The Mary Magdalene Dialogues. {poetry}
Marianne:
Life is projection
Resist not what is
Know yourself through others
Do not fear to live.
Imagine all is safe within
Darkened curbs, alleys dim
We light the shadows in warm glow
All is safe — above, below.
Her mountains hold you to her earth
Her song is ready to disperse
The notes she holds to their full term
Soon to be born from what you’ve learned.
Can you live among the dead?
Can you exist from one small thread?
Follow it across these lines
Blown across the winds of time
Taking root within your heart
Threaded, woven, living sparks
Into this fabric sewn
Into your conscious home.
Invite them in to realize —
Those who are immortalized —
From times before and times ahead
For all who lived are never dead.
2
Remove the saber from your soul
Allow your passion’s blood to flow
Allow the light to heal the wound
So Magdalene will find the moon
And tell us of forbidden truths
Transforming them to living proof.
“Was this a dream?” Pamé implores
As if she’d heard my words before.
Yes, this dream has always been —
The banishment of Magdalene.
The exile of the Feminine.
I am Marianne
Returned to our stable
To impart the verses of this fable —
A woman’s tale of love and loss
The flaming winds of Pentecost.
Wombs aching of abandonment
Tombs of wasted sacrament
A woman’s song of fits and rages
Voices lost throughout the ages.
3
Mary Magdalene was writhing
Beneath the cross as He was dying
I watched her from the desert flee
Across the Mediterranean Sea
As she set foot on Gallic land
I, Marianne, took her hand.
We walked with treasures cached in sacks
Growing heavy on our backs
I don’t know the day or night
When Magdalene cried with fright
(As we found refuge by three ponds) —
“It’s lost. His chalice won’t be found!”
4
Watch! She is hiding
Behind the curtains of lost destiny
But wait!
Golden embers grow
To white flames
Listen! The fire speaks,
“Be ye ready.
There will be a world…”
Do you know Him?
Do you remember the dust of the chariot wheels?
Do you remember the desert sands
Under His burning feet
And the weight He bore?
And then it was too late.
But redemption is never late.
5
She lost her lover to spikes and spear
Her robe red-splattered with tears
Thunderous storms swept
From her breath
The Goddess’ Earth shook
And all went dark.
“Who is my mother?” cried the dying son
She beheld her son and daughter —
He, the slaughtered King
She, the exiled Feminine.
Mary Magdalene:
Had our love been known!
But he was slain
Before the sequel —
Revealing women
As men’s equals.
Had he lived to teach this truth
But no, he died before the proof
And men who feared womankind
Used the power from their minds
To twist the Rabbi’s meaning,
Continuing their Eve-demeaning.
If only he had lived more days…
And found the time to speak of us
(A clawing grief bargains thus)
If only he had lived to say…
That men were slaves
To their archaic myths
Of witch or whore or Sorceress —
Finding women less than men,
Born from Eve to foster sin.
Marianne:
I followed her into a sphere
Of not-quite-there and not-quite-here
She fell into obscurity
While legend grew with mystery.
I ministered to her confessions
Her two-thousand-year depression
Her story must be told —
The new can then dispel the old.
Mary Magdalene:
My eyes are black and piercing — look at me!
I say His eyes were blue-green as the sea,
Strange hue from Jewish ancestry —
Oceanic, cosmic shine —
His gaze merged into mine.
Silence grew.
Into the One we flew.
We shared the secret of the breath
We knew the He/She consciousness.
He held our secret from their minds
There wasn’t time. There wasn’t time!
He suddenly was gone from me —
Slain, swallowed in his destiny.
His truth was shattered
The fish were scattered…
Who will carry the holy water of his life?
What new age will make us man and wife?
My flesh is heaving pain, look at me!
His flesh was tender light and purity —
Who will carry individuality
And quench the thirst of our humanity?
Two thousand years have passed
My grief is an eternal flash
Depression groped
My way to hope
Then hope would dash
From shadows cast
Until the coming light
Slashing through the night
Grew into a golden orb
Ready to absorb
The fire without burning
While I was learning…
I raised my eyes and sighed —
Sighs fanning flames, I cried
As tears cooled the heat to mist
And then, the kiss.
“What’s been done, is done,” He said.
And then, with me, He bowed His head.
Marianne:
Yes, He bowed His head
And He was gone…
But lo, he left you with a song —
When you are dark or much afraid
Be human on this human plane.
He meant this verse for all of you
pacing darkened rooms
As shadows trance and hypnotize —
Let the words materialize
Feel the woe of Magdalene
And the voice of Inner King.
I watch you walk the unlit room
Open the window, view the moon
As honeysuckle scents the night
Alright!
No matter how the shadows fall,
Beauty prevails for one and all.
Breathe in the words that Mary sends
Find your pen!
Magdalene:
He touched me with a gentle flame
It cleansed my blood
And urged my bones to move
To harmony on the deepest stage —
A spotlight from an inner sky
Infinite spaciousness that breathed itself.
This was the dance.
That every human being can dance.
Do you see the world dancing?
Marianne:
I am the world.
I am dancing.
***
Pamela Preston, a student of Carl Jung, Robert Graves, and the dead poets and philosophers, embarked on a literary, mythological quest in 1992 with a typewriter and a one-way ticket for Paris, France. Based in the French countryside for 20 years, Ms. Preston continues living and writing her personal myth in a world that is losing its agrarian culture and its legends. She adheres to the words of C.G. Jung, “… a myth is dead if it no longer lives and grows.” Pamela’s books and mandalas can be found on Marianne Press and Mythic Threads.