Mary Magdalene

Hey Friends.

I continue to guide you along my summer pilgrimage to connect with the divine feminine. In last week's episode, we visited the Black Madonna Alter in Le Puy, France. Today we're visiting the Mary Magdalene grotto and chapel in Sainte Baume in Southern France. 

These stories invite you to embark on your own pilgrimage to the sacred feminine so you can integrate with the feminine by harmonizing your masculine and feminine tendencies. 

Let’s dive in.

My Pilgrimage

Along my pilgrimage to reconnect with the divine feminine, we made a trek to southern France to visit Mary Magdalene's cave or grotto and tiny chapel on the top of the mountain.

The night before, we made our plan. We planned to wake up and arrive before dawn to beat the heat. We had our hike plotted and driving directions to Sainte Baume. I woke up, and Dave was not feeling well. He decided to stay back. I was bummed. I was bummed he wasn't joining since he's our steady rock in life - especially when traveling to places where we don't know our way around and don't speak the language. Yet something a bit magical about embarking on this journey alone - just me and my daughters.

We arrive, and no one is around. It's gorgeous. Peaceful. Bliss. Chilly. We felt the feminine draw as the dawn skies awake. 

We start on the trail and pass a Dominican friar or monk walking by quietly. We continued, backpacks full of water and snacks. We follow the path. We're a good 45 minutes into the hike, and it's a bit arduous. We're walking along a thick tree-covered trail - almost like a pathway to the underworld or the lower world in the Shamanic topography. The three of us are quietly climbing the steps. We take occasional breaks to catch our breath. We continue. 

As we walked, I likened this to the prolonged delivery of an expecting mother. The climbs along the chalky white trail hugging the cliffs got steep. We were huffing and puffing. We kept going. We eventually acknowledged how hard this is. We kept climbing -not fully knowing what to expect besides seeing the cave and chapel.

The groans of complaints started in. About the same time as the sun started to rise. We welcomed the warmth. We took more breaks. We looked out on the horizon and peeked through the canopy of trees to see our progress.

When we arrived at the top of the mountain, it was breathtaking and expansive. There was a calming and confident feeling of vastness. It reminded me of Mother Nature and her presence when we stepped into her space. It was humbling to blend the mountains, the coastline, the rugged terrain, and the lush green trees. Seeing the beauty and interconnectedness within, above, below, and around the imbalances surrounding us, like devastation, pain, and hurt, is a force to be reckoned with.

The masculinity of the warm sun seemed to embellish and accent her almighty presence. As I took this in, I became emotional about Mother Nature's beauty. It brought tears to my eyes. The wind blew away the work it took to arrive here. The vastness of the elements of the Grandmothers, Mothers, and Daughters of the four directions was sensational and exhilarating.

I felt so big yet so small at that moment. And while this moment felt like a sense of accomplishment in its own celebratory way - we needed to move on. 

We continue along our trail on top of mountain cliffs for quite some ways. I'm feeling incredibly grateful that my husband plotted out the hike since the trail markings were faint and spread pretty far apart. And since we hadn't seen a single person up to this point, I felt relief in having technology that provided me direction.

We see the tiny square-shaped chapel on the horizon where Mary Magdalene is connected with the angles. We climb our way up there, and the wind is howling. It's physically strong and moves us toward the chapel. Call me crazy, but all three of us commented how we felt this nudge forward as we found our way to the chapel.

Inside this nondescript chapel was a small room. Gated. We were somewhat protected from the wind. In the chapel room were grey-black walls with roman-like pillars etched in white. A white marble stone was below the cross where a Mary Magdalene statue stood. Her head hung low, and the skull of her beloved at her feet. 

Looking out from this chapel was the most gorgeous, dramatic view of the rugged terrain that overlooks the Province valley of soft rolling green hills that meets a small town that kisses the shoreline of the Meditteranean Sea. It's breathtaking. Around this moment, there was a shimmering stillness, as if time had stopped to rest.

As I walked up, I felt overwhelming love and softness. It was infinite. I was swallowed up by this love and found myself weeping. I sat on the little bench and embodied her softness. 

It was a reunion like no other. I felt supported and whole. Both of my daughters were standing next to me at one point, and I felt a level of completeness I'd never felt before. While I could've stayed there for hours, I remembered I could return to this place energetically whenever I liked.

We continue on our hike and crawl down this single-track trail along a steep drop off the side of the mountain. I pray to Mother Mary for our safety. We keep trudging down the side of the mountain. At one point, we hear ruffling in the leaves. The girls are scared. Again, NO ONE is around. We hadn't seen anyone this entire hike - except for the monk walking by as we left the parking lot. I lead us and find a deer nearby. We stop, and I talk to her. I thank her for the peace she radiates and provided us at that moment. And then laugh that it wasn't sasquatch. Ha! My daughter resumes the lead at this point, and we continue. In my heart, I thank Mary Magdalene for the sign she's watching us. And FWIW, we've seen NO wildlife the 3+ hours into this hike. So I was definitely taking that as a divine symbol.

We get to a more spacious trail, and the complaining kicks in. It's thick. The girls are tired. Frankly, I'm tired too. And then we arrive at the stairs leading to the discreet cave hidden on the side of the mountain. We whither our way up to be greeted by half a dozen monks that hold services at this sanctuary throughout the day. Some are playing chess. Some are reading from the bible. Some are praying. 

We walk into the cave and see the basilica. It's stunning. We sit in a pew and take it all in. Another monk is sitting on a pew a couple of rows back. And I find myself somewhat annoyed that I'm trying to experience the divine feminine energy of Mary Magdalene with my daughters and male monks surrounding us. Ha! I remember how we have both masculine and feminine energies which coexist within us. 

I move through this annoyance and settle in. We sit in this damp, moist, cool cave - feeling tired. It's like the long exhausting delivery, or hike, that ended by arriving in the womb of Mary Magdalene's energy. We're in her cave—the cave of the feminine christ. We're in her energy. It's remarkable. I take in everything. The altar. The candles. The stained glass. The statues. The dripping water in the cave. The stillness. The quiet. I feel the deep sense of solitude that I imagine Mary Magdalene experienced when living here in solitude for 30 years. 

And while I absorb all this, I sense there's more here for me. I can't explain it - besides feeling there's more for me to experience, I follow the impulse.

My daughters and I eventually get up and walk around. I find stairs leading down the cave. It's darker and quieter here. We're closer to the water drops within the cave. I see a few benches facing an illuminated white cross. Before I could even sit down, I was weeping. I found her. I found Mary Magdalene's energy deep in the belly of this cave, below the altar. Below the candles. Below the symbolism of her divinity. Her essence came to me here as the deepest, quietest, purest form of inner connectedness. It's like knowing we all have access to this love deep within us. And there's a sense of reciprocity of this love. It flows in us and out of us. We receive love and give love. This love nurtures us while also expanding us. It's undeniable all-encompassing universal love as if from a Cosmic Mother.

As we leave, we hear the church bells echo from the cave. The sound of the bells vibrates through you. It's truly magical. We hike another 45 minutes and pass maybe 3-4 people walking with a monk - before we arrive at the parking lot. We see a few people standing there. One seems eager to greet us. As we approach her, my daughters notice she's wearing something like a uniform. I'm not going to lie. I panic for a minute. I cannot speak a lick of French, and she looks official. It turns out she's like a Park Ranger and speaks English well. We learn the trail is closed due to fire dangers, and had we arrived later - we would not have been able to hike this trail. I apologized to her 100 times over; frankly, it never crossed my mind to check to see if the path was open. I'm again reminded there's something far bigger than me that was watching over me and my daughters as we each had our own experience of being in the presence of the divine feminine.

Full Circle

So to come full circle, the one thing I hope you - whether you identify as a male or female - get from this story is an invitation to embark on your own pilgrimage to the sacred feminine. And that on that pilgrimage, I hope you can let go of your old long-held beliefs and identifications with patriarchal structures that you may be clinging to for safety and bloom in a new way. I hope you bloom by integrating with the feminine through a process of unifying your masculine and feminine tendencies.  

That's it for now. See you next week.

I honor the divine in you.