The Divine Feminine of Mary Magdalene

Episode 42 is the first part of our interview with Alison Hine on her new book, "A Journey of Inquiry through the Gospel of Mary Magdalene." We explore how Alison is able to enliven and intensify our understanding of Mary Magdalene in the first two dialogs of the Gospel. She provides an opening to   a new understanding of the archetype of the divine feminine, weaving cultural context and her own musing with the translation of the Gospel.  

Transcript

Hines Mary Magdelene Part 1

Susan Clark: [00:00:00] Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Alison. It's great having you here.

Alison Hine: [00:00:05] Well, it's a pleasure to be with you. It's always fun to delve into something you've written, and it's been several months now since it's been out. So it's had time to gestate. And more has come to me since then.

Susan Clark: [00:00:18] Oh, wonderful. Well, I'm so glad we could talk about it today. There's many books about Mary Magdalene right now. What is it about this book, when, as you were writing, that really prompted you?

Alison Hine: [00:00:30] Yeah, at the beginning, there wasn't really a message. I just felt drawn to really inquiring into the text. A lot has been written about Mary Magdalene. You know, was whether she was married to Jesus, whether they had children. You know, her arrival in France, which is part of the legend. I wasn't so interested in that. I wanted to see if, by focusing on the translation of this short gospel, which is only five pages, of which six are missing, and there's some missing at the beginning and some missing in the middle. Did something new come forward if you just stayed with the text. That was my inquiry. It was like, what does the text actually say to me if I'm opening to it in a not exactly scholarly way, but it's not neglecting the scholarly way to provide context and so on. That was the sense of it at the beginning. And as I progressed through the book, it she just came alive, and she came alive in a felt sense, and she never left me. I mean, this book was written over four summers. She never quite left me alone. I mean, there were times when I put it down, I said, I don't know what to say about this, but she would nag me in the middle of the night and I would say, okay, let's go back and see what it is that's coming forward. So it really felt like it was more something coming forward than me sitting down and writing something. Obviously it involved that because to write you have to sort of compose it, but it had that sort of interplay, if you like.

Susan Clark: [00:02:10] And can you talk more about this ebb and flow, this interweaving that becomes this book?

Alison Hine: [00:02:19] So the sense of looping back and forward in terms of time, going back in history to the historical context and then feeling and seeing the resonance with the current situation, that was one way that there was a kind of interweaving swinging back and forth. The other, I think, was this the way the musings appeared, and they appeared quite early on in the writing of the book. I didn't know why they had appeared. I just found myself saying, oh, there's a process going on here that is being evoked by this text and what's coming to me in terms of the past and the present, and then the presence of Mary Magdalene. So I began to feel like it wasn't just a commentary that, you know, you could go through and sort of parse it line by line, which is the structure that I took. But it was more I was receiving a transmission that awakened this, swinging this back and forth, and then into the current moment where I would write literally what was arising in the moment as I had finished a section, or there was a pause and something else wanted to come in that was more about me as the writer. So there's Mary Magdalene as a text. There's Mary Magdalene as a woman in first century Palestine. There is her transmission that's outside of time and space. And here I am as the writer in the present moment. And then there you are as the reader and all of that. I didn't know the effect of the reader. So when you read it and gave me the feedback, that was sort of almost like closing the loop, because I didn't have a sense of what the reader might, how you might experience that fluidity in the text.

Susan Clark: [00:04:26] I love your description of this oscillation. Could you now talk a little bit more about Mary Magdalene and help us understand her?

Alison Hine: [00:04:35]  The interesting thing about Mary Magdalene is that historically she was seen as a whore. Gregory the Great in the sixth century declared that she was a whore, so that lived with her. And then she basically disappeared off the Western zeitgeist in Christianity. She was a minor figure, and it's only in the last while that she's come back to life. She was actually canonized by the Vatican, I think, in the 30s. But she's come back in terms of popular culture. I mean, everybody is writing about or talking about or having experiences with her. I wasn't able to do a channeled piece with her, but I did feel like she was pushing me to express what was arising in me. So she appears in five different ways through this book. And the book is divided into four dialogs. And in the first dialog, she's not present. And Peter basically talking. So she's not in the in the zeitgeist at all there.

Susan Clark: [00:05:44] What were you getting out of that first section? What came forward for you.

Alison Hine: [00:05:50] In the first section where Mary Magdalene isn't present. It's clearly a sophisticated conversation between Jesus, who I call Yeshua, who is the Aramaic name for Jesus between his disciples, male disciples. From what one can tell, they want to know about who he is because he's appeared after the crucifixion. So that context is that Jesus has died and he appears in some form that they can relate to. They're not terrified of him anymore. And they're having this metaphysical conversation about the nature of matter, the nature of sin. And my sense is they're struggling to deal with who he is. Is this is a hallucination? Is this a spirit? Is he come back and he's going to stick around, you know? So there are all these questions that are floating around this early section in the text. And he blesses them at the end of that and reminds them of what they are to do, which is to proclaim the good news. He does not ask them to convert people, which in the Gospels he does. So it has a different flavor to it. And then he abruptly leaves. There's no fanfare. He just is gone. And in the second dialog, Mary Magdalene appears and you are in a scene where, you know, it could be like PTSD. They're in shock. They're in grief. They're terrified. They're not physically safe. You know, the authorities are hunting them down, and they don't know how to exist without Yeshua being around to protect them and to teach them.

Alison Hine: [00:07:44] So all of a sudden they've lost their teacher, their father figure. All of it is gone. And Mary Magdalene steps up in the middle of this, and she literally stands up and embraces them, and she embraces each of them by giving them a hug, and then reassures them that they are not abandoned, basically. And so what you see in her first presentation in this text is, in a sense, the divine principle of compassion, right? The feminine principle of compassion. But it's a compassion that is grounded. I mean, you'd think she would be in shock. I mean, she is his closest student disciple, and yet she stands up and is capable of embracing them and reassuring them. That takes extraordinary strength and groundedness. If you think about how we might respond in a situation like that, I think the chances are we would feel overwhelmed. And yet she doesn't. And then she begins to remind them of who they are, that they've been prepared to be true humans. In other words, humans that live as being, as presence in the world, as mature beings that have a mission to accomplish, which is to spread this amazing news that he brought forth. And you see that in the New Testament. I mean, there's this sending them forth with the teaching that he's inculcated in them.

Susan Clark: [00:09:27] Well, as the writer, as the person living into this space, you mentioned that how Mary Magdalene followed you as you were doing this writing. Can you share a bit about personally what arose for you?

Alison Hine: [00:09:41] Well, I read this text in 2014, and this was the first hint that I had that we were dealing with somebody exceptional. This was an extraordinarily spiritual, mature woman, which of course in first century Palestine would be outrageous. That had a tremendous impact on me. And it didn't leave me for years, because I didn't start writing this book until the beginning of Covid, that first summer. And so it was sort of like a curiosity, like, how did she become like this? How was she able to stand in the midst of the most traumatic thing you could imagine? You know, the authorities are chasing you down. They're killing you. He's been murdered on the cross, and she is the closest he has. And she's not doubling over in grief. How is that possible in terms of my own process? It had to do with this long term cultivation of feeling grounded, of being in the belly, of finding my feet on the ground, which gives this capacity to hold much more than if you're just in the middle of your heart, dealing with a lot of stuff and you don't have a bottom, you're going to fall apart.

Alison Hine: [00:11:01] So to me, that was my first connection with her was, oh my God. Yes, you obviously have an incredible, devoted relationship to him, but you learned how to stand and rise as needed. And I found that truly amazing. So that was the earliest prompt for me to continue to explore who she was. Yeah. Because the next thing that happens is that Peter, who's not known for his humility, says, she heard teachings from Yeshua that we did not hear. Please can you tell us what you heard? Now that's a role reversal, right? Peter, who is your number one disciple? Perhaps at this point, certainly the one who's pushing and leading the way. And he says to her, you had a special relationship with him, and can you tell me what you learned? And I found that to be a stunning moment, because there was a moment there of an opening that we will see at the end of the book, closes. So it's like patriarchy stepped down for a moment and let her speak what she knew. So she steps into the role as teacher.

Susan Clark: [00:12:28] Mhm.

Alison Hine: [00:12:29] And in fact, in many of the ways that she's known in the New Testament is she's known as the apostles Apostle. So this is a concrete moment where we see the role reversing and the humility that that must have taken in Peter to do that.

Speaker3: [00:12:46] Sure.

Alison Hine: [00:12:46] So that was the second surprise for me. Like, how did that happen? I mean, if you think about the extremes of patriarchy in our current world and the way women are basically segregated and tyrannized and completely veiled and deprived of education. I mean, essentially women in the first century in Palestine were were treated similarly. They were not quite slaves, but perhaps they were even slaves in that sense. So that's another moment where if you just read the text, you go, oh, okay. That's interesting. That's like she stands up, well, okay. But if you actually penetrate into the significance of it, you go, oh my God, what is happening here?

Susan Clark: [00:13:34] The extraordinary piece is her standing up. And yet what I just heard you describe was the opening within the patriarchy to learn more.

Alison Hine: [00:13:43] Yeah. And how did that come about? That to me, Is. I mean, they were jealous of her. You can read that elsewhere. So here's this woman who was his beloved disciple, and they were jealous of her. And then there's this switch. So something about that moment of his, of Yeshua's departure created a catalytic moment where something else happened which is out of the ordinary. Right? So what she does at that point is that she describes her visionary encounter with Yeshua. Is she encountering him in the moment? I sort of doubt it, because that would have been really intense. I think she's encountering him after he died. There's a gap in time between when he dies and this gathering that I think is along the banks of the Sea of Galilee. And so somewhere in there she has another teaching from him, and the encounter is that she sees him and he says, you're not blinded by me. So, okay, you could say that. Okay, she's not blinded, but so what? But if you think about that, it's like he's showing her in such an intensity that most people would be blinded by it. This points to something remarkable about her spiritual maturation, her capacity to, in a sense, enter into the imaginal realm and experience a visionary encounter with him. And she then asks him a question, which is, what is it that sees you now? Okay, interesting question, but if you think about she is not asking about the visionary experience of him, the light, the whatever it is that he showed her. She's asking him, what in me is it that allows me to see you? Right. Right. If you're in an intense spiritual experience, you're likely to focus on the experience and not ask yourself the question. What allows me to see this?

Susan Clark: [00:16:04] So it's almost as if she's in this intense experience. And yet it isn't rapture. It is the ability in that mature space...

Alison Hine: [00:16:14] ...To discriminate her experience and and to ask what is perhaps the most important question that we could ask. We get caught up in the transcendent and the beauty of it, and it is beautiful and we need to experience that. But the next question is, how is it I as a human can see this?

Susan Clark: [00:16:35] Mhm.

Alison Hine: [00:16:37] So he says to her, so I said to him, master, in this moment of vision. What sees you? Is this the soul or the spirit? And he responds, it is neither soul nor spirit, but the eye of the heart, which is between the two, that perceives the vision. And it is this. And then we lose the text.

Speaker3: [00:17:03] Mhm.

Alison Hine: [00:17:03] So he's introducing the organ of perception which he calls the eye of the heart, which is located in the heart center. That isn't just about experiencing love, but it's the portal through which wisdom can appear.

Susan Clark: [00:17:22] That felt sense.

Alison Hine: [00:17:23] That felt sense of like oh I know, right? And so he's saying what allows her to see him, recognize him, and have this discriminating question is the fact that her eye of the heart is open and it's a portal, if you like.

Susan Clark: [00:17:42] Mhm.

Alison Hine: [00:17:43] It's a portal to the transcendent dimension, but also to the ground of being. So again, you see this extraordinary communication where he's actually teaching her about the state that she's in, rather than reflecting on what she's seeing in him. So this is the role of the teacher reflecting back to her. It's your eye of the heart that has the capacity to see and understand and hear what I'm saying to you.

Susan Clark: [00:18:14] And how did that resonate with you? What called forth in you?

Alison Hine: [00:18:21] I mean, again, I felt her maturity. You know, she's just experienced Jesus, and now she's telling the story of her visionary encounter with Jesus, two incredibly intense things. And yet she's asking this sophisticated metaphysical question. So for me, it was like she was growing in stature. She was not just a curiosity or what's the story of Mary Magdalene? Was she, you know, his lover or not? What kind of wisdom did she bring? She was an extraordinary vessel that could receive and communicate with him in a way that at that point, his disciples couldn't.

Susan Clark: [00:19:04] How beautiful.

Alison Hine: [00:19:06] One of the things that's interesting about the eye of the heart is that for some people, in this case myself, it's not a seeing of the vision. I don't have that visionary seeing capacity, but it's the feeling intuition that comes through that's not mediated by thinking. And I'm sure you've had this experience. Something bubbles up and you go, oh my God. And it's like this, you know, the stars light up or, you know, there's just this sense of, you know, I can feel it right now. It's like this energy right through the body saying, pay attention. I mean, this is significant and it can be a tiny insight or it can be a big revelation. And in her case, it was pretty huge. Again, there was this sense of how I'm receiving her is through this portal, the eye of the heart that has many capacities. It can feel, it can taste, it can see, it can hear, and it can know without having the mind be involved. It's in the in one way to say it's the immediacy of knowing. So there's an intimacy between the knowing and the presence itself. There's no gap. And it's an extraordinary moment.

Susan Clark: [00:20:24] And it's an extraordinary moment that she also is able to not only experience, but it's that oscillation between the understanding and the felt sense and the interplay and that intensification that happens in her dialog.

Alison Hine: [00:20:40] So how does it impact you when I describe that moment?

Susan Clark: [00:20:45] Well, one, I have chills all over my body as I listen to this beautiful recitation because it is part of where I am in the podcasting that we're doing now, has to do with this idea of the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Is this intensification of the parts? How is it that we really focus on these parts? And I think in the book you did it so beautifully because you had the translation, you had the historical context, and you had your own musings. And as we're going through these musings, the intensification of the reading itself, I can just feel it rising again. And in that process, it allows me to feel into the ramifications, the beauty of it, the rapture of it, and the empowerment that comes from it. When we're able to have a space that opens and when we're able to step into that space, and then when we're able to be open so something else can step into that space, that's the intensification that I'm seeing. And of course, as each of those parts become intensified, it's that interplay that I find so interesting to me. That's where the whole begins to arise. How does that feel to you?

Alison Hine: [00:22:03] It's what I was saying earlier, which is this miracle of the woman in Palestine 2000 years ago. The text that was written probably somewhere in the second century, the translation that happened in the last ten, 15 years. Right. And then there is this sense that she's here, that she's wanting to communicate this kind of empowered aliveness. One of the things that's come to me since writing the book is she is a fresh archetype of something that was very ancient of the divine feminine, not as the mother, which is one of the main archetypes. So we're the children of the mother? No, she is the embodiment of this empowered maturity that the divine feminine is calling us to be. So to me, if I were to write an addendum to the book, I would say this is the appearing in the 21st century of a fresh and old face of the divine. I mean, if you think back to the mythic stories of Persephone, who went down into the underworld and was the wisdom in the underground, right. And you have Mary Magdalene showing up through this lineage of Christianity. It's kind of extraordinary. I mean, she's asking us to step up, and that's my feeling about it.

Susan Clark: [00:23:36] What is the how of the stepping up? She's asking us to step up. How do you see that? Me being manifested?

Alison Hine: [00:23:43] Well, she's already done it. Three times in the text. She stood up in the middle of chaos. She took the role of the teacher in the midst of patriarchy. So there was an opening there, and she's now had an amazing exchange of metaphysics and visionary encounter all in one.

Susan Clark: [00:24:02] And could I offer, that what she's asking us to do is something that is new and fresh, that as we step into this role of openings within patriarchy, being in the midst of rapture, all of those things are calling us to approach them in a fresh, new archetypical fashion.

Alison Hine: [00:24:22] And if you think about the world that we're in now, the world that they were in was equally terrifying. 40 years later, the Romans basically burned down Jerusalem and the Jewish diaspora started. So it's not a time of tranquility. And we're not in one either if we're only in the, and again, I'm stereotyping a bit, in the mother child nurturing healing aspect, which is really important, if that's the only archetype that has been around traditionally, we're missing something. And I think Mary Magdalene is bringing this in. And we'll see more as we go on into the third dialog, where you really see her navigating a very treacherous world. And again, there's this sense of this is a different kind of showing of the divine feminine as manifesting through her.

Susan Clark: [00:25:19] Well, thank you, Alison. Let's take a break here, and we'll bring Tom in so we can hear a little bit of his reflections as we talk about Mary Magdalene. And then we'll start again in a new session to really go deeper into the remaining parts of the book.