Loyalty To The Divine Feminine

LOYALTY TO THE DIVINE FEMININE:
INTEGRATION OF THE DIVINE FEMININE THROUGH A DEPTH

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
A dissertation submitted
by
CANDACE CRISELDA KLEVEN
to
PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE
in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the
degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
This dissertation has been

accepted for the faculty of
Institute by:
~>
iodchild, PhD
Chair
Lisa Sloan, PhD

Reader
/ Be8y
B K oKovacs,
v a c s , PhD
PhD
External Reader
A
UMI Number: 3519785
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2011
iii
ABSTRACT
Loyalty to the Divine Feminine:

Integration of the Divine Feminine through a Depth Psychological Perspective
by
Candace Criselda Kleven
This dissertation illustrates the integration of Divine Feminine principles with the
current patriarchal paradigm as a path towards feminine individuation. The study
attempts to constellate awareness of internal shifts of consciousness from lived
experiences of ancient Divine Feminine principles. The rigorous six-stage approach of
Clark Moustakas' heuristic method was employed. These include initial engagement,
immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and creative synthesis. In addition, the
depth psychological processes of engaging dreams, active imaginations, inner reflections,
and meditations were put into dialogue with the autonomous forces of the unconscious.
Pilgrimages to sacred sites from different parts of the world and inner explorations of the
archetypal realms were conducted to commune with the symbolic presentations of the
ancient Divine Feminine. These outer journeys and inner experiences provided the
foundation for new findings, which are chronicled and explicated.
In particular, the transformative symbols of the Black Madonna and Mary
Magdalene, marginalized and rejected by patriarchy for centuries, were examined. Their
remarkable reemergence in our cultural and individual consciousness today summons us
to heal our psyches by bringing into awareness those parts of us that have been forgotten,
denied, and repressed.
This dissertation study was built upon the various works of Jungian authors,
clinical and depth psychologists, and theologians who believe in the significance of
iv
Divine Feminine principles. This study is of importance to clinical psychology because
the data collected from pilgrimage and from the unconscious and archetypal realms can
help us further understand the richness and complexities found in the Divine Feminine
mysteries in service of finding wholeness and experience Self.
The results obtained through this study demonstrate the application and
integration of Divine Feminine symbols in achieving a balance between logos and
interrelatedness—the sacred marriage, hieros gamos, of the Divine Masculine and Divine
Feminine within our psyches. Feminine redemption through claiming the disowned parts
of ourselves by reconnecting with the Divine Feminine symbols of the Black Madonna
and Mary Magdalene assists us on our journey towards feminine individuation.

V
Dedication
This work is dedicated to all who desire to find their true feminine essence and
connection to the Divine Feminine within through the wisdom and blessings of our
ancient Holy Mother. I offer this work with love and reverence to the Black Madonna,
Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, and the many forms of the Great Goddess across the
world.
Acknowledgments
With the deepest love and gratitude to my husband, Doug Kleven, my love and twin soul.
Your sweet and tender loving, encouragement, and unending support, embraced and
sustained me throughout these years. You are my rock.
With heartfelt gratitude to my earth mother, Sinai Barit, whose love and support is much
appreciated and will never be forgotten.
With thanksgiving to our precious daughters Alanna Le Sueur and Tori, Kleven whose
love, support, and patience are felt throughout this process. May this work inspire you to
connect to your Divine Feminine souls when She beckons you.
With soulful gratitude to my analyst, Ann Walker PhD, whose love, knowledge, wisdom,
and support helped me through my journeys into the underworld. Thank you for
providing a temenos for which profound insights and transformations were birthed and
nurtured.
With gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee:

Advisor—Veronica Goodchild, PhD, Reader—Lisa Sloan, PhD, and External Reader—
Betty Kovacs, PhD, who believed in me and supported, guided, and inspired me.
With thanksgiving to Margaret Starbird, whose work inspired me in the beginning of this
journey and who helped midwife a Divine Feminine consciousness in me at the medieval
square of Mirepoix, France.
To all those who have supported and uplifted me along the way, I am grateful.
To the Holy Father, I thank thee for thy unconditional love, strength, and support. I am
forever grateful to have found You through this work! No longer separated from You, I
now carry Your divine presence within me always.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1
Purpose Statement 1
Relevance of the study of the Divine Feminine to Clinical Psychology 5
Autobiographical Origins of my Interest in the Divine Feminine: Growing up
without the Goddesses 13
My Predisposition to the Goddesses: My Childhood and Earlier Experiences
with the Divine Feminine 20
A Dream about the Goddesses and the Gods 27
Reflections and Dream Interpretation 30
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 34

Literature Relevant to the Topic: A Brief History of the Great Goddess 34
Paleolithic Age: The Era of the Great Goddess 34
Neolithic Age: The Great Goddess Blossoms 36
Bronze Age: The Beginning of Patriarchy 38
Iron Age: The Execution of the Great Goddess 39
Hebrew Bible: The Holy Father Replaces the Holy Mother 40
The Great Goddess Transforms as the Greek Goddess 42
Christian Religion and the Denigration of the Great Goddess 44
The Reemergence of the Divine Feminine from a Depth Psychological
Perspective 46
Carl G. Jung's Relationship with the Divine Feminine 47
Feminism and the Divine Feminine 48
The Reemergence of Mary Magdalene 51
The Black Madonna 56
Mary Apparitions 58
CHAPTER 3. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND QUESTION 61

The Research Problem 61
The Research Question 61
Definition of Terms 61
CHAPTER 4. HEURISTIC RESEARCH APPROACH AND METHOD 64

A Heuristic Approach to Psychological Research 64
Initial Engagement 66
Immersion 67
Incubation 75
Illumination 76
Explication 80
Creative Synthesis 83
CHAPTER 5. PROCEDURES 86
Organization of Study 86
vii
Participants and Reflexivity/Limitations 87

Ethical Considerations 88
CHAPTER 6. THE BLACK MADONNA 90

Initial Engagement with the Black Madonna 90
Walking Meditation 90
My Journey towards the Black Madonna 90
A Dream from the Black Madonna 92
Immersion: Pilgrimages to the Black Madonna 95
The Black Madonna of Tindari in Italy 95
The Black Madonna of Rocamadour in France 98
The Black Madonna of Chartres in France 99
Our Lady of the Pillar 102
Our Lady of the Crypt 103
Walking the Labyrinth 104
The Black Madonna of Paris in France 106
The Black Madonna of Marseilles in France 108
The Black Madonna of Le Puy-en-Velay in France 110
The Black Madonna of Montserrat in Spain 112
Incubation 114
A Dream with Archetypal Images 115
Illumination 122
Active Imagination with the Black Madonna 123
Reflections and Meditations 127
Explication 128
Focusing 128
Indwelling 130
Prayers 131
Active Imagination with the Black Madonna 132
Self-Searching 135
A Dream from the Father, Darker Aspect of the Masculine
and the Ancient Mother 135
Self-Disclosure 141
Culmination of the Research in a Creative Synthesis 142
A Dream of Completion 143
Integration of the Divine Feminine 144
CHAPTER 7: MARY MAGDALENE 145

Initial Engagement with Mary Magdalene 145
My Journey towards Mary Magdalene 146
Gifts from Mary Magdalene 147
viii

Immersion: Pilgrimages to Mary Magdalene in France 151
Rennes-le-Chateau 154
Mirepoix 158
Paris 163
Saint-Maximin-La Sainte-Baume 166
SainteBaume 168
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer 170
Vezelay 174
Incubation 176
A Dream from Mary Magdalene and the Black Madonna 177
Illumination 181
Active Imagination with Mary Magdalene 182
Explication 184
Focusing 184
Indwelling 187
Self-Searching 190
Self-Disclosure 192
A Dream from the Divine Father 192
Culmination of the Research in a Creative Synthesis 195
My Father at Last 196
Integration of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine 197
CHAPTER 8: FINDINGS, CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS AND THE

CONCLUSION 198
Implications Found in the Heuristic Method 198
Ethical Implications of Social and Cultural Biases 202
Summary of the Findings and their Significance 204
Implications, Importance, and other Contribution of the Findings for
Clinical Psychology and Depth Psychology 210
Recommendations to Broaden the Study of the Divine Feminine 214
Conclusion 217
REFERENCES 224
Chapter 1
Introduction
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this study is to illustrate the integration of the Divine Feminine
principles with our current patriarchal paradigm as a path to individuation through a
depth psychological perspective. American lexicographer Robert Barnhart tells us that
the word integration in Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology: The Origins of
American English Words took root in "1620, borrowed probably from French integration,
and directly from Latin integrationem (nominative integratio) restoration of the whole,
from integrare" (1985, p. 393). My intention is to illustrate how the integration of ancient
Divine Feminine principles with our current patriarchal paradigm can lead to the
restoration of the whole.
The father of analytical psychology, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, also
considered to be one of the most influential thinkers in the twentieth century,
characterizes the process toward wholeness as individuation. In The Collected Works, a
multivolume collection of his writings, Jung (1928/1966b) informs us that "individuation
means becoming an 'in-dividual,' and, in so far as 'individuality' embraces our
innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one's own self.
We could therefore translate individuation as 'coming to selfhood' or 'self-realization'"
(p. 173 [CW 7, para. 266]). 1 will attempt to illustrate how accepting both our current
patriarchal approach and the Divine Feminine principles can lead to what Jung describes
as individuation—a coming to selfhood or Self In C. G. Jung Lexicon: A Primer of
Terms and Concepts, Jungian analyst Darryl Sharp (Sharp & Jung, 1991) defines Self as
"the archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche; a transpersonal
2
power that transcends the ego" (p. 119). Furthermore, Sharp explains, "experiences of
the self possess a numinosity characteristic of religious revelations" (p. 12). Jung
(1928/1966c) makes us aware that "it might equally well be called the 'God within us'"
(p. 238 [CW 7, para. 399]). I will explore the integration of the Divine Feminine
principles along with our current patriarchal consciousness that can lead to Jung's
individuation and moments of sacredness—feelings that we are one with our Self
At this point of the research, definitions of additional terms need clarification. In
Thou Gaia Art I, German philosopher and researcher of matriarchal studies Heide
Gottner-Abendroth (1994) gives us an explicit description of the Divine Feminine:
The matriarchal deity is not the Great Mother in heaven or anywhere else. Rather,
she is always concrete and present, visible and touchable. For she is the earth
humankind is living on, and she is the cosmos we can see shining above us in the
sky. The goddess is never alien or elevated or superior, because she also is the
network of spiritual, intellectual, psychic and physical powers within us. (p. 136)
Connecting to the palpable forces found in the mysteries of the Divine Feminine and the
goddesses within us is a vital part of the sacred feminine ways. Mystical scholar Andrew
Harvey and Jungian analyst Anne Baring (1996) further describe the Divine Feminine in
their book titled The Divine Feminine: Reclaiming the Feminine Aspect of God
throughout the World as the "unseen, dimension of soul to which we are connected
through our instincts, our feelings, and the longing imagination of our heart" (p. 6). Our
instincts, feelings, and Eros are also described as ways of the sacred feminine. Lastly, in
The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, Baring and Jungian analyst Jules
Cashford (1993) explain the Divine Feminine characteristics that we have lost in our
culture: "the feminine principle, which manifests in mythological history as 'the goddess'
and in cultural history as the values placed upon spontaneity, feeling, instinct and
3
intuition, have been lost as a valid expression of the sanctity and unity of life" (p. xii). I
will be using the meanings of the Divine Feminine, as previously described, throughout
this dissertation study. Additionally, the use of the Divine Feminine and sacredfeminine
are interchangeable and sometimes capitalized to represent sacredness throughout this
dissertation. Furthermore, She, Her, Them, They, and Their are also often capitalized to
signify divinity.
In addition, the context of patriarchy that will be discussed all through this
dissertation study is explained by Catherine Soanes, Sara Hawker, and Julia Elliott,
editors of the Paperback Oxford English Dictionary, as "a society in which men hold
most or all of the power; a form of social organization in which the father or eldest male
is the head of the family" (2006, p. 546). Patriarchy reigned over the Western world for
centuries, whereas the Divine Feminine has gone through suppression for 4,000 years,
reemerging in our consciousness during the last century. I will further explicate this
process in later chapters of this research. I do not propose that we attempt to give up
what we have adopted from patriarchy; on the contrary, we are reclaiming a lost part of
ourselves— the Divine Feminine, and then integrating them both into our consciousness
to become whole.
Finally, this research will be presented through a depth psychological perspective.
In The Art of Inquiry: A Depth Psychological Perspective, Joseph Coppin and Elizabeth
Nelson, faculty members of the Depth Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate
Institute, describe depth psychology as a "formal discipline of inquiry" which has "taken
up the gauntlet that Socrates laid down 2,500 years ago" (2005, p. 17). Coppin and
Nelson argue that our current Western paradigm is comparable to Classical Athens—
4
burdened with moral relativism, materialism, and political and social corruptions.
Moreover, the authors elucidate the similarities of the depth psychological perspective to
Socrates' challenging the status quo during his time:
Socrates bucked the tide of social mores and openly declared the most important
activity human beings can engage in is attention to and concern for one's soul—
not care of the body, or possessions, reputation, and not achievements or
accomplishments—the soul. (p. 17)
Depth psychology is a study of a deeper nature. It is not only the study and culmination
of religion, sociology, psychology, history, science, and literature; depth psychology also
subscribes to what Socrates proposed was the most important activity that we can engage
in, which is the study of the soul.
In addition, Coppin and Nelson explain that the depth psychological tradition has
also adopted Socrates' study of the unconscious:
Socrates also demonstrated something else about inquiry that has been taken up
by modern depth psychologists. The theory of the fathomless unconscious, which
is the cornerstone of depth psychology, is an enticement to make the art of inquiry
into a lifestyle. Whether the unconscious is defined as personal, or a personal and
collective, matters very little. Either theory gives human beings a limitless
horizon to move toward a lifetime of questions to ask. (p. 18)
Depth psychology is a lifelong task of soul searching to experience one's Self and the Self
in others. Accepting and integrating the forgotten parts of our selves into consciousness,
the marginalized Divine Feminine principles, are necessary for what Jung calls
individuation or the sense of Self, recovering the lost soul of our culture, and rebirthing a
new attitude of balance and harmony within ourselves and our planet.
Relevance of the study of the Divine Feminine to Clinical Psychology
The study of the Divine Feminine as a path to individuation is relevant to the
practice of clinical psychology in numerous ways. In The Descent to the Goddess: A

5
Way of Initiation for Women, Jungian analyst Sylvia Brinton Perera (1981) confirms this
valuable path of reclaiming the sacred feminine within women:
The return to the goddess, for renewal in a feminine source— ground and spirit, is
a vitally important aspect of modern woman's quest for wholeness. We women
who have succeeded in the world are usually "daughters of the father"— that is,
well adapted to a masculine-oriented society—and have repudiated our own full
feminine instincts and energy patterns, just as the culture has maimed or
derogated most of them. We need to return to and redeem what the patriarchy has
often seen only as a dangerous threat and called terrible mother, dragon, or witch.
(P- 7)
Although the Divine Feminine was marginalized by patriarchy, we can discover that we
not only inherited the gifts of logic and science from our Holy Fathers; our Holy Mothers
also bestowed the feminine wisdom within us, balancing both masculine and feminine
forces in our lives. After centuries of patriarchy, the study of the Divine Feminine ways
can help heal women's wounded psyches by reconnecting and reclaiming both light and
darker sacred feminine aspects within us.
Renowned Jungian analyst Mary Esther Harding wrote two influential books
about women's psychology titled The Way of All Women (1970) and Woman's Mysteries
(1971) that changed the way we perceive women for all times. Jung wrote both
introductions for Harding's books and describes them as "important contributions to the
striving of our time for a deeper knowledge of the human being and for a clarification of
the confusion existing in the relationship between the sexes" (Harding, 1970, p. xviii).
Jung informs us that the study of the feminine assists us in understanding ourselves; it
also helps us to clarify the relationship that exists between man and woman.
Furthermore, Jung describes Harding's (1971) work on the feminine principle in the
following way:
6
Dr. Harding, in addition to her professional work, has devoted herself to the
considerable and even self-sacrificing effort of compiling, clearly and
systematically, the archetypal material of the feminine compensation, [and] brings
a most welcome contribution to these endeavors. This investigation is valuable
and important, not only for the specialist, but also for the educated layman, who is
interested in a psychology founded on experience of life and the understanding of
people, (pp. xi-xii)
Jung tells us that Harding's (1970/1971) books aid us in understanding the
marginalization of women that has occurred since ancient times. The study of the
feminine is valuable for clinical psychologists and educated laymen who are interested in
psychology for understanding our psyches and experiences of life.
Additionally, in Jung's Circle of Women, author Maggy Anthony expresses the
importance of Harding's work: "Woman's Mysteries must be one of the seminal books of
the spiritual women's movement. It is invariably cited in feminist literature along with
another of her books, The Way of all Women" (1999, p. 45). Reaching out to the ancient
feminine wisdom found in myths and other archaic writings enable us to experience
sacredness and accept the darker aspects of women.
Harding (1971) illustrates the archetypal foundations of feminine psychology and
eloquently describes the eternal challenge of contemporary women:
A modern woman in seeking to establish a relation to the "Moon Goddess" or

feminine principle within herself may have to submit to her own instinct,
recognizing it not just as an intellectual concept but in fact, as a determining
influence in her whole life; or she may need to accept the Eros order of
relatedness and submit herself and her own wishes to that order, (p. 145)
Harding's work helped us understand that we do not merely study or intellectualize the
goddess principle; on the contrary, we must consciously let Her forces work through us
and experience Her in our internal world reality.

7
In one of Jung's most popular writings about modern women titled Woman in
Europe (1927/1970), he declares:
Woman's psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and
loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is
Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic
relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest, (p. 123 [CW10, para. 255])
Jung believes that logos (reason and judgment) as man's ruling principle and Eros
(relatedness) as woman's ruling principle, which 1 will adhere to throughout this
dissertation. My intention is to add to the work laid down by Jung, Harding, and other
Jungian analysts in the depth psychological tradition on the subject of the Goddess
principle as a useful tool to lead us to the path of individuation. Our patriarchal fathers
gave us knowledge, but we must also strive to reclaim the feminine wisdom within us
through our unfaltering connection with our instincts, intuition, vulnerability, passion,
and Eros, which Harding (1970) describes as relatedness. It is Jung's and Harding's
description of Eros—relatedness, that I will discuss throughout this dissertation,
reclaimed as the Divine Feminine principles.
In addition, the study of the Divine Feminine is pertinent to clinical psychology,
given that Jung also notably clarifies the importance of integrating the feminine
principles in men. Jung (1928/1966a) explains one of the ramifications of ignoring a
man's feminine traits: "no man is so entirely masculine that he has nothing feminine in
him.... The repression of feminine traits and inclinations naturally causes these
contrasexual demands to accumulate in the unconscious" (p. 189 \CW 7, para. 297]).
According to Jung, there are also feminine forces within men that need to be accepted,
developed, and integrated to their consciousness if they are to live a deeper life.
8
Moreover, Sharp (Sharp & Jung, 1991) warns us that "whenever the unconscious
becomes overactive, it comes to light in symptoms that paralyze conscious action. This is
likely to happen when unconscious factors are ignored or repressed" (p. 145). The study
of the Divine Feminine traits is relevant to clinical psychology, because disowning the
sacred feminine aspect of ourselves can injure both men and women, which in turn can
show-up in unconscious ways such as complexes, projections, addictions or psychoses.
In Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche, world-renowned German Jungian
analyst and scholar Marie Louis Von Franz (1994) illustrates how a man can also flourish
from the communion of the opposites: "if on the other hand he consciously acknowledges
and develops his feminine traits, then he will cling less rigidly to principles, become
generally more 'human,' emotionally warmer, and become more open toward the
irrational, artistic side of life" (p. 16). A man can discover his positive anima within;
feeling values, creativity, compassion, and Eros can unlock his entrapped libido,
welcome relatedness within himself, others, and with our planet.
We need to bring consciousness to the disowned parts of ourselves by balancing
what Jung (1928/1966a) calls the animus (masculine) and the anima (feminine) traits
within us. Sharp (Sharp & Jung, 1991) describes Jung's definition of the inner feminine
side of man as the anima:
There is [in man] an imago not only of the mother but of the daughter, the sister,
the beloved, the heavenly goddess, and the chthonic Baubo. Every mother and
every beloved is forced to become the carrier and embodiment of this omnipresent
and ageless image, which corresponds to the deepest reality in a man. (p. 18)
Conversely, Jung (1951/1968d) also explains the masculine side of women as the animus:
Woman is compensated by a masculine element and therefore her unconscious

has, so to speak, a masculine imprint. This results in a considerable psychological
difference between men and women, and accordingly I have called the projection-
9
making factor in women the animus, which means mind or spirit. The animus
corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal
Eros. (p. 14 [CW 9ii, para. 29])
As stated by Jung, women must also integrate the paternal Logos (logic and reason) in
our consciousness to be whole. Greek goddesses like Athena, Artemis, and Hestia
embody the animus (masculine force). In Goddesses in Every Woman, Jungian analyst
and psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen (1985) considers these virgin goddesses who
"personify the independent, active, non-relationship aspects of women's psychology" (p.
35). She continues to describe the animus-driven goddesses as representing "inner
drives in women to develop talents, pursue interests, solve problems, compete with
others, express themselves articulately in words or through art forms, put their
surroundings in order, or lead contemplative lives" (p. 35). The animus-driven women
will be further discussed in a later chapter of this research.
I will be drawing on the goddess myths as representations of the ancient Divine
Feminine principles throughout this dissertation. In Eternal Drama: The Inner Meaning
of Greek Mythology, Edward Edinger (1994), known as one of the leading Jungian
analysts in the United States from the 1950s, tells us of the importance of myths and how
they are relevant to the field of clinical psychology:
As we consider the basic images of Greek mythology, we should ask what the
particular images could mean in our own individual lives. It is important to read
the myths psychologically, to connect them with living experience so that they are
not just remote abstractions. A specific technique can help to do that. With every
myth, one can bring personal associations to each figure and image, just as in
dealing with a dream, (p. 3)
Moreover, in The Power of Myth, detailing interviews conducted by journalist Bill
Moyers of world-renowned American mythologist Joseph Campbell (1988), Campbell
shows that myths offer us "clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life" (p. 5).
10
In addition, in Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Campbell (1976) explains what
mythological symbols can do for us: "mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers
of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion" (p. 4). I will be delving
into the Divine Feminine images, myths, and their psychological archetypal symbols to
examine and learn to integrate their mythical forces into our very being.
Another leading thinker of the 20th century and father of archetypal psychology,
American James Hillman (1998), succinctly describes our innate relationships with myths
in The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology.
We are never only persons; we are always also Mothers and Giants and Victims
and Heroes and Sleeping Beauties. Titans and Demons and Magnificent
Goddesses have ruled our souls for thousands of years; Aristotle and Descartes
did their best, and the analytical minds that followed them are still at it, but the
mythic forces have not been slain, (p. 6)
As men and women, there is much more within than we have been taught and socialized
to be; within all of us are the mythic forces that lie asleep, waiting to be awakened,
fostered, integrated, embodied, and ensouled through us. Our patriarchal fathers such as
Aristotle and Descartes did not succeed in reducing our Western culture to a world of
science and reason. The Divine Feminine is here within us, and she can be found in
ancient myths, void of logic and oppression. She represents the irrational functions such
as Eros, instinct, chaos, birth, death, and renewal of life in her dark and light aspects.
Lastly, the Divine Feminine studies are significant to the field of clinical
psychology, because using the more feminine sensibilities of engaging our hearts and
souls by listening to our dreams, participating in active imagination and practicing
incubation, enables us to engage the unconscious. With the help of authoritative figures
in the field of depth psychology, these processes will be explained in the following
11
paragraphs and will be used throughout this research. Jung (1945/1969a) explicitly
describes why engaging our unconsciousness by tending to our dreams is important:
Even though dreams refer to a definite attitude of consciousness and a definite

psychic situation, their roots lie deep in the unfathomably dark recesses of the
conscious mind. For want of a more descriptive term we call this unknown
background the unconscious. We do not know its nature in and for itself, but we
observe certain effects from whose qualities we venture certain conclusions in
regard to the nature of the unconscious psyche. Because dreams are the most
common and most normal expression of the unconscious psyche, they provide the
bulk of the material for its investigation, (p. 287 [CW 8, para. 544])
Our dreams are autonomous forces that can help us engage our psyches, providing us
assistance to live more conscious lives. Sharp (Sharp & Jung, 1991) describes the
purpose of Active Imagination:
The object of active imagination is to give a voice to sides of the personality

(particularly the anima/animus and the shadow) that are normally not heard,
thereby establishing a line of communication between consciousness and
unconscious. Even when the end products—drawing, painting, writing, sculpture,
dance, music, etc.—are not interpreted, something goes on between creator and
creation that contributes to a transformation of consciousness, (pp. 12-13)
Active imagination is a powerful tool to connect and go deeper into our unconscious.
In The Dark Places of Wisdom, author and mystic Peter Kingsley (1999) explains
the process of incubation:
Usually you'd lie down in a special place where you wouldn't be disturbed.
Sometimes it was a room inside a house or temple; often it was a cave or other
place considered a point of entry in the underworld. .. . For these were people
who were able to enter another world, make contact with the divine, receive
knowledge directly from the gods. (pp. 101-102)
One of the modern ways we use the method of incubation is through meditation.
Kingsley continues to describe the mystery that awaits us when we turn our attention
within: "the stillness" he says, " had a point to it, and that was to create an opening into a
world unlike anything we're used to: a world that can only be entered 'in deep
12
meditation, ecstasies and dreams'" (p. 181). Meditation allows us to engage the ancient
wisdom within and transcend our conscious minds.
World-renowned American Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1960), in Spiritual
Direction and Meditation, explains how valuable meditation can be when combined with
our studies: "Meditation and study can, of course, be closely related." He writes, "in fact,
study is not spiritually fruitful unless it leads to some kind of meditation" (p. 53). Merton
further explains the connection and the important distinction between meditation and
study:
By study we seek the truth in books or in some other source outside our own
minds. In meditation we strive to absorb what we have already taken in. We
consider the principles we have learned and we apply them to our own lives, (p.
53)
Meditation is a valuable tool to deepen our studies through reflection, reverie, and
contemplation of ways to put what we have learned into practice. By applying what we
have learned from our studies and meditation into our lives, we can turn knowledge into
wisdom, ultimately integrating our learning into our being. For centuries, the ancient
world used these techniques to unearth the mysteries buried in our unconscious and
commune with the divine.
Letting go of our egos' needs, we embark on this journey as an open vessel to the
unknown—to what is being said to us and through us. It is through these sacred
processes that we can find guidance, inspiration, strength, and affirmation, to bring forth
what is coming through our unconscious to our consciousness. This release is a process
that can heal our psyches. I will further discuss my dreams, active imaginations, and
meditations with the Divine Feminine in later chapters of this research.

13
Autobiographical Origins of my Interest in the Divine Feminine: Growing up

without the Goddesses
Growing up without the goddesses—sacred female representations of the Divine
Feminine principles—1 am cognizant of my own emotional attachment and passion to
study Her many renditions found in myths and sacred texts. I speak of the word passion
as described by Barnhart (1995): "probably before 1200passion suffering or affliction
. . . from Old French passion .. . and directly as a learned borrowing from late Latin
passionem (nominative passo) suffering, enduring...." (p. 544). I endured the feeling of
emptiness for many decades, silently imploring me to heed to the call of the Divine
Feminine to feel whole. I will recount the impetus—the most intense feeling of anguish I
experienced as a woman, which ultimately led me to a rigorous search for the sacred
feminine.
On Tuesday, September 5, 1995, after a Labor Day holiday weekend, 1 made an
irrevocable decision that would precipitate a long and arduous search for the Divine
Feminine. After enduring three nights of physical, mental, and emotional abuse from my
former husband, after a drug binge during the holiday weekend, he finally fell asleep.
Badly beaten emotionally, mentally, and physically, I was unaware of what was about to
unfold, much less grasp the full ramifications of my actions when my then 8-year old
daughter and I left that early morning.
Soon after dropping her off at school, I was faced with the bone-chilling idea of
having to go back home, and in that moment, compounded with the feelings of extreme
helplessness and desperation, made the decision to call the domestic violence hotline. In
the same hour, I swiftly picked up my daughter from school and decided to flee with only
the clothes on our backs. Afraid to seek shelter with my family and friends for fear that
14
my husband would find us and create havoc to even those around us, my daughter and I
took refuge in a domestic violence shelter in exchange for safety and anonymity.
In the shelter, I was on my knees, shattered and imbued with ineffable pain from
the realization that I inadvertently lost everything that I had worked for and I had once
deemed most important, including my marriage, family, home, career, and financial
status. The world I once knew suddenly dissolved into oblivion and the familiar, once
comfortable roles of being a wife, homeowner, neighbor, and recording artist (he was my
music manager and producer—an integral part of my career) ceased to exist; yet,
instinctively, I knew that leaving him was a matter of life and death and that there was no
going back. I foolishly told myself that things could only get better from there, unaware
of what was about to come.
Although I was grateful that my daughter and I were together and safe, we found
ourselves in exile. The ceaseless gnawing feelings of hopelessness, emptiness, and
despair enveloped me to the very core of my being, making September 5, 1995, the
darkest night of my soul that will be etched in my memory forever.
In my most vulnerable state and deep humility, there was nothing else I could do
but pray and surrender to the unknown, not knowing that the dismemberment I was
feeling was the initiation rite to my descent into the underworld—to what Jung
(1946/1966d) describes as the night sea journey, "a kind of descensus and inferos—a
descent into Hades and a journey to the land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world,
beyond consciousness, hence an immersion in the unconscious" (pp. 245-246 [CW 16,
para. 455]). Total darkness pervaded my very being and I was in the land of the dead.
Author and core faculty member of the Clinical Psychology Department at Pacifica
15
Graduate Institute Robert Romanyshyn (1999) profoundly illustrates this feeling of grief
in his book The Soul in Grief: Love, Death, and Transformation after experiencing the
death of his first wife:
Grief had already stripped me of my defenses, made me raw and vulnerable, and
in reverie the naked vitality of the world assaulted me. In these moments, I no
longer had the armor of my ideas about things and the world. I was no longer
able to make sense of things, 1 could only sense them. (p. 44)
Destitute, I had no choice but to find refuge in the unknown. I was made to surrender my
ego if I was to find guidance and meaning from the unimaginable pain I was going
through.
My gradual ascent from the underworld began when my daughter and I were
compelled to attend therapy as a prerequisite to staying at the domestic violence shelter
for women and children. In therapy, I experienced bouts of conscious moments and
awakenings from deep states of slumber. I was a walking dead, hopelessly waffling
between feelings of anger, sadness, numbness, and confusion.
I filed a restraining order against my husband, which stated that he had to be
hundred yards away from me or he risked being incarcerated. He did not adhere to the
restraining order and violated it many times by stalking me, ultimately leading to his
arrest, which infuriated him even more. From fear of his violent temper, I decided to
leave him all the material things I possessed including our home in return for a new life
with my daughter. It was a very difficult decision to make, but one that was very clear to
me—I made the decision to turn away from my former life to find meaning and get a
second chance.
In retrospect, my descent into the underworld was an integral part of the Divine
Feminine ways and was necessary for the evolution of my consciousness. In The Maiden
King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine, storyteller and poet Robert Bly, and
Jungian analyst Marion Woodman (1998), accurately explain this psychological
phenomenon:
The Descent is a mythological term for the period during and after a powerful
event in which the ego has been overwhelmed by a wave from the unconscious
.... The goal of the descent is a new connection between earth and spirit. People
often fall into this realm when they are about to be taken into a new phase of life
and they have to die to the old in order to be reborn into the new. (pp. 177-178)
My old way of being had to die to embrace the Divine Feminine in me. I had to find the
light in the flood of darkness I had gone through.
I embarked on years of rehabilitation through individual and group therapy while
attending a local community college to pursue an education; my daughter also continued
therapy at this point. From deep states of self-reflection and examination, I scrutinized
my womanhood, and questions emerged and reverberated from the very core of my being
such as: Who am I-reallyl What is my authentic role as a woman? What would it be
like to live a life of sacredness as a woman, or is it even possible? From my downfall, I
became aware that I had lived my life unconsciously, gripped by my complexes,
socialized to live out different personas and to live out archetypal roles for women
without consciously examining my internal world. I was completely disconnected from
the Divine Feminine principles. (These complexes, personas, and archetypes will be
further discussed in later chapters.)
As a woman in Western society, I never truly knew my place in the world. 1 was
haunted in my sleeping and waking hours, creating even more feelings of confusion,
doubt, and condemnation, unable to move on until I found answers to questions haunting
me about womanhood. I needed the wisdom and the knowledge of the ancient Divine
17
Feminine to help me find a way out of the thorny twisted labyrinth of my feelings of
profound lack and worthlessness. What is a woman's true purpose in life? Jungian
analyst Sylvia Perera (1981), in her book Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for
Women, explains this inexorable predicament that most women feel at some point in their
journeys of self-discovery:
The problem is that we who are badly wounded in our relation to the feminine
usually have a fairly successful persona, a good public image. We have grown up
as docile, often intellectual, daughters of the patriarchy, with what I call "animus-
egos. We strive to uphold the virtues and aesthetic ideals, which the patriarchal
superego has presented to us. But we are filled with self-loathing and a deep
sense of personal ugliness and failure when we can neither meet nor mitigate the
superego's standards of perfection, (p. 11)
I worked hard at being the best woman I knew to be; yet, I failed miserably—never
knowing serenity within myself. Moments of profound self-reflection made me realize
that as a woman, I had spent most of my life denying, suppressing, being ashamed of,
abusing, and even abhorring my femininity. The failure and immense violation I
experienced in my marriage were powerful confirmations that I was living without
conscious connection to my true Self
I continued my studies and after many years, received my associate, bachelor's,
and master's degree. I was initiated into the Divine Feminine rites and was led to my
vocation through my studies of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute while
working towards a doctoral degree. I voraciously dug into the ancient and modern
writings about the Divine Feminine, reading, reflecting, and integrating the many forms
of the goddesses into my very being. It was important for me to experience the Divine
Feminine living through the ancient myths. Jungian analyst and storyteller Clarissa
Pinkola Estes (1996) writes about the importance of conjuring the Divine Feminine
within:
Because in the beginning of retrieving our relationship with her she can turn to
smoke in an instant, [but] by naming her we create for her a territory of thought
and feeling within us. Then she will come, and if valued, she will stay. (p. 9)
I yearned to grasp on to Her because I desperately craved images and reflections of
myself from the sacred realms and longed to make Them a lasting and valuable part of
me. The true healing path lies in connection with the powerful divine within.
I took the powerful myths, religious symbols, and cultural history of the Divine
Feminine to heart, slowly healing my open wounds and broken heart that consumed a
large part of me since childhood. In The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine,
author and professor of Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute Christine
Downing (2000) poignantly explains this sense of longing: "We long for images which
name as authentically feminine courage, creativity, loyalty, and self-confidence,
resilience and steadfastness, capacity for clear insight, inclination for solitude, and the
intensity of passion" (p. 5). Additionally, Downing gives us insight to why we urgently
need images of the divine: "we also need images; we also need myths—for myths make
concrete and particularize; they give us situations, plots, relationships. We need the
goddess and we need the goddesses" (p. 5). I needed the images of the goddesses to open
my heart, mind, and soul to something more than the experiences of weakness,
victimhood, and contempt I once knew as a woman. I hungered to learn more about the
positive and negative characteristics of the goddesses so that I could understand myself.
Furthermore, Downing (2000) states the importance of integrating the goddesses
in our lives, of letting go of the stereotypical roles and prescribed truths we
unconsciously participate in as members of Western society:
To know who we are means knowing who they are. If we ignore them, they act
on us and in us in ways we fail to recognize. They act as delimiting stereotypes.
It is only as we recognize their presence and seek to know them as fully as
possible, to reimagine them, that their power to open up new dimensions of
feminine life is released. Only then can they become life-giving archetypes, (p.
5)
The only way for me to shed my old personas and inauthentic self was to accept the
existence of the Divine Feminine's light and dark forces within me, deeply knowing that
it was my salvation. Downing also points out what Jung believed: "recognition of the
ancient mother-goddesses and the powerful female figures who appear in our dreams are
expressions of the same mother archetype [and] may open us to dimensions of our
experience and being to which we would otherwise be closed" (p. 6). I needed to tap into
the realm of the ancient goddesses to gain access to the ever-knowing Divine Feminine
principles and understand what it is like to have the full experience of being a woman.
Through my Jungian studies of myths, archetypes, and the unconscious at Pacifica
Graduate Institute, I began to discover the missing answers to the unrelenting questions
of my womanhood, which started from that harrowing day in September 5, 1995. I
started to unearth the indefinable peace I was yearning for all my life, finding redemption
through the sacred feminine voices of the goddesses. The Divine Feminine ways of hope,
passion, creativity, and Eros flooded the arid places in my heart and soul. Resurrected, I
reconnected with the sacred source within, finding peace and blessings in my everyday
life as a woman—at last.

20
My Predisposition to the Goddesses: My Childhood and Earlier Experiences with

the Divine Feminine.
With the awareness that my predispositions to the subject can both serve and
inhibit the integrity and undertaking of this research, 1 will briefly describe the personal,
cultural, and historical influences that led me to the subject of the Divine Feminine. I
will discuss how I will monitor and utilize my predispositions/transferences in the
process of this study in the methodology section of this dissertation.
My predisposition to the search for the Divine Feminine started very early in my
childhood. 1 was born in the Republic of the Philippines, a country colonized by Spain
for more than 300 years. Since then, the Catholic missionaries converted most of the
inhabitants of the country to Christianity, making the Philippines the most Westernized
and Catholic populated country in Asia even today.
According to Geoffrey Parrinder (1983), editor of World Religions: From Ancient
History to the Present, several monastic orders were formed in the Philippines, including
the "Dominicans[,] founded in 1216" (p. 435). Parrinder reports that when the
missionaries arrived in the Philippines, "it was the Augustinians who opened the
Philippines to Christian missionaries in 1565. The Jesuits followed with schools for both
Spanish and Filipino children. In 1611 the Dominicans founded the University of
Manila" (p. 449). I attended Dominican College, an all girls' school run by priests and
nuns, from second grade until I came to the United States when I was 12 years old.
In Catholic school, we were inculcated to worship Virgin Mary as the Divine
Feminine, but to me, Holy Mary Mother of God was an external figure, a virgin, a perfect
mother and wife, venerated as superhuman, purified, void of shadows. Her status was
unreachable; her image had been placed high up on the altars by patriarchy. I loved her
21
as a holy mother, but 1 could not identify with her wholesomeness; I could not be like
her; I was a mere mortal—a sinner. In The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary
Magdalen and the Holy Grail, the renowned scholar and author of several books about
Mary Magdalene, Margaret Starbird (1993), illustrates the worship of Virgin Mary while
rejecting the voice of Mary Magdalene in Christianity:
But while the Virgin Mary adequately represents the maternal aspect of the
feminine, the doctrine of her perpetual virginity implicitly denies the aspect of
wife. Beautiful as this mother is, it is clear that someone very real and precious is
missing from the Christian story. That someone is the Bride, (p. 82)
In my country of origin, I did not find any female role models or any fallen woman's
triumphant quest towards wholeness and salvation in the Catholic doctrines. The
rejection and suppression of Mary Magdalene in orthodox approaches resulted in an
imbalance between the opposites of the feminine and the masculine within me. Her
absence created a male and female split, leaving a gaping hole in my psyche and a
gnawing hunger for her existence as an external figure and a symbol of the divine. The
female representation of God was submerged in the unconscious, and women, men, and
our planet have suffered tremendously by Her denunciation. St. Peter's church became
the Bride of Jesus Christ, and the female voice was ignored and forgotten for centuries.
In the King James Version of the Holy Bible (2006), Mary Magdalene was
marginalized as a "woman possessed by seven demons" Luke 8:2. Even when Jesus
Christ forgave Mary Magdalene for her sins, She remained an eternal sinner. The New
World Encyclopedia (2009) states that Pope Gregory I in 591 depicted Mary Magdalene
as a prostitute and also that in 1969, The Roman Catholic Church finally retracted their
statement claiming that the cause was a mistaken identity. Even with this liturgical
22
change, the damage had already been done to our psyches; the implied message that there
is no salvation for women who have sinned was etched in our unconscious.
Mary Magdalene is the representation of the collective experiences, reminiscent
of the denigration of the feminine soul. Symbolically, how different would it have been
if we were taught to recognize Jesus Christ and the Magdalene as the embodied
masculine and feminine—the sacred marriage within? We would honor both the
masculine and feminine ways as an alternative path towards individuation—integrating
instinct, creativity, passion, intuition, and Eros with discrimination, drive, and logos.
Outwardly, we would have an example of a sacred marriage, which we now lack in
Western culture. Their love for one another could have been a role model for men and
women, including other genders, teaching us to revere our relationships with one another,
our inner selves, and our planet earth. In Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile, Starbird
(2005) further describes the damage to our psyches:
And with the exile of Mary Magdalene from our consciousness, we were
tragically cut off from the irrigating waters of intuition and mysticism, from
feminine ways of knowing, from the deep wisdom of the body and its senses, and
from our intimate kinship with all that lives. These aspects of the sacred feminine
were originally embodied as the Mary who was the beloved companion of Jesus
and who represented our full humanity in an intimate partnership union with the
Divine Logos, (p. 5)
Mary Magdalene was the faithful loving companion of Jesus Christ, and as theologian
Jean Yves Leloup (2002) quoted from The Holy Bible in his book The Gospel of Mary
Magdalene, the "the apostle to the apostles" (p. xix). She was the scorned sacred
feminine that was sent to the underworld by the custodians of Christianity. Like her,
millions of women have suffered the same fate for centuries. She is the sacred feminine
aspect that has been concealed by our forefathers, driven into our unconscious.
23
We need to restore the Divine Feminine embodied in Mary Magdalene within
ourselves and in our culture, to create a deeper level of equality found in true partnership
between the Divine Feminine and the Masculine to heal our planet and ourselves. The
relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ represents the sacred union—the
symbol of partnership, heiros gamos, the sacred marriage as above, so below.
Instead of experiencing sacred union, I was indoctrinated into the Dominican
Order of my Catholic school; as a result, I grew up knowing subjugation, inferiority, and
self-condemnation as a woman. A book written by two Dominican friars was the
conventional decree for girls in my school, as it was for many women for centuries.
Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches (Mackay, 2009) was written in the 15th
century and was accepted by both Catholic and Protestant legislatures as a standard way
to understand and care for women. Women who were healers and counselors, who
promulgated ways of the goddesses, women who were in touch with their instincts, and
many other innocent women who were our ancestors, were burned at stake in the middle
of town squares. In The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe, author Brian Levack
(2006), a professor of history at University of Texas in Austin, states that there were an
estimated 40,000-60,000 witches who were executed between 1480-1750.
In Return of the Goddess, Jungian analyst Edward Whitmont (1997) gives us
more details about how women were portrayed in Malleus Maleficarum:
"More carnal than the man," they are, in fact, sexually insatiable, vain, pleasure-
seeking liars and seducers, bent on deceiving in order to achieve their own ends.
They are mentally and intellectually inferior, deficient and "feeble in mind and
body[;"] of poor memory, "intellectually like children," over credulous,
superstitious, over-impressionable and suggestible, of "slippery tongue,"
undisciplined; indeed, altogether like an "imperfect animal." (p. 124)
24
Although the practice of burning witches is no longer practiced, symbolically, the stifling
of women's psyche was a common ritual at my childhood school.
We wore white and blue uniforms (the colors often associated with chastity and
the Virgin Mary) that had to be at least two inches below our knees, with collars closed
around our necks adorned by the scrupulously tethered blue ties, and big bulky black
shoes for boys. Every part of our femininity was to be concealed not only in appearance,
but also in our consciousness.
Once, I was caught with dirty magazines, which were pictures of naked men and
women that the girls in my school were secretly passing around in sixth grade. I was sent
to Mother Superior, and because I was unwilling to give-up my cohorts, I was punished.
For my penance, I stood by the flagpole under the blistering hot sun all day for days and
for all to see; the punishment was designed for humiliation and 1 was made an example
of. Remnants of the degradation and marginalization of women were part of my school's
curriculum, destroying my connection to the Divine Feminine ways. Instinct,
vulnerability, and Eros were replaced by the patriarchal modes of linear thinking, control,
and most of all—fear. What I was taught the most was to perfect my good Catholic girl
persona and to adhere to the dogmas and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. I was
never allowed or able to step out of their tightly closed and sealed box. The aftermath
would be physical abuse, ostracism, or at worst—condemnation to hell. Resonance of
trepidation and self-hatred continued to haunt me until adulthood, and this led me to the
underworld. My salvation would be the intense call of the ancient Divine Feminine voice
deep within me; Her ancient voice was deafening and would no longer be ignored!
25
1 experienced the patriarchal limitations of being a woman, but innately still
believed in the sacredness, magic, beauty, and love that a woman possesses when she is
connected to Divine Femininity. I first experienced these aspects of Divine Femininity
during my childhood in the Philippines when I participated in activities such as singing,
Hawaiian dancing, and oral poetry reading in my school. It was only during those
powerful times that I was able to tap into the Divine Feminine sources within and express
feminine grace, beauty, courage, and creativity.
Today, as a grown woman, I question how I could balance strength and
vulnerability, intelligence and authenticity, pleasure and compassion, loving and
unloving, all the while embodying the sacred feminine. I wanted to truly know how 1 can
let go of the limitations of being a woman I once learned from my childhood and embrace
the Divine Feminine—the goddesses within me. Through my studies and discovery of
the sacred feminine, I am accepting my light and my shadows, bringing forth awareness
to come from a place of intuitiveness, vulnerability, creativity, spontaneity, strength,
relatedness, openness, forgiveness, and acceptance.
Instigated by my studies of the Divine Feminine at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I
have begun to accept the Hindu, Buddhist, Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian, Polynesian, and
Greek goddesses within me, as part of who I truly am—the Self. I am committed to
becoming a vessel for the ancestors to speak through me about Divine Femininity, deeply
knowing that "through reverence for the sovereignty of the Goddess in her repellent no
less than her beautiful aspect, the quester thereby receives her boon and may drink again
of the ever-flowing waters" (Whitmont, 1997, p. 171). As part of my individuation, it is

26
my quest to discover, understand, accept, and embody the Divine Feminine and drink
from Her sacred waters evermore.
I had to reconnect to the archaic Goddess within to feel the blessings of being a
woman. Harvey and Baring (1996) describe our disconnection and reconnection with
Her in The Divine Feminine: Exploring the Feminine Face of God Around the World:
This is why the image of the Divine Feminine is returning to us now, to help us
recover not only our sense of trust in life but also the relationship with a
dimension of consciousness that we have, in our longing to be in control of life,
ignored, (p. 13)
I desperately knew that the Divine Feminine within me, within all men and women, is
what 1 needed to embody to be whole. Harvey and Baring affirm my belief that "we need
to recover our lost relationship with nature and with soul, and this may be one reason
why the image of the Divine Feminine is returning now, during the third phase in the
evolution of the human consciousness" (p. 11). During the first phase of our evolution
from the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, we were in harmony with the Great Mother,
considering ourselves as part of her creation. The second phase of our evolution began
during the Bronze Age when we began to differentiate and separate from her, developing
tools and hierarchy to control the environment. Today, we are in the dawn of a new era
reintegrating the Great Mother back into our lives and consciousness; I yearn to embrace
the Divine Feminine and this new consciousness that is emerging individually and
collectively.
To experience Her mysteries, most nights during my early studies at Pacifica
Graduate Institute, I would go through a ritual to access my psyche, empty my mind, and
open my heart and soul through meditation and active imagination. In reverie, I would
create a temenos—a holy ground for the numinous to appear by lighting a candle and
burning incense in quietness and solitude. In my prayers, I called the goddesses and the
voices of the ancestors to speak through and to me. My intention was clear, asking
specifically for Their guidance regarding my vocation. With my pen and journal on my
bedside, I would wait. I will go through these experiences throughout my research, but
will now share one numinous night when I was visited not only by the divine goddesses,
but also by the sacred gods in a dream that reaffirmed my calling.
A Dream about the Goddesses and the Gods
It was dark as I walked up the old wooden stairs. I had a sense that I was about
to go to no place or another world. I found myself in a magical chamber filled with
images of the Hindu gods and goddesses and my guru Sai Baba along with his guru,
Shirdi Baba. I was stunned, with no words to say, and no place to hide; they knew me—
every part of me.
I stumbled into another world where the images were so real, almost animated.
It was as if They were talking to me without moving their lips. They were beaming with
golden yellow and white light. They were also telepathically relaying messages I
couldn't understand; yet instinctively, I knew They were talking to me—not my worldly
physical self, but to my spirit, my unconscious, my soul. I felt Their gentle eyes and
illuminating smiles caress my every being saying, "Welcome. We have been waiting for
you for a long time. You are to be a harbinger of our world and many will come when
you accept your fate. We are here for you. We love you and we have chosen you." I did
not ask any questions. There was no wrong or right, good or bad in that moment. There
was only love, peace, and joy.

28
I was an extension of the divine. I felt my individual self vanish as I stood there in
the presence of the divine. I felt the rush offear, self-doubt, feelings of unworthiness, and
intense pangs ofpain from events in my life that I have not forgiven myselffor. These
feelings surfaced and were wiped out immediately, as I profoundly understood that my
past included moments of understanding who I truly am and what I am supposed to do.
The feelings lastedfor a split second as if the past, present, andfuture were one.
I came back to my physical self and sensed a smell of musty old books. 1 realized
that there were ancient books all around the room. There were large brown hardcover
books with luminous gold and black inscriptions and colorful vibrant images. I felt
overwhelmed. I thought, "Oh my God, these must be holy texts (I am feeling goose
bumps while I am writing this). Why have they been hidden? What am I to do with
them? "
As I started questioning myself again, I felt the pull to our physical world (it is so
very hard to explain this phenomenon and very difficult to find words to describe this
feeling). It is like Jung's description of the Self; I would go back to my selffrom my Self.
1 was aware of the feeling—the place where you drop down into the unknown to the
numinous where the "I" disappeared and the "we " is felt and embodied—so magnificent
and so real. It is more real than this world we live in. I felt all my senses heightened, as
I was whole and an extension of yet another bigger whole.
I looked on my left and I saw the Goddesses; they were beautiful, loving, and
magnificent. Their Divine Feminine Presences balanced the room and as I understood
instantaneously—the world. They wanted me to know that They were here for me and
that I am to trust what is happening. "There is a lot that you do not understand yet, trust
29
that what you are to do is for the good of all." I looked at Them only briefly, as Their
brilliance was so intense that I felt I would vanish if I looked into Their eyes for more
than a glimpse. Innately, I knew it was because I have not quite claimed their
magnificence within me andfelt unworthy. Lovingly, with only seconds to look and bow
to Them, I knew what they were asking of me. Somehow, I also knew that it was just the
beginning. There are many tests that I am to go through.
I claimed my fate of being a caretaker of the holy chamber that very second. I
went to the back room where I was to live andfound an old run-down shower. I was
dismayed at the sight and thought it challenging to bathe there. It was so out of place in
the context of what I was experiencing that it did not make any sense. I could not
understand what it signified.
I started opening the sacred space to the public, and people started coming.
There were women dressed in Indian saris singing ancient songs and men praying both to
the gods and goddesses. More and more people started to come, and we had to put up
tents that would be used as waiting room areas. Outside, hundreds of people came, men
and women from all religions, races, and creeds. They would have their personal
conversations with the gods and goddesses in the sacred sanctuary. What was happening
was beyond me, much bigger than I was and much more than I could comprehend. I was
being led and was only a tool, a humble servant to the Divine.
Suddenly, I was in an open space. I felt the cool crisp air on my face and
inherently knew it was spring, the season of rebirth and renewal. There was a river
where a strong current was flowing. The fragrance offlowers, green grass, and trees
permeated the atmosphere. There were tables set for a celebration, and I felt a keen
30
sense of excitement. What was happening? There was to be a wedding ceremony and I
was the bride; yet, it was not to a man. Who was I to be married to? Wait, I was already
married to a man I dearly loved, why was I getting married again? At that time, I woke
up filled with great joy, wonderment, and exhilaration; at the same time, I was bemused
by the mystery that took place.
Reflections and Dream Interpretation
I stayed in bed for a while, and as I started to come back to this world, the movie
Field of Dreams (1989) came to me as I remembered the famous line, "If you build it,
they will come." Yes, that is what I am supposed to do. I am to build my temple within,
create the space for the goddesses along with the gods, while claiming the Divine
Feminine within me. From the goddesses, I will draw Eros, passion, courage, strength,
and grace to do this work; I am to call on the gods for judgment, reason, and will, to plow
through the body of research I was about to do.
I realized that the gods and goddesses visited me because I was being asked to
light the holy fire—Their temple within me. I still do not know fully what it all meant,
and I will continue to ask for guidance and blessings. What I do know is how important
it is for me to get back to my true nature and be true to my heart by accepting the many
faces of holiness. I can only describe the balance of the masculine and feminine from
what I know from the Hindu gods and Their consorts—the goddesses, who have always
been with me, even when 1 went astray. There are Brahman/Saraswati, Vishnu/Lakshmi,
Shiva/Parvati/Sati, Krishna/Radha, and Rama/Sita. There were no representations of male
and female sacred partnerships in Christianity that I can relate it to.

31
As it happens, one of the courses 1 was taking at Pacifica Graduate Institute was
an introduction to analyzing dreams. 1 decided to use the technique of dream
amplification and focus on symbols in my dream that I did not understand. I needed to
learn what the shower and the marriage ceremony next to the river meant. Why is the
water an important element in my dream? What is my dream telling me that I didn 7
know? I searched for answers and began to find them in lexicographers Jean Chevalier
and Alain Gheerbrant's The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols (1997), which describes the
symbolism of water:
It is a source of life, a vehicle of cleansing and a center of regeneration.... To

immerse one-self in the waters and to re-emerge without having been utterly
dissolved in them, except by dying a symbolic death, is to return to the
wellsprings and regain fresh strength from that vast reservoir of the potential, (p.
1081)
I was being asked to take a bath in the cleansing waters from the ancient shower and die a
symbolic death to be reborn and connect with the divine. In order to pass through the
gates of heaven and receive the sacred revelations of the other world, it is essential to be
cleansed with holy water: "as the source of all things, water makes manifest the
transcendent and from this very fact should be regarded as a revelation of holiness" (p.
1082). Furthermore, "It may be claimed that throughout the world the bath is the prime
rite which, as it were, sets the seal upon those milestones in the human life, birth, puberty
and death" (p. 72). I was being initiated to the divine kingdom and asked to participate in
this archaic ritual of redemption, regeneration, and rebirth as part of my vocation.
What did my marriage signify, and why was I getting married next to running
water? Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1997) inform us that the waterside is where miracles
frequently occurred, as found in the Old Testament. It is a holy place where love comes
32
into being and marriage ceremonies were celebrated (p. 1082). In addition, "the
symbolism of rivers and running water is simultaneously that of 'universal potentiality'
and that of 'the fluidity of forms' (Schuon), of fertility, death and renewal. The stream is
that of life and death" (p. 808). The theme of life, death, and rebirth are integral parts of
my dream and I was being asked to participate in these ancient sacraments of life.
Lastly, who was I to marry? I was to be married to the beloved. My vocation is
to be married to the divine and become a harbinger of the gods and goddesses to help
others claim Their presence within us all. I am to connect to my Divine Feminine and
stand in my true power and imbue Her characteristics of strength, sensitivity, love,
vulnerability, compassion, and joy. Marriage is described as "the symbol of the loving
coitus of man and woman, which, in a mystical sense, is also that of Christ's union with
his Church, of God with his Chosen People and of the soul with God" (Chevalier &
Gheerbrant, 1997, p. 636). One of the definitions found in Elsevier's Dictionary of
Symbols and Imagery, by lexicographers Ad De Vries and Arthur De Vries (2004), states
that the spiritual marriage 1 experienced represents "the Marriage of Heaven and Earth."
It "is the 'hieros gamos' = the Holy Marriage, producing fertility" (p. 375). I am to be
married to the beloved, connecting to the Divine-coniunctio—a balance of the feminine
and masculine principle called hieros-gamos. Sharp (Sharp & Jung, 1991) informs us of
the concept of coniunctio as "literally 'conjunction,' which is used in alchemy to refer to
chemical combinations; psychologically, it points to the union of opposites and the birth
of new possibilities" (p. 42). Of the holy marriage, Jung (1946/1966d) states, "the pagan
source is on the one hand the hieros-gamos, on the other the marital union of the mystic
33
with God" (p. 169 [CW16, para. 355]). My dream has become my anchor, the answer to
why and what 1 am to do in my dissertation and also in my daily life.

34
Chapter 2
Literature Review
Literature Relevant to the Topic: A Brief History of the Great Goddess
It is crucial to address the history of the Great Goddess to understand the
importance of Her current reemergence in our consciousness and listen to the message
that She is trying to tell us. In the following chapter I will explore the transitions that
occurred between matriarchal cultures, when the Goddess was worshipped, to patriarchy,
when the Goddess submerged into our unconscious, from the Paleolithic times to the
current reemergence of the Divine Feminine. I will not present methodical historical
information about the Goddess, as there are many well-researched books that are readily
available from the standpoint of archaeology, anthropology, psychology, religious
studies, mythology, feminism, and popular literature about the Great Goddess.
I will address our connection and disconnection with Her and explore the
evolution of our consciousness, which parallels with our relationship with Her, since this
suits the subject and context of this study. Merlin Stone (1976), a teacher of art history
who became interested in ancient religion and archaeology through art, posits the
question in When God was a Woman: "In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of
Life, the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you
remember?" (p. 1). These historical illustrations will be dedicated to the remembrance
and the reemergence of the Great Goddess.
Paleolithic Age: The Era of the Great Goddess
In The Once and Future Goddess; A Sweeping Visual Chronicle for the Sacred
Female and Her Reemergence in the Cultural Mythology of our Time, art and cultural
historian Elinor W. Gadon (1989) claims that "accumulating archaeological evidence

35
affirms overwhelmingly that prehistoric peoples worshiped a female deity" (p. xii).
Gadon states that "this evidence and the earliest writings document the persistence of
Goddess religion for generally 30,000 years, beginning in the late Paleolithic, to the Ice
Age" (p. xii).
Feminist scholar Anne L. Barstow (1994), in The Prehistoric Goddess, tells us
that worship of the goddesses can be found in sacred settings as far back as 25,000 BCE
from the Indus to Ireland, Siberia to southern Africa, and all over the New World.
Evidence of these occurrences was found "in caves, on the mountaintops, at home altars,
and in the earliest shrines, the goddess appeared, carved from stone, modeled from clay,
etched in plaster" (p. 7). Barstow believes that these manifestations of the worship of the
goddesses began before recorded history thus calling her "the prehistoric goddess" (p. 7).
Baring and Cashford (1993) describe the oldest artifact found, "the oldest sculpture of a
goddess, from about 22000 BC.... She comes from Brassempouy in the Landes area of
France" (p. 9).
In The Language of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas (1989), renowned Lithuanian
scholar and archeologist known for her research of the Ancient Goddess in the Neolithic
and Bronze Age, tells us that between 7000 and 3000 BC, the religion in the area of Old
Europe consisted of the goddesses who represented the cyclical changes that
"encompassed birth, nurturing, growth, death, and regeneration, as well as crop
cultivation and the raising of animals" (p. 3). Furthermore, Gimbutas illustrates:
The people of this era pondered untamed natural forces, as well as wild plain and
animal cycles, and they worshiped goddesses, or a goddess, in many forms. The
goddess manifested the countless forms during various cyclical phases to ensure
that they functioned smoothly, (p. 3)
36
In the Paleolithic Age, we were part of mother nature, and Her manifestation of the
cycles of life were experienced from the waxing and waning of the moon, representing
birth, death, rebirth, regeneration, also found in the cyclical changes of season and
harvest. We were one with Her—body, heart, soul and a part of Her magical world
described by Whitmont (1997) as follows:
At the magical or instinctual level only the here and now exists. It is all-
encompassing. Past, present, and future are not differentiated. Neither are within
and without; body, mind, or psyche; selfness or otherness. What our rational
consciousness has separated into inner and outer worlds is psychologically still
equivalent, (p. 44)
Furthermore, Whitmont points out that this magical phase is analogous to what "Jung
spoke of as the Unus mundus and Neumann as the Unitary Reality. In such a biopsychic
organismic system, the single personal unity is contained like a cell in an organism" (p.
45). The way of the Ancient Goddess functions as if we are sustained and contained by
Her, as our source of existence. In The Origins and History of Consciousness, Neumann
(1954) points out our consciousness during this time of our evolution:
For the primitive ego, everything is still wrapped in the watery abyss, in whose
[eddyings] it washes to and from without orientation, with no sense of
separateness, defenseless against this maelstrom of mysterious being which
swamps it again and again from within and without, (p. 40)
The Paleolithic Age symbolizes our oneness with the chthonic Mother, when humans still
lived in Her womb—an extension of Her body, nourished and sustained by Her,
participating in Her cycles of birth, death, rebirth, and renewal.
Neolithic Age: The Great Goddess Blossoms
During the Neolithic phase from 10000 BC to 5500 BC, the discovery of
agriculture and domestication of animals changed our relationship with the Great Mother.
In addition, because of the change to warmer climate, caves were no longer needed as
37
places of dwellings. Baring and Cashford (1993) describe the movement that occurred
from Paleolithic to Neolithic Age:
For at least two million years human beings had hunted animals and gathered
fruits, but now they learned to cultivate the soil, to domesticate and breed animals,
to weave cloth and to make pots to hold the food they could store the first time.
They began to stay in one place, to build houses, temples and villages, and to
share in a permanent continuity of life. No longer did the tribes have to follow
the wild animals in their long trails across the earth, (p. 47)
The concept of co-creating with the Ancient Goddess was born and human beings no
longer felt the essential need to live in complete harmony with the Ancient Goddess.
They began to participate in the mysterious processes of growing and harvesting crops,
and raising animals as food instead of hunting them. Baring and Cashford emphasize that
although "the movement of consciousness in the Neolithic is one of differentiation and
proliferation, there is no loss of the original sense of unity" (p. 47). In the Neolithic
stage, we were still part of Her mysterious and sacred world as Her children, even though
we were starting to gain more independence from Her.
In the 1960s, British archaeologist James Mellaart's discovery of the Neolithic
settlement of (^atalhoyiik in Turkey dating from about 6400 to 5600 BC and Gimbutas'
numerous excavations of Goddess sites in Old Europe helped us uncover the ancient
world when God was a woman:
Approximately 30,000 miniature sculptures made of clay, marble, bone, copper

and gold have been discovered in some 3,000 sites. Vast numbers of ritual
vessels, shrines, altars and implements of sacrifice, painted vases, inscribed
objects, as well as clay models of temples and actual temples are testament to a
genuine civilization. The focus of this hitherto unknown culture, Gimbutas
writes, was the figure of a Goddess "incarnating the creative principle as source
and Giver of All." (Baring & Cashford, 1993, p. 54)
Additional Ancient Goddess discoveries were found in Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus,
Crete, Thera, New Grange, and Avebury. One of the most important discoveries during
38
the Neolithic phase was the absence of warfare, domination of others, and violence.
Gimbutas (1989) explains women's vital roles during those ancient times, "the Goddess-
centered art with its striking absence of images of warfare and male domination, reflects
a social order in which women as heads of clans or queen-priestesses played a central
part (p. xx). Moreover, Gadon (1989) infers, "we can only conclude that there was some
direct relation between Goddess religion and peaceful coexistence. Neolithic Goddess
culture was woman-centered, peaceful, prosperous, and nonhierarchical" (p. 24). The era
of the Great Goddess fostered interconnectedness with nature, relatedness with one
another, and a strong relationship to the sacred realm.
Bronze Age: The Beginning of Patriarchy
The Bronze Age began from about 3500 BC until 1250 BC. According to Baring
and Cashford (1993), the advent of technology, from the invention of bronze, a
combination of copper and tin, made possible the creation of warfare tools such as
swords and axes. Because humans lived closer to each other than ever before, caste
systems or groupings of people were formed for the division of labor. Invasions and
conquests by foreign people began, and the organization of defense came into existence.
Humans were able to accumulate food and surplus, thus freeing more time to develop
new skills and crafits such as writing and creating sturdier tools for cutting food and
warfare.
The advent of the Bronze Age brought forth the takeover of the patriarchal
fathers. Writing, which was also discovered during this time, enabled us to keep records
and stories of patriarchal invasions for generations. Baring and Cashford (1993)
elucidate the change that took place during this era: "towards the middle of the Bronze
39
Age the Mother Goddess recedes into the background as father gods begin to move to the
[center] of the stage" (p. 152). Baring and Cashford continue to describe the changes that
followed from the development of writing, weaponry, and division of labor, "the temple
was no longer the concern of the headman of the village but a body of priests, who also
organized the life of the community and were responsible for keeping accounts, taxation,
apportioning land and distributing food" (p. 152).
Gimbutas (1989) tells us that it was during the Bronze Age between 4300 and
2800 BC that the Proto-Indo-European Kurgan culture entered Old Europe with their
"horse-riding warrior gods of thundering and shining sky or of the swampy underworld
and with the ideology in which female goddesses are not creatrixes but beauties—
'Venuses,' 'brides of the sky gods"' (p. xx). The world during the Bronze Age moved
away the Ancient Goddess ways of "gylanic [a term coined by scholar Riane Eisler
(1988) in The Chalice and the Blade meaning equality between man and woman],
peaceful, sedentary culture with highly developed agriculture and with great architectural,
sculptural, and ceramic traditions" (p. xx). In The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology,
Campbell (1964) explicates that the beginning of the suppression of the Divine Feminine
occurred:
Towards the close of the Age of Bronze and, more strongly, with the dawn of the
Iron Age (c. 1250 BC in the Levant), the old cosmology and mythologies of the
goddess mother were radically transformed, reinterpreted, and in large measure
even suppressed, by those suddenly intrusive patriarchal warrior tribesman whose
traditions have come down to us chiefly in the Old and New Testaments and in
the myths of Greece, (p. 7)
Iron Age: The Execution of the Great Goddess
The move from the Great Mother Goddess to Almighty Father God that originated
from the Bronze Age was completed in the Iron Age through the advent of Enuma Elish,
40
The Babylonian myth of creation. Baring and Cashford (1993) affirm that the myth "tells
the story of the conquest and murder of the original mother goddess, Tiamat, by the god
Marduk, her great-great-great-grandson" (p. 273). Baring and Cashford continue to
describe the impact of this Babylonian epic of creation:
The Enuma Elish is the first story of the replacing of a mother goddess who
generated creation as part of herself for a god who "makes" creation as something
separate from himself. All the myths of the Iron Age in which a sky or sun god or
hero conquers a great serpent or dragon can be traced to this Babylonian epic, in
which humanity was created from the blood of a sacrificed god and no longer
from the womb primordial goddess, (p. 273)
In addition, the influence of this Babylonian epic was passed on for thousands of
years, which can be found in "Hittite, Assyrian, Persian, Cannanite, Hebrew, Greek and
Roman mythology" (Baring & Cashford, 1993, p. 274). Around the 8th century BC, the
Babylonian God Marduk had a great impact on the biblical image of God in the Old
Testament; Yahweh became the sole creator and ruler of the universe and Sophia, the
goddess of wisdom and God's counterpart, was submerged in our unconscious. Unlike
any gods or goddesses before, Yahweh has no feminine counterparts, partners, or
children, nor any other family.
Hebrew Bible: The Holy Father Replaces the Holy Mother
Baring and Cashford (1993) describe the difference between the Great Mother
Goddess and the Father God Yahweh, "the world he makes and looks upon comes not
from his body but from his word. The transubstantial and unrepresentable deity comes to
the human beings he has made in his own image as disembodied voice" (p. 417).
Whereas all creation used to be a part of the body of the Ancient Mother Goddess, Father
God made us his image through his supreme words and not his body.
41
In The Hebrew Goddess, anthropologist and biblical scholar Raphael Patai (1990)
argues that the Goddess can still be found in the Hebrew gospels transmuted as
Shekhinah (mother of Israel), later known as Matronit (the goddess of the Kabbala) who
is the manifestation of God's presence, "the loving, rejoicing, motherly, suffering,
mourning, and in general, emotion-charged aspect of deity" (p. 32). Patai tells us that the
Goddess can be slightly felt but no longer deified in the Hebrew religion:
To this day, in every Jewish temple or synagogue she is welcomed in the Friday
[Sabbath] evening prayers with the words "Come, O bride!" although the old
greeting has long been emptied of all mystical meaning and is regarded as a mere
poetic expression of uncertain significance, (p. 33)
Although the goddess has gone through a metamorphosis as Matronit today, she no
longer signifies the divine position that she once held as the creatrix of all life. She is
now referred to Yahweh's counterpart, inferior to Him who punishes if not obeyed.
What's more, the darker side of the Divine Feminine was abolished and became
the she-demon known as Lilith, who was Adam's first wife. Lilith felt equal to Adam
and refused to lie underneath and become overpowered by him; because of this, Patai
(1990) explains that in the Biblical Hebrews, Lilith is found to be "a failure as Adam's
intended wife" (p. 221). Patai further describes what became of Lilith thereafter:
Lilith's epithet was "the beautiful maiden," but she was believed to have been a
harlot and a vampire who, once she chose a lover, would never let him go, but
without ever giving him real satisfaction. She was unable to bear children and
had no milk in her breasts, (p. 223)
The Ancient Goddess was split between the good mother and wife Matronit and the
sexual and evil Lilith in the Hebrew religion, a trope we still witness today in the pious
Virgin Mother Mary and the sinner, prostitute, and whore Mary Magdalene. Patai
contends that "a closer look easily discerns the mask-nature of these contrasting
42
characterizations: behind the evil mask of Lilith and the good one of the Matronit, the
numen, embodying man's fears and desires, is disconcertingly, yet reassuringly, the
same" (p. 252). At this point in history, the autonomous force of the Great Goddess as
the giver, nurturer, and destroyer of life found in matriarchy was completely submerged
in consciousness. She became a mere projection of man's fears. In the Biblical Hebrew
scriptures, she was appointed to be an extension of the Almighty God instead of the other
way around. The inequality and imbalance of patriarchy that became part of our
Christian values are still found in Western culture today.
Jewish philosopher and historian Gershom Scholem states that Kabbalism '"both
historically and metaphysically, is a masculine doctrine, made for men and by men. The
long history of Jewish mysticism shows no trace of feminine influence. There have been
no women Kabbalists'" (Baring & Cashford, 1993, p. 643). Furthermore, Baring and
Cashford tell us that "the fact that there was a feminine component of the deity both in
biblical times and much later, if in Kabbalism and Hassidism, is certainly unknown to
most Christians, if not to many Jews" (p. 643). The male deity overshadowed Shekhinah;
and as a result, we can no longer feel the balance of the Divine Feminine and Masculine
in Western religion.
The Great Goddess Transforms as the Greek Goddesses
During the Bronze Age, the Great Goddess of Minoan and Mycenaean culture in
1200 BC subsided and reappeared in the 8th century BC on the island of Crete as the
Ancient Goddess. The Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter, goddess of harvest, thrived until
the Hellenistic period, when Alexander the Great won the battles against the Persian
Empire, India, Egypt, and other nations. It was during this era that Greek cultural
43
influence and power ruled all over the known world. People came from far and wide to
participate and be initiated into the sacred and secret Eleusinian mysteries. Gadon (1989)
describes the importance of this ritual, which lasted for a thousand years "in a world
increasingly dominated by an alienation from the divine and a fear of death, the mysteries
kept the spirit of the Goddess alive, honoring the sacredness of the life process" (p. 143).
However, the polytheistic pantheon of Almighty Father Zeus up above Mt.
Olympus dominated the Greek goddesses. The Great Goddess was transformed and
manifested as different aspects of Her totality, mirroring more human-like qualities.
Baring and Cashford (1993) tell us that historically:
At its finest, Greek mythology can be seen as the working out of a right
relationship between the dynamic sky and sun gods of the invading Indo-
Europeans and the older lunar agricultural stratum of the pre-hellenic goddess
culture that had been established for many millennia, (p. 302)
The Great Goddess was given new faces in relation to men. Hera, who became the wife
of Zeus, would try to kill his female human conquests (never Zeus) and their offspring in
her jealous rage. Aphrodite symbolized the goddess of beauty and sexuality who had
many lovers and remained unfaithful to her husband Hephaestus. There were also the
three virgin goddesses who remained physically and emotionally untouched by men.
Athena was born from Zeus's forehead, a perennial father's daughter; protector of Athens
and goddess of wisdom Artemis was the goddess of the hunt who shuns men; and Hestia
was the goddess of the hearth and protector of children but remained childless herself.
Persephone became Hades' counterpart after he kidnapped, raped, and tricked her into
being in the underworld with him half of the year and spending the rest of the time with
her beloved mother Demeter—symbolizing life with the Mother Goddess. In The Mother
Goddess among the Greeks, Downing (1994) reminds us:

44
Today, the most familiar goddesses are, as we are so reminded, the goddesses of
patriarchy. As they are presented to us by Homer, Hesiod, and the tragedians, the
Greek goddesses are not very attractive creatures. These texts all exhibit a deep
suspicion of feminine power; they all seem concerned to validate the priority of
the social over the natural order, and to record the establishment of a "rationally
based" policy in which rulership is no longer to be determined matrilineally. The
original ties of the goddesses to the natural world have been rationalized or
reduced to metaphor, (pp. 54-55)
The patriarchal Greek goddesses are what remain as representations of the Great Goddess
from the Neolithic Age. The divine rituals and mysteries to Demeter, the Mother
Goddess of the earth, seasons, and harvest, no longer existed in the sacred grounds of
Eleusis, and the polytheistic gods usurped the Divine Feminine. Furthermore, in Western
culture, we no longer revere Mother Gaia as the fecund life-giving and life-taking source
who sustains, nurtures, and contains us. We have lost our connection to the Great
Goddess.
Christian Religion and the Denigration of the Great Goddess
The mythology of Adam and Eve (Adam being the likeness of God, unlike Eve,
who was only made from his rib) subjugated the Divine Feminine even further. By
eating the forbidden apple and then tempting Adam to do the same, Eve became the
eternal seductress, sinful, evil, and a disgrace to human kind. Because she was the first
female in this mythology of creation, she became the representative of the feminine. In
the eyes of Judeo-Christian patriarchal society, women were cast as inferior beings,
dominated, merely properties to serve, obey, and be domesticated by men.
Von Franz (1994) tells us that "Jung's serious criticism of the Old Testament
religion—as well as Protestantism again today—is that it is a purely masculine religion"
(p. 13). Von Franz continues to let us know how Jung perceived this myth of creation
that still influences our world today, "starting with Eve's prominent role in the story of
the Fall of Man, the tendency to associate woman with evil has constantly manifested.
Prophethood and the priesthood are denied her" (pp. 13-14). The Great Goddess was
denigrated; sacredness, soul, and spirit no longer belonged in the realm of the Divine
Feminine, no longer to be experienced by women from this time forward. Baring and
Cashford (1993) affirm, "the story of Eve is in part the story of the displacing of the
mother goddess by the father god" (p. 492). Sacredness and reverence were strictly
delegated to the Holy Fathers, solely to be experienced by the masculine. The forefathers
of Christianity delegated the enforced roles of inferiority and subjugation to all women
instead. Women's bodies became representations of carnal desire. Furthermore, Baring
and Cashford tell us that "the demythologizing of the goddess was a process that
extended to the whole of nature in whom she had been embodied" (p. 495). Our Fathers
no longer connected to our Sacred Mother, and devoted their time to control Her instead.
We lost our connection with the whole of nature and with one another; the cry of the
Divine Feminine is for us to bring back the reverence, love, and openness we once felt for
Her, respecting and appreciating Her bountiful love for us.
Lastly, Gimbutas (1989) puts into context the evolution of our consciousness and
our relationship with the Great Goddess: "the Goddess-centered religion existed for a
very long time, much longer than the Indo-European and the Christian (which represent a
relatively short period of human history), leaving an indelible imprint on the Western
psyche" (p. xvii). The Great Goddess has been with us since the beginning of time and
will remain with us because we are Her and She is us. Although She underwent
subjugation, execution, and denigration since the Bronze Age—from the Indo-European
invasions to the Judeo-Christian ethos of misogyny, Her reemergence in our culture is

46
undeniable. In the last century, we began questioning our cosmology, religion,
mythology, and the history of misogyny that exists in our world, which brings me to
discuss Her reemergence in our culture today.
The Reemergence of the Divine Feminine from a Depth Psychological Perspective
In Hillman's (1998) The Myth of Analysis, part 3 of the book, titled On
Psychological Femininity, questions our collective attitude of misogyny. Hillman
explores Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud's two arguments about the feminine. First,
Hillman points out that we must question the phase that Freud calls penis envy. Second,
we should take a look at Freud's culmination of study with women and the phenomenon
of hysteria. Hillman believes that Freud's study of women was a progression in our
consciousness about women because, unlike the priests of medieval times, Freud no
longer found women to be witches, to be eradicated by all means, including burning, if
they were "found" to be evil. A paradigm shift in how we see women occurred when
Freud declared that women suffer from hysteria. Hillman argues that Freud's belief that
women are victims still exists in the medical field today. We are able to cure women, and
we no longer have to result to completely denigrating or killing them. The modern
concept of curing suggests that we do not have to kill her physically, just alter her
psychically.
Furthermore, Hillman (1998) argues, as he believes Freud does, that the field of
psychology is fundamentally flawed because Asclepius, the god of medicine, is the son of
Apollo. Apollo is the god of logic, rationality, and order. He is void of the Divine
Feminine energy of relatedness, sacredness, openness, instinct, and interconnectedness
and therefore flawed. The field of psychology needs to foster these Divine Feminine
47
qualities to balance the inherent masculine characteristics of patriarchy on which medical
professions are based.
Carl G. Jung's Relationship with the Divine Feminine
For Jung, the Great Goddess still exists and is found in the Mother Archetype, In
Catholicism, she is worshipped as Mother Mary. Jung (1938/1968b) reveals to us the
many places where we can find and experience the Great Goddess:
Many things arousing devotion or feelings of awe, as for instance the church,
university, city or country, heaven, earth, the woods, the sea or any still waters,
matter even, the underworld and the moon, can be mother-symbols. The
Archetype is often associated with things and places standing for fertility and
fruitfulness: a cornucopia, ploughed field, a garden, (p. 81 [CW 9i, para. 156])
Jung believes that we experience the Great Goddess when we have attitudes of devotion
and reverence toward nature, churches, learning establishments where we feel inspired,
and anywhere else—city, country or even the underworld. She symbolizes fecundity,
abundance, and wonderment.
Von Franz (1994) states that Jung strongly believed that the greatest spiritual
achievement of our century was the Declaration Assumptionis Mariae by Pope Pius XII
in 1950. Von Franz continues to explain how it affected our world:
Nevertheless, the Declaratio is quite remarkable, because it recognizes and

accommodates a very modern tendency of the collective unconscious: the Mother
of God being raised to heaven along with her body, which was not sinlessly
received, also indirectly betokens a much broader acceptance of the human body
and with it of matter as a whole, (pp. 14-15)
Furthermore, Jung (1938/1968b) confirms its importance by saying, "so that when
a figure that is conditioned by this archetype is represented as having been taken up into
heaven, the realm of the spirit, this indicates a union of earth and heaven, or of matter and
spirit" (p. 108 [CIV 9i, para. 195]). For Jung, the Assumption of Mary represented the
healing of the body/woman and spirit/man split promulgated by our patriarchal fathers
since the Judeo-Christian Creation myth, thereby balancing the feminine and the
masculine principles in our individual, collective, and ecological world—hieros gamos.
Moreover, In C. G. Jung: His Myth in our Time, Von Franz (1998) tells us:
The integration of the feminine into the world of masculine Logos to which our
culture has been committed up to the present was not simply a personal matter
with Jung. He was convinced that in general it is required of everyone these days,
(p. 146)
We need to restore the Divine Feminine archetype to offset the turmoil created by
the patriarchal logos that is rampant in our individual, collective, and ecological souls.
Continued warfare around the world and violence within our society have existed for the
sake of domination, power, and control. Furthermore, the rape, plunder, and destruction
of Mother Earth will persist until we all acknowledge the Divine Feminine.
Feminism and the Divine Feminine
There are many 20th-century women we must also discuss and to whom we should
give credit for helping change women's destinies. Many female authors and feminists
were able to articulate and challenge centuries of subjugation and denigration by our
patriarchal fathers. These women questioned the societal norms that exist in Western
culture, including the morals and virtues that were handed down to us by our forefathers
in religion, mythology, and history. Their insistent roar against feminine inequality can
still be heard and felt by modern men and women.
Feminism began modern women's overt fight against patriarchy and has its place
in the reemergence of the Divine Feminine. At its best, feminism allows us to question
the unconscious behaviors, thoughts, and actions that can lead us to fall prey to the
inherited archetypal roles given to us by our patriarchal fathers. At their worst, radical
feminists can unconsciously over identify with our patriarchal fathers and succumb to
acquisition, power, and control.
In the early 1400s, Christine de Pizan (1982) challenged the popular convention's
notion of women during the medieval times in her book titled The Book of the City of
Ladies. She writes, "God created the soul and placed wholly similar souls, equally good
and noble in the feminine and in the masculine bodies" (p. 23). She wrote about women
who possessed courage, intelligence, cultural proficiency, and social grace. Furthermore,
De Pizan was one of the few women who were able to write for a living and attain
popularity for their work in the 1400s. She became one of the key figures—a pioneer of
vindicating women's value and place in society.
Much later, the first wave of feminism began in England during the 1800s. Mary
Wollstonecraft's (1999) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and a Vindication of the
Rights of Men argued that women should seek education and cultivate rationality to
achieve equality and to eradicate patriarchal oppression. In Feminism: The Essential
Historical Writings, editor Miriam Schneir (1994) mentions many women, including
Abigail Adams, the wife of the second President of the United States John Adams. She
also mentions Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and many other American women
who criticized women's conventional roles in society during their times. These women
worked towards women's right to vote, the right to control over their own bodies,
preventing pregnancies if they chose by refraining from having sex with their husbands,
and the right to gain access to education.
Mother of the second wave of feminism, writer Betty Friedan (1964), author of
The Feminine Mystique, challenged the pervading gender roles in Western culture.
50
Friedan articulated the proverbial dissatisfaction that most housewives were feeling in the
1950s and 1960s, calling it the problem that has no name. She urged women to begin
seeking their own identity outside their roles as housewives and to question their career
choices.
In A Room of One's Own, writer Virginia Woolf (1957) insisted that women must
have their own stream of income and a room where they can write and foster their own
creativity and be recognized for the potential of women's nature. In The Second Sex,
author Simone de Beauvoir (1989) brought up the notion of women being the other in
patriarchal culture and argued that there was no valid reason why women should be
relegated to being the second sex. The book did not become popular until the 1960s.
In When God was a Woman, teacher and art historian Merlin Stone (1976)
questioned the Judeo-Christians' denigration of the feminine in history in a scholarly
book about the suppression of the feminine that was available for mass consumption.
University professor Carol Gilligan's (1982) In a Different Voice was a groundbreaking
book about the difference between the moral and identity development between men and
women. In Chalice and the Blade, social scientist Riane Eisler (1988) argued that
Western culture was born form the patriarchal dominator model. She believed that prior
to the advent of Christianity and the invasions of the Kurgans, the matriarchal societies
practiced the partnership model of equality within the sexes, promoting peacefulness and
connectedness to nature.
Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Karen Horney wrote 14 papers regarding feminine
psychiatry from 1922 to 1937, which were later published as a single volume titled
Feminine Psychology. Horney was one of the first women to challenge the popular
51
concepts of feminine development in psychology, arguing that women were measured by
masculine standards. Homey (1993) states: "like all sciences and all valuations, the
psychology of women has hitherto been considered only from the point of view of men"
(p. 56). Homey suggested that men are envious of women's abilities to carry, bear, and
nurture children, calling the phenomenon—womb envy—as a male counterpart to Freud's
concept of penis envy. Homey believes that men's drive to succeed in the external world
is a compensation for their inability to carry and give birth to children. Homey also
challenged the societal roles women were given worldwide, suggesting that they gave
rise to deleterious neuroses in women.
The courageous women mentioned in this chapter played an integral role in
moving our consciousness forward, paving the way for us. They created a psychic space
in which we can explore and contain the notion of the sacred feminine, giving us the
opportunity to discover and unite with Her ancient wisdom and mysteries once again.
The Reemergence of Mary Magdalene
Christian myths such as the legend of The Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982) by
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, New York Times bestselling author
Dan Brown's (2003) The Da Vinci Code, Starbird's (1993) The Woman with the
Alabaster Jar, and historian and Harvard scholar Elaine Pagels' (1989) The Gnostic
Gospels confirm the reemergence of Mary Magdalene's sacred voice in contemporary
culture. The Divine Feminine engaged the mass consciousness through the film The Da
Vinci Code (2006), which made it the second highest grossing movie worldwide (Internet
Movie Database, 2009). Emphasis on the legends of Mary Magdalene and Her
52
connection with the grail myth also indicates the hunger in our times for Eros, a
reconnection to the Divine Feminine, and the deeper mysteries of matter and spirit.
In Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World, Bolen
(2005) proclaims that "women and Goddess became co-opted and lost in the politics of
patriarchy; we forgot who we are, and we are now finding pieces, hidden in myths, dug
up in archeological sites, uncovered in the Gnostic Gospels" (p. 146). The feminine soul
and values have been sacrificed to linear thinking. In The Fear of the Feminine: And
other Essays on Feminine Psychology, Neumann (1994) tells us the urgency of this quest:
"the different nature of the female and feminine psyche must be discovered anew if
women are to understand themselves, but also if the patriarchally masculine world that
has fallen ill thanks to its extreme one-sidedness is again to return to health" (p. xi).
Even though our widespread patriarchal beliefs attempted and nearly succeeded in
eradicating the Divine Feminine from our consciousness, She lies asleep within us all,
ready to be awakened when we have the courage and humility to descend into the
underworld and to come back into the world with Her gifts of healing, rebirth, and
renewal; such was my experience with Her. (I will further explain this process in my
research).
Ecologically, in The Heroine's Journey, Jungian psychotherapist and teacher
Maureen Murdock (1990) illustrates the disparity between the masculine and feminine
attitudes toward Gaia—our Mother Earth—and how She continues to suffer because of
our ignorance:
Our mindless doing has created incredible destruction on this earth. That is why
it is so necessary to redefine hero and heroine in our lives today. The heroic quest
is not about power over, about conquest and domination, it is a quest to bring
53
balance into our lives through the marriage of both feminine and masculine
aspects of our nature, (p. 129)
Furthermore, Murdock elucidates how we as women should begin to take personal
responsibility in this quest of transforming not only ourselves, but ultimately the world,
by affecting social and global spheres:
The modern-day heroine has to confront her fear about reclaiming her feminine
nature, her personal power, her ability to feel, heal, create, change social
structures, and shape her future. She brings us wisdom about the
interconnectedness of all species, she teaches us how to live together in this global
vessel and helps us to reclaim the feminine in our lives, (p. 129)
In addition, the reemergence of the Divine Feminine can be found in the lost
gospels at Nag Hammadi. In the introduction of The Nag Hammadi Library: The Revised
and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume, Marvin
Meyer, director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and
Christianity, writes:
Now for the first time in more than fifteen hundred years, scholars could open and
read other gospels—the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of
Phillip and the Gospel of Mary (Mary had been discovered in 1896)—sources that
enormously widen our understanding of the scope of the early Christian
movement. (Meyer & Robinson, 2009, p. 5)
Mary Magdalene is emerging in our consciousness, buried by our Catholic fathers since
the 3rd century. There is a reason why the reemergence of the Divine feminine is
happening now: She wants to be heard and we need to listen to Her. Pagels (1989), who
was part of the team that worked on the Nag Hammadi scrolls, reminds us of the
importance of Mary Magdalene in Jesus' life:
Furthermore, as we have seen, the Gospel of Mary depicts Mary Magdalene

(never recognized as an apostle by the orthodox) as the one favored with visions
and insight that far surpass Peter's. The Dialogue of the Savior praises her not
only as a visionary, but as the apostle who excels all the rest. She is the "woman
who knew the All." (p. 22)
54
It is time for us to listen to the Divine Feminine voice! Mary Magdalene has been
invalidated and hidden from us for far too long. The presence of the Black Madonna and
the Mary Apparitions all over the world are here to remind us that we must integrate the
Divine Feminine that has been marginalized in Western culture. In Eros and Chaos: The
Sacred Mysteries and Dark Shadows of Love, core faculty member of Jungian
Psychotherapy and Imaginal Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute Veronica
Goodchild (2001), explains the importance of embracing the fullness of divine
femininity: "the necessity to reconnect, beyond the familiar, cultural roles, to those
realms where the dark and the light wish to be embraced is aimed at helping us women
become once again carriers of refined culture and raw instinct" (p. 104). When we accept
both aspects of the Divine Feminine within ourselves and in our culture, we acknowledge
both our shadow and our light. This is to become purveyors of Her gifts, and healers of
our culture.
Neumann (1963) offers us an explanation of how the delegation of the dark
feminine to our unconscious took place, "in the course of the later development of
patriarchal values, i.e., of the male deities of the sun and the light, the negative aspect of
the Feminine was submerged. Today it is discernible only as a content of the primordial
age, or of the unconscious" (p. 155). Western culture has difficulty integrating the
feminine aspects of life, especially Her dark side. Patriarchy is frightened of women's
uncontainable emotions and the violence that she can inflict upon them. They choose to
control her dark forces instead by appointing her solely to the underworld and calling her
bad or evil to make her go away. Patriarchy cannot make her vanish, for She is the
creatrix of life; She is our Great Mother who is the creator, nurturer, and taker of life.
In The Living Goddesses, Gimbutas (2001) explains the aspects of the goddesses
as light and dark: "in the cycle of life, the feminine force—the goddess—not only
manifested in birth, fertility, and life sustenance, she also embodied death, decay, and
regeneration" (p. 19). Archaically, the darker aspects of the Divine Feminine as Kali,
Durga, Erishkegal, Isis, and Sekhmet are the constant givers and takers of life. The
patriarchal traditions espoused that the irrational and passionate side of women should be
controlled, transformed to reason, or rejected and denigrated, sent to the underworld.
Whitmont (1997), with his intention of uncovering our culture's prevailing biases
towards the Goddesses, candidly speaks of the current patriarchal beliefs toward the
darker aspects of the Divine Feminine:
We believe in order, reason, and progress and assign change, destruction, and
transformation to the unconscious. We prefer not to look too closely at the
awesomely dissolving and destructive, yet also dangerously attractive, abyss of
the dark side of the goddess, (p. 135)
Whitmont then continues to tell us what men have done with their fear of the feminine:
Hence, of the vast range of feminine qualities, only the life giving and protecting
motherly qualities came to be acceptable to the patriarchal ego. The free
expression of feminine instinctuality had to be restrained and reduced, subjected
to patriarchal breeding purposes, (pp. 135-136)
The unknown, irrational, dark, passionate, and mysterious facets of the feminine can
bring forth renewal and rebirth and feed our spirit with wisdom, spontaneity, and magic.
Predominant patriarchal views believe in order—an arid landscape of rules, regulations,
order, controlled feelings, suppression, and even condemnation of our instincts. Instead
of accepting the life-giving qualities of the dark feminine, they assigned Her the role of
the inferior other, marginalized as mothers for their children, unable to grasp the life
giving wisdom and presence of true wisdom, Sophia, in their lives.

56
The Black Madonna
The advent of the Black Madonna in contemporary culture fulfills a collective
need within our psyche toward acceptance of the Divine Feminine in Her darker aspect.
Her presence informs us that we must fully embrace the darkness—the unknown
elements of our existence. The Black Madonna holds the mystery in all of us. She
symbolizes the paradox of life through the darkness and the emergence of light.
In The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine, Starbird (1998)
illustrates how the Black Madonna balances the image of the Divine Feminine as pure
and divine:
In the image of the dark Madonna, we encounter not just the human Mary who
was the Jewish mother of Jesus, but also the scorned and neglected "the other face
of God"—the entire feminine archetype that must be acknowledged before we can
be whole, (p. 145)
The Black Madonna reminds us that from the darkness, we have the ability to draw on
resources from the unconscious to achieve liberation from our stifling, one-sided ways of
being. Men and women must acknowledge the dark and light within us if we are to find
wholeness, compassion, and deeper understanding of others and ourselves.
In The Black Madonna, Jungian analyst Fred Gustafson (1990) writes about his
profound experience years after his visit to the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln. This
experienced unleashed questions and a deeper understanding about the dark feminine
within him and the culture:
She is an expression of the need for psychic-spiritual wholeness in an age and

culture that has far over-valued the place of reason and the need for causal
explanation. She is the result of this one-sidedness and serves to bridge the gap.
Because of her darkness, she is able to relate the dark side of the psyche to
wholeness, (pp. 116-117)
57
Furthermore, Gustafson firmly believes that "each of these Black Madonnas carries the
missing dark pole of the feminine archetype in our times" (p. xii). In the midst of the
enigmas in our lives, the presence of the Black Madonnas speaks to the denied landscape
of our souls. In an interview with Harvey by Gustafson (2003) in The Moonlit Path;
Reflections on the Dark Feminine, Harvey passionately describes his experience with the
Black Madonna at length:
Only She has the symbolic and actual power to birth the realization that can only
be born through an experience of the dark night of the soul, the total shattering of
all the agendas, concepts, visions and spiritual understandings that have
accompanied the adept up to then. So, to me, the Black Madonna was the force of
the divine Mother that I met at the very moment when I needed to plunge into
unfathomable pain and suffering in order to dissolve the old structures of myself.
It was only Her force that could sustain and see me through that suffering and,
through divine grace, birth the new being that that suffering was preparing, (p.
45)
The Black Madonna symbolizes the death, resurrection, and transformation that we all
must go through to become aware of the divine within. It is through Her that we can
claim our Christ-Self. Our authentic selves are born from our suffering; more to the
point, when we are in this darkness, it is She who accompanies us, burning all our false
selves, guiding us back to the upper world, renewed, refreshed, and resurrected from the
dead.
She is a big part of the great mystery in life. It is through my fall and descent to
the underworld that I was able to know, understand, and accept Her as a vital process of
life. She symbolizes the darkness that we must go through to attain consciousness and
realize our sacredness. Moreover, the Black Madonna represents the Paleolithic and
Neolithic Ancient Goddess that is part of our human history. The Black Madonna,
clothed in Catholicism's Virgin Mary, can also be seen as the Ancient Mother, Ancient
58
Goddess, and Isis and Horus—the great Egyptian symbol of life. Specifically, the
resemblance of the Egyptian Goddess that was worshipped for 3,000 years can be found
in the face of the Black Madonna carrying baby Jesus.
Furthermore, the Black Madonna is here to remind us of our shadows—our own
darkness within. In The Cult of the Black Virgin, one of the most popular books written
about the Black Madonna, by Jungian analyst Ean Begg (2006), he tells us:
Our ancient, battered, much-loved, little-understood Black Virgins are a still-

living archetypal image that lies at the heart of our civilization and has a message
for us. The feminine principle is not a theory but real and it has a will of its own
which we ignore at our peril, (p. 134)
We need to withdraw our projections—our darkness from the others. Disconnected, we
in Western culture have predominantly thought of other people, other nations, and
Mother Earth as the other, creating disparity and separation with one another. The Black
Madonna is in our world to help us break free from our unconscious patriarchal lockstep
of greed, domination, and destruction, restoring the balance of the feminine and the
masculine energies needed for our civilization before it is too late. The Black Madonna
is the guiding light of our dark existence.
Mary Apparitions
The Divine Feminine voice also calls out for our attention through the Mary
Apparitions occurring all over the world. In Meetings with Mary: Visions of the Blessed
Mother, best-selling author Janice T. Connell (1996) tells us that the
visions and apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary are supernatural favors. They
invite everyone into God's heart, and those who find God find all the treasures of
creation . . . meetings with the Blessed Mother help awaken us to the truth, (p. 1)
The Mary Apparitions are here to let us know that She inhabits our planet, as well as the
sacred realms; She is here to answer our desperate search for spiritual meaning.
59
In The Woman in the Dragon: Apparitions of Mary, author David Lindsey (2001)
writes that Her appearances have been helping us find our way to the divine: "within the
last few centuries, the Prophetess of our Times has appeared on earth many times,
imploring humanity to turn to God before it's too late" (p. 30). Lindsey continues to
describe Mary Apparitions as "the Mother of the Word Incamate[.] Mary is the sign for
our times, the great sign appearing in the sky, the woman clothed with the sun (son) with
the moon under her feet, and crowned with twelve stars" (p. 30). The reemergence of the
Divine Feminine represented as Mary Magdalene, Black Madonna and Mary Apparitions
are here to urge us to pay homage to the Divine Feminine in all of us.
Author of Signs on the Earth: Deciphering The Message Of Virgin Mary
Apparitions, UFO Encounters, and Crop Circles, Richard Leviton, believes that Mary is
here to aid us in the next evolution of our consciousness:
If we turn the fact of the apparitional revelation inward, we see her role now is to
facilitate the birth of the Christ within each of us. Now she comes for us. She
appears increasingly, and in multiple locations, to reinforce the idea that we find
the Virgin Mary within ourselves so as to birth the Christ Child afresh, and
millionfold. (2005, p. 79)
We are being encouraged by our Holy Mother to foster our feminine nature and to accept
our full humanity, which includes the reconciliation of the opposites: lightness and
darkness, flesh and spirit, male and female, human and divine, a process necessary for
our human evolution.
On October 2000, Jungian analyst Marvin Spiegelman, presented a lecture in
Zurich at the C. G. Jung Institute about the Virgin Mary's numerous apparitions to
children in France, Yugoslavia, and Portugal. The importance of his lecture was
emphasized in the book The Moonlit Path: Reflections on the Dark Feminine (Gustafson,
60
2003), where Jungian analyst Cedrus Monte informs us that Spiegelman called attention
to the urgent message of Mary to those to whom She has appeared (Gustafson, 2003).
According to Spiegelman, "Mary has become increasingly insistent on our need to pray
to her" (p. 27). Furthermore, Spiegelman firmly believes that Mary apparitions represent
"the urgent need to honor the feminine, not only within analytical psychology, but also in
the world at large" (p. 27). Moreover, Spiegelman denotes that "perhaps even more
urgent now is to recognize the Dark Feminine, the Black Madonna or Dea Abscondita,
whose intrinsically earthly nature has been left fallow and uncultivated for far too long"
(p. 27). The buried anguish of our female ancestors, the hidden feminine soul is
reemerging from the collective unconscious as Mary Magdalene, Black Madonna, and
Mary Apparitions. Symbolically, They have openly manifested to catch our attention and
wake us up from the deep slumber we have been in since the Bronze Age when
patriarchy took over our known world. They are waiting for us to claim Their existence
within us and with each other to once again attain balance in the world.
Our blessed Mothers are calling all of us to go back to recover the lost ancient
wisdom of honoring Her. We do this by worshipping Her within us, each other, and in
nature. It is no longer through the establishment of luxurious yet lifeless man-made
churches and temples built by patriarchy reminiscent of St. Peter where we find
fragments of Her. Nor can She be experienced through the repetition and regurgitations
of religious dogmas. It is only through our personal connection with the Divine
Feminine—the temple within—where we find spiritual meaning in our lives and where
we can achieve wholeness on the continued path of individuation. She is to be found at
the very core of our being.

61
Chapter 3
Statement of the Research Problem and Question
The Research Problem
The purpose of this study is to illustrate the embodiment of the Divine Feminine
by integrating Her methods of being with our current patriarchal approach as a path of
individuation. We do not give up what we have learned from patriarchy. We are merely
reclaiming the lost part of ourselves, rediscovering the lost soul of our culture, rebirthing
a new attitude of balance and harmony within our planet and ourselves.
Additionally, the purpose of this study is to reclaim the characteristics of the
Divine Feminine principles by going deeper into my complexes and research, in dialogue
with the depth psychological tradition through a heuristic approach. This search is not
for me alone, but for all men and women who are also looking to embrace both the
feminine and masculine principles in the matrix of our individual, collective, and
archetypal experiences.
The Research Question
The question I will attempt to answer is: How does the reemergence and
integration of Divine Feminine principles in Western patriarchal society serve feminine
individuation? This dissertation will attempt to constellate awareness of internal shifts of
consciousness from experiences of Ancient Divine Feminine principles to the
transformative powers that could assist us on our journey to wholeness.
Definition of Terms
At this point of the research, I need to define additional terms, drawing from
Jung's second edition of The Collected Works (1954/1989) and Sharp and Jung's (1991)
62
C. G. Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms and Concepts. Jung (1937/1969c) explains that
psyche is
the starting point of all human experience, and all the knowledge we have gained
eventually leads back to it. The psyche is the beginning and end of all cognition.
It is not only the object of its science, but the subject also. (p. 125 [CW 8, para.
261)
The psyche consists of the consciousness and the unconscious mind. Jung (1943/1969d)
epigrammatically defines consciousness:
Consciousness does not create itself—it wells up from unknown depths. In

childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of
the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born
daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious.... it is not only influenced
by the unconscious but continually emerges out of it in the form of numberless
spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought, (pp. 569-570 [CW 11, para.
935)
In contrast to consciousness, Jung (1947/1969b) describes the unconscious:
So defined, the unconscious depicts an extremely fluid state of affairs; everything

of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten; everything perceived by
my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily
and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the
future things that are taking shape in me and will sometime come to
consciousness; all this is the content of the unconscious, (p. 185 [CW 8, para.
382)
The unconscious is the buried part of our psyche that has been forgotten or repressed.
The archetypes or archetypal images are parts of our collective and personal
unconscious. In the collective unconscious, Sharp (Sharp & Jung, 1991) illustrates that
we find the archetypal images in, "universal patterns or motifs which come from the
collective unconscious, are the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends and fairy
tales" (p. 29). Archetypal images are innate common human patterns, characters, and
ways of being that are universal experiences of mankind found in our history since the
beginning of time. On a personal level, Sharp states "archetypal motifs are patterns of
thought or behavior that are common to humanity at all times and in all places" (p. 29).
We personally experience these universal patterns through our dreams, visions, or when
we, or others around us, unconsciously perform or act out these universal roles, which
Edinger (1994) germanely defines as "the eternal drama." These depth psychological
terms—psyche, consciousness, unconscious, and archetypes—will be used throughout
this research dissertation.

64
Chapter 4
Heuristic Research Approach and Method
A Heuristic Approach to Psychological Research
Using a heuristic approach, I will be conducting research by examining my
internal and external world realities and proposing ways to recover wholeness for women
in patriarchal Western culture. In Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and
Applications, clinical psychologist Clark Moustakas (1990) tells us that the power of the
heuristic approach "is in its recognition of the significance of self-searching and the value
of personal knowledge as essential requirements for the understanding of common human
experiences" (p. 90). He further states that "there is no substitute for direct,
comprehensive, accurate first-person accounts of experience, for the importance of self-
inquiry and self-dialogue in discovering the nature and meaning of one's own experience
and that of others" (p. 90). In heuristic research, I am personally involved. I have a
fervent desire to understand the meaning and purpose of being a woman. My dedication
requires integrating the scholarly and rational ways of knowing with my lived
experiences, enriched through the Divine Feminine ways of transformations, insights, and
unfolding through my unwavering questioning, experiencing, and focus on subject. The
subject and I are one.
In The Psychology of Science, a Reconnaissance, American psychologist and
founder of humanistic psychology Abraham Maslow emphasizes the importance of using
our experience in research:
There is no substitute for experience, none at all. All the other paraphernalia of
communication and of knowledge—words, labels, concepts, symbols, theories,
formulas, sciences—all are useful only because people already knew them
experientially. (1966, pp. 45-46)
65
Reading and discussing the contexts of scholarly texts alone does not often generate
movement within. My task is to utilize my life's experiences along with the scholarly
texts to formulate questions that are inherent in and universal to women. As Moustakas
(1990) explains, "essentially, in the heuristic process, 1 am creating a story that portrays
the qualities, meanings, and essences of universally unique experiences" (p. 13).
Through my absolute commitment to know the Divine Feminine, my hope is to uncover
the archaic voices and universal truths about being a woman.
Moustakas (1990) further explains the demands and intricacies of the heuristic
approach:
Heuristic research is an extremely demanding process, not only in terms of

continual questioning and checking to ensure full explication of one's own
experience and that of others, but also the challenges of thinking and creating, and
in the requirements of authentic self-dialogue, self-honesty, and unwavering
diligence to an understanding of both obvious and subtle elements of meaning and
essence inherent in human issues, problems, questions, and concerns, (p. 37)
Furthermore, through commitment and full engagement in the subject, Moustakas
believes that he is "creating a story that portrays the qualities, meanings, and essences of
universally unique experiences" (p. 13). This work will serve to uncover regions of my
psyche that are universal and therefore significant to others.
Moustakas (1990) informs us that the basic research design found in heuristic
process consists of six phases including: (1) Initial engagement; (2) Immersion into the
topic and question; (3) Incubation; (4) Illumination; (5) Explication; and (6) Culmination
of the research in a Creative Synthesis. I will now describe and give some examples of
how I have implemented each method in this section, which I will continue to utilize
throughout my research process.

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Initial Engagement
Moustakas (1990) describes the importance of self-searching in the first phase of
heuristic research initial engagement: "the task of initial engagement is to discover an
intense interest, a passionate concern that calls out to the researcher, one that holds
important social meanings and personal, compelling implications" (p. 27). He continues
to explain that "during this process one encounters the self, one's autobiography, and
significant relationships within a social context" (p. 27). In the first chapter, I described
some of my experiences of growing up without the goddesses that precipitated a deeply
meaningful search for the Divine Feminine and led me to study clinical psychology at
Pacifica Graduate Institute. It also allowed my passion for rediscovering the
marginalized Divine Feminine principles to unfold.
I was introduced to the concept of myth and religious symbols during the first
quarter of my graduate program at Pacifica. Professor of Mythology Glen Slater (2004)
shared many representations of gods and goddesses found in Greek myths and religious
symbols that continue to "govern our human experience as well as our modes of
comprehending that experience" and that are parts of our personal and collective psyches
(p. 1). Captivated by the subject, I yearned to learn more about the archetypal forces that
unconsciously dominated our lives. The subject struck and awakened an archaic chord in
me. My yearning to know the Divine Feminine was later fostered by Veronica
Goodchild, Professor of Depth Psychology and Contemporary Culture at Pacifica. She
further stirred my imagination by discussing the symbols and metaphors of the grail
myth, the reemergence of the Divine Feminine, and lack of Eros in our contemporary
culture.
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I knew since the beginning of my studies at Pacifica that my dissertation topic
would be about the Divine Feminine in myths and religious symbols. I continued to
study and research both themes until I formulated a clear and concise question that would
be both meaningful and scholarly. Moustakas (1990) describes this process:
The engagement or encountering of a question that holds personal power is a

process that requires inner receptiveness, a willingness to enter fully into the
theme, and to discover from within the spectrum of life experiences that will
clarify and expand knowledge of the topic and illuminate the terms of the
question. (27)
Even though I was certain which subject I was to write about, it took several years
of self-examination, inner receptiveness, and willingness to look at parts of myself and
Western society that were difficult to face. The darkness that pervaded and lurked within
our patriarchal culture and within me personally were extremely difficult subjects to
confront. I strove to adhere to the heuristic process described by Moustakas (1990):
Heuristic inquiry is a process that begins with a question or problem which the
researcher seeks to illuminate or answer. The question is one that has been a
personal challenge and puzzlement in the search to understand one's self and the
world in which one lives. The heuristic process is autobiographic, yet with
virtually every question that matters personally there is also a social—and perhaps
universal—significance, (p. 15)
Knowing that my wounds contain my calling, I examined my life experiences to find
answers to the questions haunting me about femininity and wholeness in our society, and
I formulated a question that expressed some aspects of women's grievances found in
patriarchal culture.
Immersion
Moustakas (1990) gives an explanation on the second phase of heuristic approach
called immersion: "once the question is discovered and its terms defined and clarified, the
researcher lives the question in waking, sleeping, and even dream states" (p. 28). He
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continues to explain the importance of the second phase of the heuristics method: "the
immersion process enables the researcher to come to be on intimate terms with the
question—to live it and grow in knowledge and understanding of it" (p. 28). By
immersing myself in the subject of the Divine Feminine found in myths and religious
symbols, I tapped into the ancient mysteries where wholeness and sacredness are
women's rights. 1 learned about Mary Magdalene, the Black Madonna, the Mary
Apparitions, and goddesses as feminine expressions of the divine. I read almost
everything I could about these subjects, but, somehow felt it was not enough! I needed to
experience the Divine Feminine in my bones. Intuitively, I knew the significance of this
second phase; the latent feminine forces within me were longing to be fully awakened in
all aspects of myself—body, heart, and soul.
In addition to reading, writing, journaling, meditating, dreaming, and praying to
the Divine Feminine, I wanted to immerse my senses even more by experiencing Her
through the ancient sacred sites around the world. My commitment to Her involved
becoming a pilgrim, seeking the Divine Feminine expressions in parts of the world where
She remains sacred, worshipped, and loved since antiquity. I wanted to feel Her divine
presence in the ancient and modern temples, churches, and landscapes where generations
of people withstood subjugation and domination of our patriarchal fathers but still
remained devoted to Her. I longed to be in places where people's loyalty, love, and
worship of Her can still be seen and felt if one chooses to do so.
In Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life, Jim Forest (2007) tells us that
pilgrimage is "the quest for what the Celts have described as thin places. Thin places
have a way of slowing us down, even stopping us in our tracks. A thin place is one
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where ordinary matter seems charged with God's presence" (p. 70). I searched for the
thin places in the world where I could feel God's expression of the Divine Feminine, and
I traveled to Tindari in Italy, Rocamadour, Chartres, Paris, Marseilles, Le Puy in France,
and Montserrat, Spain to behold and be in the presence of the Black Madonna. I saw
how people kissed her feet, clung to her, and prayed fervently to her image. Seeing and
witnessing their faith allowed me to further understand her enigma; it allowed me to
deepen my experience of Her. She is very real for many people even today.
I went on pilgrimages to see religious symbols of Mary Magdalene and
experience her in the French Provence and the Lanquedoc regions where she is
acknowledged as a saint. I visited Rennes le-Chateau, Mirepoix, Saint-Maximin-La
Sainte-Baume, Saint Baume, Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and Vezelay. My
experiences as a pilgrim to Mary Magdalene made it real for me; her myth was no longer
just pages in books or my imagination and wishful thinking. It was unlike anything I
have ever known or experienced. While in Paris, I also visited the Church of Mary
Magdalene built by Napoleon in the middle of what is now a luxurious neighborhood.
Foreign dignitaries, embassies, and posh French boutiques in close proximity to the
Elysee Palace where the president of France resides surround this church. In France, She
is witnessed in the cities, in Provence, and in the south bordering the Atlantic Ocean.
Each time I stepped into and took in the magnificence of the sacred places and
landscape of the Divine Feminine I visited, I understood Her even more. I experienced
Her mystery and magic in the core of my being. Some of these feelings are ineffable—an
awakening that can be felt not only in my heart and soul, but also in the cellular level of
my body—an ancient calling.

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I paid homage to the medieval cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres and walked the
labyrinth in deep meditation and reverence of Her. Each time I took a step forward, I was
reminded of the thousands of pilgrims who have participated in this ritual since ancient
times. I knew that there would be many more pilgrims who would participate in this holy
tradition for centuries to come. Innately I knew that I am now a part of them, as they are
part of me—in search for the divine.
I visited the house of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus, Turkey, where it is said she
lived her last years. I wanted to feel Her divine presence and receive Her grace. I
participated in mass, which consisted of about a dozen people, held in a little chapel
made of bricks and stones, giving thanks, taking part in a ritual familiar to me since
childhood; yet my experience there was very different. There in Ephesus, she no longer
represented a pure, untouchable Virgin Mary. In her tiny house in Ephesus, she felt like
one of us; she was a mother, a friend, a caring and compassionate human being who loves
us. Up on the beautiful, luscious, green mountaintop of Ephesus, where fresh spring
water flows, she became more real to me than in the stale, cold, marble church I used to
visit her in as a child. The young priest was compassionate, the sermon short and sweet
and filled with gratitude for her presence in our lives, and his vestment was adorned with
Mary's face instead of the customary cross. It was a place where She is truly celebrated.
Baring and Cashford say that Ephesus "was also to be the place where Mary, mother of
Jesus, was declared to be Theotokos, 'Mother of God"' (p. 330).
I participate in monthly gatherings called the Mary Meditations based in Pacific
Palisades, where Mother Mary is channeled through Lisa Sloan, a depth psychologist,
shaman, and adjunct professor at Pacifica Graduate Institute. It is an assembly of about

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twenty to thirty people, where we ask Mother Mary for guidance, share our experiences,
and deepen our connections to Her. I continue to take part in this heartfelt gathering to
this day.
I also visited what is left of the Ancient temple of Artemis (Diana) in Ephesus,
Turkey, which was constructed during 550 BC and is now a sole marble pillar amidst a
swampy landscape juxtaposed to a Mosque and ruins of the Basilica of St. John. It is
interesting to see how Emperor Justinian (527-565 AD) pillaged what was left from the
Temple of Artemis to build the Basilica of St. John. These ancient marble pillars
originally from the temple of Artemis can still be found at the site today, which is another
example of how Patriarchal Christianity took over the worship of the Ancient Goddess
and Her temples.
To further experience the ancient goddesses, I traveled to India, where the Hindu
goddesses have been revered for hundreds and some for over thousands of years. In
Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition,
Professor of Religious Studies David Kingsley (1986) continues to explain, "no other
living religious tradition displays such an ancient, continuous, and diverse history of
goddess worship. The Hindu tradition provides the richest source of mythology,
theology, and worship available to students interested in goddesses" (p. 1). I resonate
deeply with Henry David Thoreau's approach to traveling and seeking the unknown: "I
longed to travel deliberately, to encounter the 'essential things' of history, venture
somewhere strange and unknown, ancient and elemental" (quoted in Forest, 2007, p. xvi).
The archaic Divine Feminine force is palpable in India, where one can still experience
Her in everyday life and not just at Her temples. I participated in the Kumbh Mela by
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bathing in Mother Ganges River for purification—a symbolic act of renewal and rebirth
in Her embrace. Kumbh Mela is one of the most sacred Hindu pilgrimages that for
centuries have happened every twelve years in Haridwar. A journalist for the New York
Times, Jim Yardley ("Taking a sacred plunge, one wave of humanity at a time," 2010),
writes what took place during the Kumbh Mela:
Over the bridge they came, Hindu holy men by the tens of thousands, the most
devout naked and dusted with sacramental powder, marching toward the bathing
pool in the Ganges where the water is considered holiest on this most propitious
of days. (p. 1)
Kingsley (1988) tells us "the Ganges is preeminent among India's rivers as a purifying
power" (p. 191). Furthermore, he adds, "Her waters are life-giving, nourishing to all
those who bathe in or drink them" (p. 194). 1 wanted to completely immerse myself in
Her waters and be purified by Her.
At the Mansa Devi temple in Haridwar, I also visited and prayed to the goddess
Shakti, who is the "life force of all beings" (Kingsley, 1988, p. 133). In New Delhi, I
paid homage to goddess Lakshmi, who is the goddess of beauty, love, and prosperity and
the consort of Lord Vishnu (Kingsley, 1988). I have always felt closest to Her from my
studies of the Hindu gods and goddesses.
Moreover, I visited the ancient palace of Knossos in Crete where the Minoan
Snake Goddess was found and the worship of the Ancient Goddess also took place during
the Neolithic Age. Baring and Cashford (1993) tell us:
Unlike many surrounding cultures the island of Crete was not invaded in the
1,500 years from 3000 to 1500 BC, and so it offers a unique insight into how a
Neolithic society evolved without disruption into a Bronze Age one while still
remaining in relief in the unity of life. (p. 109)
Knossos was a great place to experience Her as the serpents, bulls, dolphins, birds, bees,
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lions, the sea, bullhorns, and double axes captured in the ancient frescoes, sculptures, and
large jars found in the grounds and at the archeological museum in Herakleion.
Furthermore, 1 was blessed to have had the opportunity to walk through Her holy
and most ancient grounds in Malta—Hagar Qim, Tarxein, and Hal Saflieni Hypogeum—
with the intention of connecting to Her in a deeply profound and archaic level. These
temples are more than 1,000 years older than the pyramids in Egypt, which were built
around 2500 BC. In Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations, author Karen Tate
(2006) states that some of the oldest goddess temples from the Neolithic Age can be
found in Malta dating from 3800-3600 BC. The famous Sleeping Goddess statue was
found in Hypogeum—the only existing prehistoric underground temple in the world.
It was amazing and humbling to be in a place where Goddess worship existed
beginning in the Neolithic Age. Amongst the jars adorned with snakes, spirals, and
studded decorations; walls and ceilings filled with red ochre signifying blood, fertility,
and Her womb; and many figures of the goddesses, I felt as if I was transported back in
time when men and women adored and worshipped the Ancient Goddess and valued
equanimity, balance, and Mother Earth. Through sacred geometry, the temples were
precise astrological tools that were used to foretell the forces of nature, equinoxes, and
changes of seasons. For me, Her presence was the most powerful in Malta; and in
stillness and in reverie, She continues to reverberate within me.
By recounting these places and events, I feel a deepening connection to Her. I am
once again reminded of how much and how long I longed for Her presence and
immersion, filling the depths of the yearning emptiness. She has had a strong grip on
me!
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In contrast to the goddess temples, on a family trip to Italy, we visited the Vatican
City, where the Western patriarchal fathers of the Catholic Church reside and continue to
repress the Divine Feminine, still dominating our lives as it was for our ancestors for
centuries. Author of Vatican, Sonia Gallico (2004), describes St. Peter's Basilica:
It is an immense and magnificent space, richly decorated with Baroque

stuccowork, mosaics and statues, almost overwhelming at first glance. The visitor
usually needs to pause for a moment before he or she can take in their vast size,
comparing the height of the holy-water fonts and their supporting putti (winged
babies or cherubs) with that of the people around them can give an idea of the
church's proportions, (p. 19)
It was important for me to see, understand, and experience the enormity of the objects
displayed at St. Peter's Basilica and in other parts of the Vatican City. Lavish
decorations, opulence, and decadence are exhibited throughout the city, symbolizing
power, wealth, and domination—the hallmarks of patriarchy. I felt small, intimidated,
governed by the humongous statues that hovered over me; the coldness of the atmosphere
was a stark contrast from the gentleness, sensitivity, and receptivity I felt when visiting
the temples, churches, and geographical landscapes of the Divine Feminine.
Merton reminds us that combined together, inner and outer journeys serve to elicit
deeper understanding:
The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The
inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer journey.
One can have one without the other. It is better to have both. (Forest, 2007, p. v)
In the scope of this work, I cannot discuss all my travels previously mentioned in great
detail; however, I will be discussing a few of my experiences with the Divine Feminine in
more detail in later chapters of this dissertation. In addition to the scholarly methods of
research previously mentioned, my travels and immersion into the sacred feminine
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symbols made a profound impact on my life and tapped into deeper levels of the Divine
Feminine mysteries.
Incubation
In the third phase of heuristics, Moustakas (1990) illustrates the process of
incubation that is practiced throughout this research process, "the period of incubation
allows the inner workings of the tacit dimension and intuition to continue to clarify and
extend understanding on levels outside the immediate awareness" (p. 29). Since our
studies at Pacifica, my husband, also a student at Pacifica, and I became almost reclusive
and immersed ourselves in understanding our studies, only taking part in a small number
of family events, spiritual gatherings, and travels to sacred sites. We declined most
invitations to parties and social events that would take us away from experiencing the
subjects calling us. We chose more solitary experiences as part of our incubation process
and commitment to our research.
I participate in a daily practice of meditation, which I have for over twenty years.
Merton (1960) describes the significance of this process, explaining that "in meditation
we strive to absorb what we have already taken in" (p. 53). It is in these moments of
relaxation and focus to the Self that I find I can release my ego's hold and fears toward
this dissertation process and other areas of my life.
Residing close to the ocean, I take regular walks on the beach and engage in
meditative states of reverie, communing with nature, listening to the ebb and flow of the
tides, feeling the strong forces of the water reverberate within, watching and continuing
to be inspired by the freedom of the different species of birds as they fly over me.
Sometimes when I am lucky, I catch glimpses of dolphins frolicking in the open sea with
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playfulness, joy, and oneness with nature. In silence and solace, I forget my fears and
concerns about my dissertation process and other parts of my life, and revel instead in
gratitude, peace, and acceptance of the process I am going through, succumbing to the
natural rhythm of nature. In the enchanting landscape of the oceanside, I always sense
that there is a power much larger than I am—a power that orchestrates the many forms of
energies that exist on our planet. There is a sense of surrender in this third phase,
intrinsically knowing I am not in charge of even my own destiny; creativity,
development, transformation, death, renewal, and rebirth are occurring in other realms
that I cannot begin to comprehend. Moustakas (1990) eloquently describes this process
as "the seed undergoing silent nourishment, support, and care that produces a creative
awareness of some dimension of a phenomenon or a creative integration of its parts or
qualities" (p. 29). This third phase of incubation is a surrender to the creative forces that
are present in the realm of the unconscious.
Illumination
The fourth stage of heuristic approach is the process of illumination. Moustakas
(1990) explains that "the process of illumination occurs naturally when the researcher is
open and receptive to tacit knowledge and intuition" (p. 29). He continues to describe the
qualities inherent in this phase of the research process: "the illumination as such is a
breakthrough into conscious awareness of qualities and a clustering of qualities into
themes inherent in the question" (p. 29). I will illustrate this process with an experience I
had while going through this stage.
For months I was plagued with anxiety, doubting my capability to formulate a
concise methodology approach, unable to move forward in my dissertation process.

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Feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed from debilitating fear, 1 forced myself to engage in
an intricate process of mapping out or brainstorming methods to organize this
dissertation. I drew graphs and developed long-winded hypotheses, placing subjects or
topics where I thought they should be, while grouping my themes in categories to
formulate a concise approach and procedure to finish my dissertation; meanwhile, I felt
constrained, confused, and drained. Intuitively, I felt tightness from the pushing and
pulling that was taking place in my body. I felt frustrated, lost, and alone—unable to
access the creative unconscious and be in the flow of the Divine Feminine ancestors in
this very linear and masculine process. I lingered in this phase for some time and
remained unsatisfied with the work that 1 had done until I experienced this dream:
I was preparing a seating chart for an event. Then, I walked in and escorted the
guests—male andfemale—to their tables, exactly where I would like them to be. At one
time, two men sat down at places that I reserved for other guests, and I cordially asked
them to move to another table. I was thankful that there was a newly set table I had not
seen. They sat there instead, although it was awkward because they could not see the
stage from where they were sitting. I felt awful for them. I remember feeling that not
only did I want to surround myself with only those I wanted to sit with, I also wanted to
make sure that everyone else was sitting exactly where 1 would like them to be.
I woke up knowing what I was trying to do: I was trying to control the event. I
felt the tightness in my body as I awoke. It was the exact feeling I was experiencing
nights before when I placed my topics in categories and separated them in themes—
approaching it as a to do list. I was trying to approach the Divine Feminine in a
masculine way. I pondered upon questions like these: Was I being too animus or ego
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driven in this process? What should 1 do? What should I not do? Where do I find a
balance between receptivity and doing that enables me to move forward with this
dissertation? How can I come from my SW/"instead of stemming from my ego-self?
While lying in bed, I started ruminating about my experiences as a student at
Pacifica and some unfavorable encounters with my patients and supervisors while
working in my previous and current internship sites as a doctoral intern. Then, the
thought that everything in the universe happens for a reason suddenly occurred to me. I
knew that there was more to my dream, and that 1 needed to tend to the vital message my
psyche was trying to tell me. I decided to engage in active imagination and take heed of
the autonomous voice within:
I: What is my next step or acceptance toward my dissertation writing?
Ancestors: Let there be room for us to speak through. Let us "be" as well.
I: How can I do that?
Ancestors: Honor and revere us, invite attitudes of hospitality and reverence toward us.
Hear our voices. We are here to speak through you. Do not let your ego get in your way.
I: Yes, I will. I agree. I am your humble servant. Please honor me with messages in my
dreams and I will listen. I will continue to write as I am now hearing you.
Ancestors: Good. We need to have an open channel with you. This work is not about
you. It is through you. You will be talking about your experiences, but the healing and
the wisdom is through us. You have very limited experiences and wisdom. You need us
to do our part. This is a collaborative effort and you will be guided when you listen.
Stay attuned to us at all times. Even throughout your day, we might be sending you a
message for a reason you don't know yet, but it is all for good reason. Just like what you
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were thinking this morning when you got up .. . everything happens as it should. You
were asking yourself why is it that you question why things happen the way they do?
Your clients now and your experiences in your previous site were and are collaborative
for you, your clients and supervisors came to you because they were supposed to. The
universe supports you and it all happens for a reason. God and the Divine Feminine
Goddess in many forms have a larger view, even generational, that you are not able to
see. Let go of the grip that presumes to know what's goodfor you and the others. Really
believe in us and let us in. Know that we are here for you. Listen to your gut feeling,
your intuition, your heart—what you are writing about, not to your fears. They are mere
illusions. We are here for you. We are here for your writing. We want to be heard. We
want to speak through you. Your book will be a powerful vessel for us, your life will have
renewed meaning for you and something new will be born for you andfor us.
I: Thank you from the depths of my heart and soul. I am indebted to you forever. I am at
your service.
Ancestors: And so it is. We are here for you; we always have been.
Elated and humbled by taking part in this sacred process, an energizing and
indescribable pulsating energy came through me from the top of my head to the soles of
my feet; goose bumps permeated my whole body. I instantly knew what I had to be
instead of do; I was to release my concept of how my dissertation should be and trust in
the creative unconscious—embodying the Divine Feminine processes of listening to my
instincts, heart, and soul. Instead of inviting the Divine Feminine voice, I had been
orchestrating and forcing my concepts of what and how my dissertation should look like,
neglecting my heart and soul—the Divine Feminine principles in the work. I was
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stunned by this revelation. How ironic! / was writing about the Divine Feminine ways of
being, yet, I was practicing the masculine logical linear ways of doing.
As Moustakas (1990) points out, "when the researcher is in a receptive state of
mind without conscious striving or concentration, the insight or modification occurs. A
degree of reflectiveness is essential but the mystery of situations requires tacit workings
to uncover meanings and essences" (p. 29). The framework for my methodology cannot
dictate the process. I cannot continue to hold on so tightly and get caught in the illusion
that it is only I who will decide how this dissertation will be written. I was reminded by
the Divine Feminine voice to become receptive to the synchronicity and numinous
moments that only come from receptivity to the sacred realms.
Explication
During the fifth stage of heuristic approach, Moustakas (1990) reminds us that in
the explication process, "a more complete apprehension of the key ingredients is
discovered" (p. 31). Because of my engagement in the last four phases of the heuristic
process, I was able to let go of fear and control and discover the core researching process
necessary to unearth the Divine Feminine phenomenon, much like discovering and
capturing the melody of a song. The melody is the soul of the song, differentiating it
from other tunes. Furthermore, Moustakas explains, "the researcher brings together
discoveries of meaning and organizes them into a comprehensive depiction of the
essences of the experience" (p. 31). I will continuously strive to identify and articulate
the deeper meanings hidden from our conscious minds by listening to the ancient Divine
Feminine voice.
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Moustakas (1990) further explains this process of explication: "the heuristic
researcher utilizes focusing, indwelling, self-searching and self-disclosure, and
recognizes that meanings are unique and distinctive to an experience and depend upon
internal frames of reference" (p. 31). The process offocusing asks me to continuously
question and maintain awareness of my social, historical, and cultural lens, feelings,
beliefs, and judgments that I am predisposed to throughout this research study.
Moreover, Moustakas proclaims, "the researcher is able to determine the core
themes that constitute an experience, identify and assess connecting feelings and
thoughts, and achieve cognitive knowledge" (p. 25). Part of the process of focusing is to
be able to root out the essence of the experience, balancing the feeling and thinking
modes of realities to truly understand and create shifts in our consciousness. In Heuristic
inquiry: The Internal Search to Know, humanistic psychologists Bruce Douglass and
Clark Moustakas (1985) also define the process of focusing as, "refinements of meaning
and perception that register as internal shifts and alterations of behavior" (p. 51). This
explication process is both a cognitive practice and experiential focusing on my internal
world, transforming and inspiring me to shift my attitudes and thereby my behavior.
Moustakas (1990) explains the next process involved in explication: "the
indwelling process is conscious and deliberate, yet it is not linear or logical. It follows
clues wherever they appear; one dwells inside them and expands their meanings and
associations until a fundamental insight is achieved" (p. 24). In my previous dream, I
consciously ruminated and held my dream to heart, until I felt that I had captured the
essence of the dream and became open enough to hear what was being communicated to
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me by the Divine Feminine voice. I had a tacit knowing that the dream was guiding and
showing me how to move forward with my dissertation.
Even after engaging in active imagination, I continued to reflect and engage my
dream by discussing it with my Jungian analyst, Ann, to whom I often brought my
dreams, because I agree with what Whitmont and Perera (1989) assert in Dreams, a
Portal to the Source:
The witness or analyst or therapy group helps to elicit associations and

explanations, and to ground the dream's message by drawing attention to relevant
areas of the dreamer's psychology and behavior that are visible to others but fall
in to the dream's blind-spot. (pp. 8-9)
Ann was able to bring the vital message of my dream into the context of what I was going
through in life, reminding me of the significance of letting go and remaining open to the
messages of the Divine Feminine. From my therapy sessions with her, I further realized
that it was necessary to formulate an outline, but only in service to be in the flow and
openness to the unknown.
The third part of explication is self-searching. Moustakas (1990) explains that
"one's own self-discoveries, awarenesses, and understandings are the initial steps of the
process" (p. 16). In Toward a Science of the Person, American humanistic psychologist
Carl Rogers (1969) describes this phase of the research process: "it will make confident
use of subjective, intuitive hypotheses formulated by the scientist who has immersed
himself in his field of study, and who senses a pattern, an order, which he can perhaps
only partially articulate" (p. 46). Rogers continues to explain the value of self-searching
by saying that "it leads ... to a naturalistic, empathic, sensitive observation of the world
of inner meanings as they exist in the individual. The whole range and scope of the
human situation as it exists in each individual is thus opened for consideration" (pp. 46-
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47). In this dissertation, I surrender to the process of self-searching, intuitively knowing
that the process can lead to dismemberment, insights, and blessings from the unknown.
The last process in the explication process involves self-disclosure. Douglass and
Moustakas (1985) stress the value of self-disclosure: "at the heart of heuristics lies an
emphasis on disclosing the self as a way of facilitating disclosure from others—a
response to the tacit dimension within oneself sparks a similar call from others" (p. 50). I
disclosed my experiences in the context of the Divine Feminine in our patriarchal
consciousness in previous chapters. 1 will continue to disclose more of my experiences
of the Divine Feminine as I am called to do so, in service of facilitating deeper
understanding of the subject and to help others achieve shifts in their consciousness and
give voice to the buried parts that haunt us.
Creative Synthesis
The final phase of heuristic research is what Moustakas (1990) calls creative
synthesis, which he describes as follows:
Major concepts that underlie a creative synthesis are the tacit dimension, intuition,
and self-searching. The researcher must move beyond any confined or constricted
attention to the data itself and permit the inward life of the question to grow in
such a way that a comprehensive expression of the essences of the phenomenon
investigated is realized, (p. 32)
I will continuously go within and tend to the Divine Feminine sensibilities of intuition,
instinct, feelings, openness, willingness, and devotion to the voice of the Divine Feminine
ancestors. This research is my life's work, a compilation of struggles and victories of
being a woman in our times.
Another commitment I made towards my dissertation process is to move beyond
conventional ways of knowing, enriching and cultivating my psyche by participating in a

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weekly study group formed in June 2010 and composed of 10 to 12 people who read,
discuss, elaborate, and amplify Jung's (2009) The Red Book. As Moustakas (1990)
mentions in the previous paragraph, it is important to go beyond the scholarly methods
for our inward life to grow and for the topic investigated be realized. Said to be the
origin of all his work, Jung's The Red Book is a window to other worlds living in the
realms of images, imaginings, and autonomous voices from the unknown. Jung (1957)
tells us that writing The Red Book was the most significant time in his life. Furthermore,
he declares that it was through his engagement into his inner world that he was able to
realize his life's work:
The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were
the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It
began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life
consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded
me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and
material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer
classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the
numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then. (p. vii)
Intrinsically, I felt the importance of participating in this group. Learning about the
practice of active imagination by reading books or taking a course regarding the subject
did not allow me to understand how it really worked. I needed to understand the process
of active imagination by immersing myself further in Jung's world through a regular
weekly schedule for an extensive period of time. As we take turns reading the book out
loud, sometimes pausing in silence, then discussing and questioning our interpretations
and challenges with the material, Jung's words lift off the pages and become more than
mere words—I can feel his dismemberments, discoveries, and new understandings of
being in my gut; I also can't help but question how I perceive the world through Jung's
explorations.
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Jung's (2009) The Red Book shows us how to engage and trust our inner lives; I
have never experienced nor witnessed such faith as he has in the unconscious. Jung's
devotion to the psyche and his firm belief in other realms, where the autonomous voices
wait to be heard and cultivated by us, is a stellar example of trusting in our psyche and
the creative unconscious. Jungian analyst J. Gordon Nelson, a prior president of The C.
G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, heads the group in helping us discover our own depths
by submersing ourselves in the material. Nelson teaches courses from Jung's Collected
Works and trains future Jungian analysts. His extensive knowledge of Jung's work,
history, literature, and religious studies, along with his clinical work, amplifies our
discussions to another level. In addition, Nelson is able to help us conceptualize the
material in the context of Jung's work. Going through this process enables me to learn
and foster the world within me and listen to the ancient Divine Feminine voices.
Realizing that I can never achieve liberation from my unconscious (nor would I
want to split off this divine source of wisdom), my intention is to converse with what is
unearthed, giving voice to the joys and grievances of being a woman while utilizing the
research design and phases of heuristic research. As a final point, my desire is not only
to grow as an individual, but also to help others in our human evolution.

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Chapter 5
Procedures
Organization of Study
A brief prospective overview of the dissertation manuscript as a whole will be
presented in this section. The organization and direction of the eight chapters are as
follows: Chapter 1 consists of the introduction of the topic and purpose statement,
relevance of the topic for clinical psychology, prime terms and definitions that will be
used throughout the study, autobiographical origins of my interest in the Divine
Feminine, and my predisposition to the topic and a dream about the goddesses and the
gods. Chapter 2 includes a brief history of the Great Goddess from Paleolithic Age to
contemporary times with a focus on depth psychological perspective. Chapter 3 contains
the question and statement of the research problem. Additional terms are also clarified
that will be used all through the study in this chapter. Chapter 4 explains the research
approach, methods, and organization that will be employed in this dissertation. Chapter 5
explicates the procedures used throughout this dissertation, including the organization of
study, participants and reflexivity/limitations, and ethical considerations. Chapter 6
presents the data and findings collected from travels along with past, present, and future
dreams, active imaginations, and incubations, including personal and collective
reflections and discussion of findings and methodology about the Black Madonna.
Chapter 7 includes the same sort of details as chapter 6, except the chapter is dedicated to
Mary Magdalene. Chapter 8 outlines the implications of the study for the methodology
and findings of clinical psychology and the development of depth psychology. It also
suggests how the Divine Feminine principles can assist us in our path of individuation.
Finally, a summary of this dissertation study will be found in this last chapter.
Participants and Reflexivity/Limitations
I will not use participants; I will be relating the texts examined with my
experiences to the subject. As previously discussed, the literature is drawn from depth
psychological perspectives and data collections gathered from travels, dreams, active
imaginations, incubations, and personal and collective reflections to support my research.
Moustakas (1990) reminds us:
The researcher must keep in mind throughout the process that the material
collected must depict the experience in accurate, comprehensive, rich, and vivid
terms. In heuristic research, depictions are often presented in stories, examples,
conversations, metaphors, and analogies, (p. 49)
The task and methods of organization and the analysis of data involve "timeless
immersion inside the data, with intervals of rest and return to the data until intimate
knowledge is obtained" (p. 49). My intention is to interpret and reflect on Jung's and
other Jungian analysts' and authors' perspective on the numinous experience of being a
woman, bringing in my experiences through my lens as a wounded healer.
The proposed research design will have certain limitations with respect to the
universal validity and reliability of findings because matters of the unconscious and the
soul are deeply personal and are not easily replicated or examined through scientific
analysis. The heuristic approach uses a qualitative methodology and validity that cannot
be described by statistics, measurement, or correlation. Divine Feminine wisdom cannot
be recognized, much less experienced or internalized, through reductive measurement
and rationalization. Moustakas (1990) emphasizes that "the question of validity is one of
meaning" (p. 32). 1 will question my authenticity, honesty, and integrity at all times and
will continually ask myself if the depiction of my experience comes from my rigorous
soul-searching or my inherited animus-driven self.

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I will be referencing the goddess myths with an awareness of what Downing
(2000) describes:
Recognition of the many goddesses that inform one's life also helps protect one
against inflationary identifications and against the sense of being swallowed up by
some fatally deterring mythic pattern. The goddesses also seem to find ways of
reminding us that they are indeed numinous forces, never reducible to our
attempts at psychological interpretation, (p. 2)
Although my intention is to understand the experience of being a woman by studying the
ancient goddesses—the female representations of God, it is important to emphasize that I
am not claiming that we become inflated and think of ourselves as divine goddesses and
become identified as Them for They inhabit the numinous realms, unlike us, who live in
our earthly reality. They are our archetypal mothers who endow Their ancient wisdoms
to heal us, but it is important to understand that we are not Them. The goddesses and the
gods do not take over identification with Them lightly. There are many examples found
in myths of mortal men or women becoming over identified with the gods or goddesses,
heroes and heroines, only to spiral down in a cataclysmic fall.
Ethical Considerations
I will comply with the standards established by the American Psychological
Association and with the procedures and standards set by Pacifica Graduate Institute's
Ethics Committee. In addition, I will be submitting an application for approval for the
Non-Use of Human Participants to Pacifica Graduate Institute's Ethics Committee along
with my dissertation proposal before continuing any other work towards this dissertation,
with the understanding that APA requires students to acknowledge whether or not human
participants will be utilized in the process.

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Finally, my writings about my family, friends, colleagues, and partners are made
from my own unique perspective. These subjective descriptions of my experiences make
no claim to be objective truth and instead serve to provide a more psychologically
meaningful window into inner experience. These psychological truths are seen through
the perspective and within the context of this dissertation and make no claim to represent
unbiased truths of whom they are.

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Chapter 6
The Black Madonna
"Go to your darkness within. You will find me there. "
Initial Engagement with the Black Madonna
Walking meditation.
During an early morning walking meditation by the ocean, I asked the Black
Madonna how I could evoke Her presence in my life, from which She replied, Go to your
darkness within. You will find me there. It is with these words that I begin this chapter
and describe my journey towards the Black Madonna. In this section, Her and She are
capitalized after developing a deeper connection to the Black Madonna as a
representation of the Divine Feminine.
My journey towards the Black Madonna.
My journey towards the Black Madonna began 7 years ago. In one of our classes
at Pacifica, she was presented to us as one of the symbols of the marginalized Divine
Feminine reemerging in our consciousness. It was the first time I had heard about the
Black Madonna, and 1 was deeply intrigued by her. Statuettes of the Black Madonna
were found throughout the school's bookstore, which caught my attention each time I
entered or passed by, as if she was calling me. I eventually purchased a statuette of her
image, brought her home to my sacred space, and placed her on my altar in our bedroom.
I was bewildered yet excited by her existence, and 1 hungered to know who she
really was and is. I had an indelible desire to understand why she exists in our world
today, innately feeling that she represented something that we are missing or neglecting
in us and in the world. In addition, as a woman of color, I wanted to identify and find the
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sacredness in her, so I could find divinity in myself. Moreover, I aspired to know what
social meanings or compelling implications she has in our world.
She was an enigma—a contradiction that exists in our Western culture. At first, it
was difficult for me to fathom that the Mother of God was black. I was socialized to see
Mother Mary as the pale-faced mother of God who was associated with the colors white
and blue representing virginity and heaven—a perfect amalgam of colors representing
purity and light. On the contrary, the Black Madonna is colored and almost always
dressed in festive and dazzling robes of gold, red, orange, yellow, blue, and green. The
photo images of the Black Madonna were complete paradoxes of the customary effigies
and chaste images of the ever-pure Virgin Mary I knew and grew up with in Catholic
school, which I previously discussed in chapter 1. In addition, I had my doubts about her
and was highly suspicious of how she was represented in the Catholic Church. I
imagined that perhaps our patriarchal fathers had used her darkened skin color as
propaganda or even as a political maneuver to compensate for the lack of colored
feminine representations of divinity in Catholicism. Yet, I longed to know why she was
so different from the Blessed Virgin Mary and which part of her I would be able to
integrate into my life to feel the sacredness and wholeness of being a woman.
I was surprised to discover that some of our Christian fathers deny or entirely
disregard her skin color. In The Cult of the Black Virgin, Jungian analyst Ean Begg
(2006) tells us how Christianity minimized and deflected her darkness, "so, blackness in
statues of the Virgin tends to be ignored and, where admitted, is attributed to the effects
of candle smoke, burial, immersion or fashion's passing whim" (p. 2). Furthermore,
Begg lets us know that the Catholic forefathers believed that her dark-skinned
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complexion was a mere chance and unintentional: "the contention, then, of the Catholic
Church is that most such statues were not originally intended to be black, and only
became so by accident later" (p. 2). Some of our patriarchal fathers seemed to want to
hide the significance of her blackness, promulgating that the more than 450 darkened
images of the Black Madonna all over the world that Begg (2006) describes were
accidents. Begg further proclaims, "the fact remains that they are black and to discuss
the phenomenon in visual terms only is to disguise their deepest significance" (p. 2). The
Black Madonna is darkened for a reason; she harbors a concealed message.
In spite of the contradictions, confusion, and doubts I felt about her existence,
my instincts told me that there was a Divine Feminine secret yearning to be rediscovered
in her—and that she held an archaic knowledge or wisdom from the Ancient Mother that
I hungered to learn and understand. I was enraptured when she came to me in my dream.
A dream from the Black Madonna.
I stood in front of Jungian analyst and author Marion Woodman's house
searching for something significant that was missing from me. I knew that Marion was
not home; yet, I knew 1 was there for a reason. Bemused, I realized that it was not her
that I was meant to see—she was just the messenger.
I was preventedfrom knocking at her front door and asking others who might be
at her house if a message was waiting for me by a tall white iron gate. 1 noticed two
large sarcophagi in front of the gate, much like the ones I have seen while visiting The
Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. I walked towards the sarcophagi andfound an
inscription on the left tomb. Hoping that this was the message I was meant to discover, I
wanted to decipher what was inscribed on the sarcophagus. Holding the gate with my
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right hand while suspending myself above the sarcophagus, I was still unable to read the
words, the writing being blurry andfaded. I could not maneuver myself into the right
angle where I could read the inscription on the large tomb. I became aware that my
actions could be profoundly disrespectful to the spirits of the dead if I were to step on top
of the sarcophagus. I struggled to contain my impatience, frustration, and
disappointment about being unable to read the message. I chose to walk away, realizing
that the answers I was seeking would not be forced into revealing themselves. They were
demanding my patience and trust that something else awaited me.
The next day, I found myself in a lecture hall where Marion Woodman was the
speaker. She appeared before us and urged us all to go to the Black Madonna of
Montserrat to find answers for the questions we seek.
Reflections and dream interpretation.
I awoke knowing that the message I was looking for lies with the Black Madonna
and not with the spirits of the dead. I was not going to find the answers I was seeking
externally, even from someone whom I consider one of the most respected Jungian
analysts and who wrote several books about the sacred feminine, or from any other
human being. Nor would the ancestors representing the sarcophagi in my dream grant
my wishes to find the sacred feminine until I do my own work. I was to find the answers
to my question of how we integrate the marginalized Divine Feminine within our selves
and our world as a path towards individuation directly from the Black Madonna. The
dream made me aware that only She can quench my deep-seated thirst for experiencing
divine femininity by reaching down to the depths of my consciousness.

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I had incorporated the sarcophagi in my dream with Ancient Egypt. The ancient
landscapes of Egypt hold many secrets and mysteries of our ancestors; it was also where 1
saw many amazing sarcophagi, which felt like little temples to me. They were exquisite,
meticulously carved with gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt. There is a sarcophagus
in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid that is known to be a vibration or sounding
chamber to create altered states of consciousness where revelations and insights occurred.
In the 13th Step: A Global Journey in Search of our Cosmic Destiny, scientist and mystic
Jude Currivan (2007) wrote about an event when a few of her fellow pilgrims engaged in
the ancient practice of incubation inside the King's Chambers of the Great Pyramid:
"others had chosen to spend time in the so-called sarcophagus, the casket of solid granite
within which, through the millennia, many initiates had gained profound insights" (p.
249). The sarcophagi are thought by some to be incubation chambers for dreams,
visions, or altered states, and not necessarily tombs.
Many people think that the Black Madonna and young Jesus originated from Isis
and Horus. In The Priest, a monthly magazine for ordained Catholic priests, Matthew
Rzeczkowski (2006) specifically tells us that shepherds who went into a cave found a
statue of the Black Madonna during the 9th century. Moreover, Rzeczkowski claims that
the shepherds who found the Black Madonna of Montserrat "had mistaken a statue of Isis
and Horus for a Madonna and Child" (p. 41). The Egyptian ancestors are pointing me
towards the Black Madonna of Montserrat to become aware that the Black Madonna is a
link to our Ancient Mother.
I also became aware that 1 could not rush this journey towards her. The Black
Madonna's guidance would not be forced. She would reveal her secrets only through
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patiently listening to my dreams, engaging in active imagination, meditation, and inward
reflection. I am beckoned to listen and stay loyal to her Divine Feminine ways of Eros,
instinct, compassion, openness, and willingness, and refrain from the more masculine
ways of force, logic, and control. I was profoundly grateful for this dream, knowing that
she has called me to go deeper into her ancient mystery.
Immersion: Pilgrimages to the Black Madonna
After undergoing a multifarious research about the Black Madonna, I still felt
removed from her. There was something missing which I intended to find out. Having
faith that she would guide me towards her, I remained hopeful that she was able to feel
my sincerity, openness, and willingness to experience the Self in her. I surrendered
myself to her in my waking and sleeping hours. I had a deep inner knowing that I needed
to immerse myself fully into her energy by going on pilgrimages where she has been a
part of the landscape and people's lives for centuries. For 5 consecutive years, I sought
her presence in different parts of the world, hoping to understand the phenomenon of the
Black Madonna and to pierce through her mystery.
The Black Madonna of Tindari in Italy.
My first trip to see the Black Madonna was in 2006 with my family. I fervently
planned a pilgrimage to meet the Black Madonna at a sanctuary located in the outskirts of
Sicily, in a town called Tindari, about an hour drive from Messina—the port of Sicily.
The driver drove a bus full of pilgrims through the Palermo-Messina motorway between
Capo Dorland and Milozzo on the Northeastern shore of Sicily. Way up on a bluff
overlooking the Tyrrhenian Coast with an incredible view of the Aeolian Islands was the
sanctuary of the revered Black Madonna of Tindari, dating back to the second half of the
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1st millennium. The Greeks founded Tindari, formerly called Tyndaris, in the 4th
century BC, which then became a Roman city in 254 BC because of its strategic
importance for guarding the coastal routes of the Tyrrhenian Sea. During the Roman
period, there stood a temple dedicated to the fertility Goddess Cybele, also known as the
Great Mother, where the sanctuary of the Black Madonna was built. Perhaps the Ancient
Mother was revered in Tyndaris even before Roman times, since Sicily was an important
gateway for many countries in the Mediterranean and was amongst the last known places,
along with Crete, Malta, and Anatolia, where the prehistoric Great Mother was revered
(as I previously stated in chapter 2).
I sat in the bus with anticipation and excitement, and as we drove along the windy
road, I caught a glimpse of the sanctuary lodged on the mountaintop. I felt the energy
from the top of my head move towards the soles of my feet, reaching downward to the
mountain and into the earth's core. I felt euphoric and grounded at the same time. I
imagined the thousands of pilgrims who have done what we were about to do since
antiquity. I envisioned them ascending to the mountain by foot or by horse with their
carriages at times, carrying offerings and bringing their families along, as I was doing
that day. I felt the blessedness of the moment, knowing that we have become a part of
them, as they were a part of us. I felt joyous that I was given this opportunity to meet her
and participate in the sacred quest of honoring the Divine Feminine. Something within
me was awakened at that moment. There was a sense of knowing, a sense of
belonging—a quickening. Perhaps I touched upon a sacred ritual that was embedded in
my unconscious since ancient times. I took a long breath and relaxed into the moment,
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realizing that it was not an accident that 1 was in Italy to see her—She had beckoned me
to come to Her.
I walked up a few steps and opened the large wooden door. There across the
Byzantine church, high up on the altar, was the Black Madonna, just as I used to see the
Virgin Mary when 1 went to church as a child. On the church ceiling was a beautiful
towering fresco of her ascension to heaven. Having waited to see her for a long time, I
did not want to waste another moment, walking as close as I could to see her. I stood in
front of her with awe and reverence, mesmerized by her presence. Yes, it is absolutely
true! She exists! What's more, the Black Madonna is being revered in a Catholic
Church. She was no longer just a part of my imagination or images I have seen in books
and websites; She became a reality to me at that moment.
A large inscription underneath Her figure read "nigra sum sed Formosa" (black
am I, but beautiful), a passage found in the Song of Songs in the Holy Bible Song of
Solomon 1.5. This passage has several meanings, one of which represents the
relationship between God and the Christian church; another is a representation of the love
and joys of marriage, which Wierbse (1991) describes as "a holy expression of true
commitment in marriage" (p. 445). The passage also represents the marriage of King
Solomon and Sheba, representative of Hieros Gamos (the marriage of the masculine and
feminine). In addition, the Black Madonna of Tindari stood tall and proud of Her
blackness: She symbolized the acceptance of our darkness within. Two large angels held
Her up, while two more angels carried Her golden crown. She was dressed in ravishing
colors of red and gold, and She carried Jesus as a young boy. She is a paradox in our
Western society, beautiful and black, sacred and dark, representing Mother Mary and the
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Great Mother as one! I became quiet while stillness permeated my very being—
witnessing, accepting, and soaking in the sacred moment I was experiencing.
The Black Madonna of Rocamadour in France.
The next year, I went on a Divine Feminine pilgrimage to France with the
renowned author and theologian, Margaret Starbird. At that time, Margaret has published
six books about the Divine Feminine. My purpose in going with her on a 2-week
pilgrimage was to further my knowledge about the Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene.
First, we visited the Black Madonna of Rocamadour in Southwestern France—a
region known as the Dordogne where She is known as Our Lady of Rocamadour. Built
on a cliff, the medieval city is one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. There
were churches and chapels built on the side of the rock with a fortified castle that stood at
the edge of an abyss. The medieval village below and the Alzon River at the bottom of
the valley were absolutely breathtaking. There was magic surrounding the misty
landscape where the Marian mystery is tucked away in the holy mountain in its splendor
and magnificence.
The church's guidebook (Poux, 2006) tells us that "during the entire Middle Ages,
Rocamadour was the greatest western pilgrimage (p. 13). Our Lady of Rocamadour is
also revered for her compassionate intercession in severe cases of infertility,
imprisonment, and dangers at sea" (Starbird, 2003, p. 67). A brief visit to Her there
affirmed Her revered existence in other parts of the world once again. People from
generations ago built a city on a cliff dedicated to the Black Madonna. I can only
imagine their impassioned dedication, devotion, and commitment towards Her. It must
have taken immense effort to build a town on a rock to honor the Black Madonna.
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I experienced Her strong, earthy, and grounded force in Rocamadour. Our Lady
of Rocamadour was carved out of wood, and unlike other images of Her 1 had seen, She
was not adorned with beautiful and luxurious garments. In addition, She appeared
unrefined, Her features not as delicately carved as most of the Black Madonnas'. She
only wears a gold crown and necklace. Poux (2006) describes the Black Madonna of
Rocamadour as the "majestic Virgin from the end of the twelfth century that has been
crudely carved and blackened, then partially covered with silver plate. It sits on a
hollowed-out block in a reliquary" (p. 174). At Rocamadour, She is as strong as the rock
that She sits on at the top of the mountain. I will further elaborate on our travels
dedicated to Mary Magdalene in the next chapter.
The Black Madonna of Chartres in France.
In the summer of 2008, my third pilgrimage to the Divine Feminine entailed
visiting the Black Madonna in Chartres and in Paris, France. I was eager to go to
Chartres Cathedral not only to see the Black Madonna, but also to walk one of the last
existing medieval labyrinths in the world.
Chartres Cathedral is famous for housing a sacred relic believed to be the tunic
worn by Mother Mary when giving birth to Jesus. Historically, it was said that Charles
the Bald gave the tunic to the cathedral in 896 AD. The cathedral has gone through many
fires and was last rebuilt in 1194. Chartres Cathedral is also known for its architecture,
stained-glass windows, labyrinth, and the sacred Black Madonnas—Our Lady of the
Pillar and Our Lady of the Underground, also called Our Lady of the Crypt. The famed
labyrinth was recreated from the mythical legend of Minos from Knossos in Crete.
According to the myth, Ariadne helped Theseus find his way out of the labyrinth by
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giving him a thread, after he killed the Minotaur. Furthermore, a legend contends that the
Druids lived in this holy land. The town used to be called Carnutes, named after the
Gallic people who occupied the territory in the ancient world when the Marian cult
existed. Famous lecturer and author of Chartres Cathedral Malcolm Miller (1985)
describes this ancient site:
The origins of Chartres are lost in the mists of time, where legend and history are
interwoven, and have been further confused by the imagination of later centuries,
which mingled a Druidic tradition with a pre-Christian virgin-mother cult, first
mentioned in the 14th century, (p. 8)
Philosopher and historian Jean Markale (1988/2004) tells us that the mound where
Chartres Cathedral was built used to be "the site of a pagan temple in which a mysterious
well had been discovered along with a statue depicting a virgo paritura, a 'Virgin on the
threshold of giving birth'" (p. 13). Markale continues to let us know that "the Druids, it
was said, were responsible for erecting the statue, for they had long foreseen the mystery
of the Incarnation" (p. 13). Today in our modern world, we think of the Druids as
magicians or wizards, but in ancient times, they were considered the philosophers,
priests, and learned men (Markale). The city of Chartres has been a place of legends,
myths, and magic since ancient times. The area is also of great importance because there
used to be a temple dedicated to Cybele, mother of the Gods, where Chartres Cathedral
was erected.
Built in the 12th century, Chartres Cathedral is one of the most captivating and
enchanting places I have ever experienced. It was no wonder Miller (1985) describes this
sacred place as "a pilgrimage shrine . .. [that] was thought of as the earthly palace of the
Queen of Heaven" (p. 9). The external look of this medieval cathedral is unique; the left
tower was designed in gothic style and the right tower built in a Romanesque manner. A
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myriad of large sculptures, large stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, and
extraordinary figurines graced the cathedral made in limestone; yet, the interior of the
cathedral was an even greater splendor to behold and experience.
In the film Chartres Cathedral: A Sacred Geometry (Illig, 2003), Professor Keith
Critchlow, a leading expert of sacred geometry who studied the mysteries of Chartres
Cathedral for more than forty years, tells us that the cathedral was built on a powerful
sacred spot and natural peak on the earth's energy field. Critchlow also states that the
town was already drawing people like a magnet during pre-Christian times. Chartres
Cathedral was built on a vortex or an opening to another realm since ancient times.
I remembered the coolness and darkness that filled my senses when I first entered
the cathedral as if I was walking into another dimension. Walking away from the
entrance facing the nave, I felt the unevenness of the age-old stones with every step I
took. I stood in one place for a few seconds as my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the
room. I felt the luminescent colors and light flood me with intensity, and wondered
where the brilliance came from. I looked behind me and saw the largest stained-glass
windows I have ever laid my eyes on. I was in awe of the stained-glass windows that
served as the narrative to the scriptures and teachings of the Catholic Church since
medieval times, when most people were illiterate. While standing between the large
wooden doors facing the nave, I saw the ancient labyrinth hidden underneath wooden
chairs.
Captivated by the grandeur and extraordinary beauty that surrounded me, I bathed
in the light and darkness that permeated the cathedral and took it all in. I visualized my
chakras open completely to become receptive to the energy of Chartres. I took a long
breath, exhaled, feeling the holiness of this sacred space. Yes, I felt the magic and
mystery that permeated through my very existence. I opened my eyes and knew it was
time to see the Black Madonna.
Our Lady of the Pillar.
I walked towards the nave and found Our Lady of the Pillar in the northern side
of the ambulatory to the left of the choir. The sanctuary of the Black Madonna was
enclosed with chairs and kneeling benches. 1 went in front of the sanctuary and knelt
before her, experiencing a deeper closeness to her than 1 had on my previous pilgrimages
to her. It may be that the strong energy that exists at Chartres magnified my experience
of her. Engaging in the archaic ritual of invoking Her holy presence, I felt Her
timelessness and sacredness in my body, heart, and soul. For a while, I lost touch with
where I was, and I just basked in Her divine presence. I felt Her tenderness and strength
at the same time, and for the first time, I felt Her alive in me, pulsating throughout every
cell in my body. My spirit was rapturous as I began to tear up. I felt Her presence and
powerful force as I feel it even now while writing about that sacred moment.
An old woman walked up and embraced with complete reverence the pillar where
the Black Madonna stood, as I continued kneeling down to pray to Her. I felt the old
woman's genuine passion and love for the Black Madonna, as if she has known and loved
Her all of her life. Perhaps She has been part of her family for generations. I was in awe
of what I was witnessing. The old lady began to kiss the pillar where the Black Madonna
stood. I was mesmerized by her gestures of adoration and reverence towards Our Lady of
the Pillar. I felt as if I was being transformed to another world, and I was immensely
honored to witness her complete devotion to the Black Madonna. That profound
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experience pierced through my heart and permeated my soul, and it was at that point that
I was no longer just an onlooker or someone who needed to justify Her existence.
I was saddened to leave, but we had to get back to Paris before nightfall. One can
only visit the crypt and walk the labyrinth at very few and specific times and days of the
week. Disappointed that 1 was unable to walk the labyrinth and visit the Black Madonna
of the Crypt, I made the decision to return on a Friday when we would be permitted to do
both.
Our Lady of the Crypt.
After 3 days, my husband and I returned and entered the side door to the crypt of
Chartres Cathedral. I was open to the mystery that lay in front of me as our guide led us
down to the crypt. I was overwhelmed by the utter darkness, mustiness, and coolness that
engulfed us. For a second, 1 felt trapped, afraid that there was not enough air to sustain
us underneath the large cathedral. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and connected to
the quietness within me as I asked for Her guidance and protection. I opened my eyes
and felt relaxed and at peace, giving way to what was about to come.
There were no large crowds gathering to reach out to Her below the cathedral. So
many people above the crypt are in awe of the stained-glass windows and architecture,
while neglecting the Ancient Dark Goddess in the crypt situated in the foundation
holding the cathedral. The Dark Goddess's home in the dark underground depicts the
Ancient Mother's rejection and neglect for centuries. Underneath the cathedral, She is
Her pagan self, with less pomp and display of Christian symbols. Although the statue of
the Black Madonna is a replica from the original that was burnt in the French revolution,
I still felt Her strong presence there. It may be that the energy I was feeling stemmed
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from the resonance of thousands of people who have worshipped Her there for years
since pagan times, or perhaps it was because She was closer to the holy ground or vortex
where She stood. The sacred and famous Well of the Saints-Forts from the name Locus
Fortis or the Strong Place said to have healed many people since antiquity is also located
in the crypt.
Our Lady of the Crypt felt very different from the gentleness I felt from Our Lady
of the Pillar. In the crypt, She was the earthy Ancient Mother—the Ancient Goddess,
housed in darkness; She felt like our womb—our Mother Earth. How ingenious of the
architects of this holy cathedral to have Her live in both places as She does within all of
us and in our world. It was a full experience of Her that I will never forget and which I
will carry with me for the rest of my life. I ascended up the stairs and felt the morning
light shine upon me, welcoming me back to the upper world, feeling blessed and blissful.
Walking the labyrinth.
The labyrinth is said to symbolize the journey to the divine. In medieval times,
one was to take this symbolic path before journeying to the holy land of Jerusalem—a
dream for many people for hundreds of years (Miller, 1985). Unfortunately, today, the
labyrinth is somewhat hidden by wooden chairs that line the nave of the church, and can
only be walked during summer months for a few hours on Fridays, which is also subject
to change when special events, services or funerals are scheduled. I was grateful to
partake in this holy ritual and was aware of the limited time available. For me, it has
been a sacred outer and inner journey to the Divine Feminine, and my intention was to
walk the labyrinth in honor of finding the divine in Her. This time, as I entered Chartres
Cathedral, I took my shoes off, for 1 had decided to walk the labyrinth barefoot to feel the
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vibrations of the cold uneven stones beneath my feet. I wanted to be open to the energy
emanating from this sacred place. I dropped down into a place of deep silence to
commune with the Holy Spirit while walking the labyrinth, partaking in yet another of
Her sacred mysteries.
Each time I took a step forward, I was reminded of the thousands of pilgrims who
have participated in this ritual since ancient times. I knew that there would be many
more pilgrims who would participate in this holy tradition for centuries to come, way
beyond my existence in this worldly plane. Deep in my soul, I innately felt as if we were
all one, I was a part of them, as they were a part of me—following our instincts and deep-
seated desire to commune with the divine.
I reached the center of the labyrinth, and to my dismay, people who worked for
the cathedral started placing the chairs back rapidly, which seemed strange because the
labyrinth was supposed to remain open for another 20 minutes. Furthermore, there were
hundreds of vacant chairs already. There was almost a militant feel to their intensity as
they placed chairs in the path of the walking pilgrims with precision and steadfastness.
Perhaps the modern custodians of the cathedral now only briefly tolerate this ancient
sacred practice.
I was jolted away from my walking meditation and prayers as 1 stood in the center
of the labyrinth. I was grateful that 1 was at least able to reach the center of the labyrinth;
but sad that I was not able to walk the labyrinth back. I tried to connect with the
guardians of the church and ask for only a few minutes for no more than ten of us who
were already in the labyrinth to finish our quests, but they were deaf to me, reminding me
once again of the patriarchal presence within the church. I contained my disappointment
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about not being able to complete my journey back as we walked out of the cathedral,
making a decision to be grateful for the sacred moments I experienced there instead. I
was not going to let my hallowed experience be taken away from me by the rigorous
adherence to and enforcement of the masculine ways of order, insensitivity, and control.
The Black Madonna of Paris in France.
The Black Madonna of Paris can be found in the chapel of the Congregation of
the Sisters of St. Thomas of Villeneuve, where She is called the Notre Dame de Bonne
Delivrance or Our Lady of Good Deliverance, located in Neuilly-Sur-Seine. Neuilly is
an upscale suburb in the outskirts of Paris where the wealthy and bourgeois reside.
Neuilly has a very special place in my heart because I lived there as a student when I was
in my 20s. I look back at those times when my two roommates and I lived more carefree
lives with fond memories. At that time, I was unaware that I lived in the same town
where the Black Madonna resided. I knew there was a church nearby, but I had no idea
that there was a Black Madonna there, nor did I even have a concept of Her existence.
Out of all the neighborhoods in Paris, I found it synchronistic that I lived in the same
town where She has been for centuries. Although 1 had lived close to Her, I was not
ready to heed to Her call.
I rang the doorbell to the convent and a black iron door opened. A nun in her
habit greeted us and showed us the way to the chapel where She is housed. I saw the
Black Madonna immediately when 1 entered the small, well-lit church. The Black
Madonna of Paris appeared very beautiful, serene, and regal. She wore a beautiful gown
of red, white, and blue with gold designs throughout Her habiliment. She held a staff of
the fleur-de-lys on Her right arm, the symbol of monarchy in France, holding Jesus as a
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boy on Her left arm. The graciousness and simplicity of the chapel were striking,
inducing a feeling of peacefulness within me.
Many famous people and lay men and women have prayed at the feet of Our Lady
of Good Deliverance since ancient times, when She used to be in the church of St.
Etienne des Gres in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 11,h century. A wealthy and pious
lady hid the Black Madonna during the French Revolution when most of the original
Black Madonnas were destroyed. Our Lady of Good Deliverance is one of the few
genuine Black Madonna figures that survived the French Revolution. Madame de
Carignan gave the statue of the Black Madonna to the Sisters of St. Thomas de
Villeneuve after she was released from prison, so the Parisian pilgrimage to the Black
Madonna could continue even after the revolution. The Sisters of St. Thomas de
Villeneuve built their chapel to house Her and carry on the tradition.
There were well known pilgrims who revered Her, such as St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Dominic, and most especially Francis de Sales. Francis de Sales renounced all his
worldly belongings while praying to Her, later becoming known to us as St. Francis. She
has been a guiding star for many people for a long time.
It took more than twenty years, since I lived in the neighborhood, until I was able
to recognize and accept Her in my heart, where She had been all along. I felt a sense of
healing, knowing that there was a part of my old self that was coming home to Her. I
believed that She was helping me integrate parts of myself that I had long ago left in
Neuilly and Paris into who I am now.

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The Black Madonna of Marseilles in France.
The following year, I went back to France with Sophie, a mentor and fellow
pilgrim. Inspired by a dream she had about traveling to sacred places with Margaret
Starbird and me, we left our beloved husbands, children, and work behind for several
weeks to answer to Her calling. Our experiences were multifold, both profound and
bittersweet as we journeyed through the darkness as well as the light in search of the
Divine Feminine.
Margaret advised us to see the Black Madonna at St. Victor's Church in
Marseilles. We took the train from Paris to Marseilles, where an angry taxicab driver
picked us up. She wore high heels, and we watched her place our heavy pieces of
luggage in the trunk of her taxicab. She was aggressive and relentless as she cut through
the queue of men whose turn it was to take us. She overcharged us, then dropped us off
at our hotel, which we found was fully booked. We checked for availability at other
hotels in the area to no avail. We were stuck without a place to stay in the middle of the
night, in a strange port, far away from home. We continued to walk with our luggage in
the streets of Marseilles, while wondering if the strangeness we were experiencing
foreshadowed what was to come.
Marseilles, the capital of Provence, is located in the southeastern region of
France; it is the oldest and the second largest city in France next to Paris. The Greeks
founded the ancient trading port of Marseilles in 600 BC, and the city has been a melting
pot of races and cultures since then. Marseilles seemed grittier than any other of the
cities or towns 1 have visited throughout France, with a flux of different energies there. A
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film called the French Connection (D'Antoni, 1971) and many other French films depicts
Marseilles as a place renowned for gangsters and mobsters.
Fortunately, we found a tourist information office that was still open, and they
helped us find a hotel room for the night. Exhausted and distressed by the challenges we
had undergone, we were looking forward to a restful night, which was not to be. Instead,
we experienced an ominous energy in our hotel room—a ghostlike energy emitting a hot
and heavy feel. We began perspiring profusely, and our windows became foggy. We
thought it was strange, because it was spring and the weather was cool outside. We
opened the window to let the fresh air in, but we had to close it again, for it was unsafe to
leave the window open by the port in the middle of the night. 1 lit a candle and we
prayed ourselves to sleep—very early in the morning. When sunrise finally came, we
were anxious to leave the hotel. No wonder it was the only place with rooms available.
Our room was haunted! Maybe the foreboding feeling we experienced when we entered
the town was true after all.
After breakfast, we walked towards the Abbey of Saint-Victor and noticed that
there were groups of people who were going up to a more popular church on top of the
mountain; but that there were only a handful of us who were going to the less visited and
aged Abbey of Saint-Victor.
The abbey is the oldest church in Marseilles, founded as a monastery in the 5th
century (Ellul, 1997). The church was built on Saint Victor's tomb site, a local Christian
martyr's tomb site. Parts of the church have been rebuilt or added on throughout the
centuries. Notre Dame de la Confession or Our Lady of the Witness is found in the crypt,
which is also the oldest section of the church.

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As we entered the underground of the abbey, we could see the Black Madonna
lodged in an unusual spot. She was not placed up in the altar of the crypt. 1 walked
closer towards the Black Madonna, stopped, and looked away. I could not even look at
her for more than a few seconds because she looked so frightening to me. She looked
enraged. Sophie and I continued to walk towards her, realizing that she looked different
depending on how far away you stood from her. It was unusual, for as we got closer, her
enraged facial expression turned into deep sadness. Feelings of profound sadness
overcame me as I felt my heart opened up and cry for Her. I glanced over at Sophie, and
she looked even sadder than I was; we seemed to have had the same experience of Her.
The Black Madonna of Marseilles was placed in the most obscure location, banished
from people's view. I sat on the front pew and then the last pew facing the altar, but I
couldn't see her from either place. She was literally hidden, tucked away within the cove
of the altar, only visible if you searched for her. The people amongst us did not even stop
to look at her; Sophie and I were the only ones in front of her.
She was concealed, rejected, and disregarded, tucked away in a little corner in the
basement of the church, where our forefathers and other people have chosen to reject and
ignore Her. It must have been difficult for Her to be hidden in the crypt for all those
centuries. Maybe our encounter with the angry female cab driver in the beginning of our
stay symbolized the darker aspects of the Black Madonna in Marseilles.
The Black Madonna of Le Puy-en-Velay in France.
The town of Le Puy is located in south central France and is famous for being
one of the main starting points for one of the most popular pilgrimage in Europe since
medieval times. The Way of St. James consists of 994 miles that ends in Spain. Every
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morning, the priests from the cloister bless the pilgrims who embark on this long and
arduous journey.
We walked through the ancient cobblestone streets and stairs to reach the top of
the sacred Mount Anis. In ancient times, the mountain was the site of a druidic altar,
which was then replaced by a temple dedicated to Jupiter during the Roman occupation.
The view was spectacular and the Romanesque Cathedral of Notre-Dame du Puy was
beautiful. Sophie and I went directly to the altar of the Black Madonna, but she did not
look like the image of the Black Madonna I have seen through my research.
We asked a nun in the gift shop where we could locate the other Black Madonna
of Le Puy. It seemed as if she was once again tucked away in a cove within the church
where she could be easily missed. We opened the ordinary doors that housed the Black
Madonna of Le Puy, who is believed to be Isis. According to the author of the
cathedral's guidebook, Michel Pomarat (1999), a geologist named Faujas de St.-Fond
studied the statue of the Black Madonna in 1777:
After his close inspection, Faujas de St-Fond concluded from the tradition, from
the way the statue was wrapped and painted and from the Greek crosses similar to
the ones on the "Isis table, the hieroglyphic obelisk in Rome" related to "the
measurement of the river Nile," that it could be a statue of Isis and Osiris
"transformed into a Virgin" which he says, "could not wrong the religion in any
way because the good intent alone is important." (p. 12)
Isis was revered as the Ancient Mother in the Greco-Roman period until Christianity
eradicated paganism. Many people believe that Isis and her son Horus was transformed
into the Black Madonna of Le Puy with young Jesus. Dressed in multitude of colors, She
wears a copper like helmet unlike any Black Madonna I have seen.
We were able to get very close to her, for we were the only ones in the small
chapel. We stood in front of the Black Madonna, feeling fortunate to be with her in
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solace until an irate old man began yelling at us to leave the altar. He scurried down the
aisle towards us in full force, spewing crude remarks in French. I was frightened by what
seemed to me like a three-legged man as his footsteps and his cane reverberated
throughout the chapel. He wanted us to leave, and it seemed as though he was going to
physically move us if we did not. I felt my heart palpitating with terror as we headed
towards the door to leave, taken aback by his strong adverse reaction towards us.
After succeeding in driving us out of Her holy place during a sacred moment, he
took the rope divider and quickly closed the section we were in. Satisfied by our
departure, he happily sat down on the front pew. The old man acted like he owned her;
guarding her like an insanely intoxicated lover who wanted her all for himself. I felt
violated as if we had been pushed away from our sacred experience of the sacred
feminine by patriarchy.
Our previous hostile and sorrowful experience from Marseilles came back to me
as I continued to wonder why we experienced such hostilities there and in Le Puy. Could
it be that the Black Madonna was showing us how She is still being treated today?
Maybe She was telling us that our patriarchal society still tries to possess, hide, and
mistreat Her.
The Black Madonna of Montserrat in Spain.
Lastly, in December 2010,1 paid homage to the Black Madonna who appeared in
my dream, which 1 described in the beginning of this chapter. Montserrat is near
Barcelona in Spain, where She is also called La Moreneta. Montserrat, meaning
"serrated mountain," is located to the right of the Llobregat River between the Coastal
Depression and the Plain of Bages. The Benedictine Monastery found in Montserrat is
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one of the most important and sacred symbols of the Catalan people, as Molas writes:
"for many believers Montserrat is a place of encounter with God" (1998/2007, p. 5).
Molas further states, "in 880 AD, the image of the Mother of God is found, according to
legend, in a cave in the mountain" (p. 12). Many miracles have occurred in this holy
mountain, and many famous people have made pilgrimages to the Black Madonna of
Montserrat, including St. Loyola de Ignatius and Pope John Paul II. In 1522, St. Loyola
de Ignatius spent the night in prayer to the Black Madonna, renouncing his military life,
and dedicating his life solely to God soon after.
My pilgrimages to seven sacred sites of the Black Madonna in 5 years prompted
a profound integration within my heart, body, and soul that took place during my visit to
Her in Montserrat. I felt content and at peace, experiencing a complete shift—an inner
knowing that She truly exists within our world and me.
The shift happened as a result of all the experiences of the Black Madonna from
previous years. I felt Her love while praying to Her not only at Montserrat, but also at the
previous sites I mentioned in this chapter. Witnessing other people's love for the Black
Madonna also helped break down the barriers of my socialization and old beliefs of Her;
it opened my heart to embrace the Black Madonna and Isis as our Ancient Mother and as
our ancestral heritage. Moreover, I felt the inner movements in my body when I was in
Her presence during my pilgrimages—awakenings and quickening from the depths of my
soul that have transpired during my journeys to Her added to the realization that She is
for real and not just a concept of our patriarchal fathers.
It was after my pilgrimage to Montserrat that 1 no longer felt the need to search
for Her outside of me as I once did, because 1 have internalized and integrated Her in my
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psyche, truly knowing that She is and will always be in me. It is truly amazing how I was
pointed to go to the Black Madonna of Montserrat in my dream, to find answers for the
questions 1 sought about the Divine Feminine when I first started this journey. It seems
that I have come full circle, creating a transformation and a shift in me that allows me to
know that the Ancient Mother is still here with us. I also knew that this knowledge
creates a responsibility to apply the new awareness I received from Her in my everyday
life and to help others find Her within them.
Incubation
Following my immersion with the Black Madonna, in travels and pilgrimages to
some of Her sacred sites, I devoted time to silently nourishing the seeds of wisdom I had
gained from Her through active imaginations, dreams, reflections, and meditations. I was
open and willing to extend my understanding to levels outside my immediate awareness:
I surrendered to the realm of the unknown where the creative forces lie. My inner work
of listening to my psyche in the realm of the unconscious deepened the insights and
revelations I received from my pilgrimages to the Black Madonna. I had many dreams
during this time. I will not be able to write about them fully, but I will focus on the
essential features of my deepening relationship to the Black Madonna. The next dream
represented the deepening of my own shadows and resistances to the darker aspects of the
Divine Feminine. I am including this next dream because I needed to examine the
marginalization of the Divine Feminine within me. Furthermore, this dream brought
about a revelation that the Divine Masculine also yearns to be redeemed with the help of

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A dream with archetypal images.
I lived in a town located on a cliff. Looking down at the sea, we could see many
gigantic fish gazing at us. They seemed ominous— not the kind offish one would eat.
One large fish, about nine feet in length and three feet wide, was so aggressive, jumping
up the cliff, grasping for air while it sat there staring at us. It was frightening, so I ran to
my cabin to hide. An old man who loved to clobber fish walked towards it with his
wooden bat. I imagined he clobbered the fish to death because when I came out of my
cabin, I only saw the bottom half of the fish without its tail, and it appeared as if it was
cooked.
The old man would go to the bottom of the cliff and kill more fishes for the next 7
days. It seemed senseless and mean-spirited, because he was not even eating them nor
giving the meat for others to eat. It seemed as if it was a mere sport to him to kill them.
It seemed to give him immense satisfaction. I decided to report him to the authorities
even though I knew that he would go to jail for what he had done, but I wanted his
malicious actions of killing the gigantic fish for his sheer enjoyment to stop.
In the next segment of my dream, my husband and I are on a cliff where we
watched a white, bull-like mythical creature climb to the top of the mountain. I was
amazed at how it was able to go up as high as it did. The cliff was very dangerous; one
wrong step could be fatal. I told my husband that if his father were present he would
hunt and slaughter the mythical animal, for his father is a hunter who practices and
believes in the primal ways of hunting, skinning, and eating the animals he hunts. Doug
agreed with me. I went in the cabin where there was an old shower.
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This dream deeply affected me because I was afraid that I had conjured up
frightening forces that I did not know how to handle. I did not write for weeks, for I felt
that I needed to just hold the dream and let it incubate before I delved deeper into the
material.
I was frightened by the multitude of gigantic fish that looked monstrous. They
seemed ancient, as if they came from the deep sea—from the deep unconscious. They
felt archetypal, from an authentic deep layer of the unconscious. The creatures seemed
mythical, and they very badly wanted to convey something to me. De Vries and De Vries
(2004) tell us that a fish represents "the self hidden in the sea of the unconscious" (p.
230). Furthermore, the authors state that the fish is the symbol of the soul (p. 230).
Additionally, De Vries and De Vries let us know that in Volume 9 of Part ii of C. G. Jung
Collected Works, Jung states that a fish is "one of the many theriomorphic symbols of the
Self in dreams" (p. 230). I felt that the fishes were from a different world, perhaps even
deities. The fish were representations of the whole. Intrinsically, I knew that I was
connecting to a very deep archetypal level of the psyche, which is beautiful and rich, yet
ugly and frightening. By doing this work and reaching out to the archaic mysteries of the
Divine Feminine, it feels as if I am also reaching out to an archetypal element, which can
feel sacred yet terrifying as well.
Because I had been writing about the Black Madonna of Le Puy at the time of my
dream, my instincts told me that the old man in my dream and the old man with the cane
at Le Puy are one and the same. He metaphorically clobbered our sacred time and space
with Her, severing our connection with the Black Madonna of Le Puy. I allowed his
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physical and emotional aggression along with his violent tendency to sway me away from
my communion with the sacred feminine. Only this time, in my dream he killed the fish
that jumped up to the cliff to communicate with me. This image of a destructive
masculine force was also tied to a man who continued to clobber many other archetypal
fishes for sport and sheer enjoyment, entirely for his pleasure and satisfaction, completely
divorced from any need or desire for nourishment. In Le Puy, he was very proud and
satisfied with himself for successfully driving us out of Her sacred domain. I
remembered Sophie telling me that to her, he symbolized the old patriarchal senex, who
seemed to have no more juice left in him—no real libido. He seemed to be half dead
while he continued to push his way around.
The destructive patriarchy's anger, intimidation, and persecution toward the
Feminine cannot destroy Her or our deep connection to Her dark depths, but it can create
a lot of havoc. I was clearly upset about what this man did, but he ultimately cannot
destroy my deep connection with Her. Furthermore, though he can try to undermine my
relationship to Her wisdom, he cannot take away my connection with the deep level of
the watery depths of the unconscious.
Finally, fish cannot be clobbered to death, because they are eternal archetypal
images. Sharp (1998) explains the universality and ubiquitousness of archetypal images
and symbols: "the archetype is a primordial, structural element of the human psyche, an
instinctive, universal tendency to form certain ideas and images and to behave in certain
ways" (p. 38). The destructive patriarchy's anger, intimidation, and persecution cannot
destroy the Divine Feminine, although patriarchy has been successful at keeping Her in
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the dark for centuries. Ultimately, the Divine Feminine, the archetype, and the
unconscious cannot be destroyed.
The white bull-like mythical creature is another archetypal image (much like the
fish), except the bull was beautiful. He was regal, powerful, and serene. He felt like an
instinctual level of the psyche that is strong and partly divine; yet he was still a purely
instinctual animal. 1 remembered wondering why he kept charging up the mountain
through the treacherous path and what it was in him that gave him such determination.
De Vries and De Vries (2004) state that mountains are where "communion with
the blessed" takes place, which is also considered as "the celestial home" (p. 394).
Furthermore, Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1997) declare what climbing to the top of the
mountain means: "clearly the ascent is of a spiritual nature, moving upwards towards
knowledge" (p. 680). In addition, the authors affirm, "mountains are places where
[heaven and earth] meet, where the gods have their home and human ascension its
boundary" (p. 680). The mythical animal had an incredible sense of longing, something
in him needed to go on top of the rocky mountain and be one with the divine.
In my dream, I remembered looking down to the ravine and seeing how high we
were on top of the mountain, and how one false step could be fatal, which did not seem to
matter to the mythical bull-like animal. The powerful animal represents the
compensating positive image of the Divine Masculine that counters the negative
patriarchal masculine that I previously described as the old man I encountered in Le Puy
and the old man who clobbered the fishes in my dream. The Divine Masculine seemed to
know that nothing was going to happen to Him and that He was doing what he was
supposed to do. I admired His inner strength and deep connection with the divine, his
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heeding of His divine calling. He represents the Divine Masculine who also needs to be
redeemed after falling victim to patriarchy. The Divine Masculine needs the feminine
traits of interrelatedness, Eros, instinct, and intuition to balance the masculine traits of
power, control, logic, and unwavering focus. I searched for the profound meaning of this
archetypal magical animal. Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1997) state that "bulls arouse
visions of irresistible strength and vitality" (p. 131). The innate devotion and connection
of the white bull with the divine was unstoppable. Jung (1951/1968c) informs us again
that like the fish and the mountain, the bull also represents the divine:
It goes without saying that the self also has its theriomorphic symbolism. The
commonest of these images in modern dreams are, in my experience, the
elephant, horse, bull, bear, white and black birds, fishes, and snakes. ... Of the
inorganic products, the commonest are the mountain and lake. (p. 226 \CW 9ii,
para. 356])
In deep reflection, the white bull also represents the Divine Masculine in me who is
dedicated to find wholeness and experience of Self with the help of the Divine Feminine
qualities and symbols available to us in the Western world. It has been and will be a
rocky, frightful, and sometimes dangerous journey, sometimes experiencing
overwhelming feelings of losing myself in the unconscious or the archetypal darkness;
however, I have also found inner strength and a new boldness from my deep connection
with the sacred feminine. My longing and loyalty to the Divine Feminine is unstoppable;
even I cannot stop it. It is an instinctual energy and longing that cannot be destroyed—it
is my soul's calling.
My husband's father representing the unconscious masculine was not
physically present, but the thought of him being there arose when the bull was at its
vulnerable state on top of the mountain with no place to hide. At that point, I was happy
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and relieved that he was not there to kill the mythical animal, which he would have
undoubtedly done, unconscious of the inner journey that the mystical animal represents.
The patriarchal energy gone amuck came in my dream to remind me of how primitive
this energy is, having no regard to feelings or sacred experience. The act would have
been a useless masculine deadening and killing—patriarchy at its worst.
For me, the hardest question was, "which part of me was similar to the patriarchal
men in my dream?" I could rationalize that we are children of patriarchy and all of us—
men and women—have internalized patriarchy to survive in this world; nonetheless, I
knew that it was time for me to take a look at my part in marginalizing the darker
aspects of the Divine Feminine. I realized that I was afraid of Her darkness because I
was afraid of my own darkness, disallowing Her to be a part of my life, which also
prohibited me from fully participating in my life. By rejecting my own shadows, I tend
to see my own faults more clearly in others than I do within myself because I have
denied the darkness inside of me, finding that I more often than not, get angry at others
when, really, 1 am angry with myself for having these dark feminine traits. This
characteristic prevented me from fostering deeper connections with my family.
Another important awareness I had was that every time I question the validity of
my inner work with the Divine Feminine, I am also trivializing or deprecating the work
or value of the Divine Feminine ways. I constantly remind myself of this, for I can fall
prey to the patriarchal ways just as easily when I doubt my connection with Her.
The awareness that I was going deeper into the archetypal realm of the deep-sea
fishes reassured me that 1 was going deeper in my work with the Divine Feminine.
Additionally, since my involvement in a weekly study group of Jung's Red Book (2009),
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Jung's personal diary that chronicles his journey of individuation from his engagement
with his psyche through active imagination, my experience with the psyche has changed
forever. As a result of this weekly study, I have become more open to my own dreams
and I have begun to take the process of active imagination seriously. This has made my
experiences with the psyche richer and more meaningful. When we read and discuss the
material, 1 often question my experiences, opinions, and beliefs of the archetypal
material that Jung questioned and related to. Jung claims:
And if you look into yourselves, you will see on the other hand the nearby as far-
off and infinite, since the world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer.
Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your
bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through
your soul. This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one.
Man lives in two worlds. A fool lives here or there, but never here and there, (p.
264)
Jung dialogued with his ego, his shadows, and Philemon (his projection of Self), Christ
and Antichrist, the serpent (unconscious) and the white dove (consciousness), masculine
(Elijah) and the feminine (Salome) to attain shadow and feminine integration and make
comprehensible what logic alone cannot understand. His examples of active
imaginations found in the Red Book became the catalyst for my full engagement and
dialogue with the Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene, which I include in this
dissertation study. It was from Jung's example of questioning the symbolic functions of
the psyche that I received the idea to question my own.
The Divine Feminine represented as the Black Madonna allowed me to gain
access to Her mysteries through my dreams, helping me realize even more how much
the psyche wants to be seen and heard by us. The archetypal forces want to be
witnessed, embodied, and lived in our world. They are waiting for us to give them a
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voice. They want to be acknowledged, appreciated, and revered. At the same time, they
are here to give us psychological food and strength when we engage in this spiritual path
of individuation. The fishes and the white mythical bull-like figure were gifts from Her;
She was sending nourishing food for my soul to support me in my Divine Feminine
journey to find Self.
In the last segment of my dream, after marveling at the courage and devotion that
the mythical bull displayed towards the divine, I went into a cabin where there was an
old shower. A place to bathe in the safety of a cabin on the mountaintop represents the
archaic rite of being cleansed before going through the passage to the divine realm
representing the top of the mountain in my dream. My work, devotion, and loyalty to
the study and practice of the Divine Feminine power will act as my initiation to the
Divine Feminine ways, aiding in a transformation of new consciousness to be reborn in
me.
Illumination
After the incubation stage, I continued to engage in my inner process with the
deep layers of the unconscious. I was open to the tacit dimension and intuition while
becoming more attentive to the insights and breakthroughs that can occur during this
process of heuristic approach. Moustakas (1990) claims that this tacit way of knowing
entails feeling our way through this path of discovery, combined with subsidiary clues
and a sense of focal qualities that come up from this heuristic method. I knew it was time
to engage in the process of active imagination with the Black Madonna to engage in a
dialogue to gain illumination to parts of me that remained unconscious.

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Active Imagination with the Black Madonna.
I: Dear Mother, I ask for your guidance and blessings. My intention is to write
about You in a place of sincerity, honesty, and profundity.
TBM: I am here for you as always.
I: I don't know why, but there is a part of me that has always been afraid of You.
Perhaps, it is because I am frightened of the darkness within me— within this
world. I have moments when I am afraid that the darkness within me can and will
devour me if I come closer to you, afraid that I might not come out of my
experiences in the dark; yet, I feel torn because of an intense longing—a calling
to know You from the depths of my soul.
I am working through my fears. Your presence in my dream as the Black
Madonna of Montserrat gave me the courage to come closer to You. I confess
that for so many years I have been a spectator; I have kept a safe distance from
You even while I visited You on foreign soils, ever so slowly reaching -out,
grasping to understand You, yet, still keeping a back door to escape whenever I
felt overwhelmed by Your presence. I was unable to fully let You into my heart
because I was petrified of You. You are such a powerful source. I
wholeheartedly apologize for my attitude and behaviors toward you dear Mother.
Please forgive me. 1 see now that I have been scared of you more than I ever
knew.
Witnessing and feeling Your marginalization — especially at places where
I visited You in the crypts of the churches in Marseilles and Le Puy—brought up
immense sadness in me, for the pain that You, our human race, and our planet
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have gone through for so long. You have been hidden in the underworld and
bowels of churches, and I could only imagine how many more places and events
there are where You have been mistreated. I don't know if I can handle even a
tiny amount of the unfathomable pain You have endured for so long.
1 am also afraid to get in touch with my anger towards patriarchy—for the
inhumane treatment that most women and men have endured for centuries and
how much our planet has suffered in the name of power, control, and greed.
Having witnessedjust a few of these unjust acts hurts and angers me on the most
profound level; it stems from an open wound that has been there ever since I
know—a collective injury that we all share.
I also grapple with not letting anger and darkness sway me away from my
journey to You. My desire is to stay open for the light and the dark while going
through this process. 1 do not want my heart to be closed and prevent
transformations to occur in my consciousness. My intention is to have an open
heart and not a bitter one. My desire is to be open and present when Your
mysteries unfold. My promise is my devotion and loyalty towards You, my
beloved Mother.
TBM: I am here to walk with you through your fears. I am here to hold your hand and
guide you while you walk through the fires of darkness. I am here for you when
you are angry or in pain. I am here to transform the old to the new and you will
be using your newfound discoveries and unimpeded energies for the purpose of
emancipating yourself, your sisters, and brothers. Trust in me, as I am a part of
you—of all of you. Pray to me to take away the darkness from you when you can
no longer bear it. Open your hearts to me—call and pray to me during your
darkest hours.
Blessed Mother Black Madonna, I feel You; I feel Your connection to me
individually and to the universe. My soul aches for You. I feel as if an aspect of
me has openedfrom a place that is ineffable. It is here in our worldly real,; yet
also in the realm of the unknown. Taking a deep breath, exhaling, and releasing
this feeling offearfulness with Your help, I ask for your forgiveness for my
inability to come to you sooner. Forgive me for my cowardice. A part of my fear
feels like a fragment of my conditioning and socialization to stay asleep and stay
unconscious of You. Could it be that I have been part of the patriarchy that has
been marginalizing You—the Divine Feminine, by condemning and being scared
of You in me? Have I been doing exactly what I loathed about patriarchy—
denouncing and denigrating You from my own experience? Yes, I have! I had no
idea until now.
Forgive me, Black Madonna, as I also forgive myself, for I see why I have
been so afraid of you—I was unconsciously participating in the collective
experience of denying Your presence in us for centuries. I have been guilty of
persecuting You, Your presence inside of me, and everybody else. I was in such
denial. I feel so sad and so betrayed; yet, I was also the betrayer. At this
moment, I am feeling immense pain in my body, heart, and soul, as if energy has
been zapped away from me. This must be a small inkling of what You feel. It's
too much and too painful (feeling sharp pain on my upper shoulders, chest, and
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an activation of my current condition of endometriosis, which caused pelvic pain).
Please take it away, my dear Mother.
TBM: The pain is not for you to bear, my dear one. It is for me. Now, release it and let
me take it from you. Let it go, my dear child. Do not take responsibility for it. It
is not yours to bear. You are on the right path. You are doing your own work.
Yes, it is frightening to accept me as part of your life's experience, but it is your
fate. It's every woman and man's fate. I represent parts of you—parts of the
world that most people do not want to face. I am your denigrated Self as well as
the denigrated soul of the world that has been kept in darkness. You need to
claim me as part of you to be whole. All women and men must accept me as part
of themselves to be whole. It is for each of you to accept me as part of you, as
part of your existence and very being. I am You. You are I. You cannot deny me.
Denying me is denying your Self Denying me is denying the world and who your
brothers and sisters truly are. Denying me means denying your very being and
the ultimate truth of the world you live in. Liberate yourselves as you help
liberate me. Let go of the shackles of the mind and the limitations of your
socializations. Embrace me, and embrace the worldfully. Do not be frightened.
1 am here for you.
You ask for forgiveness, yet there is nothing to forgive. You are here now;
that is what matters. You are in your journey towards me. Accept where you are
in your journey. Each ofyou will come to me when you are ready. I am here for
you as I have always been. I am joyous that more and more of you are choosing
the path towards me.

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I: Thank you, dear Mother. 1 am grateful for your presence in my life. I humbly
thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul.
TBM: Remember that I am here for you faster than the blink ofyour eye, for I am a part
of you.
Reflections and meditations.
This process of active imagination with the Black Madonna was a breakthrough
towards my conscious awareness of the qualities that impeded my relationship with the
darker aspect of the Divine Feminine represented as the Black Madonna. Engaging in
this process allowed me to question and understand where my fear, apprehension, and
marginalization of Her originated. I deepened this new awareness by silencing the
chatter of my mind through my daily practice of meditation.
I was taken by the revelation of my own marginalization of Her and how my
socialization insidiously affected my attitude and behavior towards the darker aspect of
the Divine Feminine. Moustakas (1990) confirms that this stage of illumination may
bring parts of our experience that we were not aware of, or "the illumination may involve
corrections of distorted understandings or disclosure of hidden meanings" (p. 29).
Through the process of illumination, I was able to bring consciousness to my unconscious
thoughts and behaviors towards the Black Madonna.
1 also understood that gaining mere knowledge about Her was not enough. I am
to incorporate my new awareness through my actions in my daily life by refraining from
demonizing Her darkness, found in the world and in all of us. When I begin feeling a
desire to reject others and myself, I must pause and bring awareness to parts of me that 1
am marginalizing that are aspects of the Divine Feminine. Additionally, through the
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process of illumination, I was able to drop down to a place of Eros, intuition, and
compassion towards the Black Madonna and feel Her love and support for us.
Explication
After undergoing the four stages of the heuristic approach, the fifth stage of
explication requires the articulation of the key ingredients that have been awakened from
the deep layers of my unconscious. Moustakas (1990) reminds us what this stage of
heuristic approach represents: "the purpose of the explication phase is to fully examine
what has awakened in consciousness, in order to understand its various layers of
meaning" (p. 31). In addition, explication involves organizing my new discoveries into a
comprehensive depiction of my experiences, which consists of four steps: Focusing,
Indwelling, Self-searching, and Self-disclosure.
Focusing.
Focusing demands the awareness of the social, historical, and cultural lens, as
well as the beliefs, feeling, and judgments that I am predisposed to throughout this
dissertation. I am mindful that I am biased against the Catholic Church because of my
negative childhood experience in Catholic school. The rituals, creed, and decrees in
Catholicism have become rote and meaningless to me, and my teachers' cruel
disciplinary techniques in grade school created doubts in me of their godliness. In
addition, I felt disempowered as a young girl in the patriarchal rule of St. Dominic's
decree, harboring resentment and even more unfavorable feelings towards the Catholic
dogmas and doctrines 1 grew up with. My attitude and behavior have both impeded and
augmented my studies of the Divine Feminine. My inclination to be negatively biased
about the subject became a catalyst for the passion I feel about rediscovering the sacred
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feminine, particularly in Her Black form. It was a long time until I truly let the Black
Madonna into my heart or I should say, until She broke my heart wide open to fully
receive Her.
The paradigm shifts for me occurred during my travels to foreign lands where Her
images, as distinct from white idealized images of the Virgin in the Catholic Church,
were still "alive" and embodied and worshipped. Looking back, it felt that experiencing
Her in this way was an important step for my psyche to accept that She truly existed and
that She was not just made up by the Catholic Church to be used to acquire more power
and control. Immersing myself in a world where I witnessed other cultures value and
glorify Her, perhaps since antiquity, was an integral part of expanding my awareness and
creating paradigm shifts in my consciousness. Bearing witness to the devotion and
absolute love that other people have for Her also helped me realize and internalize the
Divine Feminine as the earthy Ancient Mother and that She is still here with us in our
modern world; She is available to us if we search for Her with open hearts and minds.
The chthonic Mother, the giver and taker of life, symbolizing the dark soil that nourishes
and feeds us, and the one we return to when we die, has recycled in our world as the
Black Madonna. She is the Ancient Mother, Ancient Goddess, Cybele, Gaia, and Isis.
Immersing myself in numerous sacred sites also created a space within me—a
container where I am able to drop down and feel Her mystery, beauty, sanctity, pain, and
darkness. My pilgrimages in service to the Black Madonna shifted my consciousness to
accept Her in a radical way, created a deeper knowing at a cellular level, and allowed me
to embody and integrate the Ancient Mother within myself.

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Indwelling.
Indwelling requires me to expand my understanding of the Black Madonna until
an insight or more revelations in my consciousness occur. While developing a deeper
connection to Her, I found myself in the midst of a dark abyss—the underworld.
Unresolved issues regarding my deceased father arose from obscurity when an old wound
from the past was torn wide open while I was going deeper in this work. Intensified
torment, suffering, and grief from a childhood secret resurfaced, unearthed out of a black
hole. The unbearable pain was indescribable. Innately I felt that perhaps it was part of
Her test and way to bring consciousness to parts of me that were unconscious. Better yet,
it was an opportunity to put into practice what I had just learned about the Black
Madonna.
Unbeknownst to me, what was to be a happy reunion with a long lost half-sister
elicited overwhelming and debilitating feelings of profound sadness, anger, and grief.
Childhood wounds of neglect, abandonment, illegitimacy, and sexual abuse were brought
forward in my consciousness, generating intense feelings that have been buried within me
since my father's death when I was 8 years old. Gripped by my complexes from my
childhood wounds, I was brought down to my knees by the overpowering negative and
painful feelings that hijacked my consciousness and libido. Tucked away in my
unconscious for more than four decades was the mystery of his death. Hiding from this
torment has been my form of escape from this ineffable pain; I carried this deep dark
secret like a gloomy companion that I have known most of my life. I have always been
afraid to pry it open, fearful that I could lose myself in the darkness, which I began to
experience. I felt the dark clouds roll in and stay as weeks passed by.
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I never really knew the truth of how my father died until my long-lost half sister
told me that he committed suicide. Her words reverberated within me for weeks, evoking
feelings of utter betrayal, abandonment, anger, and sadness that I did not know still
existed within me about our father. Unbidden painful feelings of betrayal, disgust, and
hatred erupted from a dormant volcano within me where smoldering deadly lavas and
memories of being sexually abused by him as a child emerged and spewed from the
crater of my unconscious. It seemed as if an old, familiar, wicked companion was back
on my doorsteps; a vicious entity arose from the dead to find closure with me as an adult
while I was immersed in this study of the Black Madonna.
It was a lot for me to handle all at once, and I found myself swept away in a night
sea journey—the darkness of the underworld became my reality for months as painful
memories of the sexual abuse were reactivated. I was not able to continue writing my
dissertation for months during this painful period. Darkness pervaded my mind and spirit
and enveloped my libido, so that I could not do much of anything—until I sincerely asked
the Black Madonna for Her help.
Prayers.
Every day and night during this time, I lit a candle, burned incense, and prayed to
the Black Madonna to help me get through the darkness I was experiencing. I literally
visualized Her in the room with me. I asked for Her help to find light on my journey
through the underworld. As I had done when I was 8 years old, after finding out that my
father had died, I lit a candle to bring light to the darkness that I was feeling and to pray
for his soul to rest in peace. 1 instinctually knew that it was time to engage the Black
Madonna through active imagination once again.

Active imagination with the Black Madonna,
I: Black Madonna, please show me the way out of this unbearable pain. I need
Your help to transform this darkness. I hate and I don't want to hate. I feel
angry, yet I am sorrowful. Although 1feel immense hatred towards him, I also
feel empathy for him, for he must have been in immense pain when he jumped of
the bridge to his death. I do not want to feel hatred, Black Madonna. 1 wish for
him to be in peace. Even more, I want to find peace within me not only about his
death, but also about the sexual abuse I endured from him for years as a child.
TBM: I feel your sorrow and your pain. Ifeel your anger as well as your hatred. Feel
the darkness as well as the compassion that you are feeling. Feel every part of
you. It is all right to feel all your feelings. Be strong, my dear child; you will
become stronger from this experience. Feel the pain as well as the love you have
for him and walk through these strong emotions, ever knowing that it is your
destiny to transform darkness and light into strength and wisdom, allowing
healing to take place. These energies will be transformed into useful forces that
will help you help yourself and others. Your job on this earth is to help yourself
and others get in touch with their true feelings andfind their divine feminine
strength. You are here to help heal this planet by healing yourself first.
Transform your hatred into a powerful catalyst for change by turning within,
holding the sacredfeminine qualities of love, acceptance, giving, understanding,
strength, courage, and fierceness at the same time.

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I: I am not so sure I am ready to forgive him or let my anger go entirely, my dearest
Black Madonna. I still feel a strong resentment towards him for what he did to
me.
TBM: All what you feel is what is. Do not negate your feelings. There is no right or
wrong. You will find it within yourself to forgive or not forgive according to your
own process. Hold on to the darkness as well as the light for in time, it will be
transformed to energy that you will need toward your own evolution. Trust that it
is for a reason. Trust in what is. It's time you feel your strength, Candy. I am
your strength. It's time to accept who you truly are and the sacred ways of the
Divine Feminine. I am a part of you; feel your strength. Allow the healing to
take place by allowing yourself to feel what you are feeling. A new you will
emerge and be reborn from this pain and suffering. Your father's darkness is
back, so it can be transformed. Use your intuition and your heart to guide you.
You are here for this work. Embrace your destiny. It is a part of your evolution.
You are a part of the many. You are part of the planet evolving in higher
consciousness.
I: I want to follow my dharma.
TBM: Your work is you, Candy. Your work with the Divine Feminine is your life's work.
You and your work are one and the same. Embrace it, believe it, and live it. Call
on the Divine Feminine powers. Your destiny is to find your voice, our voice—
through you. Call on me, Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, goddesses, and other
sacred representations of the feminine—for we are all one, and we are here for
you.
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I: Thank you Black Madonna. I am devoted to You always, pledging my loyalty to
I had to find the courage to surrender myself to the experience of having the
Black Madonna help pull me out of the crisis that sprung forth while I was immersed in
her energy. After a while, I truly understood that it was all happening for a reason. The
darker aspect of the Divine Feminine needed to see if I was going to let Her in and trust
Her during this very personal and painful time. She embraced me with Her right and left
arms of light and darkness through one of my darkest hours.
My experience with the Black Madonna taught me that it was okay for me to feel
hatred as well as love at the same time, inducing feelings of compassion and forgiveness
towards my father and myself. I also learned that I need not deny the remnants of
resentfulness and anger I felt towards him, for it is my process, and it is the process that I
have to go through to find healing within me. She accepted my light and darkness and
stayed with me until the renewal and rebirth of the third emerged from my consciousness,
which Jung calls the transcendent function. Clinical psychologist Jeffrey Miller (2004)
gives us a description of the transcendent function in his book titled The Transcendent
Function: Jung's Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the
Unconscious: "The transcendent function is, thus, a natural process through which the
opposites of the conscious and unconscious are brought into conversation and, aided by
the emergence of a symbol, yields a transformation of psyche" (p. 187). I needed the
Black Madonna's archetypal strength and energy to fight off the consuming archetypal
darkness 1 was experiencing. I needed to be grounded by Her, while I went through the
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process of emotional breakdown to find my way out of the underworld. My experience
with the Black Madonna also helped me emerge from the fires of darkness with a
newfound strength, understanding and vitality to follow my dharma of working with the
Divine Feminine energy within others and myself.
Self-searching.
Going through the process of self-searching brought awareness that going through the
darkness with the Black Madonna bequeaths an inner knowing—a newfound wisdom
from insights and healing that can occur. A dream further led me to ascend from my
deep-sea journey, bringing home gifts from my experience of dismemberment and
journey through the underworld with the Divine Feminine.
A dream from the father, darker aspect of the masculine, and the ancient
mother.
I was in a warm and cozy home with the Dalai Lama and his two devotees. I
wanted to spend time with him to experience and be around his essence, but he spent
most of his time lecturing to other people, guarded by his two devotees. I found myself
needing to use the bathroom where I saw his female devotee naked in the shower.
There was a bar and a music area where friends would gather to play guitar,
sing, drink wine, share their stories, laugh at each other's jokes and enjoy each other's
company. The studio of a spiritual master I was seeking was nearby—not the Dalai
Lama, but someone like him—a representative of the Divine Masculine. I wanted to go to
the bar, but chose to see the spiritual master.
1 was reading a book about how to find love in darkness while waiting in the
reception area to be called by him. A man came up to me to inquire what book I was
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reading, and then skimmed through the pages of my book. He asked if I wanted to make
love to him so we could conjure evil together by following the instructions found in the
book. His question startled me, for that was not what the book meant to me at all. He
remarked, "Let us make darkness together; let us make love and birth evil." I was
repulsed by his suggestion: it was not at all what the book was about—far from it. To
me, the book was about the alchemical process of transforming darkness and light into
something new. He came closer to me and said, "Let us make evil together, " to which I
firmly uttered, "No," while I reached out to take the book away from him and to walk
away. I was astonished by how much he had missed the point and true meaning of the
book and sad that he misunderstood the healing that the book was trying to convey to the
public. However, I was relieved to be rid of his dark energy and his potential misuse of
the forces latent in the book that he was trying to make me a part of
I entered the room to speak to the spiritual master and observed that he was
teaching his students, who were mostly men, body movements, techniques, and disciplines
as a spiritual practice. There was a crone—a wise old woman—who turned out to be his
mother, who stood tall behind him, acting as his eyes and ears, intuiting whom the people
truly were, beyond what the eyes and ears could see or hear. The spiritual teacher chose
my husband, who was part of the group, to practice spiritual exercises, while he
continued to ignore me.
I went to the back of the room and patiently waitedfor him to summon me. His
mother gave the only other female besides her and me a glass of wine, which she drank.
After a short time, the young woman appeared drunk. The older lady rejected my request
to have a drink of alcohol. I sensed that she wanted me to stay in a pure state—body,
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heart, mind, and soul—to be able to do the work that was ahead of me. The spiritual
master then finally spoke to me and told me that if his mother sat on me for 3 months, she
would know who I truly was and if I truly have a pure heart.
The wise old woman sat on my lap and our bodies became one. I felt her
searching who I really was at the very core of my being. I hoped that she was able to
understand andfeel my loving heart underneath my defenses. She spoke to me and told
me that the spiritual guru needed me to stay an extra week, to which I wholeheartedly
assented. She took me by the hand and held me tightly, intrinsically knowing that she
was about to put me through a rigorous test.
We were suddenly outside as she submerged us in the deep blue water. She was
on my right side. I told her that I was frightened because I was not a good swimmer. We
lay on our backs and we could only see each other's faces, while the rest of our bodies
remained submerged in the water. I was taken aback by what I saw coming through her
eyes. There was a power, intensity, and fierceness beaming through them like I have
never witnessed nor experienced before. She felt strong and sturdy. She was not just his
mother, She was the Mother, our Mother—the Ancient Mother. She telepathically told
me to do what She was doing. Through her gaze, she told me to stay strong and to know
that everything would be all right. She held me tightly, and I completely surrendered to
Her right there and then. I did exactly what She asked me to do. I stopped struggling
and became still. I looked up at the sky and became quiet inside me. The current was so
strong that at one point, I thought / would not be able to breathe, especially when large
waves of water hit my face, but I kept on, knowing that I was being held by Her and that
everything would be all right.

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The deep blue sea surrounded us. I looked up at the sky and saw dark clouds
forming above—knowing that a ferocious storm was about to come. An ominous feeling
permeated the atmosphere, but I knew that we were going to be safe, while I gazed at
Her. She never let go of Her hold and maintained eye contact with me.
We continued to swim on our backs until the water became calmer. A land
appeared nearby. The water became shallow and we were able to walk toward the land.
An Eastern Indian man helped us out of the water.
I found myself in the bar with my friends. My experience was so intense that I
needed to be amongst people to feel normal again, feeling that 1 could not be in the realm
of the divine too much. Being engulfed into too much divinity was overwhelming for a
mere mortal like me; I do not possess the space to hold such divinity like the deities do. I
needed people to feel sane again. I went to the bar and had a drink, talked about
"normal" things, and laughed at their jokes. All the while I was chatting with them, I
could not help but think to myself, "If only you guys knew what I have just been through,"
but I knew that I could not talk about what had happened. Also, I was aware that they
might not be able to understand it at all, so I decided to keep it to myself. A friend was
worried that I might get too drunk and regrettably sleep with someone from the bar, but I
was okay. I was really okay. His care and concern for "normal things" were actually
welcoming to me at the time. I needed to talk to people about human things for a short
while until I was to go back to the camp, ready for what could come next. I was going
back to Her the next day, knowing there would be more tests for the next 3 months.
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I woke up feeling Her strong grip. I looked at my arms, wondering if there were
any kind of marks, for it felt so real, but there were none. I was enchanted by the
powerful images in my dream and realized that the realms of the unconscious and
conscious were starting to be one. After reassuring myself that it was a dream, I yearned
to understand the rich images and grasp what my psyche was trying to tell me.
Water symbolizes the unconscious. We could have drowned when large waves of
water threatened to immerse us deeper into the sea of the unconscious, but we remained
unharmed. She safely navigated us through the eye of the storm to land, where an older
gentle soul—an Eastern Indian man—helped and welcomed us to shore. The old man
reminded me of the Indian sanyasis that I met during my trip to India 2 years prior.
Sanyasis are holy men who have denounced their worldly possessions and worldly ways
to devote their lives solely to find God.
After a couple of weeks of holding the images and welcoming feelings that
bubbled up from the dream, I sought the help of my analyst to work through my painful
past, including my father's death and the abuse I endured from him. This experience
gave me the opportunity to work on parts of me that needed healing and closure.
In my dream, the man in the waiting room felt like my father, wanting to
materialize evil with and through me, distracting me from my spiritual journey. I did not
have a choice as an innocent child, but now as an adult I had a choice to say no to his
abuse. My aim was to transform the darkness into what Robert Johnson (1986) calls
gold. In my dream, I was strong, vehemently saying no to his seduction from the dark
side, walking away from him unscathed.

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1 wanted to be a pupil of the Dalai Lama and another male spiritual master, but
the Divine Masculine was not what I was meant to search for and discover. The naked
woman in the shower, one of Dalai Lama's devotees, surrendered and was initiated by
him, but I was not, for we had different fates. I did not make connections to either one of
the fathers, which represented an external father (perhaps I was subconsciously still
looking for a father). But He was not the one I was supposed to meet at this time in my
journey. Furthermore, the Indian man in my dream aids us to emerge from the water, but
his presence was only secondary to the Divine Feminine, who guided me throughout my
submersion in the unconscious. My dream was telling me that I am not to search-out for
the master, but rather I am to go to the wise woman behind the master. I was to look for
the Holy Mother and not the Holy Father.
The Ancient Mother—the Black Madonna—came to me in my dream to guide me
toward the right path. It was when I dropped into Her Divine Feminine realm that things
began to transform. The image of Her with me in the water was metaphoric of what I
was undergoing, immersed in the deep blue ocean, representing depths of myself that
were still unconscious. Her message that She was going to hold on to me tightly and that
I was not going to drown was metaphoric of what I felt when writing and working with
this internal process and journey into the Divine Feminine. This work brings me to the
throes of darkness at times and internalizes the love and support I feel from Her in the
most profound way.
Again, I looked for Him in the house and in the studio, but it was She whom I was
supposed to meet. My husband was there to see him and was told to do external
exercises such as body movements and physical discipline, while I, on the other hand,
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was there to do inner work, and immerse myself in the unconscious with Her help. An
inner journey is required from me, not an outward one.
When She sat on my body, 1 wholeheartedly gave myself to Her, and we were
one. The Divine Feminine is asking me to be a part of the work that is needed to help
materialize Her in our world again. She wants to manifest in this world through me, just
as the Self wants to materialize through us. She put me through baptism in the deep blue
ocean— the deep spiritual color where I was in the current of the archetypal unconscious
flowing with and through Her. The look that She gave me is sketched in my memory
forever. Her image was so strong and powerful that I genuinely knew that nothing bad
was going to happen to me while I remained in Her hands.
She also showed me my limits. Unlike Her, I am a mere mortal. I am to go and
enjoy the company of friends and play or listen to music, also reminding me that drinking
to drown out my sorrows or shut the world out completely is only for the young. The
young girl whom she allowed to drink was able to participate in those activities because
she can. She was not yet mentally and emotionally mature enough to do this kind of
work, reminiscent of times when I was her age. I engaged in foolish and less serious
activities then, but I cannot do that now, for I am a grown woman on a spiritual path. I
am able to drink a little, but not to the point of metaphorically disappearing or numbing
my feelings, or I will be shutting Her out too.
Self-disclosure.
Integrating her within me was a slow process, because it meant allowing her into
my deepest darkest secrets, which I wrote about in the previous section. Moustakas
(1990) tells us that the purpose of self-disclosure is to elicit a similar action from others.
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Integrating the Divine Feminine principles towards finding our Self requires a
commitment to inner work. Allowing myself to go into my own darkness was hard
enough; trusting her to be with me to help bring me out of those depths was extremely
challenging. 1 believe this test of faith and willing submission are the sacrifices required
to evoke and integrate Her presence in our lives fully. This is a test that 1 am still going
through, knowing that the quest to face my darkness, the darkness in others and our
world, is a lifelong journey.
Culmination of the Research in a Creative Synthesis
Today, there is not a day I don't think about the Black Madonna. I communicate
with Her in my everyday life. She is with me wherever 1 am. In the community clinic
where I work as a clinical psychology doctoral intern, 1 quietly start our sessions by
asking both aspects of the Divine Feminine, embodied by the Black Madonna and Virgin
Mary, to bless the temenos, evoking Her presence in the room. There are some days
when my clients have heavier burdens to share, and I ask for Black Madonna's help to
transform their energies into renewal, rebirth, and wisdom for the highest good of all
concerned. I also continue to ask Virgin Mary for Her sacred heart and light. When I
feel overwhelmed or troubled during sessions, I drop down to the place within me where
I know She lives.
While finalizing this chapter last week, I had another dream from Her, affirming
the completion of this chapter.

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A dream of completion.
I was going home to my flat on the eighth floor of a high-rise, overlooking a very
large pool. It felt like an oldfamiliar place where I felt safe and secure. I was happy and
content. I felt complete.
For eight years 1 lived on the tenth floor of a high-rise building with a city view; it
was a place where 1 did feel very much at home, safe and secure. In my dream, however,
I lived on the eighth floor, overlooking a large pool. Jungian analyst Theodor Abt (2005)
tells us what the number eight denotes, "psychologically, we can understand the eight as
a symbol for the possibility or the need for consciousness as a result of an inner
development" (p. 148). My dream tells me that the possibility of transformation has
occurred as a result of my journey to the Black Madonna. Abt further describes this
process of transformation and completion:
The journey of the soul (seven steps) in the vessel of the psyche gives birth to the
inner new light, the deus in homine. As a completion of the (seven steps), the
eight is also connected to the realm beyond time and death, to the immortal soul
and to eternity, a fact that we can see in the mathematical symbol for
Infinity . . . that is a horizontal 8. (p. 148)
After traveling to seven sacred sites in search for the Black Madonna—Tindari, Italy;
Rocamadour Chartres, Paris, Marseilles, and Le Puy-en-Velay in France; and Montserrat,
Spain, my outward journey to Her feels complete. My seven pilgrimages to the Black
Madonna represented my external journeys, and combined with seven internal processes
of praying, reflecting, meditating, engaging in active imagination, listening to my dreams,
practicing daily ritual of lighting candles to invoke Her presence, and going to my
Jungian analyst, they were all catalysts for my transformation.

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Integration of the Divine Feminine.
The dark aspect of the Divine Feminine has been awakened in me. Finally, Abt
(2005) tells us another significant characteristic of the number eight: "As symmetry of
the four aspect of the one, the eight points to a totality that can be or has to be recognized
in its light and dark aspect" (p. 148). The Black Madonna has taught me to recognize
both light and darker aspects of Her that are also in me. She helped me understood that
divinity can also be experienced in darkness.
Living on the eighth floor, where there is a large pool that I can connect to the
large body of water at all times, indicates that I now have a strong connection to the
unconscious. The unconscious is no longer exclusive; it is now lived in my daily
moments, where the Black Madonna wants to be. The Black Madonna is alive in me and
is now integrated in my psyche.

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Chapter 7
Mary Magdalene
Initial Engagement with Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was shunned by our Catholic upbringing. The nuns at our daily
religion classes did not teach us scriptures, gospels, or liturgies of Mary Magdalene; they
did, however, proclaim that she was a prostitute—a repentant sinner who was possessed
by demons and saved by Jesus Christ. Mary Magdalene became an example of who we
did not or should not aspire to be.
It was not until I saw the American film adaptation of the musical Jesus Christ
Superstar (Jewison et al., 1973) that I learned more about Mary Magdalene. I found the
music and lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice (1969) tremendously moving
and thought provoking. The loosely adapted story about the last week in the life of Jesus
Christ told us a different story. For the first time, people were able to identify and
connect with the Christian protagonists who displayed an array of human emotions
including love, hatred, devotion, betrayal, compassion, and loss. Jesus Christ Superstar
resonated with the Filipino people on many levels and became a smash hit.
In the film, Mary Magdalene grew very close to Jesus Christ. She often sat next
to him, anointing his feet, hearing his every word, doting and pouring her heart and soul
into him—fully committing to his plight to help mankind. I was enthralled by her
character and identified with her passion, fierce devotion, and love toward Jesus. At 10
years old, I memorized the lyrics sung by Mary Magdalene and loved to sing them
because of the passionate devotion she had for Jesus Christ. What's more Yvonne
Elliman, the actress who played the part of Mary Magdalene, was a woman of Asian and
Caucasian descent, which helped me identify with her even more. Furthermore, the film
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Jesus Christ Superstar (Jewison et al., 1973) had a cast of people of different races,
which was welcoming to people of color and was very different from the original
Caucasian Christian ensemble that we were taught in Catholic school. Starbird (2005)
succinctly tells us what awakens in us when we see echoes of Mary Magdalene and Jesus
Christ's union in modern films like Jesus Christ Superstar (Jewison et al., 1973), The
Last Temptation of Christ (De Fina & Ulfland, 1988), and The Da Vinci Code (Grazer &
Howard, 2006): "apparently the 'sacred union' at the heart of this Christian mythology
resonates with people on a very deep level" (p. 148). Jesus Christ Superstar remains one
of my favorite films of all time.
My journey towards Mary Magdalene.
It was not until 30 years later at Pacifica that I was once again reminded of the
fervor I had felt towards Mary Magdalene. My professor spoke about the reemergence of
the Divine Feminine as Mary Magdalene, and something latent in me was awakened.
Aside from the required readings of books and discourses, our professor gave us a list of
suggested readings. I read through them all, filling my hunger to learn more about the
Divine Feminine as a balancing symbol in our patriarchal culture.
Theologian Margaret Starbird's (1993) The Woman with the Alabaster Jar
increased my curiosity and passion about the subject even more. The concept of Mary
Magdalene as Jesus Christ's beloved and bride resonated deep within me. Enchanted by
the possibility that Mary Magdalene was truly the most devoted disciple of Jesus
Christ—and his beloved wife, I experienced a great longing to truly understand and
discover if Mary Magdalene represented another missing aspect of the Divine Feminine
in Christianity and our Western world. I wondered if I could discover the sanctity and
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sacredness of being a female partner, lover, wife, and disciple through her example. I
then experienced a sacred dream from Mary Magdalene that drew me closer to Her.
Gifts from Mary Magdalene.
A female friend and I went to a doctor's office to look for employment. The
doctor who greeted us wore a white lab coat, along with his pregnant female assistant.
After the interview, the doctor decided to hire us both. Then, the doctor's assistant told
us that Mary Magdalene's fruit was found underneath the office. I descended down a
spiral staircase in anticipation of what I was about to see. The room was almost in total
darkness—until I saw light emanating from another room.
There was a dazzling red fruit that looked more like a large seed in the middle of
long narrow leaves on each side, planted on a pot; it did not look like any fruit I had ever
seen. There were rays of light emanating from the luminescent and dazzling crimson red
fruit, glowing as if it was alive. It looked like it consisted ofpure energy whirling,
swirling, and pulsating all at once; yet, it was intact. It was alive!
I looked around for a window and wondered where the brightness was coming
from; there were no windows or any other form of openings in the basement that could
cause the bright sparkling light. The luminescence did not come from the sun or any
artificial light; the source of the glowing light was itself, illuminating the entire inner
court like room, as if it was outside.
I couldn 7 believe what I was seeing. Feeling intoxicated by pure joy and bliss, I
realized that I was seeing something very sacred and holy—something out of this world.
Mary Magdalene was showing me Her fruit, Her essence. I felt humbled and blessed,
knowing that She was showing me something very special.

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I ascended the spiral staircase back to the doctor's office. I looked up and
noticed that the doctor's assistant was climbing the spiral stairs ahead of me. I didn 7
know that she had followed me down into the basement. Then, as we continued going up
the spiral staircase, I saw her enlarged vulva, realizing that she was ready to give birth.
My friend and I left the office andfound two women who wanted to talk to us on
the ground level of the building. I found myself talking to them about their past, present,
andfuture, also informing them of their fate. The words coming out of my mouth
surprised me, for I knew that the knowledge was not coming from me; I had become
clairvoyant, channeling knowledge and wisdom to them. The women were dumbfounded,
amazed at the accuracy of the words that were being channeled through me.
My girlfriend and I left the building and we were about to walk to the street when
a friendly and vivacious Gypsy woman in a beautiful crimson red layered skirt and shirt
called me to see the jewelries laid out on a table in front of her. She uttered, "these are
Mary Magdalene's jewels that have been with my people for generations. " She began
showing me Her rings, bracelets, and necklaces, pendants, and pins. 1 was stunned and
speechless!
This dream is one of the most significant and sacred dreams I have ever
experienced, and it changed my life forever. My psyche helped me discover that my path
is finding sacredness and connection through the Divine Feminine. Mary Magdalene has
permitted me to witness and experience Her precious fruit and see Her precious jewels.
This dream became my anchor, my inspiration, and my strength, each time 1 find myself
straying from this work. In addition, the dream propelled me to revisit Christianity and
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learn more about Mary Magdalene, the Christian religion as a whole, and discover other
symbols of the Divine Feminine. This was a large feat, since I had strayed away from
Catholicism for decades.
The four people in my dream symbolized completion as Abt (2005) explains the
significance of the number four in my dream; "the number four is qualitatively connected
to complete conscious orientation" (p. 128). The four of us represented qualities of the
Self. My friend was a metaphor for my shadow; the pregnant assistant was I, birthing
something new from my experiences with the Divine Feminine; the male doctor signified
my becoming a doctor of clinical psychology— masculine because it takes the animus
qualities of logos, focus, and determination to get through graduate school; finally, I am
on the path of individuation seeking the Divine Feminine to be whole.
The downward spiral staircase represents the process of individuation to discover
the Self. A woman's path to individuation has symbolically always been a spiral path, as
we go deeper and deeper and go through our experiences again and again, gaining more
knowledge and deepening our wisdom with each cycle. Mary Magdalene's crimson red
seed represents the blood and the alchemical essence of life, life's energy, libido, or joie
de vivre. The psyche wanted me to know how numinous it was; thus, it was illuminated
with luminescent white light.
Mary Magdalene's sacred energy went to me, so I had become clairvoyant and a
vessel to channel Her energy. As my friend and I walked out of the office, there were
four of us again (counting the other two women we conversed with), another sign that
something had been completed, showing my life's work. Mary Magdalene's fruit and
seed—Her essence from the underworld—were Her jewelry up on earth.

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Moreover, the Gypsies are Europeans who symbolize the shadow, as American
Indians are to America, who possess true spiritual knowledge of what we have lost or
have been missing in our Western culture. The Gypsies have been ostracized and
marginalized just as the Divine Feminine ways and symbols have been in Western
society. The historical origins of the Gypsies are from Mother India and Ancient Egypt.
They have the true way, becoming the keeper and the guardians of the genuine
knowledge of the archaic ways.
The Gypsy woman was wearing the vibrant color red again, which felt like the
same enlivened, enriched, full of blood, and full of life display with so much intensity
and zest for life. The Gypsy woman is of the earth and material, but also very spiritual.
She knew the secrets and was living them out in this worldly life. The jewelry of Mary
Magdalene such as the ring was circular—a symbol of God and the Goddess and the
union of the masculine and feminine. Each piece of jewelry laid out on the table was a
symbol of the Goddess.
The Gypsy woman spread Her jewelry out on the table to reveal its meaning, so
my path is to receive Her wisdom and guidance to do this work. It is the voice of the
abandoned and rejected feminine that has been crushed by patriarchy for thousands of
years that yearns to be heard. It is in this new age when the sacred feminine will arise
again in a new form, where she is revered and embodied; thus, the very pregnant assistant
was ready to give birth to this new consciousness. I am to take the special knowledge
and fruit of wisdom that I received from Mary Magdalene and bring it out in the material
world.
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Immersion: Pilgrimages to Mary Magdalene in France
When Sophie told me that she had experienced a dream that Margaret Starbird,
she, and I were conducting ancient rituals, discussions, and pilgrimages to the Divine
Feminine, she further affirmed my recognition that we were being called and guided by
Her. I sought out places and immersed myself in Mary Magdalene's energy with the
openness to experience Her mystery and spirit, in the company of Sophie and Margaret,
whom I consider my mentors on this subject.
I again want to emphasize the importance of pilgrimages and fully immersing in
the subject. In her book titled Feminine Face of Christianity, Starbird (2003a)
exquisitely explains why people have been going on pilgrimages since antiquity:
Pilgrimage is the metaphor for the sacred journey of the soul toward union with
God—the age-old quest for the Beloved/Other that seems to be centered in the
longing of the human heart for fulfillment and completion. The journey to a holy
site is the outward manifestation of the inner path of purification and
transformation, (p. 60)
Furthermore, Starbird tells us that the origin of a pilgrimage comes from a story found in
the Book of Exodus (Wiersbe, 1991), where the chosen people set off from Egypt and
embark on a journey through the desert, across the Red Sea to the Promised Land. My
intention was to go to where Her temples abound, where She could be found in the
landscape, steeped in people's cultures, religion, and belief system; my aim was to
discover the female version of the Promised Land within me and discover wholeness
through Mary Magdalene.
I met Margaret Starbird when I contacted her after reading her book titled The
Woman with the Alabaster Jar (1993). I introduced myself as a doctoral student who was
researching the reemergence of Mary Magdalene and the Black Madonna in our
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consciousness as a dissertation thesis. I asked for her advice and recommendations on
how to immerse myself in Her energy and truly know and understand who She really
was. To my surprise, she invited me to join her in a pilgrimage! It seemed that it had
been many years since she had visited the many sacred sites connected to the Divine
Feminine and she happened to be invited to lecture for a small group of people that same
year. The opportunity to go with her on a pilgrimage was a synchronistic moment that I
knew was a gift from the sacred feminine. Margaret has an extensive knowledge about
the Divine Feminine in Christianity, having written four books about Mary Magdalene, at
that time, along with a book about the feminine in Christianity. This was an immense
opportunity to be steeped in Her mysteries with one of the preeminent experts about
Mary Magdalene.
In October 2007, six of us from different parts of the country arrived in
Toulouse—the Southwest region of France. The next day, we walked on the trail of the
Way of Saint James, Le Chemin de Saint Jacques, El Camino de Santiago, or Santiago de
Compostela, which is the third most popular Christian pilgrimage in the world next to
Jerusalem and Rome. We did not go far, only walking the trail in the town of Figeac in
France, for the purpose of reenacting sacred rituals to awaken the innermost parts of our
selves and invoking the spirit of the Divine Feminine for guidance and blessings on our
pilgrimage.
We spent every day fully submerged in the studies of Mary Magdalene, the Black
Madonna, and the Cathars. From the moment we woke up until we went to bed, we
engaged in heartfelt discussions and discourses about the Divine Feminine, even while
we ate our meals, which we did together in a group. It was a full immersion to the Divine
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Feminine, involving the five senses and the three different realms of body, heart, and
soul.
We also visited the Cathar country in the Lanquedoc area, spending time in places
like Minerve, Beziers, Carcasonne, and Montsegur where the Cathars were tortured,
massacred, and burned to death by the Catholic Church. This was due to their refusal to
follow the Catholic doctrines and dogmas, during the 12th and 13th centuries. In Cathar
Country, author Michele Aue (1992/2004) describes the Cathars as a Christian religious
sect who believed in Gnostic elements, who did not believe in hierarchal values, tithing,
and repudiated the power and wealth amassed by the local priests, deacons, and bishops.
They believed that God lived in all of us and that we could achieve godliness by living
simpler lives and loving one another, just as Jesus Christ did. Moreover, the Cathars
believed that Jesus Christ was a prophet of AMOR—the principle of love, whereas the
Catholic Church represented the perversion of love—the word AMOR inverted spells
ROMA.
The Cathars considered the Roman Catholic Church as the Rex Mundi or King of
the material world, representing the antithesis of love. Furthermore, the Cathars have
major differences with the Catholic Church. Baigent et al. (1982) state, "in general the
Cathar subscribed to a doctrine of reincarnation and to a recognition of the feminine
principle in religion." The authors claim, "indeed, the preachers and teachers of Cathar
congregations, known as parfaits ('perfected ones'), were of both sexes" (p. 46). The
Cathars regarded women as spiritually equal to men, who held even the most hallowed
position in their community, which was inconceivable and wholly unacceptable for the
Catholic Church.
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Peter had eclipsed Mary Magdalene as the head of the Catholic Church,
eradicating the feminine as priests in the Catholic Church during the 5th century. It was
not until the 12th and 13th centuries that the Divine Feminine reemerged in the
Lanquedoc and Provence regions of France. Southern France has a long and rich history
of many generations of people from this area, who upheld their strong philosophical and
spiritual beliefs by fighting for them even to their deaths, giving rise to folklores, myths,
and legends.
Many churches of the Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene were erected during
this medieval time. The Troubadours, who were the musical poets, musicians, and actors
who sang romantic songs and were interested in chivalry and metaphysical subjects, also
began in the same era in the South of France. Author of The Templars, Michele Aue
(2000/2004), confirms that the Knights Templar were a brotherhood of knights, some of
whom were priests who were originally formed to protect the pilgrims in the holy land,
began in this region during this era. The Knights Templar secretly harbored and aided
many Cathars during the Albigensian crusade. The legend of the Holy Grail also
emerged from this part of the world around the same time. Many recognize this medieval
age as the first Renaissance, because it was the time when the Romantic traditions and
Feminine redemption thrived in the hallowed ground of Southern France.
Rennes-le-Chateau.
Rennes-le-Chateau is a small village located in the Lanquedoc-Roussillon region
of the upper Aude department in the South of France (Markale, 1989). The picturesque
view on the way to Rennes-le-Chateau consisted of small mountains, deep valleys,
plateaus, and the snowy peeks of the Pyrenees. We were lost for hours, while we drove
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along the twisting, curving, and isolated roads en route to this hidden village in the
French countryside.
Rennes-le-Chateau is known to be a center for various conspiracy theories gaining
worldwide popularity from the books The Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent et al., 1982)
and The Da Vinci Code (Brown, 2003). In ancient times, a Roman temple or villa is said
to have stood at the site where The Church of St. Mary Magdalene was built in the 8th
century.
Above the door of the church is an inscription in Latin: Terribilis est locus
translated by author Henry Lincoln (1997) as, "this place is terrible" (p. 26). Upon
entering the Church, we were greeted by the guardian, which was a horrible-looking devil
holding a large scallop shell with the holy water on its back; he looked deformed and his
face contorted, filled with rage. Above him were four angels who enacted the parts of the
sign of the cross with the inscription, In hoc signo vinces, meaning, "by this sign ye shall
conquer" (Markale, 1989, p. 34). In addition to the dizzying black and white checkered
floor, the dark and small church was filled with overwhelming, mysterious, and ghastly
images that were very unsettling. It seemed as if there were hidden and multiple
meanings to what I was seeing and not understanding.
I remember my feeling of dread and my desire to leave as soon as 1 entered this
dark and disorganized church. Perhaps the inscription stating, "this place is terrible" in
the entrance or the ominous figure of the guardian devil made me feel unwelcome, or
maybe the church serves as a container of mystical secrets, mysterious images, symbols,
inscriptions, and puzzles or clues to Her mystery.

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One of the biggest scandals about Rennes-le-Chateau originates from a story
about the 19lh-century priest Berenger Sauniere who reconstructed and decorated the
church with mysterious symbols from "suspicious" sources of funds. Perhaps the church
is meant to evoke tension and curiosity to decipher the puzzles that abound, which was
another way to go deeper into Her mysteries. It was no wonder that this church has been
a Mecca for mystery-solving buffs. I searched within me to find peace and connection
with the divine energies there, but 1 felt nothing. This was one of the few places where 1
did not connect to a divine force. I decided to turn my focus on the images of Mary
Magdalene found in the church instead.
There was a large statue of Ste. Madeleine holding a cross in one hand and an
alabaster jar on the other with a human skull laying by Her feet. The precious nard in the
alabaster jar She carries is an expensive perfume or fragrance from a plant found in the
Himalayas (Starbird, 2003a). In The Song of Songs of the Old Testament, nard is referred
to as the perfume used by the bride as a symbol of her love towards her bridegroom.
"While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My beloved is to me
a bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts" (Song of Solomon 1:12-13). Nard is used as
an initiation to consummate a marriage in the old tradition. Starbird also lets us know the
significance of the skull found in Her images:
Now and then, she is pictured with a skull, a reminder of the human condition and
the transitory nature of all flesh, but also of the pall of death hovering over the hill
of Golgotha, the "Place of the Skull" where Jesus was crucified, (p. 20)
There was a large stained-glass window above the altar that portrayed Mary Magdalene
anointing Jesus Christ's feet with the precious ointment. On the back wall was a large
fresco of Mary Magdalene weeping to the right of Jesus Christ.

The most notable sight in the church was a painting of Mary Magdalene beneath
the altar table where she was kneeling and praying before a branch of a tree planted in the
ground in a form of a cross with a human skull next to Her. But there was a Latin
inscription at the bottom of the painting beneath the altar table: JESU. MEDELA.
VULNERUM + SPES. UNA. PENITENTIUM. PER MAGDALENAE. LACRYMAS +
PECCATA. NOSTRA. DILUAS, which philosopher Jean Markale (1989) translates as,
"Jesus, remedy of wounds, sole hope for those who regret, by the tears of Magdalene
dissolve our sins" (p. 255). How fortunate for the people in this region of France to
regard Her as a saint for many generations. Here they have a true example of the sacred
union embodied in Christ as the divine figure who "[remedies] the wounds and [is the]
sole hope for those who regret" and Saint Marie Magdalene as the divinity who can
"dissolve our sins" with Her tears. It was a powerful message that balanced the Divine
Masculine with the Divine Feminine.
After visiting the church, I met and engaged in a meaningful conversation with
Henry Lincoln, English author of books regarding Rennes-le-Chateau, and co-author of
the bestselling book The Holy Blood, Holy Grail. We talked in the outdoor town hall for
hours. It was delightful to listen to him revealing the mysteries of The Church of Saint
Marie Magdalene and witness his passion towards Rennes-le-Chateau, where he now
resides. English scholars Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins (2000) who wrote
about the secrets of the Divine Feminine as the Holy Grail in Rosslyn: Guardians of the
Secret of the Holy Grail, joined us in this segment of our journey. Murphy (2007) is an
English medical doctor and psychologist who made a DVD called The Real Bloodline
about the union of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, the Cathars, and the Knights
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Templar. Furthermore, Hopkins, Wallace-Murphy, & Simmans (2000) co-authored a
book about the mystery and connection of Rennes-Le-Chateau to Mary Magdalene in The
True Mystery of Rennes-Le-Chateau and the Dynasty of Jesus.
After leaving Rennes-le-Chateau, we spent the evening with Margaret and authors
Wallace-Murphy and Hopkins discussing and sharing stories about the reemergence and
mysteries of Mary Magdalene, the Cathars, and the Knights Templar. I was deeply
inspired and am grateful to have learned from these scholarly teachers who are renowned
for their work with the sacred feminine. They intensified my immersion into Mary
Magdalene even more.
Mirepoix.
The day Margaret was leaving, we went to Mirepoix, where it all finally hit me.
As we entered the town, a mural for St. Dominic served as a catalyst bringing up my
childhood memories from my Dominican upbringing once again. For a long time, I have
lived with anger and resentment towards the patriarchal Catholic Church, as I felt
silenced and robbed of experiencing the sacredness of being a woman. I felt anger
bubble up within me, intuitively knowing that it was time to finally release or transform
this heavy burden I have been carrying for so long. It was time to make space for
something new. I asked Margaret to take a picture with me in front of the mural, for it
was symbolic and deeply meaningful for me (I have this photograph with Margaret
framed and placed in my home office even now to remind me of this time). I fervently
asked the Divine Feminine and the Holy Spirit for guidance to birth something new,
symbolic of the pregnant lady in my dream; but I did not anticipate what was to come.
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Mirepoix is a Bastides town in the Lanquedoc area famous for the 12th-century
medieval main square that remained intact over the ages. We walked down this famous
square and entered the Mirepoix Cathedral, formerly known as St. Maurice Cathedral,
that was built in 1298. As I have often done before entering a sacred site, 1 evoked and
searched for the place of serenity and connectedness within me, opening myself up for
the energies available to me. I felt my lingering openness from invoking Mary
Magdalene's energy in front of the mural for St. Dominic still. Unlike my previous
experience at Rennes-le-Chateau, here 1 felt in harmony and connected to the divine
forces. I wandered all through the church with our group, until I stumbled upon an
Oratory dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene.
I stood in front of Her image in a state of awed reverence and amazement and
could not believe what I was seeing; there She was—Mary Magdalene carrying the cross
on Her right shoulder while sorrowfully gazing at a human skull on Her left hand,
standing between the statues of Her brother Lazarus and sister Martha. I remembered
Leloup's (2002) passage about Mary Magdalene's relationship with death:
As one who was cleansed from sin; who remains with Christ throughout his death
on the cross; and who first witnesses, understand, and believes Christ's
resurrection, she represents a human being who is open and available to true inner
"knowing," who can "see" in deeper, clearer ways through a unique spiritual
connection to both earthly death and the Divine, (p. xxi)
It was here, while gazing at Her images, that I felt Her deep profound knowledge and
relationship with the divine. She experienced the vicissitudes of our humanness by
witnessing Jesus Christ's love and death for us in Golgotha, and people's faith and
contempt towards him. Moreover, Her heart aches because of Her own marginalization
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and rejection of the feminine principle of Eros and relatedness in Christianity and our
collective unconscious.
I could not believe that I was looking at a whole section of Her life in a traditional
Roman Catholic Church. There was a very large stained-glass window directly above
Her image, depicting eight scenes of Mary Magdalene's life. Below Her large statue
were two marble carvings of scenes from Her life with Jesus. Starbird (1998) explains
Mary Magdalene's famous scene with Jesus Christ:
Artworks depicting Noli me tangere—"Do not cling to me"—proliferated in

Europe, based on the passage in John's Gospel when Mary Magdalene
encountered the risen Christ in the garden and embraced him ecstatically, only to
be told that she should not cling to him! (p. 25)
Because of Mary Magdalene's mistaken identity as a prostitute and repentant sinner,
many people believe that Noli me tangere represents Jesus Christ's rejection of Mary
Magdalene's licentiousness. We must, however, look at the whole passage to understand
what Jesus meant when he said, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended
to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, '1 am ascending to my Father and
your Father, to my God and your God'" (John 20:17). Jesus did not want Mary
Magdalene to touch him because his transition from being a man to spirit had not yet
occurred. In this sacred time, he chose Mary Magdalene to carry out his message to the
rest of his disciples, meriting the status of being the apostle to the apostles.
The other carving illustrates a scene when Mary chose to sit at the feet of Jesus,
instead of helping Her sister Martha prepare for their meal. Starbird (2003a) further
explains this scene: "finally Martha complained to Jesus that Mary was not helping with
the preparations, but Jesus defended the quiet sister, explaining that she has 'chosen the
better part'" (p. 16). The contrast between Martha and Mary Magdalene is seen in this
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passage. Martha represents women's traditional role of doing housework, whereas Mary
Magdalene depicts the importance of contemplation, discipleship, and leadership when
she chose to buck women's traditional role and sit by the feet of Jesus Christ. In
addition, Jesus' support for Mary Magdalene signifies his openness toward women in
being his disciples and ministers for his teachings.
Between the two-marbled carvings was the golden sacred heart of Mary
Magdalene. Then, at that moment, time stopped for me. An array of feelings started to
gush from somewhere I did not understand. I started taking pictures because I wanted to
freeze the moment, soaking it all in to remember and further digest it in my psyche.
Trying to contain all the powerful feelings I was experiencing, I suddenly found Margaret
standing next to me as she began to explain the eight depictions of Mary Magdalene's life
found in the stained-glass windows. Although I was happy to be in her company during
that sacred time, I was still overwhelmed by the wave of feelings that were filling my
senses. 1 did not know that something was about to happen that would change my life
forever.
We walked out of the church and I started sobbing uncontrollably. Something
was happening to me—I was experiencing a quickening—an actual somatic releasing,
receiving, and understanding. Something inside of me broke open and was going through
a transformational moment. My knees buckled and I thought I was going to fall until
Margaret held me and placed me on her shoulders to weep. I found myself shaking and
sobbing on Margaret's shoulder. There were no words to explain what I was feeling
inside, for I did not even know what was happening to me. All I knew was that a part of
me—perhaps my soul, resonated with the images and the mystery I had just witnessed.
There was a deeper understanding—something that my rational mind could not explain
nor fully comprehend. Perhaps what was unfolding stemmed from the depths of my
psyche, something that I have known for many lifetimes, maybe even since antiquity. It
was an ineffable feeling—a numinous moment of transformation and initiation to Mary
Magdalene's sacred fruit and jewels.
I began to feel a profound sense of sadness from the pain She is going through
and must have gone through for being marginalized for ages, depicted with the cross She
was carrying on Her shoulder and the sadness in Her face as She looks down at the skull
in Her left hand. She was being crucified!
It again reminded me that Her consecrated work was only uncovered in 1896
(Pagels, 2003); unbelievably, the Gospel of Mary was not translated and published in
English until 1955—59 years later and only 56 years ago. Furthermore, it was not until
the gospels found in Nag Hammadi in 1945, that Her work was confirmed by gospels that
had been excluded from the canonical bible. The texts from Nag Hammadi were not
available for mass consumption until The Nag Hammadi Library was published, edited
by James M. Robinson (1978), a Professor Emeritus of Religion at Claremont Graduate
University, only 33 years ago. It has been 2,000 years that She has been in the dark. No
wonder She appeared to be in so much pain. She has been locked away, Her true essence
crucified.
I also felt a release of past judgments towards myself, for being a condemned
woman who had sinned, realizing that we can achieve sacredness in this human realm
just as Mary Magdalene did. But as with Mary Magdalene, the path was not going to be
easy. Still unable to talk, tears continued to roll down my face as I heard Margaret softly
say, "You are feeling Her pain. It's okay. You are here to be an emissary for Mary
Magdalene. You are to do Her bidding and spread the word about Her." She continued,
"I know you will be a dedicated emissary of the 'Beloved Counterparts' bringing a
message of life abundant to all you encounter." I felt Margaret's tender words penetrate
into my heart and soul, like a light cutting through darkness of lies and inherited
unconscious negative beliefs I have had about Her from my socialization. I felt goose
bumps all over my body. Then, I felt a rush and opening of my crown chakra,
instantaneously feeling the peacefulness and still calmness within me, deeply knowing
that this was exactly the experience I needed at this moment in my life.
I started to come back into consciousness, and realized that I had just experienced
a breakdown and awakening in the middle of a medieval town with Margaret Starbird.
Synchronistically, I was with the author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, which was
the same book that ignited my search for Mary Magdalene and the reason why I was on
the pilgrimage. It was a numinous experience with Margaret there with me, during this
sacred moment. I will never forget the kindness that Margaret showed me that day.
Margaret midwifed my transformation, birthing a new understanding of Mary Magdalene,
again reminding me of the pregnant lady in my dream. It was on that day, October 31,
2007—the day of the dead, when something in me died and a transformation occurred to
birth a new consciousness of Mary Magdalene—in the 12th-century medieval main square
of Mirepoix in France.
Paris.
My next pilgrimage to Mary Magdalene happened in 2009, when Sophie and I
traveled to the holy sites of Mary Magdalene interwoven with the sacred places of the
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Black Madonna, as I mentioned in the previous chapter. I used my airline miles to travel
to Paris, and this unfortunately meant I had to leave the day before Easter and be alone in
Paris for Easter, without my family. Sophie was not due to join me until the day after. I
booked a hotel across from the Eglise de Saint-Marie-Madeleine or Church of Saint Mary
Magdalene, so I could spend some time at Her sanctuary to pray and meditate. It was not
until 1 was in my hotel room that 1 started feeling the pain of being alone on this holy day,
when it dawned on me that Easter was the day when Mary Magdalene witnessed the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, and why She received the title of "the apostle to the
apostles." Episcopalian priest Cynthia Bourgeault (2010) in her book titled The Meaning
of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity explains:
It is on the basis of this announcement that Mary earned the traditional title of
"Apostle to the Apostles." The first to witness to the resurrection, she is also the
one who "commissions" the others to go and announce the good news of the
resurrection, (p. 8)
What a blessing! I was to be alone and commune with Her energy in the Church of Saint
Mary Magdalene in Paris during Easter as a reminder that She was Jesus Christ's chosen
apostle! I felt again an innate feeling that my being alone in Her church for Easter was
synchronistic! I am to be immersed in both Their energy on that special day and receive
the fruit of Their partnership and love for one another and to mankind. I attended the
Easter mass at the Church of Saint Marie Magdalene and received the Eucharist in the
presence of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ in a temple dedicated to Her.
L 'eglise de la Madeleine, La Madeleine or just The Madeleine Church is located
in the posh neighborhood in the eighth arrondissement of Paris. The original church built
on the same location by King Charles VIII, was established by a brotherhood dedicated to
Saint Mary Magdalene. The place has been rebuilt several times. Napoleon was going to
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build a Temple to the Glory of the Great Army, but was later ordered by King Louis
XV11I to be fully dedicated to Mary Magdalene. This very large neoclassical church was
built in the image of a Roman Temple displaying 52 Corinthian columns around the
Church, visited by more than 600,000 people every year.
1 walked up the large marble steps and towering above me was the large pediment
displaying a sculpture of The Last Judgment. I reached the enormous bronze doors
exhibiting The Ten Commandments. I could not believe that I did not know about this
large church in the middle of Paris when I used to live in this city 20 years ago—just as I
had been unaware of the Black Madonna of Paris then, too.
Once 1 entered the church, 1 saw the largest and most beautiful statue of Mary
Magdalene I have ever seen. In the official guide to the church titled The Church of La
Madeleine: History of a Parish, Francois Pupil (2000) informs us of the grandeur and
hard work it took to create the statue of Mary Magdalene: "An Italian citizen naturalized
French, like Triqueti, Charles Marochetti (1806-1868) took twelve years to complete the
Ecstasy of Saint Mary Magdalen" (p. 50). It is an enormously breathtaking marble
carving of Saint Mary Magdalene's exaltation and ascension, with two angels carrying
and accompanying Her to heaven.
I looked up and saw the half-dome above the altar displaying a fresco portraying
The History of Christianity. Key figures in the Christian religion were included in the
fresco including Jesus Christ, the apostles, saints, bishops, and the unusual presence of
Napoleon in the center of the fresco. Pupil (2000) reports, "Saint Mary Magdalen is seen
on a cloud, supported by three angels, as at the high altar, with the Christ's words: Dilexit
multum (she loved much)" (p. 37). How beautiful that Her love is celebrated in this
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church!
Surrounding the interior of the church are six scenes from Mary Magdalene's life.
I felt happy and fortunate to be there. What's more, I felt blessed to have attended the
Easter mass and received the Eucharist in a church where both Jesus Christ and Mary
Magdalene are still celebrated in our modern times.
Saint-Maximin-La Sainte-Baume.
One of the medieval legends embedded in the region of Provence proclaims that
Mary Magdalene, along with her family and Mends, were cast off to sea in a boat without
sails and oars, miraculously reaching the shore of southern France in a town called
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, translated as The Saint Marys of the Sea. Mary Magdalene is
said to have preached in Provence, then retired as a hermit for the last 30 years of her life
in a cave on top of the mountain in Sainte Baume, where angels tended and ministered to
her. Then, when Mary Magdalene was told by heaven that she was dying, she journeyed
to be with the first bishop of Aix, Saint Maximin, where she could take her last
communion, dying in his arms soon after.
In the official guidebook by the Basilica titled The Basilica Saint Mary-
Magdalene and the Royal Convent, it is said that Mary Magdalene was buried exactly
where the Basilica stands today (Moncault, 2003/2006). In 1279, Charles II of Anjou,
Duke of the Provence, who later became the king of Sicily, ordered an excavation to find
the remains of Mary Magdalene, which were allegedly discovered. With the pope's
blessing, he constructed a basilica to house the relics of Mary Magdalene and the site
became a pilgrimage site. It took more than two hundred years for the basilica to be
built. A convent for the Dominicans was built next to the Basilica that served as the
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guardian of her relics where the monks stayed until 1957. The Dominican order remade
Mary Magdalene as their co-patron and the repentant figure of perfect penitence in the
13th century. It was interesting that the Dominican Order kept re-entering in my life.
The Basilica of Mary Magdalene is located in the region of Provence-Alpes-Cote
d'Azur in southeastern France in the department of Var. Located at the foot of Sainte-
Baume Mountain, Saint-Maximin-La Sainte-Baume was originally a Gallo-Roman site.
Arriving in Saint-Maximin-La Sainte Baume, Sophie and I stayed at the Hotel Le
Couvent Royal, which was the former convent of the Dominican order that has been
converted to a hotel. This healing place was beautiful, exuding harmony and grace, filled
with light and a spiritual essence built around a cloister. The next day, we joyously
walked to the Gothic style Basilica, next to the convent.
To our surprise, hundreds of French students, of maybe teenage or early college
years, flocked together displaying their flags with the emblem of the fleur-de-lis, joyously
singing hymns in front of the basilica. The young pilgrims walked with reverence and
devotion toward their saint—Mary Magdalene. They attended mass, then waited in a
long queue, patiently waiting for their turn to see the relics of Saint Mary Magdalene in
the crypt.
As 1 descended upon the steps of the Gallo-Roman crypt, there was a carved
image of Mary Magdalene in marble, sitting on a rock next to a cross, with an alabaster
jar laying in front of her, with the inscription Ste. Marie Madeleine. Within the crypt,
there is a reliquary holding the alleged skull of Mary Magdalene and a sealed crystal
tube, where it is said that a shred of her flesh or bone tissue was preserved—the flesh
where Jesus Christ placed his fingers on the morning of his resurrection from the famous
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scene called as Noli me tangere or Touch me not. There were also four sarcophagi of
local saints buried in the crypt, including those of St. Maximin.
It was amazing to see the young pilgrims praying and singing hymns to Mary
Magdalene. It must be wonderful to be steeped in Her mysteries from an early age. This
event intensified my experience of Mary Magdalene, just as it had with my experience of
the Black Madonna when I witnessed the older lady kissing and hugging the pillar where
the Black Madonna stood at the Chartres Cathedral. This was a defining moment, again
realizing that She is real and lived in other parts of the world still. In Provence, Mary
Magdalene is part of the fabric of people's lives.
Sainte Baume.
The next day, we checked out of our hotel and ate a hearty breakfast to prepare us
for our hike up the mountains of Sainte Baume, to see the cave where Mary Magdalene
was said to have spent the last 30 years of Her life. It was a long and arduous drive up
the mountains of Saint Baume, going through a dense and dark forest with large boulders
of limestone along the road. Father Philippe Devoucoux (2008), in the official guidebook
titled La Sainte Baume: Hilltop village in Provence explains, "in this special forest,
which has always been considered sacred, time stands still and we can momentarily feel
the eternal, communicate with the calm forces of life, with God the creator" (p. 4).
Devoucoux further explains that the mountain has been a sacred site since the 5th
century, when "the monks and nuns of the order of Jean Cassien peopled the wild and
deserted places" (p. 6). The beautiful yet ominous thick forest made us feel as if we were
about to go into a different world.

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The cool breeze from that early morning spring day was refreshing, but it became
much colder as we ascended the mountain. Then, to our dismay, it began raining, which
made the twisting and slippery road even more dangerous, especially after the rain started
pouring heavily. We managed to get on top of the mountain, but by that time it was no
longer just raining; it was hailing!
We got out of the car and entered the small chapel and bookshop next door to wait
for the hail to stop, hoping that the weather would improve. The small chapel of Saint
Mary Magdalene was filled with frescoes depicting her life in Provence including her
preaching to people in boats, angels administering to her while up on the mountaintop,
her daily life as a hermit, and her ascension to heaven. We spent time at the bookshop,
browsing and buying souvenirs, immersed in her things.
After waiting for a while, it was evident that the weather was not going to get
better; in fact, it only got worse, and the temperature was bitterly cold. I thought of
climbing the steps to the cave even through the storm, but the locals discouraged us from
doing so, because it was a long hike up the slippery stairs and the frozen pellets of rain
can make the stairs even more dangerous. We were saddened, knowing that our dream of
seeing her sacred temple up in the mountain of Saint Baume was not going to be fulfilled.
Going down the hill was even more dangerous, as the hail and storm made it
almost impossible for Sophie to drive. Sophie and I were happy that we got through the
harrowing incident safely. It seemed as if it was not yet the proper time to experience
Mary Magdalene in the cave. I knew I would have to come back and climb this magical
mountain another time.

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Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
The small village town of Saint Marys of the Sea lies in the region of Provence-
Alpes-Cote d'Azur in the Bouches-du-Rhone department by the Mediterranean Sea,
located on the south-central coast of France. The town serves as the capital of the
Camargue (Provencal Occitan). We drove by stunningly beautiful white horses along the
way to this town by the sea, where white storks roam free on the marshland. The
landscape was so beautiful that it almost looked like a painting. It was a dreamlike
atmosphere, which seemed to be preparing us for the magic and spirit of festivity that
abound in this town.
Many people throughout the centuries have considered this region a holy place,
including the Celtics, Romans, Christians, and the Romanian Gypsies. Many
archeological excavations indicated that there used to be a sacred site dedicated to a
threefold water goddess of the holy spring known as Oppidum Priscum Ra. A Roman
temple site is said to have stood at the site during the 4th century, which was dedicated to
a Persian or Zoroastrian god named Mithra who originated from an ancient mystery
religion called Mithraism. The first Christian church, built in the 6th century, was called
Saint Mary. Today, Saintes-Maries- de- la- Mer also serves as the most sacred place for
the Romanian Gypsies since their arrival in Europe in the 15th century.
According to the local French legend, two other women accompanied Mary
Magdalene when she landed at Saint-Maries-de-la-Mer, they were Mary Jacobe and
Mary Salome, known as the two other Marys. The legend proclaims that both Marys
stayed in the region while Mary preached the gospels in Marseilles before retiring to
Saint Baume; thus, the town was named after the three Marys—The Saint Marys of the
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Sea. The three Marys became the models of devotion towards Jesus Christ in this region
because all were present during the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Another version of the folklore includes Mary—the mother of Jesus—Lazarus,
and the brother of Mary Magdalene to have reached these shores along with the three
Marys. This version of the legend also asserts that there was an Egyptian servant of the
mother of Jesus named Sara, who also accompanied them and became the patron saint of
the Gypsies. A celebration for these saints abounds the town of Saint-Maries-de-la-Mer
for three days each year. Starbird (2003a) describes the festivities:
In a colorful folk festival celebrated from May 23-25, statues of the saints are
taken from the church and paraded through the town and out onto the rocky beach
on the Mediterranean, to commemorate their arrival in Western Europe 24 C.E. in
a boat with no oars. (p. 22)
This colorful procession is attended by thousands of Gypsies from all over Europe
called Pelerinage des Gitans or the Pilgrimage of the Gypsies. The three days of
celebration consists of rituals, Gitan music, feasting, and dancing. The legend also holds
that the relics of Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome were discovered in Saintes-Maries- de-
la- Mer in the 15th century.
The Gypsies are nomads who have strong family ties with other groups of Gypsy
family units called the horde or kumpania. Jan Yoors (1987), a Belgian author who lived
with the Gypsies as a young boy for 10 years, describes their nomadic disposition and
strong interconnection with one another:
They possess a significant sense of being part of a larger whole. Their urge to
travel is no mere wanderlust. They voyage to meet relatives as yet unknown, and
to find suitable brides for their sons, marrying them within the tribe but avoid
inbreeding. They are a part of a continuing cultural transfusion and an ever-
flowing force of renewal, (p. 6)
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Yoors continues, "the Gypsies, seemingly immune to progress, live in an everlasting
now, in a perpetual, heroic present, as if they recognized only the slow pulse of eternity
and were content to live in the margin of history" (p. 5). Unfortunately, because they live
in the peripheral of societies from different parts of the world, they are often targets of
unfairness or cruelty. Yoors explains why the Gypsies continue to be mistreated in
different parts of the world: "They are often surrounded by open hostility, and because of
their lack of political power much of the violence and the inhuman oppression they
encounter is left unreported" (p. 7). Historically, they have been attacked, ostracized or
executed. The Nazis exterminated thousands of Gypsies during the Holocaust. "Stamp
on the Camps" developed by the right wing media across Europe are still being enforced
against Gypsies, destroying Gypsy nomadic camps. Europe has been on a constant tirade
to eradicate Gypsy camps across Europe for centuries. Robert Marquand (2010), a
journalist for The Christian Science Monitor, reports that President Sarkozy ordered the
extermination of Gypsy camps, rounded up them up and successfully deported hundreds
of Gypsies to Bucharest, Romania during the summer of 2010. The conflict in France
between the Gypsies and the French government is a representation of their continued
marginalization in Europe even today.
The Gypsy woman in my dream as the guardian of Mary Magdalene's jewels
symbolizes the continued marginalization of Mary Magdalene. For me, the Gypsy figure
in the fiery red dress was one of the most noticeable figures inside The Church of Saint
Marys of the Sea, symbolizing the Gypsy woman in my dream. I felt guided by her once
again, leading me deeper into the Mary Magdalene's mysteries. The crypt in L 'eglise de
Les Saint-Maries-de-la-Mer houses the sacred statue of Saint Sara, dressed in a long
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festive robe of fine cloth. Her beautiful and luxurious white lace and chiffon robe is
embroidered with gold and little sparkles of red. Saint Sara wears a beautiful gold crown
with sparkling crystals, while a rosary adorns her neck. She stands in the corner of the
crypt, surrounded and showered by fresh flowers. Saint Sara is a mixture of the Ancient
Mother—She carries the ancient wisdom known to the Gypsies since antiquity, and yet
she is adorned with ornaments of the Catholic Church. She is an amalgam of the old and
the new, Eastern and Western, saintly yet grounded with the Gypsy people. A statue of a
boat with the two Marys is also found in the crypt.
After church, Sophie and I decided to nourish ourselves before resting. We were
drawn by the festive sound of a Gypsy band in a restaurant off the main street. The
music called Flamenco Gitan was full of life—filled with passion and energy! We had
so much fun in this cheerful restaurant where other people seemed to be having as much
fun as we were. The free-spirited energy of the Gypsy people was contagious and we felt
it throughout this little fishing village in their music, food, and atmosphere.
We walked around the village the next morning and witnessed an elder Gypsy
woman sitting in the middle of the town square, poised as if she owned the place—like
she was sitting on her throne, very aware of all that was happening in her kingdom,
representing the eyes and ears of this sacred town. She wore a long black and white skirt
and shirt with a bright red hat and purse; she looked regal and proud to be the guardian
and keeper of the secrets of this sacred town. She again reminded me of the Gypsy lady
in my dream, who holds the jewels of the ancient wisdom of Mary Magdalene.
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Vezelay.
Vezelay is located in the Burgundy region in the Yonne department in the north-
central France. Vezelay also serves as one of the major starting points for the pilgrimage
of Way of Saint James or Santiago de Compostela. The Benedictine monks built a
monastery on this natural hilltop in the 9th century dedicated to Mary Magdalene, whom
they considered a true example of a penitent sinner. In the official guidebook of the
Basilica titled Vezelay, authors Jean-Baptiste Auberger and Jacqueline Greal (2005/2007)
state the significance of Mary Magdalene in this region during medieval times:
A model of repentance and union with God, St. Mary of Magdala is in fact
invoked by prisoners seeking her help to achieve their liberation and justice. And
prisoners were increasing in considerable numbers at this time as a consequence
of the seigneurial wars [a transitional time when medieval state gradually gave
way to the modern] and [after] 1095, [was] the crusades, (p. 33)
According to the local legend, a monk brought the relics of Mary Magdalene from Saint-
Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, officially confirmed by the Pope in 1058. Soon after,
Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine or Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene, formerly called
Vezelay Abbey, was built in the 12th century, becoming the fourth most popular
pilgrimage site in medieval times for more than two hundred years. Professor of
medieval art history at the Sorbonne in Paris, Veronique Mouilleron (1999), in her book
titled Vezelay: The great Romanesque Church, informs us of the importance and the
benefits of declaring Mary Magdalene as their patron saint:
For the two and a half centuries from the years to 1040 to 1280, the church of the
Magdalene was responsible for the wealth and celebrity of its Burgundian abbey.
Founded in the Carolingian period (ca. 858), the monastery had remained of
modest importance before the pilgrimages to venerate the Magdalene had caused
it to blossom, (p. 8)
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The strength, wealth, and power of the priests and the wealthy aristocrats from this region
flourished until the Dominicans from Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume discovered the
alleged true relics of Mary Magdalene in Provence. The brotherhood reported seeming
miracles as a result of the relics and the new pope, supporting the allegations, made The
Basilica of Mary Magdalene, the official church housing Mary Magdalene's relics. This
discovery usurped Vezelay's position as the main Mary Magdalene shrine in Europe, and
pilgrimages to Vezelay declined sharply. The church was destroyed by fire, riots, and
revolts many times until it was rebuilt in the 19th century.
This church is famous for its Romanesque sculptures. It is full of light, with
stunning pink, white, and gray arches and an unusually high nave and Gothic choir. The
Basilica is also known for the play of light and shade; during midday on the summer
solstice, nine poles of light can be seen in the middle of the nave, forming a path towards
the altar. The same event occurs at the winter solstice, except the poles of light fall on
the north upper capitals. There are many images and symbols of Christianity in the
interior of the church, but only two images of Mary Magdalene. I did not see the first, a
small carving of Her called "The Apparition of St. Mary Magdalen to a Princess of
Provence according to a Christian folklore" described by Auberger and Greal
(2005/2007, p. 29). The other was a beautiful statue of Saint Mary Magdalene on a
pedestal in the south aisle of the church, placed there later in the 19th century. There are
no other frescos, sculptures, or statues of Her found elsewhere. The crypt holds a few
small remains of Mary Magdalene, but the original relics were destroyed in the 16th
century during the Wars of Religion in France.

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There is no doubt that the basilica was beautiful, bright, and airy, with
harmonious proportions. I saw Christian dogmas and doctrines displayed throughout the
church, including depictions of enemies as heathens, but it seemed to me that the basilica
was built more as a political statement to support the crusades than as a way of
propagating Mary Magdalene's work and history.
I found the enchanting landscape of Vezelay most healing. From the back of the
basilica in the gardens to the view from our hotel window, I could not help but be
mesmerized by the peaceful landscape for hours. The rolling hills and lush green valleys,
beautiful wildflowers in an array of colors, and indigenous birds chirping were heavenly
for me to see and hear. I experienced Mary Magdalene's presence in the beautiful
landscape of Vezelay.
Incubation
After 5 years of traveling to many different sites of the Divine Feminine,
including many which are beyond the scope of this dissertation, it was another year
before I was finally ready to write about them. I needed time to contain my experiences
and let the seed that was planted in a fertile pot of soil in my psyche to take root,
incubate, and grow, ultimately transforming into fruits that I could harvest—the insights
from my experiences with the Divine Feminine. Moreover, I needed the help of another
dimension to creatively integrate and understand all that was happening on levels outside
my immediate awareness. When 1 started writing this chapter about Mary Magdalene, 1
had another dream from Her.

Ill
A dream from Mary Magdalene with the Black Madonna.
/ walked into an emporium filled with effects dedicated only to Mary Magdalene.
/ was overjoyed to find myself there, for I did not know that such a store even existed; I
felt like a kid in a candy store, excited and enchanted by all the magical things I was
seeing. A lady came up to me to show me around the store. There were wall hangings,
stationeries, cups, pens, and many items I did not recognize representing Mary
Magdalene. I saw a poster of the Black Madonna, which resembled the same images I
have seen of Her in the crypts of Chartres and Marseilles. There was an inscription that
read "12th century" underneath the image of the Black Madonna. I told the lady that I
wanted to have a copy of the poster, wondering to myself why the Black Madonna was in
a shop dedicated to Mary Magdalene.
The lady pointed to a necklace with a cup pendant hanging on the wall. She
continued to tell me that out of everything in the store, the cup was Mary Magdalene's
emblem and true symbol. I was in awe as I stood in silence, mesmerized by what I was
seeing.
1 left the store holding a small gadget with a white button, small enough to fit in
my right hand. I did not know what it was for, so I pushed the button andfound myself in
a different reality. Ifound myself transported instantaneously into the middle of a battle.
A young woman and two men accompanied me; we were a team. In that distinct
dimension, there were many warriors and protectors like us who were fighting evil. With
courage, purpose, and determination, we stood and fought all together, winning the
battle and restoring harmony and good will to the people.

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After our victory, the four of us went back to camp for a much-needed rest. A
holy man in an orange robe went inside the tent we were guarding. I watched him as he
undressed, slipping into the bed in the nude. He was very comfortable amongst us,
displaying his trust in our abilities to guard the tent while he slept naked. My white cat
went into the tent with him. I was surprised that the spiritual master allowed her to go
between the sheets and sleep with him, because most holy men do not let animals sleep
with them. Many people from India believe that some of us resurrect in this world as
animals because of the lower nature we displayed during previous lives, so they believe
that animals are of a lower nature. I suddenly felt an urge to make love with the holy
man, so I undressed and slipped into the sheets with him. But to my dismay, he was gone,
leaving only his orange robe behind.
I awoke bewildered, wondering why the spiritual teacher in my dream
disappeared, but also felt rapture with the thought of being in an emporium filled with
divine things representing Mary Magdalene. At that instant, I knew for certain that the
dream was another confirmation that it was time for me to write about Her Divine
Feminine forces within me. Being in Her store helped me realize that I am to immerse
myself in Her energy thoroughly again.
It seemed as if my dream was revealing a connection between the Black
Madonna and Mary Magdalene. I believe that is why the image of the Black Madonna I
saw in the shop was the same one I witnessed in my previous pilgrimages to Her at
Chartres and Marseilles. The Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene are representations
of the Divine Feminine that have long been marginalized and rejected by patriarchy in the
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Western world. Both of these significant symbols of the Divine Feminine are longing to
come back and reemerge in our consciousness today to heal our psyches and bring
consciousness to those parts of us that we have forgotten and submerged in our
unconscious. The Black Madonna represents the Ancient Mother, Isis, and the Great
Goddess, Gaia, who is the giver and taker of life and who also nourishes our very souls.
Mary Magdalene represents the redemption of the Dark Feminine by healing the splits
within us, body and spirit, profane and sacredness, lover and spiritual teacher, to help us
find wholeness in being a woman.
The inscription below the image of the Black Madonna read 12th century, which
according to Begg (2006) was the era when the mysteries of Mary Magdalene and the
Black Madonna became prevalent in Europe. Many churches and accommodations along
the Santiago de Compostela were also built to accommodate the growing number of
pilgrimages made to the Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene in France and nearby
countries around the 12th century. Begg further states that for 500 years until the 12th
century, Mary Magdalene centers increased from 33 to 125. In addition, Begg informs us
that during medieval times "some fifty [centers] of the cult of the [Magdalene] also
contain shrines to the Black Virgin" (p. 99). During medieval times, the Ancient
Goddess manifested in the Roman Catholic Church as the Black Madonna, St. Mary
Magdalene, and Virgin Mary—the three-fold aspects of the Divine Feminine.
The necklace that Mary Magdalene wishes us to wear is Her symbol—the cup
indistinguishable from the Holy Grail as Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln (1982) explain in
The Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Moreover, in The Da Vinci Code, Brown (2003)
popularized the claim that sang real meant royal bloods—who are the descendents of the
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daughter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ. Furthermore, san greal means Holy Grail
in Old French. Since the poster of the Black Madonna indicated that it came from the
medieval times, specifically the 12th century, it was important to research the
significance of my dream and what the chalice or the cup symbolized. Chevalier and
Gheerbrant (1997) indicate what the grail represented during medieval times:
The chalice holds blood—the principle of life—and is therefore homologous with

the heart and consequently with the [center]. The heart is a vessel.
Etymologically the Grail is both a "vessel" and a "book," thus confirming the
twofold meaning of what it contains—revelation and life. (p. 178)
Mary Magdalene was Jesus Christ's dearest apostle, who carried out his work and
revealed his everlasting teachings. She was the holy vessel of Jesus.
My dream suggests that She is the cup of life—Her true symbol. She represents
the Divine Feminine and Holy Mother, just as Jesus Christ represents the Divine
Masculine and our Holy Father. In addition, De Vries and De Vries (2004) tell us that
the cup is a "pure symbol of containment" and that it is the symbol of the "feminine"
consisting of the "vulva," cup of voluptuousness, female energy filled with milk, blood,
or soma (p. 152). The Divine Feminine as Mary Magdalene is the giver of life
symbolizing fertility, abundance, sensuousness, and union with the sacred.
The authors of Elsevier's Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery also tell us that the
chalice is a "symbol of containment, fertility, the feminine principle, reproductive energy,
source of life, especially when holding water; but also as the source of spiritual life (p.
115). Mary Magdalene embodies the Divine Feminine energy of complete devotion to
the sacred. St. Mary Magdalene also acts as the container that holds whatever processes
need to take place in a safe and secure way; similar to an alchemical transformation that
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takes place inside a container. The aspect of the Divine Feminine as Mary Magdalene
represents the container—the cup that provides a holding space where things can happen.
In the last part of my dream, I held a hand instrument that transported me to
another space or dimension by the push of a white button. Mary Magdalene empowers
me on my quest toward completeness, symbolized by the four of us fighting and winning
against evil forces. Abt (2005) informs us about the significance of four in a dream:
"with the number four we reach a definite limit beyond which something new begins" (p.
128). We were victorious in winning the battle of ignorance and darkness, signifying a
completion and a transformation to do Mary Magdalene's work of bringing Her sacred
teachings to the world. Pushing the button transforms things. It is a vessel for holding
sacred energy and becoming a part of the transformation that is struggling to integrate
into consciousness the Divine Feminine work of Mary Magdalene.
The white cat in my dream represented my pure soul and devotion to the sacred
feminine. The holy man was able to be intimate with my soul, but not my body, for I am
not to bring something to a physical level that only exists in the spiritual level; I am not to
concretize spirituality through my body. It is only by holding the sacredness in my heart
and soul that I am able to transform Her teachings into purpose; hence, He allowed only
my soul to lie with him.
Illumination
As I embark on this inner journey to Mary Magdalene, I am now taking and
placing Her sacred jewelry on me. I place this necklace, representing Her true symbol
from my dream, around my neck. I place this ring, given to me by the Gypsy woman, on
my finger and I am placing the emblem of the fleur-de-lis, also given to me by the Gypsy
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woman, on my shirt, to evoke Her presence and engagement in this process of active
imagination. My intention is to remain open and receptive to the psychic force that is
able to breakthrough into the consciousness from Mary Magdalene.
Active imagination with Mary Magdalene.
I: Dearest Mary Magdalene, a sense of longing for You lingers within me from the
time 1 was a child. I feel immensely blessed to be visited by You in the most
sacred of dreams. I am humbled by your generosity in allowing me to witness
your consecratedfruit and wear your hallowedjewels. I accept your jewels and
am now ready to be a vessel and a container for Your holy word on this earth.
MM: You are a child of God and the sacred feminine. The way to accept me in your
world is to accept me within you first.
I: I sometimes feel that I am coming from inflation, or maybe even my imagination.
Who am I to say that I am worthy to be your servant? What if all this stems from
my ego and not my soul? I want to come from my truest sense, not just my pride
or ego.
MM: You are in your process. Quiet your mind andfeel me from your heart. What
does your heart say about me?
I: You are the part of me that 1 have lost. You are our mother, our example of whom
we can become. Your life was your message, as the holiest of companions to Lord
Jesus, his lover, and wife. You are the Holy Grail, the container of the teachings
of Jesus Christ. You are a teacher and a wise woman, who exudes love and true
devotion.
MM: You have all that in you, too, my dearest. Trust in your love and devotion to the
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divine truth. This is your way.
I: What am I to do?
MM: There is nothing to do. Be, live, and embody these divine feminine qualities with
focus and devotion. These are the sacred mysteries you are searching for. They
are all in you already. Love. Love fully. Follow your heart. Follow wherever
your heart leads you. That is what 1 did. My love for Jesus Christ brought me to
my destiny. You can experience sacredness in the human female body. This is
your reality and devotional path now. This is your path to find peace within
yourself and discover what you are looking for. As women, we are divine beings;
we are men's counterparts. There is no one or the other; we are all one and part
of a whole. We are gifted with inborn instinctually and understanding. We are
loving and nurturing by nature, but also fierce and wild when unconscious. Dear
Mother has helped you touch into that side of us, now feel the other part of the
sacred feminine through me. Do not neglect your inner work, for it is where it all
starts; this is the Divine Feminine way.
I: Thank you Divine Mother for this wisdom and guidance. (Silence). Why did I
experience the fruit in the basement in my dream?
MM: The fruit is my essence—my loving essence and the fruit of the work that Jesus
Christ and I conceived. It is alive, ripe and available for people to connect with
when they are ready. You can connect with our fruit, for it is within you.
I: Thank you dear Mother Mary Magdalene and Father Jesus Christ.
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I realized that Jesus Christ spiritually married Mary Magdalene and that they
spiritually conceived the luminescent fruit I experienced in the basement. Their work
together is a symbol of the sacred union of masculine and feminine. Remaining centered
and disciplined in my inner work is becoming Her disciple, exemplified by Mary
Magdalene Herself. The word disciple from the Latin word disciplina means "instruction
given to a disciple, from discipulus" (Barnhart, 1995, p. 208). Her message of love is
loud and clear; we are called to connect with Her life. Their love together is a symbol of
the human and divine aspects of our selves that triumphed and that are celebrated in the
celestial sphere and in our worldly realm. It grounds us in the Divine Feminine wisdom
and healing ways.
Explication
During this fifth stage of the heuristic approach, I will discuss the revelations,
insights, and transformations that have occurred from following the previous steps of
Initial Engagement, Immersion, Incubation, and Illumination. My aim is to explore the
"various layers of meaning" as discussed by Moustakas (1990, p. 31) through the four
steps of Focusing, Indwelling, Self-searching, and Self-disclosure.
Focusing.
My cultural and social lens from my Catholic upbringing deeply affected my
beliefs and judgments about Mary Magdalene and the social roles of women in the
Western world. Because She was falsely branded by the Catholic fathers as a prostitute
for hundreds of years, I shunned Her existence and projected the shame that I felt for
being a sexual being on to Her, secretly feeling isolated and branding myself a sinner and
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a whore as a result. My former belief system was a product of my socialization as a
woman in our patriarchal paradigm. I agree with what Dutch scholar Esther de Boer
(1997) in Mary Magdalene: Beyond the Myth said about Haskins' (1993) statement that
Catholicism made Mary Magdalene a repentant model and a controllable figure for
biasing the church against women:
According to Haskins, with Mary Magdalene the penitent the Western church of
the Middle Ages disputed not only her sexuality but the sexuality of all women.
In her, the ascetic church rejected everything to do with sexuality. Women were
the embodiment of this. (p. 13)
I internalized this paradigm taught to us by the Catholic Church, feeling ashamed
of being a sinful woman, a feeling that deepened through the years, creating self-
contempt and a further sense of self-destruction. I was stuck in the virgin/whore split,
secretly hoping that perhaps a man or a divine being like Jesus Christ would save me, so I
could become a repentant sinner and avoid being condemned to hell. Furthermore, I
desired to have a husband and a child, and knew at an early age that I could not be
redeemed by remaining a virgin and being inseminated by an angel from God.
My research about Mary Magdalene originated from the dichotomy of being a
good girl like Virgin Mary or a bad girl represented as Mary Magdalene. My social lens
and bias resulting from my Catholic upbringing has been a hindrance but also a catalyst
to discover the Self in the Divine Feminine representations of Mary Magdalene, Black
Madonna, and Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church.
The film Jesus Christ Superstar (Jewison et al., 1973) gave me a glimpse of
Mary Magdalene in a different light at an early age, but 1 unconsciously followed the lead
of the Catholic fathers because the film was unsanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church
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and my socialization to uphold the patriarchal beliefs was deeply embedded in my
consciousness.
My research, along with my immersion from my pilgrimages to Mary Magdalene,
inspired me to fully realize a connection with Her divine energy. In addition, my sacred
dreams, somatic experience, and deep reflections awakened latent parts of me including
the Self. In my sacred dream about Mary Magdalene's fruit and jewels, I was guided and
looked after by Her all through this dissertation process. My breakdown and
breakthrough in consciousness from Mirepoix were divinely transforming, allowing me
to experience Her energy both powerful and profound. I felt the paradigm shift occur in
my body, heart, mind, and soul.
In addition, much like my experiences with the Black Madonna, being in sacred
sites where She is held in high regard and loved by the people for hundreds of years
created shifts in my old beliefs about Her; I experienced healing through deeply knowing
that She was never a whore—She is a sacred representation of the Divine Feminine.
Furthermore, I was able to become open and vulnerable to discover the depths of
Her work, where Her energy flowed freely, which allowed me to feel safety while
jumping into the unknown, remaining open for synchronicity and numinous events to
occur. Witnessing young people perform age-old rituals towards Her made me realize
that She is integrated in people's lives in the Provence, Languedoc, and Carmargue areas
of France, just as I saw the older lady hug and kiss the Black Madonna at the Chartres
Cathedral. Her divine essence can be seen and felt in the Southern regions of France
because She lives in the landscape and in the people, where She continues to live in their
legends, folklores, and churches. Mary Magdalene represents the missing Divine
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Feminine in Christianity, representing the divine woman—the wife, lover, and
companion, teacher, priestess, and saint who now is no longer split off and disowned but
also lives in me.
Indwelling.
Moustakas (1990) tells us the importance of Indwelling, "to understand something
fully, one dwells inside the subsidiary and focal factors to draw from them every possible
nuance, texture, fact, and meaning" (p. 24). Moustakas continues to expound on the
second stage of Explication, "it follows clues wherever they appear; one dwells inside
them and expands their meaning and associations until a fundamental insight is achieved"
(p. 24). After discussing my immersions and awakenings experienced from my research
and pilgrimages to Mary Magdalene, I will now return to the gospels from the canonical
bible and from those found in Nag Hammadi with the help of prominent scholars and
authors, to further understand Her marginalization since ancient times.
Karen Jo Torjenson (1993), a leading authority on women in ancient Christianity,
in her book titled, When Women Were Priests, asks a soul-searching question regarding
women in Christianity, "Why, then, are we so unaware of the prominence of women in
the birth of Christianity? Why does this powerful misperception continue to marginalize
women in even the more enlightened branches of contemporary Christianity?" (p. 11).
There are many reasons for this, but I believe the misunderstanding that women are an
inferior gender still persists in our collective psyche. Professor of Ecclesiastical History
at Harvard University, Karen King (2003), in her book titled The Gospel of Mary of
Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, informs us that Mary was an active and
vocal participant during the discussions with Jesus Christ and that the evidence found in
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the 3rd-century work Pistis Sophia, revealed that Peter was often in conflict with Mary
Magdalene. King explains, "Mary is the single most outspoken disciple in this work, and
she wants to offer her interpretation of what has been said, but she complains, '1 am
afraid of Peter for he threatens me and he hates our race'" PiSo II. 71:2 (p. 148). This
ancient manuscript tells us that Mary Magdalene experienced the hostility towards
women from men, specifically from Peter.
Mary Magdalene was also denied Her role as Jesus Christ's beloved. Authors
Joan Norton and Margaret Starbird (2009) in their collaborative book titled, 14 Steps to
Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene, confirms her
denial as a partner and companion of Jesus Christ, "the rejection of their Holy Union
came from the disciples who questioned Jesus' love for Mary the Magdalene. And Peter
built his Church upon this rejection" (p. 38). Mary Magdalene was instead denigrated to
the status of an inferior woman and a prostitute. Starbird (1993) tells us that "while two
Gospels, those of Mark and Luke, maintain that Mary Magdalene was healed by Jesus of
possession by seven demons, nowhere does it say that she was a prostitute, and yet this
stigma has followed her throughout Christendom" (p. 29). Starbird (2005) lets us know
the origin of the erroneous story that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute:
Although the story of the anointing of Jesus by a woman occurs in all four
canonical gospels, only Luke calls her a sinner. And yet very early in Christian
tradition, Mary Magdalene was conflated, or confused, with Luke's unnamed
woman form the streets of Nian; she was assumed to be a prostitute, although on
closer examination, the scriptural texts that mention her never supported the
slander implied by this tradition, (p. 11)
Luke also writes a conflicting statement that Mary Magdalene was a wealthy patroness
of Jesus Christ, "Luke 8:3 mentions that Mary Magdalene was of independent means and
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supported Jesus out of her own resources, as did other Galilean women like Joanna the
wife of Chuza, Herod's steward" (King, 2003, p. 142).
Norton and Starbird (2009) elucidate, "The partner of the Savior is Mary
Magdalene"; so says logion 55 in the Gospel of Philip. We've heard over and over that
"Jesus kissed her often and that he kissed her on the mouth" (p. 57). There is no concrete
evidence that She is the bride in the gospels, but there are testimonies found in the
gospels that She is his beloved companion. Furthermore, passages in the gospels confirm
that Jesus Christ appreciated and regarded Her highly. In The Gospels of Mary: The
Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene the Companion ofJesus, Marvin Meyer (2004), one
of the leading scholars of Gnosticism and the Nag Hammadi Library, informs us that
Mary was Jesus Christ's foremost disciple:
Appropriately, in the Dialogue of the Savior, Mary, described as a leading

disciple in conversation with Jesus and the other disciples, utters wisdom sayings
attributed elsewhere to Jesus, and she is described as "a woman who understood
everything [or "completely" (in Coptic, epter'f)y p. xvi
The gospels found in Nag Hammadi suggest that She was an integral part of Jesus
Christ's spiritual work. Professor Meyer further informs us of Mary Magdalene's
significance to Jesus Christ:
In Pistis Sophia, Mary presented as the most prominent of all the disciples,
provides insightful interpretations of sayings of Jesus and passages of scripture,
and she proclaims the nature and meaning of salvation, Jesus tells Mary, "You are
one whose heart is set on heaven's kingdom more than all your brothers," and he
says again, "You are more blessed than all women on earth." Mary is, Jesus
insists, "pure spiritual woman [or 'pure spiritual one.' (fem.); in Coptic,
tepneumatike 'nhilikrines]." pp. xvi-xvii
It appears that Mary Magdalene understood Jesus' legacy more than the rest of the
disciples. She is our spiritual beloved mother and container of his true teachings—thus,
She is the Holy Grail.

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A professor of the New Testament and Early Christian Testament from Iliff
School of Theology, Ann Brock, in her book titled Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle:
The Struggle for Authority (2003), informs us of the prominent role that Mary Magdalene
played in the Greek text of the Acts of Phillip:
For example, "she is present at the side of Christ when he allocates missions to
the apostles" (Acts Phil. 8,1-2 [94]). She is the one who holds the register of the
countries, and it is she who prepares the bread and salt, and the breaking of the
bread, (p. 125)
Furthermore, Brock affirms Jesus' affection and confidence towards Mary Magdalene by
quoting His praising of Her: '"I know that you are good and courageous and blessed
among women' (Acts Phil. 8, 3-4 [95])" Brock tells us that Jesus Christ commissioned
Mary Magdalene to preach his words to the people with Philip, 'go therefore with him
[Philip] to every place where he is going and do not stop encouraging him with love and
great compassion' {Acts Phil. 8,3 [95])' (p. 125).
In an urgent quest for the truth about Mary Magdalene as one of the lost symbols
of Divine Feminine in our Western culture, it is important to search for Her in all
contexts, including the gospels from ancient texts. It is important to remember that Mary
Magdalene is a significant companion, disciple, and teacher, mother, and example to us
all. She embodies the Divine Feminine in us and with greater appreciation for Her
courage, strength of heart, and devotion, we discover those same characteristics in
ourselves as women.
Self-searching.
I searched for the unconscious shadows and complexes that I have living inside
me, nourished by the archetypal forces bringing feelings of inferiority garnered from our
cultural view or patriarchy since ancient times. I discovered that most of the roles I
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played throughout my childhood and adulthood stemmed from my desire to be the
ephemeral good girl that my patriarchal fathers expected me to be. As a child, I was a
good Catholic girl, leading my fellow students in our daily practice of rosary,
memorizing the liturgies from the mass perfectly, reciting them louder than most of my
fellow students, thus proving that I was the best good girl from my class. I followed the
nuns' teachings and kissed the hands of the priests when they visited us in our all-girls'
school. I followed them when they were on our campus, yearning to get a blessing or a
small picture of saints that they often gave us as children, but only to those lucky enough
to be among the first ones to reach the priests through a sea of girls who were socialized
as I was. I excelled in school, sang liturgies, and wore my uniform with pride, believing
myself to be among the chosen ones, above the heathens, powerful, and saved by God—
the holy Catholic Church.
When I was 12 years old, we moved to America from the Philippines, and life as I
knew it changed, and so did I. I started liking boys and fixing myself up like a pretty girl
rather than a good girl. I started dating in high school, resigning myself to being a bad
girl and feeling condemned to hell. After high school, I became even wilder, rebelling
from my Catholic fathers, while my feelings of the powerlessness about being a woman
mounted. I followed the so-called path of Mary Magdalene I had been taught, selling my
body and soul to men, just to find a man who would make me feel appreciated and loved.
1 did not render myself important until I found a man who would deem me so. I still
looked to the patriarchal fathers for approval, searching for external validation that I was
a good girl. I fell into the patriarchal roles of women, giving importance to parts of
myself that I deemed important for men only. I dressed in a sexy way, gave myself to
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men in bed to feel special, and became a serving companion, wife, and mother. I was a
singer at one point of my life, singing songs to attract men to love me, wearing clothes to
seduce them, and selling my femininity to profit, and to feel important and valued.
It has been a challenging road to find wholeness in patriarchal culture, and it is
through this research and belief in the Divine Feminine that I am changing my imbued
beliefs about women and myself in general. Through my openness and devotion to this
work, I feel the energy of the Divine Feminine healing me on all levels. I am finding my
voice just as She is finding Her voice through us. Furthermore, I am no longer vainly and
destructively searching outside myself for validation. The Divine Feminine is integrated
and lives through me now.
Self-disclosure.
Integrating Mary Magdalene within me was difficult because it meant facing my
complexes, shadows, and unconscious beliefs about being a woman, which I discussed
throughout this dissertation. I had to get real and understand where my socialization
ended and where I allow it to continue still, which I know will be a lifelong quest. I had
an unbidden dream about the Divine Father during my quest for the Divine Feminine
through Mary Magdalene:
A dream from the Divine Father.
I am in the large estate of a wise old man. There are many happy people who are
enjoying the festivities, where the food is abundant and the drinks flow nonstop. The next
day, the wise old man left the estate, while the guardians and caretakers continued to
care for the place with great love and dedication, indicative of how they revered and
adored Him.
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I wanted to leave my husband and stay with the old man permanently in the
estate. My husband was so different from the old man; my husband was scientific and
rational, whereas the wise old man was kind, connected, compassionate, and ever-
knowing. He was able to see through everything. He liked me, and 1 felt His love and
tenderness toward me as I had never felt before from any man. I wondered ifperhaps,
He would want me to be his lover/partner ifI offered myself to him.
My husband and I went home and I was in my bathroom washing my face. There
was a book next to my bathroom sink titled Guru Poornima. I did not know what it
meant. My husband and I went back to the estate. He was still very apprehensive about
the wise old man, but I was not. / knew that he was the ever-knowing and ever-loving
man. We entered his estate and there were starfishes and many other little sea creatures
in his front yard. The people there were so happy he was back.
I woke up in his bedroom and I thought about brushing my teeth before 1 kissed
him, but I wanted more than that. I wanted to be with him. He reacted to me with pure
tenderness and love, loving me in the most profound way. He opened his arms widely
and I felt his soul opened entirely to me, as he looked straight in my soul and in the most
loving way said, "Go ahead and take what you need. " I hugged him so very tightly and I
was in bliss. My spirit soared as I felt the love emanating from him, filling up my body,
heart, and soul. He was my teacher, my lover, and my Holy Father. He is the Divine
Masculine 1 had never known.

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1 awoke feeling absolutely blissful. He was my unconditional father. He was the
all-knowing, all-loving and all-encompassing father that I have been searching for all my
life. Jung (1945/1968a) tells us what the archetypal wise old man represents:
The archetype of spirit in the shape of a man, hob-goblin, or animal always

appears in a situation where insight, understanding, good advice, determination,
planning, etc., are needed but cannot be mustered on one's resources. The
archetype compensates this state of spiritual deficiency by contents designed to
fill the gap. (p. 14 [CW 9i, para. 398])
The wise old man was a compensation for the lost father image within me and
was representative of the death of my biological father, the lost symbolic father—the loss
of my faith in the Catholic Church, and the loss of the anima in our collective psyche,
emblematic of our patriarchal culture. In my dreams, He was nonjudgmental, accepting,
and supportive—the Divine Masculine. I no longer desired to be with my husband—the
animus driven man of logos, rationality, and power. I yearned to be with an anima
integrated man represented as the archetypal wise old man.
Jung (1945/1968a) also tells us, "the figure of the wise old man can appear so
plastically, not only in dreams but also in visionary meditation (or what we call 'active
imagination'), that as it sometimes apparently is the case in India, it takes over the role of
a guru" (pp. 14-15 [CW 9i, para. 398]). He appears as my guru, meaning teacher, in my
dream; thus, the book titled Guru Poornima I found by my bathroom sink. Guru
Poornima is a Hindu holiday in celebration of their original guru named Vyasa; the
Hindus believed that Vyasa received the teaching from the Gods to write the sacred text
of Mahabharata (Sivananda, 1983). The feast and celebration in my dream represent this
special day when the food for the soul and drinks to quench our thirst for the divine
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flowed freely and in abundance—healing gifts for the psyche. My guru's estate is
located in the unconscious, represented by the sea creatures abounding the landscape in
my dream. Our embrace is representative of an inner marriage of the Divine Feminine
and Divine Masculine and the union of the anima and animus in me—an integration
toward individuation.
Culmination of the Research in a Creative Synthesis
This last stage of the heuristic approach calls for the summary of my experiences
with Mary Magdalene. 1 will begin this section by reiterating the reason why Mary
Magdalene is an integral part of women's wholeness, as eloquently stated by Starbird
(2009):
We could restate the question "Why do we need the Bride?" as "Why are we
created in God's image?" Unless we have an image of Jesus' Bride as a real
woman whom he loves in the physical dimension, we can't really accept the idea
that we women are created in God's image too. (pp. 32-33)
Through my engagement, immersion in the pilgrimages, incubation, illumination,
explication through the four steps of focusing, indwelling, self-searching and self-
disclosure of this subject, I was able to rediscover Mary Magdalene and integrate Her in
my psyche. Mary Magdalene had a profound relationship with the divine. She had a rich
internal communion with Jesus Christ even after his death, and it was for this reason that
Jesus chose to appear to Her first on the day of his resurrection. She was the beloved and
significant female disciple and partner of Jesus Christ.
Mary Magdalene represents a female archetype that was lost in the narrative of
Western culture and in the Catholic paradigm. As women, we were also marginalized
and robbed of our true natures of divinity, strength, and wisdom. We can heal our inner
selves by bringing Mary Magdalene into our homes and our consciousness. Mary
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Magdalene brings awareness to our passion, our bodies, and our divinity in our human
experience. Her sacred jewels desire to be worn so they can feel proud and sparkle with
the inner beauty of our instincts, Eros, compassion, vulnerability, and wisdom— gifts
from the Divine Feminine.
Moreover, it is through my experience with the Divine Feminine as His beloved
that I was able to find the Divine Masculine. I have a new awareness of the sanctity of a
male and female relationship in the inner and outer realm, as a representation of the
divine union representative of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
Unbidden, I also connected with the Divine Masculine in me, as a result of this
research. I followed Moustakas' example that creative synthesis can take many forms
and "usually takes the form of a narrative depiction utilizing verbatim material and
examples, but it may be expressed as a poem, story, drawing, painting, or by some other
creative form" (p. 32). I am closing this chapter by sharing a poem I wrote about my new
found relationship with the Divine Masculine.
My Father at last.
You, who are so gentle, with your smile that dazzles like a thousand suns and a
million stars, can bring exquisite feelings ofjoy and excitement that I have never known.
I long for you, Papa. You have my undying love and devotion. I have lookedfor
you inside every man I have ever loved and even those whom I did not. My body trembles
with such passion and longing when I think of you.
1 see you, Papa. As you smile at me, I feel my groins red, hot, full offire andfury,
longing to be one with you. I love you, Papa. My whole universe is in you. I do not see
past you. Everything else is void, darkness, and emptiness.

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I need you, Papa. I have lookedfor you all over the world. / have tried
everything to find you including selling my body, always looking for someone to love me.
You are my everything. Your embrace is my Shangri-la. Heaven is where you stand. I
love you as a child and as I am today.
I was in bliss when you came to me in my dreams, ever-knowing that I do not face
life alone any longer. My worldfeels safer with you and the Divine Mother, away from
Hades and past Apollo's arid rigidity.
I am one with you, my father, the wise, ever-knowing, benevolent one. You have
welcomed me in your grand palace in the heavens and in your palace in the mystical
realm. 1 treasure those moments, my beloved.
I am most grateful, feeling immense happiness from the depths of my soul,
knowing that you are always with me from now on. I realized that the men I have loved
were only personifications of you, but have never been you.
Integration of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine.
A complete transformation and integration of the Divine Feminine and the
beginning of my connection with the Divine Masculine took place within me after my
journey to the Divine Feminine, eliciting healing and newfound consciousness of
wholeness. Now, both the Holy Father and Holy Mother live within me, and Their
comingled essence opens the doors allowing the whole woman within to emerge.
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Chapter 8
Findings, Clinical Implications and the Conclusion
Implications found in the Heuristic Method
This dissertation attempts to answer deeper questions about feminine
individuation; the aim is to discover themes and essences of meanings by examining,
experiencing, and integrating the Divine Feminine principles in my psyche through the
six stages of the heuristic method. Clark Moustakas (1990), the father of the heuristic
approach, informs us that we are all connected, yet universally unique. The data and
findings that emerged give voice to women's universal experience of rediscovering
wholeness in our patriarchal Western society, as colored by my distinctive background
and unique experiences through the universal and transformative symbols of the Divine
Feminine. Social scientist and author Duane Elgin (2000) affirms the importance of
finding the qualities, meanings, and essences through our own experiences:
There will never be another person identical to any one of us in all eternity, [so
we are] absolutely original beings. At the same time, since our existence arises
from and is woven in into the deep ecology of the universe, we are completely
integrated with all that exists, (p. 10)
This dissertation study is rooted in the notion that we are all interconnected, and that my
individual search for wholeness in our culture is also in many ways shared by mass
consciousness and human evolution.
The data and findings researched and discovered from this qualitative research
method is further explained by authors Norman Denzin and Yvonne Lincoln (1994):
Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive,

naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers
study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. (p. 2)
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Because of my impassioned longing to find feminine sacredness within patriarchal
society, I sought out natural settings where the Divine Feminine symbols are seen and
experienced in our modern era. I went on pilgrimages to sacred sites and inner journeys
to the archetypal realms where I was able to commune with the Ancient Divine Feminine.
These lived inner and outer experiences in my search for the Divine Feminine are the
data and findings applied in this dissertation study. Furthermore, the integration process
of these new findings in my psyche was also explored in this study.
It is also important to consider the limitations of the method used. Because this
qualitative study was not determined by measurement, correlations, or statistics, the
validity of this research can be seen as questionable by those who adhere to the scientific
model prevalent in Western culture. The scientific analytical model tells us that our lived
experiences are more valid if done through a quantitative perspective, which advocates
proof through mathematics and units of our lived experiences; but feelings, instinct, and
intuition are not easily measured. Depth Psychologists Coppin and Nelson (2005)
eloquently describe the origin and prevalence of this scientific analytical model in our
Western society:
As a body of scientific knowledge grew throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, its methods became increasingly committed to mathematics,
quantitative inquiry, and proof. There was a convergence of science and
philosophy in the academics of Europe that contributed to a vision of human life
that could be reduced to units of measurable experience, (p. 24)
It would be difficult to adhere to quantitative investigation and still explicate the Divine
Feminine qualities that are elusive in general, transient in matter, often times
incalculable, and not easily replicated.
Quantitative analysis is important and should not be underestimated, but it cannot

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alone contain or even describe the true Divine Feminine essences, which by heir nature
defy external quantification. To examine the depths of Divine Feminine is an internal
journey that requires openness to the invisible and unconscious materials found in the
depths of our psyches. Therefore, this dissertation study necessarily uses a method that is
able to touch into these elusive qualities.
This study employs the heuristic approach using a depth psychological lens to
dialogue with the autonomous forces of the unconscious. Jungian analyst Jolande Jacobi
(1942/1973), in The Psychology of C. G. Jung, tells us what Jung believed to be an
objective perspective, "the collective unconscious is impervious to the critical and
ordering activity of consciousness; in it we hear the voice of uninfluenced primal nature,
and Jung accordingly calls it the objective psyche" (p. 35). The primal nature of the
collective unconscious is not easily rendered scientific, measured, or explained, but it is
objective.
This dissertation is primarily based on the studies of Jung and depth psychology,
which is a study of the unconscious with the intention of keeping soul in mind, as was
discussed when introducing the concept of depth psychology in chapter 1. Jungian
analysts and authors of Contemporary Jungian Approaches to Spiritually Oriented
Psychotherapy Lionel Corbett and Murray Stein (2005) explain how being open to these
deeper and unknown realms other than the mind elicits awakenings and numinous
experiences. They write: "the soul then acts as a 'receiver' of spirit, the capacity to cast
the experience of spirit into our awareness. This interaction produces a crucial quality of
experience, that of the numinosum" (p. 54). German theologian Rudolph Otto
(1917/1958) in Das Hielige coins the word numinous to describe holy or religious
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experiences. The rational Western scientific model has difficulty describing
synchronicity and numinous experiences, because these sacred or holy experiences are
not rational. They cannot be replicated, measured, or even objectified—they are more
accurately described as inner experiences.
The Divine Feminine and depth psychological processes used in this dissertation,
such as engaging dreams, active imaginations, inner reflections, and meditations, provide
an opening to witness and describe these inner experiences, which defy being quantified
or even objectified. Therefore, the possibility exists for this study to be dismissed, or
worse, invalidated by the Western scientific model of research. This scientific reduction
of our psychological experiences diminishes our deep-rooted essences and experiences of
soul, which are psychologically important to us, as humanistic psychologist David Elkins
(2005) explains in A Humanistic Approach to Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy:
Soul reminds us that there is a deeper, more primordial world than our logical
processes. We know the soul when we are stirred by a poem, moved by a piece of
music, touched by a painting. Soul is the deep resonance that vibrates within us at
such moments. Thus, the soul can be touched, felt, and known but never defined,
(p. 137)
Western culture's Cartesian thinking would like us to believe that the mind can solve
everything and that its applications can unlock every aspect of the human psyche; yet, we
cannot find and identify the numinous through our minds. Our scientific minds lack the
sensibilities and appreciation for imaginal processes and abstract spiritual experiences
that are not easily described, often unspeakable, and certainly immeasurable.
Furthermore, we cannot look at psychology simply as the study of the mind.
Elkins (2005) describes the more accurate meaning of psychology and our work as
clinical psychologists:
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The word psychology comes from the Greek words psyche and logos and literally
means "the study of the soul." The word therapist originally meant "servant" or
"attendant." Thus, etymologically, a psychotherapist is a "servant or attendant of
the soul."... Even the word psychopathology points to the soul. It comes from
the Greek words psyche and pathos and literally means "the suffering of the soul."
(p. 140)
We have given too much importance to the intellect while devaluing feelings and
intuition. A subscriber to the popular Western belief that human life can be measured
and reduced to measurable experience sees only facts that can be produced from a
rationally observed world through scientific measurement and mathematics to attain
validity. This is blind to the psychologically felt and profound Divine Feminine qualities
and inner workings that are sometimes indescribable, unseen, and intangible, such as
instinct, intuition, and numinous experiences. Symbolic attitudes and metaphoric
sensibilities are qualities of the Divine Feminine that cannot be empirically measured or
validated because they refuse to be boxed, caged, and contained as required by the
empirical method.
Our inner workings and inner lives are too deep and complex to be completely
described by analytical studies and control groups. Moreover, there is the danger that the
researcher will become overly mechanical and detached while collecting data, unable to
empathize or feel the experiences, inner movements, transformations, and sensibilities of
Eros and soul by strictly adhering to the logic, rational thinking, measurement, and
statistics found in quantitative studies. The inner meanings are lost to outer
measurements.
Ethical Implications of Social and Cultural Biases
No matter how aware or conscious I become of the collective forces that have
acted and are acting on me, my unique experience of life creates unavoidable social and
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cultural biases that deserve attention at this time. My social conditioning, the result of
immigrating to America from the Philippines at the age of 12, having undergone
oppressive disciplining by the Dominican Order of a Catholic school, limits my ability to
be objective in this study. Having lived with and felt the painful marginalization and
devaluation of my feminine qualities at the hands of our patriarchal fathers and
Christianity, my lived experiences of the abuses 1 withstood from my father and ex-
spouse, and growing up with a submissive mother who was subjugated by my father all
affect my concept of patriarchal socialization. These experiences and others I have had
are not universal and give me a unique perspective that can both deepen and limit my
interpretations.
As part of my socialization, I played the role of a maiden or femme a homme for
most of my life, which means a vessel for men's anima to be projected upon, which
colors my lens and defines a portion of my path of feminine individuation. Jung
(1933/1959) describes this woman's role as an empty vessel, one that we often see with
younger women who live unconscious lives:
The "maiden" corresponds to the anima of the man. . . . But as long as the woman is
content to be his femme a homme, she has no feminine individuality. She is empty
and merely glitters—a welcome vessel for masculine projections, (pp. 198-199
[CW 9i, para. 355])
I craved men's validation to feel valued, accepted, and loved. In the past, 1 dutifully
accepted my unconscious roles as devoted girlfriend, wife, and father's daughter. My
participation in many other unconscious roles for women, which uniquely aids my
sensitivity and identification with this material, can also make the study vulnerable to
limitations because of my subjectivity towards the topic. Although elements of my
experience are universal to all women individuating in Western culture, they cannot be
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fully encompassing or even indicative of all women's individuation experiences.
However, the unusual intensity of my experiences also serves to deepen and amplify the
forces many Western women feel on their individuation journeys.
Being a person of color further intensifies and also adds to the scope of the
limitations and preconceived notions of my experience as a woman living in a patriarchal
culture. My lived experiences do not stem from the lens of women from European, Latin
American, African, Native American, or other Asian descent. Moreover, the Eastern
paradigm of feminine individuation was not developed in this dissertation study. Finally,
this research study is limited to the study of female experience and does not directly
include the male voice. As a result, this study cannot be generalized to the lived
experiences of men in Western culture.
Our patriarchal fathers also helped us in our modern evolution overcome much of
the poverty and physical suffering through scientific, medical, and technological
advances in our society. Our external lives have benefited greatly in countless ways, and
many believe that this single-minded focus that has eclipsed our inner world, which
included superstitious and the unseen, was required for these achievements. Now that
many of our external needs are well satisfied in the Western world, we have the
opportunity to go back and reclaim what was lost.
Summary of Findings and their Significance
The purpose of this study was to illustrate the integration of the Divine Feminine
principles with the current Western patriarchal paradigm as a path to individuation
through a depth psychological perspective. The path of feminine individuation was
found to be difficult to access primarily due to the systematic suppression of feminine

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values throughout the ages. Moreover, this study supports the concept that the collective
wound in women's psyches remains deep and profound, causing inner suffering and
yearning of our true natures.
The masculine qualities of control, driving, and striving served our physical,
scientific, and material desires—our external needs—very well. But the same unbridled
human progress, which often took the form of raping and plundering our planet's natural
resources also resulted in pollution and global warming. Unfortunately, being single-
minded in these qualities also devalued the Divine Feminine qualities—leaving our
internal needs unmet.
Furthermore, this study reveals that women in Western society often live out
elements of this feminine archetypal wounding by experiencing toxic shame, guilt, and
powerlessness in their innermost core, but as women, we are often unaware of its roots,
intensity, and its effects on our lives. When our Divine Feminine qualities are
unappreciated, devalued, and even feared, we lose our internal sense of who we
inherently are and look for external sources of validation.
With our Divine Feminine nature mortally wounded, we unconsciously seek
validation by participating in the denigration and oppressive societal roles of modern
women that are valued in an externally focused culture. We adopt and often excel in
patriarchal ways of being by sacrificing our own sacred feminine ways of inner knowing,
which are deeply rooted in an instinctual feminine wisdom, neglecting the gifts of the
Ancient Feminine light, darkness, love, fierceness, and interconnectedness.
Even now, I struggle to appreciate and honor my own feminine wisdom when I
seek acceptance and approval from others whom I perceive as having power and control
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over me. In the clinical setting where 1 am currently a doctoral intern, there is a male
supervisor who misuses his power over supervisees, especially women, by systematically
criticizing, rejecting, and undervaluing us and our work with our patients. It has been a
struggle for me to stand up to his energy for fear of annihilation. Remnants of patriarchal
conditioning and female insecurities still lingered in my consciousness while going
through this work. From this place of disempowerment, I tried to appease his negative
attitude by doing what he wanted me to do, placating his needs and dissatisfactions to
gain his approval and respect. At best, he would sometimes return my need for his
approval by appeasing me with his ingenious comments, but they were not heartfelt or
genuine. He required me to bring him food every week during our individual supervision
period, rewrite reports multiple times for no reason but to enjoy his feeling of power over
me, and endure sexual innuendos and insults. During this process, I lost my connection
with my own feminine power and authentic self, experiencing pain and strife within me,
bringing the issue of patriarchal power and control to the forefront of my consciousness.
Being true to Her would mean not losing my authentic voice by maintaining
connection with an internal power that transcends external control, which I started to
apply in my dealings with him through the insights I received from the process of
integrating the Divine Feminine. I integrated my new findings into my everyday life,
which included empowering my feminine voice. I consider this one of the synchronistic
events that I needed to face my internal and external struggles at the time of integrating
Divine Feminine consciousness into my being. Presently, I attend his supervisions with
calm collectedness, from a place of authentic feminine power. I no longer bring him food
during supervision. I am internally unmoved when he abuses his role as my supervisor,

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because I no longer need or crave masculine approval to validate my internal feminine
nature. Today, I value and validate myself as a woman who embodies feelings, instinct,
receptivity, and vulnerability along with my own masculine qualities of focus,
conceptualization, and discernment.
Healing my wounded Divine Feminine required me to gather the courage and
strength to set aside external validation and go forth on an inner pilgrimage and maintain
a strong connection with the Divine Femininity. Only then could I reconnect with the
Ancient Goddess and female saints, and directly experience the feminine sanctity that
remains unspoiled by external energies, including the patriarchal forces that have
controlled our planet for centuries. Connecting with the goddesses in a very personal
way catalyzed an internal shift in consciousness, and my craving for external validation is
transformed into a deep knowing and appreciation of my internal feminine wisdom and
power. This power is symbolized and available to us through the goddesses presented in
this dissertation.
Beginning this dissertation study, I sought an actual path to take, in order to
experience the Divine Feminine symbols as transformative agents. I wanted a map to
follow and experience the insights and internal movements within me to feel, understand,
and integrate the principles of the Divine Feminine. I was seeking an external answer to
an internal question and was frustrated for many months. Finally, after not finding the
prescribed formula, I followed an internal calling through my dreams, active
imaginations, meditations, and reflections, and let go of the need for external results and
validations. Clinical psychologist and founding president of Pacifica Graduate Institute
Stephen Aizenstat (2000) accurately describes the vast landscape of this archetypal
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realm: "when you enter the territory of the living image, there are no established trails, no
familiar landmarks. The topological maps of ego no longer apply, for one is in a place
much larger than ego" (p. 123). The data and findings from my inner and outer
explorations to places where the Ancient Divine Feminine is still found stems from an
inner calling to find truth and loyalty to the Divine Feminine. The map does not exist in
the external world. It is the development of an internal sensibility—developing a living
relationship with Her, which is necessarily a very personal journey. It is an exploration
of our inner world against traditional ways we adopted through our lifelong conditioning
and socialization. Jung (2009) eloquently describes the necessity of this inner journey:
"if we merely reject the dogmatic view, our liberation from the well-established will be
merely intellectual, whereas our deeper feeling will persist on the old path" (p. 368).
Jung then continues to tell us that we must question, destroy, and rebuild a new path and
way of being. He also expounds on the challenge many people face in their paths toward
individuation: "they enter uncharted territory, which has neither paths nor boundaries.
They lack any direction, since they have forsaken all established bearings" (p. 368).
After my external journeys to the Divine Feminine, going within to find Her was
extremely painful and sometimes very challenging. Venturing out to unknown places
was terrifying because of the painful wounds and ghosts that lurked within those hidden
places that have been repressed or suppressed in my psyche; yet, it is where She can be
found within us all.
When we find Her, we can begin to accept and heal parts of us that have been
marginalized and be liberated from our patriarchal conditioning. It is also through this
process that we are able to integrate logos consciously and in a more balanced way—the
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Divine Masculine with our Divine Feminine towards our individuation process and
collective evolution.
It is by remembering ourselves through our connection with the Divine Feminine
that we are able to start healing and living authentic lives. We as women have the ability
to create and birth children just us we have the ability to nurture creation and our
children. With the help of the Divine Feminine within us, we can birth a new
consciousness that will help rebalance and heal our planet and ourselves. The
reemergence of the Divine Feminine discussed throughout this dissertation study asks us
to recover our lost values by fostering relatedness, moving back into our hearts, and
reclaiming the irrational ways of instinct and intuition in our lives. It is also from the
Divine Feminine traditions of listening through our inner ears to our dreams, reflections,
and accepting of our shadows, that She is able to live through us.
The Divine Feminine can be experienced in many places within and outside of
ourselves. From my pilgrimages to Her sacred sites, I discovered that religions such as
Christianity have commandeered and incorporated new gods and goddesses into the
pagan shrines of our Great Mother since antiquity; She is often found where ancient
springs flourish, surrounded by nature, or on top of a natural mountaintop. If you look
very closely, you will find Her in the churches and temples built on Her ancient sites,
sometimes in the crypt as the Black Madonna, under the discretion of patriarchy as the
Virgin Mary, or in obscure locations within the churches assimilated as female saints or
heroines of the time. She has also been incorporated into local folklore and legends in
some countries, just as Mary Magdalene has been a part of Southern France.
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She also exists as the many faces of the goddesses found in varied cultures,
countries, and religions. We can discover Her in popular myths that have been passed
down through generations, even before the advent of reading or writing. She is found
painted in caves and figurines since 25,000 BCE, but most of all, She is always in us. We
are a part of the Ancient Mother just as She is a part of us always. The Divine Mother
talks to us if we listen and answer to Her calling.
Deconstructing the history of the Divine Feminine from ancient times until today
enables us to understand Her and our past, present, and especially helps shape our future
experiences in our society toward a more internally honoring, related, and
psychologically healthy existence. This knowledge helps us bring consciousness of Her
past and continued marginalization and transform the prescribed truths about women.
Integrating our patriarchal ways of logic, focus, and control with the Divine Feminine
ways of Eros, compassion, instinct, and insight can facilitate a balance and healing of our
planet and our species.
Implications, Importance, and other Contributions of the Findings for Clinical
Psychology and Depth Psychology
This study was built upon the various works of many Jungian authors, depth
psychologists, theologians, and lay-people who believe in the significance of the
reemergence of the Divine Feminine in our personal and collective lives. This
dissertation study is of importance to clinical psychology and depth psychology because
of the data and findings collected, which were derived from the unconscious and
archetypal realms. The materials accumulated in this study can help aid others in their
pursuit to find wholeness from the reemergence and transformative symbols of the Divine
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Feminine. The detailed inner and outer pilgrimages, dreams, active imaginations, and
reflections can assist clinical and depth psychologists to further understand the richness
and complexities found in the Divine Feminine mysteries.
Moreover, we as clinicians will encounter our patients' wounded feminine that is
unconsciously controlling them until we help them unearth, accept, and integrate the
Divine Feminine into their psyches. Medications alone cannot placate this complex and
deep yearning that disturbs women's inner peace. Patients presenting problems of
depression, anxiety, and other pathologies, including many addictions, could represent
desperate calls and deeper yearnings to find wholeness. Awareness of the feminine
wounding, which often manifests as splitting of the positive and negative, light and
darkness, body and spirit, whore and virgin characteristics within themselves and others,
is conducive for their healing and evolution. Jung (1941/1959) informs us of the
importance of remaining aware of the phenomenology of the unconscious, which often
manifests in therapeutic settings:
For it is precisely in the field of psychiatry and psychotherapeutic observation that

we frequently meet with cases characterized by a rich crop of archetypal symbols.
. .. The archetypal material is therefore the great unknown, and it requires special
study and preparation even to collect such material, (p. 189 [CW 9i, para. 318])
It is vital for clinical and depth psychologists to bring awareness and effectively
incorporate this feminine archetypal material in our clinical practice. These disowned
parts of our selves can own us if we remain unconscious of them, and we can fall victim
and continue to be gripped by these powerful archetypal forces, causing us to live
unconscious and unsatisfying lives.
Honoring the irrational feelings and longings of our hearts is a vital part of our
individuation process and critical for effective therapy that can act as catalysts towards
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the search in understanding our true selves. These sometimes frightful and
uncomfortable feelings connect us back to the raw instinctual nature that Estes (1996)
calls the wild woman archetype, which when conscious, uses this energy to transform our
suffering to embody wisdom, feminine courage, strength, confidence, and creativity.
Clinical psychologists benefit from awareness of this female marginalization and its
effects on our world, because without this critical consciousness of female
marginalization, we are not able to understand, define, and create effective interventions
or treatments for our patients.
It is worth noting some of the many pitfalls that our patients can fall victim to if
they are to remain unaware of conditioned feminine archetypal roles and unconscious
materials. Whitmont (1997) explicates the ramifications and benefits of bringing
awareness to the underlying feeling of lack and pain that women experience:
They all aim at transforming the chaotic power of the abysmal Yin, the Medusa,
into the play of life.... Tomorrow's woman, if she is to meet as well as issue this
challenge, will need to be open and attuned to her own tides and instinctual
directives. The awareness that hurts can heal us. The wound is inevitable.
Awareness of this allows her to risk involvement rather than opt for avoidance,
(p. 197)
Remaining uninformed, naive, or afraid, unconsciously or consciously evading the
powerful darker aspects of the Divine Feminine forces because of the uncomfortable
feelings that may come up in our clinical settings, only serve to propagate forlornness
from our patriarchal wounding. Bringing consciousness to these painful feelings can
elicit acceptance, healing, and change on the part of our patients. As a result, we are able
to withdraw projections of anger, hatred, and powerlessness toward others by
understanding where some of these negative feelings originated from, differentiating
which materials are ours personally to work with in therapy, and which archetypal forces
213
are being lived out through us that need to be addressed, owned, and processed in our
psyches.
There are several other ways in which women, or society in general, disavow and
project these positive and negative aspects of Divine Femininity. For example, women
who have lost touch with sacred feminine qualities are often those who are animus
possessed, repudiating Divine Femininity entirely, consciously or unconsciously
imitating male behaviors of competitiveness, control, and logic to feel false power. Jung
(1927/1970) gives us another explanation of how we, as women, succumbed to becoming
patriarchal ourselves, emulating masculine qualities that have enslaved our psyches and
placed our capacity of relatedness to slumber. He writes, "circumstances have forced
[women] to acquire a number of masculine traits, so that she shall not remain caught in
an antiquated, purely instinctual femininity, lost and alone in the world of men" (p. 125
[CW10, para. 259]). Animus possessed women stems from a place of disempowerment,
which can only further sever our connection with our feminine wisdom, instincts, and
interrelatedness.
On the other hand, Jungian analyst Katherine Bradway (1995), in Jungian
Analysis, quotes three of the most respected Jungian analysts who studied with Jung and
describes how the animus energy, when made conscious, can also help us find our Self.
"Likewise, as a woman familiarizes herself with her animus, she learns how to monitor
its outbursts and let it help her focus (Harding), throw light as a torch does (Castillejo),
and become a creative power (Emma Jung)" (p. 241). Bringing consciousness and
balancing the anima (relatedness) and animus (logic) can help us find balance within and
potential harmony within our patients.

214
Moreover, this dissertation study serves to contribute to the fields of clinical
psychology and depth psychology and to psychologically minded people by exploring
and claiming our rightful heritage of the feminine wisdom found in ancient myths and
religions, folklores, and landscapes of foreign lands and inner selves. Finding our true
essences by embarking on our inner and outer journeys to find redemption and salvation
through the Divine Feminine symbols that call out to us can liberate us from our
patriarchal conditioning. These sacred feminine symbols found buried in different
cultures and religions are waiting to be unearthed and integrated into our psyches to find
Their places in our world.
Recommendations to Broaden the Study of the Divine Feminine
Further research in psychology could be done to discover, experience, and
integrate the Divine Feminine symbols found in other races, cultures, and religions that
could unlock doors to help liberate our marginalized feminine psyches, such as
Buddhism, Hinduism, Gnosticism, Judaism, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egypt, Sumer,
Animism, and Wicca. Many Jungian authors have already dealt with this, and some of
the literature should be mentioned here, including Memories of our Lost Hands:
Searching for Feminine Spirituality and Creativity by Sonoko Toyoda (2006) , based on
her background in Japanese Zen Buddhism; Awaken The Slumbering Goddess: The
Latent Code of the Hindu Goddess Archetypes by Ashok Bedi (2007), who is a Hindu
psychiatrist; The Moonlit Path, which was written by several Jungian analysts and
theologians, edited by Fred Gustafson (2003); The Goddesses in Every Woman by Jean
Shinoda Bolen (1985); The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine by Christine
Downing (2000); A Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia
215
Perera (1981); The Feminine in Fairytales and The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption
by Marie-Louise Von Franz (1972, 1999); Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in
the Transformation of Consciousness by Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson (1996);
and Woman's Mysteries: Ancient & Modern by M. Esther Harding (1971). Yet, there are
still many other religions and Divine Feminine symbols found in different countries that
we have not yet studied that could help us connect to our true selves, bringing higher
consciousness to our world and the evolution of our species.
With that said, further research studies to deconstruct the marginalized Divine
Feminine found in other races, cultures, and religions could help facilitate further
exposure of the disempowerment of women through the dogmas and doctrines laid down
by our patriarchal fathers. Many of these authors are found in chapter 2 of the literature
review titled "A Brief History of the Ancient Goddess." It is important to conduct further
studies that will examine both Western and Eastern civilizations to understand the origins
and ways the feminine marginalization has affected us personally, interpersonally, and
collectively. Taking responsibility of questioning our own personal journeys is required
from all of us and more literature about this process could encourage many more to do
the same. Starbird (2003b) urges us to question our old beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors
toward others and ourselves at this time in our evolution:
In the light of the worldview of the twenty-first century, we must make conscious
decisions as to which doctrines and traditions are indispensable to our journey,
which support our values system, which nourish our faith. The trappings that
hinder us and cause us to flounder helplessly, the traditions and doctrines that no
longer "hold water," must now be discarded. We must unload them and leave
them in the desert, choosing to continue unencumbered on our journey of life! (p.
6)
Continued questioning of our faiths and allegiances to the religions that do not support
216
our search and understanding of our own sacred feminine nature is a lifelong inner
process and a part of feminine individuation. Undertaking studies to explore and
understand our wounds, complexes, and shadows can lead us to descend into the
underworld where rebirthing new consciousness can occur. This allows us to heal our
personal and collective wounds in the face of our sufferings from generations of
patriarchal socialization imbued in our thinking, feelings, and behaviors.
Broadening the study of the Divine Feminine includes the study of incorporating
rituals to deepen our relationship with Her. As an example, we can incorporate rituals
when we pray or invoke the presences of Mary Magdalene, Black Madonna, or the Virgin
Mary in our liturgies, Catholic doctrines, and even our own sanctuaries in our homes, and
conduct studies of the causal effects within the community and us. Mircea Eliade (1958)
wrote a book about the significance of rituals in different tribes and religions titled Rites
and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth. Initiation rites and rituals
connect people to the universal patterns and help us reconnect with our ties between other
human beings, the cosmos, gods and goddesses, ancestors, and Mother Earth. Further
studies on the integration of the lost Divine Feminine symbols through rituals and
initiation rites can help us connect to the arcane wisdom of the Great Goddess.
Furthermore, we could be guilty ourselves of propagating the patriarchal
principles of greed, power and control, continuing to perpetrate the wounding of our
collective psyches as well as of our planet if we do not begin to examine our parts in it. It
was not until the last century that women were liberated to vote, participate in higher
education, and break the societal mores by being an independent woman who could
juggle marriage, motherhood, and careers. Yet, we carry our betrayal to ourselves
217
through our grief, anger, and resentment towards patriarchy, becoming hardened with
bitterness, revenge, and resentment. We need to heal ourselves by finding the courage
and strength to accept our shadows and live in a place of Eros, intuitiveness,
vulnerability, spontaneity, synchronicity, and love, which enables us to take risks to find
our Selves. By truly understanding and accepting our divine birth, including those of our
brothers, fathers, and our planet, we can treat each other with what Jewish theologian and
philosopher Martin Buber (1923/1970) describes as I and Thou—an attitude where we
treat ourselves and each other with respect, and as souls having a human experience
rather than mere objects subjugated solely to our intellect and egos. The I and It
relationship is soulless and void of relatedness; it marginalizes, controls, denies, defends,
and deduces people and places as things. Instead, as the author of We Live in a Living
Universe, Duane Elgin (2000), explains, "awakening to the miraculous nature of our
identity as simultaneously unique and interconnected with a living universe can help us
overcome the species-arrogance and sense of separation that threaten our future" (p. 10).
We could broaden the study of interrelatedness between men and women including our
planet.
Conclusion
As a child, my strict Catholic schooling instilled the belief that I was powerless as
a young girl unless I adhered to the patriarchal ways of godliness. My soul, though
unfulfilled, was bombastically filled with rhetoric and lifeless rituals. As a woman, my
conditioning of disempowerment was later reinforced by the rejection, abuses, and
violations I experienced in male relationships and patriarchal establishments.

218
Through the rigorous six-stage approach of Moustakas' heuristic method, which
includes initial engagement, immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and
creative synthesis, I rediscovered, examined, and integrated representations of the Divine
Feminine symbols of the Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene to find inner sanctity and
feminine power. 1 was drawn towards the transformative symbols of the Black Madonna
and Mary Magdalene not only because of my Catholic background, but also because
They represented parts of me that I did not know existed within me.
My research and immersion into places where She is still alive through my
pilgrimages to Her—where the Divine Feminine is still seen and felt in churches,
landscapes, and cultures in different parts of the world, awakened an ancient deep-seated
bond with the Divine Feminine. Moreover, witnessing others' profound reverence
towards Her helped me recognize and accept Her as a symbol of divinity in the depths of
my soul.
Immersing myself fully by traveling to foreign places where Her sacred sites can
still be found helped me drop down into the deepest parts of me where I was able to feel,
experience and connect to Her sacredness, mystery, beauty, pain, light, and darkness.
Being away from my usual environment in Los Angeles allowed me to focus and pour
my heart and soul in search of the Divine Feminine outside my comfort zone. My
unfaltering yearning to learn about Her and find wholeness within me led me to the less-
trodden paths towards Her. It has been almost seven years of ascent and descent to the
underworld since I started this journey of studying the Divine Feminine.
At first, it was through my outward journeys that 1 was able to let go and connect
to the Divine Feminine forces instilled in the ancient landscapes and churches where 1 felt
219
Her alive. I felt my pilgrimages awaken the Divine Feminine wisdom within me at a
cellular level. It is very difficult to explain this ineffable and powerful feeling—an inner
knowing that can never be taken away from me again.
Through my dreams, meditations, reflections, and active imaginations, the Black
Madonna guided me to delve deeper into parts of me that needed healing, undergoing a
descent to the underworld accompanied by Her. In one of my dreams, She held me
tightly while we went through the dark blue ocean, a representation of the metaphoric
journey that I went through in the external world with Her. It was through Her help that I
was able to face one of the most painful open wounds from my past experiences of my
father. I was in deep denial and had chosen to ignore my deepest darkest secret for
decades until She led me through it—and I am profoundly grateful for Her support. The
Black Madonna gave me the strength to face the atrocity, strong emotional feelings of
hatred and pain, grief and forgiveness that I encountered from our journey together. She
was the transformative agent who helped ground me in this life-changing process. As a
result, I began unifying disowned parts of myself that I had abandoned, denied, or
forgotten. I learned to live in a place of ambiguity in which I am a divine woman even
while having feelings of hatred and rage, and even though I was unwilling to forgive my
father at the time. She helped me look at my painful past to begin my process of healing
and owning parts of myself that I had marginalized. It is through this descent into the
underworld with the Black Madonna that I experienced, accepted, integrated, and truly
awakened Her powerful force within me.
I started to accept and embody the paradox that I can be both good and bad, yet
sacred. I began to acknowledge, accept, and own my shadows, which enabled me to do

220
the same for others. I owned parts of myself that proliferated the patriarchal conditioning
in my lived experiences, truly knowing that I had a choice either to participate or forgive
myself and others, for it is a part of our collective evolution. I chose no longer to be part
of the problem by being angry and blaming patriarchy, religion, or men for my past
experiences. We are all going through this together, and it is a part of our human
evolution. I also learned to stop looking for external validation by connecting with the
divine femininity in me. I internalized Her love, strength, and fierceness in the depths of
my soul, finally feeling the divine in me through my pain and sufferings, joy, and
celebrations in my life.
I also connected to the Ancient Mother through the Black Madonna, with the
realization that She has never left us. It is we who have rejected, denied, and forgotten
Her. She has always been and will always be here for us. I experienced Her as the Virgin
Mary when I was younger, as the many goddesses from my studies, as Isis in places I
visited, the Black Madonna, and Mary Magdalene.
Much was also revealed to me through my journey towards Mary Magdalene, by
following Her guidance from the same processes I engaged in with the Black Madonna.
She blessed me by bearing witness to Her hallowed fruit and by showing me Her celestial
jewels of divine wisdom and heavenly devotion to the sacred. She represents the longing
in me, just as She had longed for Jesus Christ as She wept when He died on the cross and
at His burial site where He arose from the dead. She was his faithful disciple and
minister to His true teachings of Eros, compassion, inner devotion, and
interconnectedness.
221
Furthermore, it is through my studies and experience of Her through my
pilgrimages that I deeply embraced my sanctity as a woman, knowing that I can be a
wife, mother, teacher, priestess, and apostle by being an example of Her everlasting
devotion to Jesus Christ. She was strong and held Her conviction even through the
taunting of Peter's condemnation of the feminine, representative of the Catholic Church.
I was led by Her to discover Her buried, forgotten, and crucified essence not only
in the sacred sites 1 visited, but also through the ancient texts that have come forth in our
consciousness only since the last century. I strongly believe that there is a reason why
She is reemerging in our consciousness today and has picked this time in our human
evolution to once again surface. She did not emerge 1,500 or 1,000 years ago, not even
several centuries ago. It has only been in the last century that Her gospels have been
available for us to read, examine, and reflect upon, because we are birthing a new human
consciousness of hieros gamos—the marriage of the Divine Feminine and the Divine
Masculine, symbolic of the marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ.
Mary Magdalene as a Divine Feminine symbol is reemerging in our
consciousness because She is here to help balance patriarchy as She has done when Jesus
Christ was alive. She is here to help both women and men accept our oneness and fully
realize our divine selves, leading us back to our true purpose of raising our vibrations by
bringing the consciousness of Eros to us and the soul of our planet—anima mundi. She is
here to help us heal and know that we are sacred, whole, and complete, just as we all
are—women and men. We are here to give thanks and give back to Mother Earth by
loving and respecting Her back.

222
Additionally, I have accepted the virgin, whore, and divine roles of the feminine
experience as my own, no longer condemning myself for the roles I inherited as a woman
growing up and living in a patriarchal society. My experience in Mirepoix, when I felt
my body, heart, and soul tremble was a quickening—an awakening, and realization that
She is for real and that She is an integral part of my individuation process. The veil was
lifted long enough for me to see that this work is part of why I am here in this world at
this time when new consciousness is being birthed in our world. We are all to take our
individual journeys to awaken the sacredness in us. It is from this place where we can
overcome the socialization and birth a new consciousness that we are all divine.
The compensating masculine also needs redemption within us at this point in the
development of our consciousness. Unbeknownst to me, I also needed to reconnect to the
Divine Masculine to find wholeness and experience Self. I had many unbidden dreams
about yearning to connect with the Divine Masculine, which I did not understand at first,
because I was totally unaware of it in my conscious life. 1 was too occupied railing at
patriarchy to hear what my psyche was telling me—that was why He kept coming to me
in my dreams. Finally, one of the dreams I wrote about in chapter 7 awakened my
profound longing to reconnect to the Divine Masculine. I overwhelmingly felt His warm
embrace, kindness, and support when He came to me in my dream, and I could not deny
His existence in me any longer. I had never experienced such a profound and
unconditional love, which led me to write the poem "My Father at Last," also found in
the previous chapter.
The Compensating Masculine came to me in my dream to heal the deep wounds I
experienced from patriarchy. 1 was able to recognize the difference between patriarchy
223
and the Divine Father and that He exists within me to love and support me
unconditionally when I need Him. I no longer have to sell my body and soul as I have in
the past to get validation and recognition from men in the external world. He lives within
me. He is true to my heart, tender, loving, and supportive of me. He helps me focus,
discern, and gives me strength to carry out projects in our material world. He balances
my intuition with logos, irrational with rational, diffused energy with distinctiveness and
focus. I truly love him too.
I have just begun to tap into my potentialities gained by the new attitude that I
birthed from this new awareness. I ingested Her sacred fruit and wear Her sacred jewels,
knowing that He also supports me in my being a carrier of Their light and darkness, and
live a life of purpose in service of rebirthing this new consciousness in our world.
Today I live from a place of empowerment instead of the victimhood I
experienced when I started my study of the Divine Feminine. The invaluable findings I
have stated made a profound shift in my consciousness, eliciting deep healing,
acceptance, and forgiveness of myself and many others for my past attitudes, behaviors,
and cosmology about being a woman. I no longer participate in denying, repressing,
devaluing, and abhorring my femininity. I have accepted my passion, sexuality, light,
and darkness as part of Her play of life and divine consciousness—leela—as part of our
human and divine development. Today, I choose to be present in my life as a powerful,
sacred, and creative woman, continuing to bring consciousness to parts of myself that are
unconscious with the help of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine, which is a
lifelong process towards my individuation.

224
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Loyalty To The Divine Feminine

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LOYALTY TO THE DIVINE FEMININE:

INTEGRATION OF THE DIVINE FEMININE THROUGH A DEPTH

CANDACE CRISELDA KLEVEN

PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE

This dissertation has been

Lisa Sloan, PhD

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

CANDACE CRISELDA KLEVEN

Loyalty to the Divine Feminine:

Candace Criselda Kleven

current patriarchal paradigm as a path towards feminine individuation. The study

attempts to constellate awareness of internal shifts of consciousness from lived

experiences of ancient Divine Feminine principles. The rigorous six-stage approach of

immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and creative synthesis. In addition, the

depth psychological processes of engaging dreams, active imaginations, inner reflections,

foundation for new findings, which are chronicled and explicated.

In particular, the transformative symbols of the Black Madonna and Mary

remarkable reemergence in our cultural and individual consciousness today summons us

denied, and repressed.

Divine Feminine principles. This study is of importance to clinical psychology because

mysteries in service of finding wholeness and experience Self.

integration of Divine Feminine symbols in achieving a balance between logos and

and Mary Magdalene assists us on our journey towards feminine individuation.

With gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee:

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 34

CHAPTER 3. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND QUESTION 61

CHAPTER 4. HEURISTIC RESEARCH APPROACH AND METHOD 64

Participants and Reflexivity/Limitations 87

CHAPTER 6. THE BLACK MADONNA 90

CHAPTER 7: MARY MAGDALENE 145

Reflections and Dream Interpretation 148

CHAPTER 8: FINDINGS, CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS AND THE

principles with our current patriarchal paradigm as a path to individuation through a

depth psychological perspective. American lexicographer Robert Barnhart tells us that

the word integration in Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology: The Origins of

restoration of the whole.

considered to be one of the most influential thinkers in the twentieth century,

characterizes the process toward wholeness as individuation. In The Collected Works, a

multivolume collection of his writings, Jung (1928/1966b) informs us that "individuation

means becoming an 'in-dividual,' and, in so far as 'individuality' embraces our

We could therefore translate individuation as 'coming to selfhood' or 'self-realization'"

as individuation—a coming to selfhood or Self In C. G. Jung Lexicon: A Primer of

At this point of the research, definitions of additional terms need clarification. In

Gottner-Abendroth (1994) gives us an explicit description of the Divine Feminine:

are interchangeable and sometimes capitalized to represent sacredness throughout this

Finally, this research will be presented through a depth psychological perspective.

Nelson, faculty members of the Depth Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate

Socrates' challenging the status quo during his time:

in, which is the study of the soul.

also adopted Socrates' study of the unconscious:

Relevance of the study of the Divine Feminine to Clinical Psychology

The study of the Divine Feminine as a path to individuation is relevant to the

practice of clinical psychology in numerous ways. In The Descent to the Goddess: A

valuable path of reclaiming the sacred feminine within women:

darker sacred feminine aspects within us.

Jung tells us that Harding's (1970/1971) books aid us in understanding the

psychology for understanding our psyches and experiences of life.

Additionally, in Jung's Circle of Women, author Maggy Anthony expresses the

sacredness and accept the darker aspects of women.

Harding (1971) illustrates the archetypal foundations of feminine psychology and

eloquently describes the eternal challenge of contemporary women:

A modern woman in seeking to establish a relation to the "Moon Goddess" or