What if restoring Mary Magdalene isn’t about justice—but wisdom? This essay reframes her return as a mystical imperative, revealing the contemplative core Christianity forgot. She didn’t follow. She recognized. And in that recognition, she became the path.
Beautiful Alek! I love how you described Magdalene’s love-trained awareness. Also the practices of embodiment, being, non-dualism, contemplation, knowing and remembering which she lived. Now more than ever I think we desperately need the knowledge of “how to hold vigil until the light returns”. Thanks for these wise reflections. I generally avoid Christianity with a 10-foot pole given the trauma I endured as a former Catholic. But this found me and delivered just what I needed today. Thanks for holding hope and keeping the candle flame lit.
What you said goes straight to the heart of why I’m doing this. Magdalene is the key to the Wisdom tradition. She doesn’t offer belief—she offers direct knowing, grounded in the body, trained by love, rooted in presence.
I keep Christianity at a distance too. Magdalene lets me do that. She lets me extract the non-dual teachings without sitting through sermons from preachers who’ve never actually touched what they’re talking about.
Thank you for seeing her. And for saying it out loud.
The contemplative core of Christianity is what made me return to Christianity, even though I love Buddhism. And Easter is my favorite Christian holiday — we’re invited to see the Resurrection as a mystical revelation, a teaching from Jesus about eternal love & life. That’s why I never wear a cross. Easter is about a miraculous Resurrection, not a painful human death.
Karen, I love your never wearing a cross! With no disrespect, I just have no earthly idea why the cross he "died" on would be chosen by Christians as the representation of their faith in him. Not that I ever had an artistic alternative burst into my mind but you are one of only 2 people that has ever shared that same feeling & thought with me
There's a fascinating comic book, /Second Coming/ (collected into three graphic novels, now), where Jesus returns to a world that has a "Superman"-like superhero (and they wind up sharing a 2-room apartment, briefly). God the Father is a wee bit "Old Testament-y" and had forbade Jesus from looking down on the Earth after He came back to Heaven after the Crucifixion (but He probably did sneak a peek or two), so there are things that surprise Him nowadays in the modern world.
One of them was how widespread crosses were (bit of a trigger for Him, understandably); He was pretty shocked that it seemed to be the main thing they remembered about Him: "The Romans were handing out crucifixions like /tote bags/!"
He was also shocked at how relatively thin the New Testament was ("Didn't anyone write down what I actually said? I should've hired a biographer."); He also didn't get to the last chapter, either, or maybe He wouldn't've been so puzzled as to why no one knew Him ("I told everyone that I was coming back. Now that I'm here, why doesn't anyone believe me?")... :-/
I gotta say; I think I prefer a re-greening to a mass destruction of everything as a last chapter.
Just sticking my toe in the water of the gospel of Mary (Drs, time, too much life spam) but I got the books & guidance now & this is perfect timing for the physical heart break/repair I'm going thru. And the 3 year old baby rhino I adopted over in Africa, Raha, died 2 days ago -longer Life than expected but she's with the angels now & you bring that closer 😓❤️🩹 mahalo🤍
I’m so glad to see Mary Magdalene finally being lauded as she always should have been. She has been wrongly denigrated by Christian churches as a prostitute, which I believe also denigrates women in the early Christian church who were church leaders who by & large were women because it was a worship in secret due to the Roman Empire’s efforts to stop Christianity from being viable. You describe a completely different take on her from what has been the norm in the Christian world. I was a religious studies major in college many years ago (I’m 65) & was taught many of the truths I see you speaking. Thank you for your wonderful writing & thinking! I look forward to more from you!
Very nice! It's easy to stop at justice, and you know, justice is great and long overdue. But wisdom? That's the real kicker here! To acknowledge that wisdom and compassion are the real goals of spiritual life - that's what we're here for. Blessings!!
I’m not sure I’ve ever read such a concise and cogent argument for the mystical imperative, as you call it. I’m guessing you’re a reader of Rohr? He needs heirs. I see you as one, Alek!
Also, I love this: "When she meets the risen Christ in the garden, she doesn’t argue theology. She sees. She knows. And she’s sent. That’s gnosis—not arcane knowledge, but awakened perception rooted in love."
Thank you, Kelly. That really means a lot, especially coming from someone whose work carries so much heart and clarity. I've only dipped lightly into Rohr’s writing. Most of my time lately has been with Cynthia Bourgeault. Her lens on Wisdom tradition and embodied knowing has shaped everything I see now. She offered the lantern. Magdalene handed me the flame.
And yes, that moment in the garden says it all. She doesn’t argue, explain, or defend. She simply sees. She knows. And she’s sent. That’s the kind of gnosis we need more of—rooted in presence, not performance.
Right now, I’m about 60 days into an experimental ride. I’ve set aside my Dzogchen-style meditations and replaced them with Centering Prayer. I only thought I understood surrender. Turns out, I was still clutching a high horse made of Eastern assumptions. The West, meanwhile, has been quietly learning from the East, taking what resonates and rediscovering treasures in its own contemplative lineage. That humility is humbling me back.
You're right. This version of “civilization” seems less like a shared project and more like a clearance sale. Soul, dignity, health—marked down for quick profit. And the ones who refuse to play along? Labeled disposable, erased in silence.
But here's the sacred rebellion: to see what’s happening and refuse to go numb. To bear witness. To keep choosing care in a system that runs on neglect.
You're not crass. You're awake. And that's dangerous in all the right ways.
What I'm curious about is this: why this sudden push to "sell off" everything /right now/? What's the rush? :-/
Granted, there seemed to be a bit of a rush back around events leading up to 2000, 2001 (from like the '80s on, come to think, when "greed = good! :D"), perhaps for the expected Rapture, but it didn't happen at Christ's 2000th birthday. Are these sellers looking forward to Christ's 2000th Death Day? Are they trying to force the Rapture issue? :-/
What will they do if nothing happens again? Or if the only thing that happens is more of a gentle awakening, without all the destructive violence?
Is this their last chance to be greedy, selfish assholes before it doesn't mean anything any more, one way or another?
I've been a roleplaying gamer since 1978, through thick vilification and thin, and among the things it's taught me is: no one "wins" such, like in a board game. You aren't the only "winner" and everyone else "losers" if your character has more treasure, etc. accumulated when "time is up" than everyone else. What your character has done, is grow. In power, in understanding, until there's no more real need for competing, if there ever was, since becoming the best Them they could be was the entire point. :)
indeed. tho it is both, reparations And recognition- the dismissal of the feminine is ancient and ongoing. the recognition when acknowledging the duration, the enduring that is within all whether known or unfelt is the salve to sooth, to renew.
Beautiful. However, we must look at the divine feminine in historic Judaism also. She was likely a high priestess to the Goddess, given her name (Mary = Priestess) and position of high respect. The priestess to the Goddess(es) was necessary throughout history because she tended to the seasonal and agricultural cycle, and the body- especially childbirth. The early cults of the Abrahamic religion systematically erased Asherath/Astarte over several hundred years.
Absolutely, Cynthia. This is such an important layer to bring in. The divine feminine didn’t vanish; she was written out, gradually, strategically. And Mary’s name and role, as you point out, carry echoes of the high priestess lineage. She wasn’t just an outlier in Jesus’ movement; she was a bridge, holding memory of older traditions where women were mediators of life, death, and renewal.
Asherah's erasure wasn’t a clean break. It left traces, like a ghost script beneath the surface of the text. Magdalene might be one of the last public embers of that priestess fire, and honoring her means tracing those roots back, not just forward.
Oh! Is that why some aspects of Judaism is matrilineal, like Jewish identity being passed down via the mother? Wow, that does make sense; I had no idea it used to be so powerful. :(
Sometimes I really have to wonder: if it's at the start of something BIG (whether anyone realizes it or not at the time), and even if only one or two people, or a small group, have issues with something fundamental, their prejudices can reverberate down through time and get bigger and bigger, like a snowball rolling downhill. :-/
I'm really glad more folks are starting to see what used to be important parts of the approach to everything. :)
(looking up Asherah) Oh, cool; she's associated with trees... :D I gotta find out more about her. :)
Ooh, ooh, ooh, I'm excited to dig into this, as I'm preaching on Mary Magdalene next week. Please pass along any other texts/articles you recommend about her!
I use AI to translate from my native language, which isn't English. Why do you ask? I am curious because if you run the text through an AI detector is shows 100% not AI. Which the source is not and using an AI translation tool doesn't make it AI.
Oh no I don’t run the text through anything. I just had this sensation of AI flavour when reading. And I really want to read real people’s writing, no matter how well AI puts things. Was just curious.
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll admit, it’s a little strange to hear that something “felt like AI” when the writing came from careful reflection, study, and lived experience—just translated into English.
It makes me wonder how often people mistake unfamiliar tone or style for artificiality. There’s a risk in assuming that if something doesn’t sound like us, it must not be human.
But I appreciate the curiosity. It opens the door for this kind of conversation, which is more valuable than chasing some purity test for what “real” writing is.
PS: Still can’t get over the folks who think the em dash is a dead giveaway. Some of us were formatting citations before AI could even autocomplete a sentence.
I did not mean to offend or underestimate your work. And having translated with ai myself sometimes, I always have needed to go over the translation and make changes there, because even just translating it changes the text to more artificial. It is not about sounding different than me or accuracy. There just was this flavour. No offence. Just asked.
Beautiful Alek! I love how you described Magdalene’s love-trained awareness. Also the practices of embodiment, being, non-dualism, contemplation, knowing and remembering which she lived. Now more than ever I think we desperately need the knowledge of “how to hold vigil until the light returns”. Thanks for these wise reflections. I generally avoid Christianity with a 10-foot pole given the trauma I endured as a former Catholic. But this found me and delivered just what I needed today. Thanks for holding hope and keeping the candle flame lit.
Ryan—
What you said goes straight to the heart of why I’m doing this. Magdalene is the key to the Wisdom tradition. She doesn’t offer belief—she offers direct knowing, grounded in the body, trained by love, rooted in presence.
I keep Christianity at a distance too. Magdalene lets me do that. She lets me extract the non-dual teachings without sitting through sermons from preachers who’ve never actually touched what they’re talking about.
Thank you for seeing her. And for saying it out loud.
This. This is what I feel in the forest with the old growth cedar trees. Truth.
Someone says “old growth cedar trees,” and you know everything you need to know about their soul. 🙏
And my own soul it feels like too
The contemplative core of Christianity is what made me return to Christianity, even though I love Buddhism. And Easter is my favorite Christian holiday — we’re invited to see the Resurrection as a mystical revelation, a teaching from Jesus about eternal love & life. That’s why I never wear a cross. Easter is about a miraculous Resurrection, not a painful human death.
I am Catholic and a Tantric Buddhist. I don't flinch because I'm in good company with Thomas Merton who also studied Buddhism.
Karen, I love your never wearing a cross! With no disrespect, I just have no earthly idea why the cross he "died" on would be chosen by Christians as the representation of their faith in him. Not that I ever had an artistic alternative burst into my mind but you are one of only 2 people that has ever shared that same feeling & thought with me
Thank you so much for sharing that with me 💞🫂
There's a fascinating comic book, /Second Coming/ (collected into three graphic novels, now), where Jesus returns to a world that has a "Superman"-like superhero (and they wind up sharing a 2-room apartment, briefly). God the Father is a wee bit "Old Testament-y" and had forbade Jesus from looking down on the Earth after He came back to Heaven after the Crucifixion (but He probably did sneak a peek or two), so there are things that surprise Him nowadays in the modern world.
One of them was how widespread crosses were (bit of a trigger for Him, understandably); He was pretty shocked that it seemed to be the main thing they remembered about Him: "The Romans were handing out crucifixions like /tote bags/!"
He was also shocked at how relatively thin the New Testament was ("Didn't anyone write down what I actually said? I should've hired a biographer."); He also didn't get to the last chapter, either, or maybe He wouldn't've been so puzzled as to why no one knew Him ("I told everyone that I was coming back. Now that I'm here, why doesn't anyone believe me?")... :-/
I gotta say; I think I prefer a re-greening to a mass destruction of everything as a last chapter.
You & Magdalene are saving me
Just sticking my toe in the water of the gospel of Mary (Drs, time, too much life spam) but I got the books & guidance now & this is perfect timing for the physical heart break/repair I'm going thru. And the 3 year old baby rhino I adopted over in Africa, Raha, died 2 days ago -longer Life than expected but she's with the angels now & you bring that closer 😓❤️🩹 mahalo🤍
Raha’s gone, your heart's cracked, and you’re toe-deep in Mary’s gospel. That’s more than enough. Magdalene meets us exactly there—in the unraveling.
You’re not behind. You’re right on time.
"when yesterday happened, it happened NOW. When tomorrow happens, it will happen NOW. STAY HERE. You're OK"
Joe Walsh 🦏
I’m so glad to see Mary Magdalene finally being lauded as she always should have been. She has been wrongly denigrated by Christian churches as a prostitute, which I believe also denigrates women in the early Christian church who were church leaders who by & large were women because it was a worship in secret due to the Roman Empire’s efforts to stop Christianity from being viable. You describe a completely different take on her from what has been the norm in the Christian world. I was a religious studies major in college many years ago (I’m 65) & was taught many of the truths I see you speaking. Thank you for your wonderful writing & thinking! I look forward to more from you!
This is powerful and a revelation...
Thank you 🙏
🙏🏻❤️🔥I have a story of how she came to me. Sweet sweet visitation. She is everything and everywhere.
Very nice! It's easy to stop at justice, and you know, justice is great and long overdue. But wisdom? That's the real kicker here! To acknowledge that wisdom and compassion are the real goals of spiritual life - that's what we're here for. Blessings!!
I’m not sure I’ve ever read such a concise and cogent argument for the mystical imperative, as you call it. I’m guessing you’re a reader of Rohr? He needs heirs. I see you as one, Alek!
Also, I love this: "When she meets the risen Christ in the garden, she doesn’t argue theology. She sees. She knows. And she’s sent. That’s gnosis—not arcane knowledge, but awakened perception rooted in love."
Thank you, Kelly. That really means a lot, especially coming from someone whose work carries so much heart and clarity. I've only dipped lightly into Rohr’s writing. Most of my time lately has been with Cynthia Bourgeault. Her lens on Wisdom tradition and embodied knowing has shaped everything I see now. She offered the lantern. Magdalene handed me the flame.
And yes, that moment in the garden says it all. She doesn’t argue, explain, or defend. She simply sees. She knows. And she’s sent. That’s the kind of gnosis we need more of—rooted in presence, not performance.
Right now, I’m about 60 days into an experimental ride. I’ve set aside my Dzogchen-style meditations and replaced them with Centering Prayer. I only thought I understood surrender. Turns out, I was still clutching a high horse made of Eastern assumptions. The West, meanwhile, has been quietly learning from the East, taking what resonates and rediscovering treasures in its own contemplative lineage. That humility is humbling me back.
Grateful our paths crossed here.
To be totally crass, so much of what this “civilization” is selling out. Look at now: creating a class of sick starving people.
What do people do to survive? Whatever they can before being erased.
You're right. This version of “civilization” seems less like a shared project and more like a clearance sale. Soul, dignity, health—marked down for quick profit. And the ones who refuse to play along? Labeled disposable, erased in silence.
But here's the sacred rebellion: to see what’s happening and refuse to go numb. To bear witness. To keep choosing care in a system that runs on neglect.
You're not crass. You're awake. And that's dangerous in all the right ways.
What I'm curious about is this: why this sudden push to "sell off" everything /right now/? What's the rush? :-/
Granted, there seemed to be a bit of a rush back around events leading up to 2000, 2001 (from like the '80s on, come to think, when "greed = good! :D"), perhaps for the expected Rapture, but it didn't happen at Christ's 2000th birthday. Are these sellers looking forward to Christ's 2000th Death Day? Are they trying to force the Rapture issue? :-/
What will they do if nothing happens again? Or if the only thing that happens is more of a gentle awakening, without all the destructive violence?
Is this their last chance to be greedy, selfish assholes before it doesn't mean anything any more, one way or another?
I've been a roleplaying gamer since 1978, through thick vilification and thin, and among the things it's taught me is: no one "wins" such, like in a board game. You aren't the only "winner" and everyone else "losers" if your character has more treasure, etc. accumulated when "time is up" than everyone else. What your character has done, is grow. In power, in understanding, until there's no more real need for competing, if there ever was, since becoming the best Them they could be was the entire point. :)
indeed. tho it is both, reparations And recognition- the dismissal of the feminine is ancient and ongoing. the recognition when acknowledging the duration, the enduring that is within all whether known or unfelt is the salve to sooth, to renew.
🙏
Yes. So many traces.
Beautiful. However, we must look at the divine feminine in historic Judaism also. She was likely a high priestess to the Goddess, given her name (Mary = Priestess) and position of high respect. The priestess to the Goddess(es) was necessary throughout history because she tended to the seasonal and agricultural cycle, and the body- especially childbirth. The early cults of the Abrahamic religion systematically erased Asherath/Astarte over several hundred years.
Absolutely, Cynthia. This is such an important layer to bring in. The divine feminine didn’t vanish; she was written out, gradually, strategically. And Mary’s name and role, as you point out, carry echoes of the high priestess lineage. She wasn’t just an outlier in Jesus’ movement; she was a bridge, holding memory of older traditions where women were mediators of life, death, and renewal.
Asherah's erasure wasn’t a clean break. It left traces, like a ghost script beneath the surface of the text. Magdalene might be one of the last public embers of that priestess fire, and honoring her means tracing those roots back, not just forward.
Grateful you named it.
Oh! Is that why some aspects of Judaism is matrilineal, like Jewish identity being passed down via the mother? Wow, that does make sense; I had no idea it used to be so powerful. :(
Sometimes I really have to wonder: if it's at the start of something BIG (whether anyone realizes it or not at the time), and even if only one or two people, or a small group, have issues with something fundamental, their prejudices can reverberate down through time and get bigger and bigger, like a snowball rolling downhill. :-/
I'm really glad more folks are starting to see what used to be important parts of the approach to everything. :)
(looking up Asherah) Oh, cool; she's associated with trees... :D I gotta find out more about her. :)
Ooh, ooh, ooh, I'm excited to dig into this, as I'm preaching on Mary Magdalene next week. Please pass along any other texts/articles you recommend about her!
Hi Cara,
Here you go https://www.virginmonkboy.com/s/magdalene
:-)
ACK!!!!!! I’m so excited to read these, quote you, and get to KNOW you through your writings. Thank you!
It’s very true of course. I’m curious just about the writing itself. Did you do that with AI?
I use AI to translate from my native language, which isn't English. Why do you ask? I am curious because if you run the text through an AI detector is shows 100% not AI. Which the source is not and using an AI translation tool doesn't make it AI.
Oh no I don’t run the text through anything. I just had this sensation of AI flavour when reading. And I really want to read real people’s writing, no matter how well AI puts things. Was just curious.
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll admit, it’s a little strange to hear that something “felt like AI” when the writing came from careful reflection, study, and lived experience—just translated into English.
It makes me wonder how often people mistake unfamiliar tone or style for artificiality. There’s a risk in assuming that if something doesn’t sound like us, it must not be human.
But I appreciate the curiosity. It opens the door for this kind of conversation, which is more valuable than chasing some purity test for what “real” writing is.
PS: Still can’t get over the folks who think the em dash is a dead giveaway. Some of us were formatting citations before AI could even autocomplete a sentence.
I did not mean to offend or underestimate your work. And having translated with ai myself sometimes, I always have needed to go over the translation and make changes there, because even just translating it changes the text to more artificial. It is not about sounding different than me or accuracy. There just was this flavour. No offence. Just asked.
Oh, trust me; I doubt AI would have that sense of humor! :D
Or wisdom... :)
But still; gotta be better than Bing... ;)