The whole story in the ascent of consciousness is the story of the opening of an aperture, the passage from a linear and contradictory consciousness to a global consciousness.                                                                                                            Satprem[1]

 

            Strongly driven by my direct connection to Spirit at a young age, I have spent most of my life feeling as though I were walking in-between two worlds. Perhaps due to my stubborn and dogged determination to be a fence rider, seeing the validity of both sides— of each seeming contradiction, I have developed a potent relationship to the following words and to a connotative meaning particular to my Soul’s Blueprint: pilgrim, vanguard, pioneer, Conestoga woman, explorer, adventurer, wanderer, mystic, and monk.  All give rise to the meaning housed within my South Node (past lives and the talents, and unhealed afflictions we bring with us) in Aries (the driven, solo ground-breaker) in the ninth house (philosophy, religion, world travel, and higher education—seeing the bigger picture).  In my younger years, immersed in the Christian faith, I was comforted by the words of Jesus that encouraged us “to be in the world, but not of it” as I tried to make sense of my feelings of being a loner with my strong intuition. Later, with my investigation into more esoteric pathways, I realized the fence post as a place of balance and a vantage point from which I could view many viable options.  I also realized that astrologically, with Chiron in Aquarius, my passionate mission as the water-bearer would be juxtaposed to my difficulty making personal human connection within mainstream constructs.  Driven by a passion to make a difference, and my desire to help mankind “Know Thy SELF” while transitioning into the Aquarian age of global consciousness, my pathway would be through my Chironic wound—living the life of a sojourner, watching and listening from the inside out, but all the while housing a rich, captivating inner life.  This trajectory was to be both my gift and my curse and ultimately, my own healing in the microcosm-macrocosm mirror. Therefore, via my own life path, I understand what it means to live a “part.”

 

            In the year 2000, while walking a portion of the Camino de Santiago as a pilgrim, I had ample time to breathe, to be present, and to listen to what Spirit had to say.  The question foremost in my mind as I walked and watched the sun rise and set time and time again: “What is there, just over that horizon that we must embrace with the incoming millennial shift?” The words integration, body and cycle floated into my awareness and persistently gnawed at me.


[1] Satprem. (1984). Sri Aurobindo: The adventure of consciousness. New York: Institute for Evolutionary Research, p. 208.

 

As a pilgrim seeking the dark side of the Madonna, not dark as in evil, but dark as in submerged aspects of the feminine or anima housed within both men and women, I developed a strong connection to Mary Magdalene.  In many ways I felt she housed and was privy to wisdom that had gone underground. This urged me to visit Ste. Baume, France and the limestone caves where it is said Mary Magdalene spent the final thirty-three years of her life.  At the foot of the pathway butted up against the chalky hill sat a convent: the convent of Mary Magdalene. The sisters there have dedicated themselves to being a haven for her teachings as the first apostle and most beloved of Christ.  In the evenings, during vespers, angelic voices sing in three and four part harmony in Mary’s honor.  Their voices rise up on whispers of clouds to mingle at the top of the mountain where goats, protected by a grumpy, long-horned grandfather sentinel, guard the sacred temple built over a sort of kiva –a passageway connecting the upper and lower worlds—leading deep down into the cave where Mary lived.  Stories tell of Mary’s form appearing to hover in a cloud where the temple now stands, having risen up through the passageway while immersed in prayer.

 

            Both within this ornate chapel filled with color, and in the chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene in Rennes le Chateau just west of it, are statues and paintings depicting Mary often in prayer or looking heavenward. In nearly every one of these renditions, Mary Magdalene is either pointing to a skull or has a skull next to her feet, as if it were a key to the ground of her being.  Many Christians say this is related to the cycle of death and resurrection, however, a small voice within told me this skull signifies even more. 

 

 

The repetitive dream I experienced as a young child of being imprisoned within a tower and eventually being saved by a rope that became a snake, connected me at quite an early age to the transformative shedding of many skins (veils) over my lifetime—and to the archetype of the feminine as represented by the snake.  In the dream, the snake telling me to take my shoes off and sink my feet into the rich mud of the earth, whereupon I became a tree, formed a solid trunk with branches whose canopy was a mirrored reflection of an extensive root system, and never having the nightmare again, left a lasting imprint on me. For me, then, the key to wholeness and to finding the Self that Mary Magdalene points to is the body.  She is telling us that it is by going into the body, by becoming embodied that we discover wholeness: “in-body-meant”—exactly the opposite of the teachings of my youth.  I realized that we are spirit beings having a human experience and that the body was not evil or a burden.  My intrigue with the skull also gave way to my passion to research the mind, especially the bicameral brain.  A whole new world was opened to me with this shift in perception.

 

            The Universe, seemingly in alignment with this intuition, gave ample opportunity for me to see my soul’s contract more clearly. While traveling with a good friend in the south of France several years later, another insight came my way pertaining to the skull being connected to the body, especially focusing on the brain.  A French vicountess desiring to honor my friend for his service as her chauffeur and groundskeeper, and for his dedication to being a death midwife for her dear princess sister, Mimi, made him an offer that would set us off on an incredible adventure.  In her castle, Lilian had a two story wall replete with ancient paintings she had collected over the years.  She asked my friend which painting called out to him.  He told her he’d been drawn repeatedly by eyes that seemed to follow him within a 14th century painting—a sad-eyed portraiture of Saint Jerome looking quite contrite with a clock behind him missing the number four, and on a desk in front of him, a skull.  He, too, was pointing to the skull as if it held a message. 

 

            After hours spent in deep conversation at the home of a wealthy university professor who had a collection of paintings of Saint Jerome by various artists— a specialist in dating wood and canvas—we learned that St. Jerome had had a hand in disengaging the feminine from the Christian Trinity.  The professor, hoping to purchase this painting but upon seeing it realizing it didn’t fit in with the other more traditional depictions in his collection, asked us to stay for wine and cheese in the massive, well-groomed back portion of his estate. It was there that we were told that St. Jerome was a significant player in tying Greek philosophy to the incoming patriarchal Christian religion, denying the feminine and the body their rightful place alongside heaven, the mind as the seat of the soul, and a monotheistic God as the only source of Divinity.  A distortion of an ancient symbol’s meaning was consciously perpetuated and the Divine Mother cast aside.

 

            Later on my way to Holland, making a side trip to the ancient Monastery of Orval in Belgium, I ran across a tall glass case deep within the monastery’s catacombs, and within it statutes of Saint Jerome and Mary Magdalene lay side by side.  You can imagine my shock and curiosity at finding these two figures, both attributing great significance to the skull, paired together. Between them a sign read, “The Two Penitents.” Further research revealed that in his later years, St. Jerome, like Mary Magdalene, repented and had set forth to right his wrongs. Talking to several art dealers and professionals, we were told time and time again that this particular painting, which was eventually sold via an auction through Sotheby and Christy’s, was one of the later in a series depicting St. Jerome after his repentance and remorse at having led humanity astray.  The two penitents, he and Mary Magdalene, are known to have been great mystics in their latter years.

. The mind is a powerful tool.  Intention and the creative process, I’ve learned, are extremely important in the pathway toward integration.  I have discovered that The Higher Self is the vault, my dream life and subconscious are the symbolic messengers, and the creative process the activator—all together they deliver into my morning pages.

 

            When one is alone, surrounded by the natural world, when one practices simplicity, and gratitude comes more easily, when one is quiet and open to the inspiration of the muses, one’s boundaries diffuse and become porous, offering up the possibility for that direct experience of god to trickle into the open spaces.  I have developed a passion for this state of being, a hunger and thirst that drives me to make time in my life for its sustenance.  Nature has become my chapel.  Over the years it has become my refuge, my sanctuary, and my asylum away from the noise.  It is also a place that houses magic and mystery; a place where I more easily tap into the wellspring of Spirit’s whispers when I am connected to the ground and to Matter.  I feel strongly that we are departing from an era where focus on evolution, ascension, better understanding our individuality and our egoic self, strengthening it to be the conduit has paved the way for us to meld the ancient tribal connection to the land, with the cosmic forces of the heavens, thus bridging Spirit and Matter and becoming conduits for a new global consciousness.  Through integration of dualistic principles we discover the immense potential we have to be co-creators of a new global myth and consciousness.