My personal journey with Mother Mary and the rose began a long time before I was able to see it.
I grew up Catholic, and beyond my fears to share that I had a difficult experience, I felt the opposite of connected, unified and acknowledged in the church, other than in song or in connection with others at the end of a service. I felt even from a young age, a searching for something outside of me that ultimately could only be found deep within me. I found inner calm and sanctuary beneath the cedar trees in our garden, in holding my mum's dear white rosary beads and in those quiet moments of wondering and dreaming.
I spent years disconnected from myself and the divine. Then when I first began my meditation and healing journey back in 2018 in my early 20s, I felt caught up in a world of passive aggression disguised as love and light. Division and must-dos. Bypassing and confusion. Much of it was my own pain I'm sure of it, but I felt so alone. Teachings of more external validation and knowledge I didn't know what to do with flooded my mind, but my being remained empty.
I would later discover, through deepening my healing journey and unlearning through my shamanic training, that this connection was always there beneath the surface. In the tears that came to the sound of Ave Maria, in the warmth radiating my being upon seeing our lady statues, and goddesses in many forms. But much like my life had felt before now, all around her statues seemed so dark and empty.
Where had the connection gone?
Where lie the celebrations of the goddess?
Of our beautiful mother earth?
Mother Mary began appearing to me early spring 2021 and at first I felt afraid. Going from a Catholic upbringing to a self-labelled spiritual path, I held a belief that I couldn't do both, that I couldn't believe both.
But I began to wonder, what if the very things that we feel a need to label, are that which unites us into wholeness? That without labels, we can come into unity beyond division.
Almost everywhere I went, songs, books, statues , conversations, dreams and meditations flooded me with the warming embrace of a motherly presence, something deeper than I had ever experienced on earth.
My partner, Lawrence, and I booked a last minute flight to Croatia in late Spring for a trip we thought was solely for the purpose of getting away. We went without a plan, but once we arrived, we knew something divine was at play. We found ourselves at a Mary pilgrimage site north of the city of Zagreb high up in the mountains, and that same presence I had felt in dreams and meditations, met us here.
The entire week we travelled around, songs appeared, synchronicities guided us and soon our journey became a pilgrimage instead of a holiday. On our final day in Croatia, we caught a ferry from the city of Zadar to the island Kali. Before boarding the ferry, a beautiful stone building summoned us from across the square without us knowing why, and we got closer to see it was called the monastery of St Marija.
Later on when shamanic journeying to connect with my ancestors, Mary came to me and showed me this exact place as somewhere she had been as a child, as well as showing me a stone cathedral on the coast of Italy. In awe of what I was shown, I swiftly opened my laptop and searched to find that the very stone building I had seen in my journey was indeed the Holy House of Loreto, the house in which she was said to be born in.
Up until to this point, a part of me had felt this all to be in my imagination, the old stories and conditioning that I am "always in a dream world" all turned on its head. What a gift to be able to see into other worlds, to feel and dream into being that which may unite us.
This unfolding continued and in late summer, we sold our house and moved aboard our beloved houseboat in the city of Norwich. Not knowing why we had been called there, we listened and we trusted. As we settled into life on the water, I felt so much bubbling beneath me, mysteries waiting to be discovered.
At the start of autumn, I left for my final class of the shamanic training, followed by some powerful integration time in Glastonbury, especially at the magdalene chapel. When I returned home, so many powerful insights emerged.
I found myself at the shrine and chapel of Lady Julian of Norwich, an anchoress and mystic who too worked with the ways of the magdalene teachings. As I sat in the community garden from here she sat, I felt that divine warmth radiate through me yet again. I felt the presence of our mother, and this really calls for me to share I believe we may call her what we wish, Kali, Mary, Fatima, Madonna, Ishtar, Shakti, Brigid and so many more names, but ultimately, we are connected to and are a part of the feminine force of creation and have been all along.
As as I pondered upon this, I looked beyond the beautiful pine I was sat meditating beneath, to find the words MM written upon a brick on the wall of the church, which I felt to be the well known symbol of Mary Magdalene.
Later that day I wandered down magdalen street in Norwich, and was guided into an antique shop, which isn't something I usually do. At the very back of the shop sat a beautiful, small painting of Mary magdalene and I felt that sensation of warming radiance once again.
As the excitement calmed and I recognised all of these signs weren't merely to show me something external, I intended to journey inwards and I settled into my body beyond the needing to know mind.
What followed was guidance that I am to share the teachings of the rose, and in opening to these teachings myself, I may too guide others. This brought me into a place of warmth and love, a coming home and connecting of all the dots that had felt slightly sporadic until now.
What then appeared to me were two books, both called the way of the rose, and the white rose mystery school and work of Aletheia Sophia, who I will be visiting in a few weeks from now and explore the magdalene caves, montsegur and the mysteries in France.
So much of what I had been experiencing, others had too experienced and were openly speaking about. This inspired me beyond words, and I felt I could surrender a little deeper, knowing that this call and beautiful work is and has been felt by many.
Around this time I purchased some beautiful rosary beads of my own, and in a way that honoured me and all of creation, I began to connect with the teachings of the rose and much has unfurled so gracefully since, like the array of roses that line my altar space.
We are now just over a week away from the full moon lunar eclipse in Taurus, and I found myself so pulled and guided to share more about my experience, and to gather in connection with others. This deepening spans far beyond sharing my experiences, but to share in community and learn about others. To connect and heal ourselves as well as connecting even more deeply to our mother earth, and to the divine mother, however we wish to call her, within us all.
As I began to feel into this, the ceremonial night-long gathering Sinai 22 appeared on my newsfeed. I sat in awe of the thousands of men and women embarking on pilgrimages to either the sacred mountain Sinai in Egypt, or to other places around the world, be it the ocean or mountains.
Reading even more about others who have had the call, I have decided to surrender a little deeper, to answer the call to take a personal pilgrimage. I will be beginning at the shrine of our lady of Walsingham, following the river that flows from the shrine out into the ocean near Blakeney point. If you would like to join me in ceremony, in community, if you hear the call to sit with me on your own path, please contact me.
I shall share more details of what Sinai 22 is all about in the comments below.
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