From Mary to Magdalene

From Mary to Magdalene: How I Joined a Cult

Or, Unravelling the Past to Free the Present

Part I

The almost-empty bus rumbled and bounced along the decrepit road.  My house was one of the first stops on the route so, by choice and design, I sat alone.  White capris, glittery blue eyeshadow, curled and sprayed fringe, I had woken hours before in preparation for this momentous day, my first day of high school. I was nervous, keyed-up for my new adventure—finally, the world was opening up before me, my path clear and well-lit.  All was possible, and I was ready.

It would take at least another thirty minutes before we arrived, my first time in a public school since a disastrous first-grade year which was Never To Be Spoken Of Again. Since then, I had been hidden away, protected and sheltered by nuns in the local Catholic school. As we bumped over dirt roads, I entertained myself with idyllic visions: thrilling new friends and the fun we would have together; how, finally, I would be courageous, universally loved, guaranteed easy success in academics and friendship and sports and absolutely anything that caught my fancy; and, above all else, what an incredible sensation I would create simply by walking through the door in all my glory—just like in a Brat Pack movie!

“What’r-you-lookin’-at???” Only vaguely, slightly, just outside of that feathery edge of consciousness did these gravelly words even register as I gently floated in my reverie, a silver-backed, pink, flowered mylar balloon rippling, catching the bright, late-summer sun—singing to myself about All The Glorious Things That Were About To Occur, what with the Hills Alive and All that Jazz, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

“Hey! What’r-you-lookin’-at?” I didn’t know anyone on the bus—or at the school for that matter—so the sounds just drifted by as my eyes caught the wee little—orange? yellow? red?— butterflies swiftly flying past us outside the windows.  “HEY! What’r-you-lookin’-at???

HEY!  WHAT. ARE. YOU. LOOKIN’.  AT.”  I hastily glanced up.  For no reason I could discern, she appeared to be talking to me.  Icy hot then frigid cold seemed to pour over my aura, my head, my brow—Copper?  Silver? Gold?  I had no idea— my face turning red, my hands trembling, my heart fluttering, beating faster. 

“Me?” I squeaked out, through a now-constricted throat, “Nothing...”  “Better keep it that way, FRED,” she barked, a jagged, barbed voice. She took out a pack of cigarettes.  With cracked, unpainted lips, she pulled one out, flipping open a scratched, bronze Zippo at the same time:  SNAP!  Lighting the tip, taking a gigantic drag, blowing the smoke out directly into my face. Dark bangs rested limp and sweaty on her forehead, her brown eyes almost completely obscured. She looked years older than I felt. “I’m gonna make your life hell.”

And so she did.  Day in, day out, all through freshman year and into sophomore year, when my friends and I finally got our driver’s licenses and no longer had to suffer the horror and insult of riding the bus.  She was persistent, always following me—through the days, weeks, months, years—until our graduation ceremony, yelling things out in hallways, starting rumors, sowing lies.  I was perpetually stressed, stretched, strained—thin, ancient, brittle glass ready to shatter—never knowing when or how or where a strike would come.  Sometimes months would go by and she wouldn’t say a thing; other times she would find and taunt me multiple times in one day.  

The almost-constant sense of being watched, targeted, and bullied utterly shredded my personality, my already fragile teenage girl-Self, my inner knowing.  I was torn apart, undone.  When I wasn’t in afterschool sports, student government, nerd-gatherings, whatever, anything to keep my mind off of it—I spent hours hiding away in my bedroom—now painted black and purple—going over what, exactly, must be wrong with me to be so hated by someone who didn’t even know me.  Sometimes I thought that I must be horrifically ugly or stupid or something even worse (I couldn’t even imagine what the “even worse” was).  I continually wondered how and why this could be happening to me, obsessively going over it again and again and again.  Yet, deep down in my secret, sacred, resilient inner core, I knew I was none of those things.

In no way did she ever know me, or me, her—the only place our lives touched outside of school was where our parents were casually friendly with one another; we lived in a tiny town.  I never, ever, ever told anyone that this was going on; only the students, bearing witness in our small bubble of a school, knew.

Many years later, I was informed that she had been sexually assaulted in the eighth grade.  When this was revealed I wondered—yes, I immediately knew—that she had been taking this horrendous, harrowing experience out on me.  Sometimes, on bad days, it’s still challenging for me to find compassion for her.  Feelings of absolute helplessness and hopelessness…these are the same days I have a hard time finding love and compassion for myself, too.

Throughout those four agonizing years, I maintained absolute silence.  At first this was due to shock, then as an intentionally chosen act of power, then it quickly dissolved into the opposite:  paralyzed by the pain of what was happening, I was profoundly ashamed—and this paralysis stretched out, coiling like so many poisonous snakes into other parts and times of my life, reaching out roots that sunk deep, deep down, stealthy and insidious, growing in more places than I can ever, even now, be wholly, consciously aware of.

I buried my worth, my thoughts, my feelings as deeply within myself as I could manage, always outwardly acting as if it didn’t matter.  I deliberately gave her nothing: nothing emotional, nothing physical, no reaction whatsoever.  I realized only later that I had given her everything—that in not confronting her, I had given away my voice.  I had given away my sovereignty. I had given away my Sweet Self.  This primed me to later join and become an intrinsic part of an unhealthy cult—one experience grew directly from the rich, fertile soil of the other.

Stay tuned for Part II of this story!

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I feel passionately about helping you find your own unique Path and magick.  Let me bear witness to your unique story, to hold space for your own truth and self-empowerment, to help you to hone your particular skills.  The portal is open!  Join our vibrant community by signing up for our mailing list at www.MagickandEmpowerment.com.

(The first story in this series can be found here: http://modpriestess.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-life-has-always-been-profoundly.html)

*Art by Claudia Lucia McKinney

Mother Mary

My life has always been profoundly intertwined with Mother Mary.  I first embodied Her in a nativity play at age 3 in a Montessori school nuns’ production: a tiny, curly-haired, blue-eyed, blonde Goddess in a long blue sheet and a tinfoil and cardboard halo. 

Only in retrospect did I realize that my feet were always planted solidly upon the Priestess Path: roots growing around a stone, encircling tendrils that had, over time, grown strong and substantial; clasped tightly, a mother with her firstborn, an oyster with a single grain of sand, now polishing and honing, polishing and honing, polishing and honing.

Strongly influenced by maternal-line immigrant Roman Catholic grandparents—Lithuanian and Polish—I remember sitting between them at Saturday night services: the scent of frankincense weighty and thick in the heady myrrh of the church, the sight of the towering white candles set in their golden holders, wax flowing, flames glowing through the billowing smoke, the priests in ornate, lavishly embroidered robes, colors and patterns changing with the seasons, the altar boys in austere, fresh white, my eyes wide, a yearning and almost painful feeling in my heart, a prickling behind my eyes, a fluttering deep down in my belly, my toes curled up tightly in my fancy little-girl shoes.  I didn’t know exactly what it was, but knew I wanted it.

At age 6, my parents divorced acrimoniously and my mother moved me and my sister to a rural, woodsy, insulated New England village.  Here, I would spend seven years in Catholic school, personifying Mary almost every year in the nativity, participating annually in the May Procession, the Coronation of Mary, the May Queen.  Our entire school would line up by grade, then parade up the street of the small town to approach Her shrine, She white and unadorned, us with our high-pitched children’s voices ardently and exuberantly chirping out the hymn:

O Mary we crown Thee with blossoms today!

Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.

Purple and white lilacs from our home gardens were the dominant color and fragrance—the very essence—of this time of year.  Without cease, we sang as we laid the flowers at Her feet:  piling them up, decorating Her brow, Her wrists, Her neck, Her ankles.  When we finished She was entirely bedecked—a swollen feast of sweet pollen for bees and butterflies, a then-misunderstood Pagan festival of renewal and yearly re-initiation for me. 

Here also was my annual bearing of witness to women in their full power.  Only much, much later did I realize that these were my first Goddess rituals, presided over by these nuns—Priestesses, really—their lives dedicated to Mary-as-Goddess, living together as Sisters in devotion and spirit.  A thread of my Priestess magick is eternally tied to these holy women.

Guided by the fervent fascination in my young heart, my beloved grandmother as example, and these annual Christian celebrations, I first dedicated myself to the Goddess in a secret and shadowy fresh-out-of-a-book solitary midnight ritual on Imbolc at the age of 13, my mother and stepdad sleeping in their room across the orange shag-carpeted hallway.  Around this same age I discovered tarot, and my daily magick included carrying my deck to school along with its “little white book,” seeking some sort of meaning in my own life through the cards my friends drew.

I would not personify Mary again until my senior year in college.  Living abroad in a 9^th century Dutch kasteel in a hamlet along the Maas River, the sleazy art teacher likened me to the Virgin Mary and, in the same sentence, Ingres’ Grande Odalisque.  Here I learned how to shapeshift into Mary as Sacred Whore,  Holy Concubine, Ancient Priestess, a place where some of my power-within is rooted to this day.

Many years later, I was asked to dress as Her for the neighborhood Las Posada, an annual reenactment of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter in Bethlehem.  I had been a public Priestess for over 12 years and was thoroughly proficient at drawing down the Goddess during ritual.  I’m sure I shocked and frightened these kind Christian neighbors with my depiction as I was never again asked to participate in the event.  It’s been more than six years since I last embodied Her.

Looking back on all of these experiences it seems natural that I would be a steadfast devotee of Mother Mary, yet I do not consider myself anything but a Priestess of She of Infinite Names, with particular relationships with Hekate, Lakshmi, and Morgan le Fay, first amongst other guises. I have intentionally created a life where I swim in magick and ritual 24/7, where, when people ask me, “What do you do?” I get to answer—most wickedly, gleefully, proudly, and sometimes still with a boundless wonder, “I’m a full-time Priestess.” 

I feel passionately about helping you find your own unique Path and magick, too.  Let me bear witness to your unique story, to hold space for your own truth and self-empowerment, to help you to hone your particular skills.  The portal is open!  Join our vibrant community by signing up for our mailing list at www.MagickandEmpowerment.com.