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Saturday, May 23, 2015

The path of love



The way of love is a path of service and silence.
Remember that human consciousness can make
a great deal of noise to attract your
attention and divert you from contemplating 
the divine.
Be not afraid of silence;
of looking within yourself.

Be silent now, close your eyes,
and let your consciousness rest
within the precious and secret garden
of your heart.



I AM here
and the pink rose of love
is safely growing in your heart.

Nurture this rose carefully and constantly,
until its aura of beauty and love
expands,
completely enfolding you at all times.

Treat yourself with compassion
and tenderness
and eventually the perfume
will permeate all your thoughts and actions.

Ave Maria

Friday, May 22, 2015

Final week of Thirty Days with Mary



In Mary, man (and woman) is married to God.
The male and the female unite in one person
in an interior marriage and the new human is born.
This is the mystery which has to be accomplished in us.
Every man and woman has to undergo this virgin birth,
to be married to God.
                                                      Father Bede Griffiths

This final week of the Thirty Days of Mary
I firstly invite you to enter the stillness;
daily, over and over again.
It is our challenge, our birth right,
our Soul's deepest yearning,
to come face to face with God within :
to see the face of God.

Beyond our physical and psychic being,
we have to discover our spiritual being,
our eternal ground,
and there the mystery of love is fulfilled.
Some may come to this interior marriage
by way of exterior marriage, others
are called by the way of virginity,
but all alike have to experience the virgin birth,
the marriage with God, 
before they can reach maturity.
                        Father Bede Griffiths



Then, secondly I invite you to invite her beauty into
your life.

She is always with us, within us, within everything.
There is nowhere that she is not.
There is no separation between her and yourself.
There is no separation : only rivers
seemingly crossing and intertwining, only
to become One in the stillness.

Beauty is a powerful path to realising Oneness.
Oneness already Is.  No need to look for it
or to hunt it or to try and capture it in a jar
like some fairy dust.
You merely have to become aware of Oneness.
And beauty is one of her many Gates into Oneness.

What is essential is to keep the heart always
open to beauty, for she is beauty - Father Bede Griffiths

Our age is so harsh and brutal;  it is therefor
of great sacred wholiness to create her beauty
everywhere :  a healing space for the torn mind and
heart.  Seeing her beauty awakens the lover of life
within us and her great creativity comes to play
and the poet and artist is born.

So for this final week, set out to create a sacred
environment for yourself, at home and at work.  
It does not have to be complicated - it can be
very simple.  Create a small (or not so small)
altar to the Mother;  find time to walk in nature;
knit a prayer shawl; put a fresh rose next to your bed.
Offer her your first thoughts of the day
and the last thoughts before falling asleep.
Offer her your meal, remembering
'I eat and I am eaten'
Light a stick of incense,
burn rose oil and allow the perfume
to permeate your mind.


Meditate on what brings you into her presence
and make time to regularly undertake those practises.

Make your home a sacred temple to her.
A place where love is shared and given
through the daily tasks of living
and soon the ordinary will become the sacred
and you will see her presence in everyone
and everything


blessings to you
Hettienne

Ave Maria


Thursday, May 21, 2015

Day of Holiness Celebration




Hail! Queen of Heaven,
Hail! Lady of the Angels
Salutation to Thee, root and portal
Whence the Light of the world has arisen

Hail Mary
Ave Maria



These photographs contain the Grace of the Blessed Mother
received during today's ceremony of holiness.
You can use these photographs to gaze upon
or to meditate with.



The holy is within.
Within is everywhere
Within is all

Hail Mary
Ave Maria



In the Mysteries of the Mother
all the opposites are joined

Hail Mary
Ave Maria



She is the woman clothed with sun standing'in the horn
of the moon and crowned with stars.
She is pregnant with you.
She grows you from herself.
She is the dance of being,
in whom the boundaries spiral,
whirl and dissolve until the one you see is
who you need reflected in your soul.

Hail Mary
Ave Maria



She is the queen in your heart.
She is all the names.
She is the nameless one,
the Mother of mysteries.
Mary Mystical Rose

Friday, May 15, 2015

The third week of thirty days with Mary



This third week of thirty days with Mary
we focus on the fire of divine love as embodied by Mary
as Our Lady of Carmel




Short History :

The Order of Carmel traces its routes to the prophet Elijah 
who dwelt on Mount Carmel, and is often regarded as the 
founder and first patriarch of the Order of Carmel dating
 back to 850 B.C. (8). On Mount Carmel there is a grotto
 known as the “Grotto of the Prophet” which is believed
 to have served as an oratory for Elijah, and attached to
 this grotto is a chapel erected to Our Lady of 
Mount Carmel which dates back to 83 A.D. (9). 
Elijah heard the voice of the Lord telling him to go 
and drink of the stream (1 Kings 17:2-5). 
He obeyed the voice of the Lord, and was chosen by 
God as a leader to bring Israelites back to Him (10).
 According to tradition, Elijah beheld a manifestation 
of a “type” of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
 “the little cloud like a man’s hand” arising out of the sea
 (1 Kings 18:44) (11), 
and some have traced the
 title of Mary “Star of the Sea” 
to this vision of Elijah.


Hermits lived on Mount Carmel near the Fountain of Elijah 
(northern Israel) in the 12th century. 
They had a chapel dedicated to Our Lady. 
By the 13th century they became known as 
“Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.” 
They soon celebrated a special Mass and Office in honor of Mary.
 In 1726 it became a celebration of the universal Church 
under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
 For centuries the Carmelites have seen 
themselves as specially related to Mary. 
Their great saints and theologians have promoted devotion to her 
and often championed the mystery of her Immaculate Conception.

St. Teresa of Avila (October 15) called 
Carmel “the Order of the Virgin.”

 St. John of the Cross (December 14) credited Mary 
with saving him from drowning as a child,
 leading him to Carmel and helping him escape from prison.
St. Theresa of the Child Jesus (October 1) believed that Mary cured her from illness. 
On her First Communion, she dedicated her life to Mary. During the last days of her life she frequently spoke of Mary.

There is a tradition (which may not be historical) 
that Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock, a leader of the Carmelites, 
and gave him a scapular, telling him to promote devotion to it. 
The scapular is a modified version of Mary’s own garment. 
It symbolizes her special protection and calls 
the wearers to consecrate themselves to her in a special way.


Initiation of Fire :

The mandala of wholeness of the human psyche
contains the four elements of fire, air, water and earth.
In her story Mary is initiated into all four elements
on a psychic, spiritual and divine level.
The Immaculate Conception is the initiation of fire.
In the Catholic tradition both Mary and Jesus
was immaculately conceived.

For these seven days we contemplate the fire
of the Divine Mother and what it means to us
personally.  We contemplate the destructive power
of fire.  We contemplate the transformative power of fire.
We contemplate on the necessity of fire in this world
and in our interior world.

The deepest meaning of the Immaculate Conception 
in the spiritual journey of the Soul is
the absolute willingness of the Soul to surrender to
the invisible Bridegroom and to conceive the divine flame of love
and to give birth to the actions of the Christed One in the world.

In the same way that Mary had to endure the disbelief
of the collective mind of the world, you would have to
endure the disbelief of your own unconscious and
subconscious mind and its belief systems.
In order to receive the fire of the Mother (also known
as the Kundalini or the flame of divine love)
you will have to go beyond all reasonable doubt
and all ideas of the mind.
In these seven days you may contemplate on
where you have become resistant, defensive
or afraid of the initiation of the Immaculate Conception
in your own soul and where you have 
joined the inner chorus of disbelievers.
Does your ego play its part as Joseph, the supportive
caretaker and companion of the blessed Mary?




Oh, most beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, 
fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven. 
Blessed Mother of the Son of God; 
Immaculate Virgin, 
Oh, Star of the Sea, 
Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth, 

There are none that can withstand your power. 
Holy Mary, I place this prayer in your hands (3 times) 
Amen.


blessings
Hettienne

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Glorious Mantra


                           
    Mary Mother of Earth, The Empress
     Major Arcana III, Mary Mysteries Tarot

        A glorious mantra which you can use daily for the thirty days with Mary


                 Ave Maria
              Sanctum Gloria

               Hail Mary
               Glorious Sanctuary


         

blessings
Hettienne
           




Thursday, May 7, 2015

Icon of Our Lady of Loretto by Fr. McNichols

The Second seven days of Thirty Days with Mary
is dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto
Her feast day is 9 May

Here are some of the titles of Mary in the Litany of Loreto

Holy Mary, 
pray for us.
Holy Mother of God,
Holy Virgin of virgins, 
Mother of Christ, 
Mother of the Church, 
Mother of divine grace, 
Mother most pure, 
Mother most chaste, 
Mother inviolate, 
Mother undefiled, 
Mother most amiable, 
Mother admirable, 
Mother of good counsel, 
Mother of our Creator, 
Mother of our Saviour, 
Mother of mercy, 
Virgin most prudent, 
Virgin most venerable, 
Virgin most renowned, 
Virgin most powerful, 
Virgin most merciful, 
Virgin most faithful, 
Mirror of justice, 
Seat of wisdom, 
Cause of our joy, 
Spiritual vessel, 
Vessel of honour, 
Singular vessel of devotion, 
Mystical rose, 
Tower of David, 
Tower if ivory, 
House of gold, 
Ark of the covenant, 
Gate of heaven, 
Morning star, 
Health of the sick, 
Refuge of sinners, 
Comfort of the afflicted, 
Help of Christians, 
Queen of Angels, 
Queen of Patriarchs, 
Queen of Prophets, 
Queen of Apostles, 
Queen of Martyrs, 
Queen of Confessors, 
Queen of Virgins, 
Queen of all Saints, 
Queen conceived without original sin, 
Queen assumed into heaven, 
Queen of the most holy Rosary, 
Queen of families, 
Queen of peace.

As we recite the entire Litany or parts thereof we contemplate
the meaning of her many names and what they mean to us.

blessings
Hettienne



Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Day Five of Thirty Days with Mary

The Black Madonna by www.iconfusion.com


We contemplate the darkness as we wait for the
Gate to the New Dawn

Black is the colour of night and the shade of soil.
It cloaks midnight and blankets the depths of caves
and grottos.  In previous cultures, the most
popular totem for a chief male divinity was the sun and,
by extension, light;  goddesses have been
associated with the moon and, by extension, night.
                                -Leonard Shlain (The Alphabet vs the Goddess)


Many medieval churches, extending in a wide arc from
Russia across Europe to Spain, had as their most sacred
object a statue of Black Mary.

Like the black, abiding earth, her simple being is so vastly 
present that we have not noticed it.
           - Caitlin Mathews


In a quest for a mother who will accept us when we can't quite
make peace with our errors, or with ourselves, it is easier
to turn to a simple mother acquainted with the darkness of life
than to the lovely Virgin, perfectly obedient and always
pure.
In the heart of our dark mother, love for us endures without
judgement or pretense.  She helps us deal with the undeniable
fact that we live in a world we can neither control nor
comprehend, a world with which we often cannot cope -
in which we can at times only endure.

She is the silent companion who stands at our elbows
as we toil ..... daily grappling with humanity's
problems ...... striving to reflect the light of the
spirit in our world.
                    - Caitlin Mathews


In the Gnostic book of the Apocryphon of John it is written
that we are never alone as the  power of the mother, the shakty
in Hindu terms, the Epinoia in Gnostic terms, kundalini
in tantric terms and Mary in my own personal experience,
 is here with us and within us.

the blessed One, the Mother-Father, the beneficientand merciful One, had mercy on the power of the mother .........
And he sent, through his beneficient Spirit and his
great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which
comes out of him, who is called Life.
And she assists the whole creature,
by toiling with him and by restoring him to
his fullness ........ and be teaching him about
the way of ascent.

And thus we ponder the dark Madonna within ourselves -
the unknown who springs into action during
an emergency, or who rises to the occasion as need be
without thought or hesitation.
We also have the queen within who wants everything perfect
and who, when not treated just so, can take offence
unnecessarily.
Disciple, 'know thyself'
We are she.

These polarised appearances - as Hag or Queen of Heaven -are the two sides of the coin, one archetypal power.
Just as coal and diamond are both carbon - that
basic substance of life - so dies the Goddess of Wisdom
manifest her power through seemingly opposing appearances.
The Goddess of Wisdom is seeded in us all.
  -  Caitlin Mathews

However, the Great Mother of Wisdom, in all her
many aspects, are the One, only perceived
in polarity and duality.  By the darkness of night
we perceive her as the moon and in the
brightness of the day, as the sun.
But there is only One Light
and we come to know this through detachment.


blessings
Hettienne






Friday, May 1, 2015

Day One of Thirty Days with Mary






LAUDS - DAWN

Oh Mary Gate of the New Dawn
come to me
Oh Mother of both night and day
come to me
The blackness burns until only white bones remain
glimmering in the Light of new possibilities
I follow your black cloak down the well of the night
You receive me once more
as we await the New Dawn
Ave Maria

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
 Blessed art thou among women 
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. 
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
 Pray for us bodhisattvas of love 
Now and ever as we shine 
With virtue, health and life. (3x).

I AM teaching sentient beings. (4x)
 I AM a being of golden fire.
 I AM the wisdom God desires. (2x)
 I AM a being of violet fire.

 I AM the freedom God desires. (2x)


SUN GAZING FOR A FEW SECONDS

To be followed by Rosary

Repeat at Vespers

Rosary at Compline

What does the Black Madonna mean for us in these thirty days of Mary



I extracted this article from the extensive website of          
 www.interfaithmary.net with gratitude


A psychological explanation for the dark Madonna is that she is a mysterious variable (like the x in algebra). As such she allows us to project our fantasies, wounds, and needs onto her. Once offered to her, she can heal them and then lead us on to greater wholeness.

For those of us white folks who feel wounded by imperfect human mothers, it is helpful to be confronted with a mother image that is strikingly different from what we are used to. This allows us to reframe our image of motherhood, to let go of old norms and habits and open to a new experience of motherhood, undisturbed by baggage from the past. When a white person is presented with a black mother (which was certainly the case in 12th century France) it is a nudge to let go of conventional ideals (e.g. white = beauty, goodness, and power). It is a step towards freedom from all our preconceived notions, shackles, and narrow horizons
.
Of course for brown and black people the healing effect of brown and black Madonnas works in a different way. It is not the image's difference to them, which is healing, but its similarity. Through it heaven expresses its solidarity, love, and care for them, affirming that they are not excluded from any heavenly graces. As the Virgin of Guadalupe said to Juan Diego: "Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not one of your kind?"

For C.G. Jung and his followers the Black Madonna represents the archetype of the dark feminine: that which is unconscious, unpredictable, and mysterious in humans and in the Godhead. She represents the existential terror one has to face in the "dark night of the soul" (St. John of the Cross) in order to come into complete union with God. Cedrus N. Monte (onwww.cedrusmonte.org ) calls the Black Madonna a "lethal force" to the ego. She goes on to explain that when the ego is lethally wounded, the true self is born into new life. Another form of a "good death"\

Brigitte Romankiewicz interprets the darkness of the Madonna as a representation of a soul in wholeness, with its "light" and "shadow" sides in perfect balance. Psychologists insist that humans need to integrate their dark tendencies if they are to be healthy and whole. We need to know and acknowledge our base instincts with compassion, though not act upon their whims. Whatever positive potential they may include should be appreciated and made use of in a constructive way.
There are two other types of Madonnas that portray the Virgin's ability to know, embrace, and transcend light and darkness: One is Our Lady standing barefoot on a snake, sweetly smiling. Both snake and Lady are unharmed and in their right place. The shadow is controlled, tamed, but not destroyed.


An ordinary garden statue of the type "Our Lady of all Graces" turned Black Madonna on my porch by Suli Marr. 
Mary holding a tamed dragon like a lap dog, a very rare type, Chartres relief on the "royal gate".
Brigitte Romankiewicz (Die Schwarze Madonna, pp.100-1) sees the same idea expressed in images of more or less light Madonnas standing on a dark moon, which sometimes bears the image of a serious or sad woman’s face. Here are three examples: the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Madonna of Haslach in the Landesmuseum in Stuttgart, and the Black Madonna of Marija Bistrica

Madonnas standing on a moon-woman began emerging in the late 14th century. Traditional art historians interpret this symbol as pointing to Eve, the archetypal Dark Mother of Christianity, who supposedly plunged humanity into sin. How did the moon and the first woman become conflated? Through many centuries of the moon symbolizing the feminine power to bring forth life in the cosmos. Since about the 6th century B.C.E. the Greco-Roman moon goddess Selene became known as the “Mother of all that lives”. (Dorothea Forstner and Renate Becker, Lexikon christlicher Symbole, Marixverlag, Wiesbaden: 2007, p.356) That title echoes in Eve’s name, explained in Genesis 3:20: “The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living.” Eve is the English rendition of the Hebrew name Chawwah, which was derived from the Hebrew word chawah, "to breathe, to live".\

So Eve is a figure who represents all that is feminine in our universe as seen through patriarchal eyes: She is all women who have the power to bring forth life but who are also somehow at the root of all evil and have to be ‘kept in their place’. She is also the feminine moon, who measures time and grants fertility, but receives its light from the masculine sun.\

But even outside of patriarchy, women as well as men do have light and shadow sides that are challenging to integrate in a healthy way. The Madonna standing on a dark moon (sometimes with the face of Eve) is an image of integration and wholeness. She is the totality of femininity, with light and dark aspects in their correct place: the light on top and the dark under one’s feet, i.e. controlled. Mary, the “second Eve”, the first woman of the ‘new creation in Christ’ redeems the “first Eve”, just like Jesus, the “second Adam”, the first man of the new creation, redeems the “first Adam”. (cf. 1 Cor 15:45-49)

Our Lady of Guadalupe is an especially well balanced portrait of the integration of light and darkness, the union of opposites: there is the straight line down her dress that divides it into a light and a shadow side, there is the light radiating sun behind her and the dark moon beneath her, there is her dress with flowers representing the earth and her mantel with stars representing the heavens, and there is the male angel under her supporting her own femininity.

Mystical explanations
 
In Christian mysticism darkness stands for divine mysteries that are hidden from the ordinary "light of reason". This tradition reaches back to the Hebrew Bible. The more famous story about God meeting us in darkness is in the book of Exodus. God appears to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai in a thick dark cloud. Then he asks his special prophet Moses to come up and meet him face to face inside the cloud "and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was." (Ex. 20:21)
No less important is the account of God's first covenant with the people of Israel in Genesis 15. When Abraham really wants to know something from God, he is told to bring a sacrifice before the Lord. He has to defend his offerings against wild animals and wait all day. Finally: "a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. (verse 12)And in that darkness God spoke to him at length. "When the sun had set and it was dark" God made his covenant with Abraham.
The dark cloud is mentioned again in 1Kings 8:10-12 during the dedication of the temple of Solomon: “When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the Lord’s glory had filled the temple of the Lord. Then Solomon said, ‘The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud;’”
So God hides in a cloud of darkness and to experience God directly one has to enter into that which a famous medieval book by the same title calls "the Cloud of Unknowing". The anonymous author recommends that during prayer or meditation you put everything you ever knew under a "cloud of forgetting" so as to be able to take a completely fresh look at your universe. 




Mary's "Holy House" in Loreto where one of the most famous black Madonnas resides. Photo: Giorgio Filippini

Shortly after I was asked for the first time to give a talk on the black Madonnas I was able to go to Loreto, Italy before the black Mother in the darkness of her little brick house. There I asked her directly about the meaning of her blackness. Listening with an empty, open mind and with my whole being, I felt that she was covering me with the darkness of her cloak as in a dark "cloud of unknowing". In that darkness beyond words we communed. She did not give me any words then, but afterwards I felt assured that she reveals her secrets to those who love her. Those who dare enter the darkness of the "Cloud of Unknowing" and the "dark night of the soul" (St. John of the Cross) she draws into herself, like a "black hole" draws in matter, and there, in that darkness, she teaches them. It’s like being in the womb of God: you know you are safely held and nourished. You grow without needing to understand how. Ever since then, I see Black Madonnas as a symbol for the womb of God.
Dr. Eben Alexander, author of “Proof of Heaven” vividly describes entering the womb of God during his near-death experience: “I continued moving forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light: (…) My situation was, strangely enough, something akin to that of a fetus in a womb. (…) In this case, the “mother” was God, the Creator, the Source who is responsible for making the universe and all in it. (…) It was as if I were being born into a larger world, and the universe itself was like a giant cosmic womb”.(Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, N.Y.: 2012, pp. 46-7)
In his book “Revealing Heaven: the Christian Case for Near-Death Experiences” John Price uses the same words. That is, he quotes a fundamentalist minister, who says this about his near-death experience: “I went into what looked like a womb that was dark except you could see in the dark. (…) I believe I went into a womb of some nature to be healed. It was like my hard drive just got completely erased, and I came back to have to relearn. (…) The moment I woke up from the coma, I knew that I’d believed a lie that had hurt thousands of people.” (Harper Collins Publishers, N.Y.: 2013, pp.140-141)