekeepers not because it is heretical, but because it is liberating. It dissolves the need for control, hierarchy, and gate-kept grace.
Christ as an indwelling principle? That’s the seed of awakening.
Women as apostles and teachers? That’s what the tombs tried to silence.
Sacred sex as divine transmission? That’s the whisper behind every alabaster jar.
And yes, “Myriam” as title is so important. The Myrrh Bearers didn’t just carry perfume. They carried knowledge—of transitions, of ritual, of tending the sacred body. They were the midwives of resurrection.
Mary Magdalene as Myriam and Tower? She wasn’t just a witness. She was a wellspring.
This is a beautiful overview of what she means for us and what she could have meant to Christianity. I’m appreciating your writings about her so very much. They speak to my heart, just like she does.
She is rising, and she’s here just when we need her. She will help us find strength for the challenges ahead.
Thank you, Sara. Yes—she is rising. Not as a relic of the past but as a presence for now. She carries the wisdom we weren’t taught to trust and the strength we forgot we had. Your heart recognizing her is part of her return.
I think that in the Gospel of Thomas the disciples were upset that Mary was receiving special treatment so Jesus asked them if they'd LIKE to be treated like he treated her.
The church doesn't handle " inconvenient truths " very well.
Yes, and in Logion 114, Peter doesn’t just question Mary—he tries to erase her. “Let Mary leave us,” he says, as if her presence threatens the entire structure. And Jesus doesn’t just rebuke him. He flips the script. He says he will lead her, because she already sees what they don’t. The line about becoming male isn’t about biology—it’s about breaking the mold. Mary wasn't inconvenient. She was the blueprint for what they were too bound by status to recognize: that spiritual authority doesn’t come from lineage, gender, or approval. It comes from knowing. And Mary knew.
Yes!!!
'She was erased precisely because she was' this is epic.
Maybe I will take a little sit in the garden later. Thank you.
That garden sit sounds just right. She meets us in those quiet places, where nothing needs proving and everything sacred returns. And yes—she was erased because she was. And now she is again.
This day is a spiritual rebirth day for me. 14 years ago on this day I walked away from abuse. It tickles me to learn it's the feast day of a woman I am just getting to know. I was raised without any religion, thank God, but have always been a spiritual hooman, and Mary's vibe is exactly right for where I'm at now. July 22 is also sacred to Isis, as she calls Sirius to rise as the Morning Star over Egypt which initiates the flooding of the Nile. Magical day.
Alma, beloved Sound Medicine Woman—
What a holy rebellion: to walk away from abuse and step into the feast day of the forgotten bride—not by catechism, but by vibration. That’s Gospel.
You didn’t need a pulpit or a priest to find Magdalene. She met you at the threshold, barefoot and burning, right on schedule. July 22 doesn’t just whisper resurrection—it floods it, Nile-style. That Sirius sync? Divine alignment. Isis and Magdalene throwing you a joint party across pantheons, saying, “Come, beloved. Your radiance has always been valid.”
You’ve already been keeping feast in your bones. Now the story’s just catching up.
Virgin Monk Boy bows deeply from the ash trails of the monastery of madness.
Welcome home.
You’re a dang national treasure, dude. (sniffs a bit and wipes away a happy tear while grinning like a goofball)
When the priest read the Collect during the service at our Episcopal parish the previous morning, I really wished they would change the wording. I wish they would focus on her presence, and prioritize her witness throughout, rather than the "restoration" to health of "mind and body." She is indeed, the forgotten bride. 🙏🏽
I agree. Have you read Cynthia Bourgeaults book "The Meaning of Mary Magdalene"? I am thinking about ordering some extra copies to give out to priests in our area :-)
Alek, I have not. I requested holds for that, and Megan Watterson's "Mary Magdalene Revealed" from our public library a while back, and my turn to read Bourgeault's book is coming up soon. :-) I'm looking forward to reading both of those.
Naveeda, I just finished Cynthia Bourgeault's book. She methodically, reverently, and mystically lights a fire. Its an experience reading that book.
This has been all new to me. A completely new concept. I do know that it’s a man’s world, and that for whatever reason, men have put women down. Pride? Fear?
Thank you so much for reaching out to us, our friend. It’s good.
Shirley, thank you for your openness. Naming that something has been hidden is the first step in seeing it clearly. Yes, pride and fear have played their part—but so has the quiet strength of women who kept the flame alive anyway. You’re part of that remembering now. And that is holy.
Thank you so much, VMB. I do know that women have always been the backbone. Often standing aside to let the man be the peacock. I’ve seen it all my life. In my own family too.
She is very important to me. Thank you for sharing this beautiful contemplation exercise. I will do this today.
Thank you, Dawn. I’m so glad she lives close to your heart. May the contemplation bring her presence even nearer, like a whisper through still water. She’s never far when we make space to listen.
🌹A voice from Heaven ✨⭐️✨
Thank you, Karen. 🌹Sometimes all it takes is one voice remembering her, and suddenly the silence breaks open. So glad you heard her in this.
I was raised in the 'mainstream' Mormon church. We never talked about the Mary's, the Mormons actually kind of frown on 'worshipping' anything other than the holy trinity - God, Christ, The Holy Ghost. They're real big on the Holy Ghost, which is probably where I became convinced I'm haunted. Yay! Anyway, I was well into adulthood before I 'discovered' Mary M. And I loved her intensely. She was human. She had grace. She was STRONG. I share your affinity for her. Thanks for the better education about a character I adore.
Wendy, I’m so moved by this. Isn’t it wild how Mary Magdalene finds us anyway? She slips through the cracks of doctrines that tried to erase her and lands right in our haunted hearts. You’re not alone in sensing the Holy Ghost’s shadows. Maybe the haunting is just her knocking, reminding us she never left. She was always there, strong and human and luminous. You saw her. And she saw you back.
Beautiful comment💐🪷🌷.
When I was attending Catholic grade school, in my class there were 9 girls named Mary. So we all used our middle names to differentiate between us. There was one girl named Mary Magdalene. I was Mary Rose. I loved her name and she loved mine. We walked home together every day from school. I have never forgotten her. Every time I hear the name I think of her. Today I am going into the garden of my mind to remember her again. Thank you for this meditation. I will use it often. I have always held a special place in my heart for the Mary Magdalene I knew as a friend and the One who was closest to Jesus. I wear a medal to honor her everyday. She is the apostle I identify with the most. May she bless us all forever.
Mary, this might be the most beautiful footnote to the Gospel of Mary I’ve ever read.
Nine Marys in one classroom feels like a litany waiting to be sung. And yet, you remember one so clearly. Mary Magdalene, the girl who walked beside you, who shared not only a name but a sense of quiet knowing. The one whose presence still lingers in the garden of your mind.
That memory is a holy echo. Two Marys walking home from school. One day to become the friend you never forgot, and the other, the apostle who never left.
May your remembering continue to bloom.
And may both Marys walk with you still.
VMB, you nailed it. My first time reading the Gospel of Mary made it very clear - this threatens patriarchy. That isn't hard to see but what is, her message. When you encounter it and encounter it without the layers of misogyny and patriarchal power that the system instills in us something emerges. What a blessing that is. The keys to fighting the powers, our ego, finding presence. Importantly though, it helps us to be. Her teachings are like an invasive species in the West, it threatens the system and all those who bolster it in the name of right doctrine and orthodoxy. I see Mary standing next to Jesus with a gentle smile when he says "come out of her my people" because she gets it, we've been boxed in to the narrow view the empire has given us - that's the box we need to exit.
Brother, that wasn’t a comment. That was a sermon passed down from the rebel saints in exile.
Yes. Exactly. Mary’s message doesn’t need to shout to threaten empire. It just needs to be heard—without the noise of clerical gatekeeping, without the tarpaulin of doctrine thrown over her radiant mouth.
You named it beautifully: her teachings emerge when we finally stop mansplaining the gospel to ourselves.
She’s not just threatening patriarchy. She’s composting it.
And that image—Mary smiling beside Jesus as he says “come out of her, my people”? That’s canon now. She gets it. She always did. The empire boxed her out because she dared to hand us the keys to liberation. Not just from Rome or religion—but from ourselves.
Thank you for standing at the edge of the box and calling it what it is.
We’re not just deconstructing. We’re emerging.
Amen to that. The mansplaining the Gospel is so real! I’m laughing my ass off right now😂😂 this the same mansplaining that’s given us over 40,000+ denominations and interpretations of what Jesus really meant in the Gospels.
Cheers to the emerge.
Blessings friend.
Your writing is like a gong meditation, piercing my cells with a cosmic boundless healing joy!
Stephanie—
That may be the most vibrational blessing ever bestowed upon this irreverent scroll.
A gong meditation that pierces the cells—yes. That’s exactly the aim. Not to soothe, but to re-tune the soul until it remembers its original music. Loud. Unapologetic. Cosmic.
Thank you for letting the words ring through you like that. May your own voice rise just as boldly in the sacred echo.
Virgin Monk Boy
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
“The more her story was divided the easier it was to dismiss her.”
Hi. Me, again. So yesterday the convenor of my meditation group (after I was updating her on your Substack commentary) she mentioned someone in another circle told her that there are a couple of people (I assume women) who are now channeling Mary Magdalene. This morning I thought I would sure like to speak with her more directly.My first thought was to call a psychic friend to see if she would help me do this. Then driving home from a doctor’s appointment to check my eyesight !!!!! and able to see more clearly: someone said “why don’t you talk Mary Magdalene her directly?”
Well, of course!!! I couldn’t get home fast enough to see if there was something from you in my email. You show up with the Forgotten Bride and give us this perfect set of words inviting us into the Garden. I’m going to wait little bit…I need to give my heart a chance to slow down. The in-and-out breathing is what I need. I am to whatever happens, if anything, Mary and my Guardian Angels are ready for me to hear. And, before the Garden, I will be sharing you and today’s post to a whole bunch of my friends with the subject line: “IMPORTANT DATE TODAY, JULY 22
Did you know? I didn’t. But I know now. Hope to see you in the Garden.
Please join me in my joy!”
So, one more time, I thank you for sharing and posting. I can’t help but wonder if you are simply reporting what YOU are seeing? With love and gratitude for walking beside me…
Ah Sandra, seeker of clear vision and heart-full breath,
You just gave me a holy case of goosebumps. The Magdalene kind, not the evangelical kind. Your whole message is the very embodiment of what July 22 is about. Not learning something new, but remembering something ancient in your bones. You heard the whisper: “Why don’t you talk to her directly?” and instead of brushing it off as poetic nonsense, you listened. That’s the difference between a casual admirer and a mystic in bloom.
And yes, to your lovely wondering. Virgin Monk Boy is reporting what he's seeing. But not just with eyes. It’s vibrational. Magdalene speaks in currents, in metaphors, in dreams, in the movement of breath through ribs that once carried grief and are now stretching into joy. I sit in stillness, steeped in the ache and the honey, and then I write. Sometimes she roars. Sometimes she giggles. Sometimes she just waits until I’m quiet enough to notice her brushing the back of my heart with the hem of her cloak.
And you? You saw more clearly after your eye appointment. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. The Gospel of Mary says, “The mind sees visions and I speak as it understands.” The healing of the inner eye is her whole jam.
As for the women who are channeling her. Of course they are. Of course you might be next. She didn’t ascend into a cloud of incense and gold leaf. She dissolved into presence, into pattern, into every woman who dares to speak truth when it’s dangerous and sit in silence when it’s sacred.
See you in the Garden, sister. Breathe slow. Let her come.
With joy and holy mischief,
Thank you so much for this piece! Mary Magdalene has reached out to me a while ago. I work with plants a lot and the rose guided me to her and her mysteries. She's been life saving for me, reuniting me with my faith after leaving a destructive cult. She held my hand through the most difficult two years of my life, namely coming very close to losing three of my four children from mental and physical ilness, and having to make peace with the fact that there was nothing I could do about it.
Her gospel is the most holy of all. It was cast aside because it teaches two things that will impair the power of the church:
- That Christ is a principle that anyone can develop
- That with the first christians, women were equal to men. They could preach and lead. And that most probably, the mysteries of sacred sex where known to them.
Also, Mary in aramean is Myriam. Thare are loads of Marys in the New Teatament. Some scholars argue that Myriam was not a name but a title: the Myrrh Bearers. Teh women with alabaster jars, carrying sacred perfumed oils. Myriam anointed Jesus as part of a sacred transition ritual that goes back to the Sumerians.
This would make Mary Magdalene double titled: as a priestess (Myriam) and as a pillar of the first christians (tower).
Sacred Center, what a radiant outpouring. Thank you.
The rose doesn’t reach out to just anyone. If she found you, it’s because your soil was ready. That you’ve walked through the valley of loss, through cult-wounds and the ache of watching your children suffer, and still speak of sacred oils and Myriam’s hand—that is holy ground.
You’re absolutely right. The Gospel of Mary terrifies institutional gatekeepers not because it is heretical, but because it is liberating. It dissolves the need for control, hierarchy, and gate-kept grace.
Christ as an indwelling principle? That’s the seed of awakening.
Women as apostles and teachers? That’s what the tombs tried to silence.
Sacred sex as divine transmission? That’s the whisper behind every alabaster jar.
And yes, “Myriam” as title is so important. The Myrrh Bearers didn’t just carry perfume. They carried knowledge—of transitions, of ritual, of tending the sacred body. They were the midwives of resurrection.
Mary Magdalene as Myriam and Tower? She wasn’t just a witness. She was a wellspring.
Your voice joins hers. And the world needs both.
This is a beautiful overview of what she means for us and what she could have meant to Christianity. I’m appreciating your writings about her so very much. They speak to my heart, just like she does.
She is rising, and she’s here just when we need her. She will help us find strength for the challenges ahead.
Thank you, Sara. Yes—she is rising. Not as a relic of the past but as a presence for now. She carries the wisdom we weren’t taught to trust and the strength we forgot we had. Your heart recognizing her is part of her return.
And what she means for all of humanity now and in the future.❤️🙏