Mary Magdalene and the Bird
holy synchronicity
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TL;DR is an acronym I've only recently come across, though it's been around for a while. It's short for "too long; didn't read."
It's internet slang to say,
"I'm replying without reading your whole message because it was too long."
It is also used to introduce a summary of an online post or news article.
I laughed when I read the definition because it perfectly encapsulates our world of information overload.
By way of a summary of this article, here is the TL;DR…
In a weird synchronicity, Mary Magdalene sent a bird to land on my head. Read on if you dare (or have time)
On Palm Sunday, I had a very unusual experience of synchronicity.
For those unfamiliar, Palm Sunday is part of the Holy Week story when Jesus rides into Jerusalem for the Passover festival on the foal of a donkey. That detail is essential because riding a young donkey, unlike a powerful horse, symbolized that you were arriving in peace rather than as a conqueror. So, Jesus enters the city, and the crowd, already familiar with his teachings and healings, begins celebrating him, waving palm branches.
Everyone is excited and hopeful, but this triumphant arrival would be short-lived, and Jesus knew it; his death was but a few short days away. I was pondering this because I love to enter into the Great Myths in an active way. I was dealing with an emotionally painful family situation and thinking about how quickly a celebration can turn into tragedy and how much courage it takes to be in a situation everyone else celebrates, knowing it will end badly.
This led me to go deeper into the story, which I haven't done in a long time. Rising into consciousness came the themes of betrayal, suicidal regret, and painful sacrifice—heavy, dark thoughts and emotions. Like all great stories, this one contains the most terrifying and profound human experiences. My situation was painful, but I found significant meaning in revisiting this story with intention and openness.
Since I was sitting outside during my ruminations, my mind wandered to the season and Persephone, Spring Maiden, and dread Queen of the Underworld. Indeed in her realms, along with those who crossed the veil peacefully, are souls filled with regret, wounded by betrayal, victims of self-violence, and those who made great sacrifices. However, Persephone's compassion for the souls she encountered when first arriving in the Underworld allowed her to mature and develop into a mighty queen. So there's a lesson about how turning your energies from your wounding, in Persephone's case, her abduction, to helping and healing others allows the inner being to develop and mature.
These dark Underworld thoughts are necessary to counter spring's lively, joyful aspects. One only knows true joy in contrast to true suffering.
As I continued to sit in the sun with the wind rattling the budding branches of the trees around me and the newly blooming daffodils bobbing in the breeze, my mind wandered to a story about Mary Magdalene.
In Cynthia Bourgeault's book, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, she shares this fascinating insight that I have found to hold a deep understanding of the spiritual realms...
Through love, she [Mary Magdalene] has become the apostle of the imaginal. On this point, at least, both the canonical and wisdom gospels are in agreement...The difference between the two streams is that in the canonical gospels, Jesus returns from the dead in a fully resuscitated human body. In the wisdom stream, by contrast, Mary Magdalene is the one who crosses over, and their meeting takes place in the imaginal realm...Her recognition of him is not simply a raw human response to a stupendous miracle; it reflects a transformed consciousness that allows her to match him at his own density. Her full emergence into spiritual mastery takes place in liminal space, in the imaginal meeting place between the realms, because, in point of fact, that is the only place where mastery can be conferred. Imaginal, you recall, does not mean imaginary.
The imaginal is not the imaginary, indeed. But, on the contrary, the imaginal realm is a real place; it is a place of greater reality, which we can enter using our consciousness.
It was in the imaginal realm that I found myself on Palm Sunday, wandering in highly charged stories of potent spiritual power that, while familiar, had long been neglected.
Long years after Sunday school and sunrise Easter services had been abandoned, I was returning to these old stories. Only this time, my insight and understanding of these stories were augmented by years of working with myth and folklore, Jungian studies, exploring the ways of the ancestors, both pre-historic and pagan, shamanic cosmologies, expressions of the divine feminine in many religions, and much more.
What an odd turn I had taken. In years past, this week, Holy Week, would have been filled with many forms of traditional worship, prayer, and rituals. It would have been important and felt sacred and auspicious. But it hasn't felt that way in a long while, yet this year it came roaring back like a hot, wild desert wind, a sirocco, sweeping away anything that wasn't nailed down.
As I was lost in imaginal thoughts, playing with images in my mind, interacting with Persephone, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus on a donkey, wondering if my ancestral and personal experiences with the Holy Week stories were about to become important to me once again a weird synchronicity happened.
Synchronicity is an unusual, peculiar happening.
Synchronicity. "A phenomenon where an event in the outside world coincides meaningfully with a psychological state of mind. (Sharp, 1991)".
"Carl Jung offered synchronicity as an acausal "principle of explanation" to account for "certain remarkable manifestations of the unconscious."
~ "Synchronicity (Analytical Psychology)" International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis by John Beebe; de Mijolla; Alain de Mijolla (Ed.)
The afternoon had become quite warm for early April, and I was sitting very still, lost in my inner realms, when suddenly, the flutter of wings and a gentle puff of air on my neck brought me back to the waking world. In the next split second, a bird was perched on my head.
Utterly astounded, I continued to sit very still and sat there for a few extraordinary minutes with a bird on my head. When it finally flew off, I could see it was a mourning dove.
The symbolism of the dove was inescapable. The dove returned an olive branch to Noah after the flood to indicate dry land had appeared and it was safe to leave the ark. When John baptized Jesus, a dove descended on him, and he started his teaching and healing ministry. Mary came from the city of Magdala. Magdala, meaning fish tower, was also known as the City of the Dove, and it is believed by some to be where the doves used in the goddess temple were raised.
It also did not escape my notice that this was a mourning dove. The most intense parts of Holy Week deal with suffering, loss, grief, and mourning (emotions I was processing at that moment), followed by a nearly incomprehensible turn of events that leads to joy.
I also know that the forlorn cooing of the mourning dove is the sound of the male pining for his mate. Theories abound about Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Whatever their earthly relationship was or was not, it is safe to say that knowing what we now know from the early texts in the Nag Hammadi library, they were, without a doubt, deeply linked on a spiritual plane. As Cynthia Bourgeault suggests, Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in the imaginal realm as she stands vigil through the night at the tomb because she is the one who truly understands what is transpiring and what the ramifications will be.
I've spent countless hours outside sitting still, communing, observing, drawing, and listening, and I have never had a bird land on my head.
I can only account for this as a synchronicity, an outward occurrence meaningfully coinciding with my psychological state of mind.
At that moment, with a mourning dove unexpectedly perched upon my head, I felt confident that Mary Magdalene sent it as a kind of baptism. A re-establishing of my connection to the vital power of the old stories I once loved and now will love again.
As I put this post together, I was struck by how much art I’ve made over the years that includes Mary Magdalene and birds, specifically with birds and heads linked in some way. Then I was stunned to come across, quite by accident, the image above, the detail from The Hermit Saints by Hieronymus Bosch, featuring a saint, presumably, with a bird sitting on her head.
Unusual things can happen when you are engaged in soul work and actively pursuing spiritual knowledge.
At this moment, I am being called back to re-engage with beliefs from my past but in entirely new ways. It's quite extraordinary to be in this place. The spiral path of inner growth is filled with unexpected and inexplicable reversals.
Some of you most definitely have stories of astonishing synchronicities, omens, imaginal journeys, and the like.
The comment section is a welcoming place to share experiences and have meaningful conversations within our community, so do leave a comment.
To anyone celebrating this weekend, I wish you a joyous and meaningful day. Please know that all are welcome here in the Hedge Mystic community, those of all faiths, any faith or no faith at all. I learned that wonderful, loving, and inclusive sentiment from Bee Durban over at Radical Honey. It has been a lovely guide in what feels like a very divided time.
PS If you want to explore Mary Magdalene further, I offer a Mystical Mary Magdalene Creative Retreat. When you purchase, you will receive a link to a 1.5 hour video on Vimeo, including a presentation, creative invitation, + resources. Get it HERE
Thank you for the musings! One of my images for the liminal landscape is the moment a trapeze flyer lets go of one trapeze and is suspended in air for a second and then is catches the next trapeze. Birds in all shapes are there to catch us and bring us to the next higher trapeze. Soulful Flying to all
Wow! A true miracle. Beautiful. And I’m so sorry for your pain 🙏
I remember when the traditional Catholic upbringing, that I had walked away from at the age of 18, came roaring back to me in this same kind of way. I remember at first thinking “this is what it must be like to deny something in me that greatly wants to come forth but I’m embarrassed to admit it is real.” After-all, I’d faithfully adhered to being a “recovering Catholic “ for years.
Fast forward I’d been suffering an illness that was beyond my control and flipping my whole world upside down. I did not know how to be with its debilitation, its in relentless suffering it was causing me and my family- even my workplace. And guess what, the king of suffering arrived in what you’re calling a liminal space in which I guess miracles/transformation/transfiguration occur. And it was transformational for me, and miraculous. Had I really in that moment become a Jesus freak? Well, not like that, but yes, I fell in love with Jesus and his essence, The Christ, and its consciousness in one big bang of a moment that I didn’t see coming whatsoever. “Why did it have to be him? How embarrassing,” I thought. I didn’t even tell anyone- I felt totally ashamed. Because Jesus, on a very different level, is advertised at Superbowls! Talk about cheesy. I even made fun of baby-Jesus just like Will Ferrell one of my favorite comedians. I was totally anti-Jesus.
And yet here he was, blatant and inescapable. I realized that he had come to teach me about suffering , to be with me in my suffering, to hold my suffering, to somehow love my suffering, to stay with it; and it changed my whole life. I even eventually went on to take my Buddhist vows since that tradition seemed more (too much in the end) embedded in suffering and its place in our lives on this plane than modern catholic traditions. I guess I had become a suffering freak ;-0 . However, life is ALSO joy. And that’s another story that became more evident after the suffering eased and transformed into joy and yes Cynthia and Richard Rohr, and the St Thereses, et al. In fact I went to Palm Sunday mass but now experience it completely differently - I can’t say I love it, but I can say I receive it and its commune-ion though a very different slant now.