Our Lady of the Living Fire Novena Day 2

Mary has her own folk mythology unrelated to the mainstream Christian myth. In the mythological sense she is like the goddesses in all cultures of the world. The legends about Mary illustrate that Mary is a force in people's lives. -  extracted from The Breath, the soul, the Divine female by Rasa Luzyte

Contemplation

The Living Hearth

The IV of Vessels in the Mysteries of Mary tarot deck depict the young Virgin Mary as temple priestess in the Temple of the Dove as told in The Mystical City of God.  We follow her days as a sacred priestess dedicated to the Divine, throughout the deck.

Her days as a young girl in the temple starts with Joachim and Anne setting out from Nazareth, accompanied by a few of their kindred and bringing with them the true living Ark of the covenant, the most holy Mary, borne on the arms of her mother in order to be entered into the holy temple of Jerusalem. - The Mystical City of God

We have come to know the dove as a symbol of the male Holy Spirit in Christianity, but previously the dove has been a bird sacred to Ishtar, Venus and Aphrodite, the goddesses of love.  The dove is also a symbol of Sophia and the Holy Shekinah.  In the Protoevangelium of James, it is described that Mary spent her childhood in the Temple as one of seven virgin priestesses.   The seven virgin priestesses were part of the symbolism and metaphor of the ancient Mysteries Temple.

The Mandean texts tell the story of Miriai (Mary) who spent her childhood in a Jewish temple and whom became a priestess and prophetess with her own disciples.  It was told that when she speaks, the world shake.  When she prays and teaches, even the fish and birds listen.  And that a special fragrance surround her disciples as they spend time in her presence and listen to her words.  The sacred fragrance still manifest into our reality today when the mind and heart is open enough to accept that there is no separation in realities;  this is especially prominent at holy places where the Divine has become manifest in the physical ordinary reality.

We awaken to the Inner Presence by discovering the story that lives within each one of us.

Here Mary, as Priestess of the Soul, stands as the holy Presence within the inner temple of your heart.  She is the Keeper of the Holy Hearth and the Hearth Itself.

She tends to the flame eternal of the embodied Hearth until the influences of the hidden worlds has been purified and you awaken to falling in love with yourself.

The Soul within you is priestessing the healing balm for your own personal story.

Prayer

Hail Mary, She who Priestesses the Sacred in the Ordinary;

By the wings of the dove.

Holy High Priestess, eternally balanced in the stillpoint,

between Boaz and Jachin, the Sun and the Moon

Birthing visible Grace into the Ordinary

Living Hearth

Setting my heart on fire.

Om jai mata Mary Ma

blessings

Hettienne