The Magda

When we restore The Magda; we restore the entirety of her female lineage and resurrect the sacredness of our shared birthplace, in the womb of our women.

The image of this statue is a snap shot in time of a very famous Abrahamic moment before Christianity was Christ led. It sits in the chapel of the Mission of Santa Barbara.

It is my very favorite.

The Magda represents something very different to me now, then she did in my youth.

If you listen to my podcast you know that I spent years on my own spiritual expedition—mining for truth, historical facts, seeking to understand how we have come to believe what we believe, and a great deal of unlearning and unbecoming.

After following threads of truth and light, I found myself at the feet of The Magda’s origin story from the lens of historical fact instead of religious lore. Shuffling through pages of her gospel and the robust work of scholars and anthropologists who have diligently reconstructed her life.

In my expedition, I found a very loose and weakly worn thread tied to a shared story of who and what The Magda was.

You see Pope Gregory, who held the post of St. Peter’s chair during the middle of the 5th century most famously made a doubly deductive leap to infer The Magda was a woman of improper sexual behavior, known to many—during his 23rd homily.

Giving her a reputation that tainted her for thousands of years and when you taint one woman...

You taint us all.

This pivot point in Christianity for many young girls becomes both a cautionary tale AND a defining moment—where we begin to solidify our separation of self.

From our femininity, our bodies, our desires, and our truth.  

We are violently pushed into purity, whether we want to  comply or not.

It is an unspoken rite of passage where our religious institutions teach us how to judge ourselves and other women, consciously, unconsciously, and with fierce bias.

We become suspicious and untrusting of ourselves.

We learn that God loves us most if we remain untouched and virginal in a world full of temptation and men who won’t take “no” for an answer.

And of course this moment is amplified by the pivot point: Eve in the garden (naked and desire-less I’m sure) who just couldn’t behave herself—ate an apple and doomed humanity with a crunch heard around the world (which mostly likely was a pomegranate {now that we know the perceived geographical location of Eden} but I digress).

Little lies, big lies, omissions, embellishments, and fabrications...these are the things that continue to suffocate humanity.

First the pomegranate, then The Magda.

How strange no men in Abrahamic history ever needed redemption nor exorcism from their sexual encounters or their entire species fettered to an unflattering norm and unattainable expectation.

Food for thought after all this talk about apples and pomegranates. All this truth makes me hungry.

The Magda had her reputation partially returned to its wholeness when in the 1960’s the Catholic Church recanted this damning interpretation.

However, the fullness of her restoration remains at humanities edge because the lie is allowed to be perpetuated through shared story telling and lack of course correction when the subject arises.

Her gospel was discovered in Egypt in 1896, being burned to keep a family warm nonetheless and almost went completely unearthed.

What a miracle to have found it.

I bet The Magda was dancing in the heavens that day.

I would consider her gospel to be the very most compelling and significant evidence that we are equal parts human and divine. That God is not only around us, but IS us.

In her gospel she shares with the twelve male disciples that Christ has shown her the source of God; found in the very breath that keeps our soul tethered to this human body. That if we want to align our very being with God all we must do is breathe and we touch the heart of God.

Heart to heart.

We are never, nor have we ever been separated from the divine.

Wherever this l finds you, promise me this:

First, to tell the truth to yourself and the world around you.

Secondly, that you will remember The Magda was indeed a human being, most beloved by Christ.

She was a deeply holy and spiritual person.

She was NOT a woman of ill repute.

There can be no such thing, without an equal and responsible male of ill repute and I for one, refuse to sentence any of my brothers and sisters to a prison of judgment.

Instead choosing to hold them both in the light of love and highest esteem of their divinity and humanity.

Lastly, when we restore The Magda; we restore the entirety of her female lineage and resurrect the sacredness of our shared birthplace, in the womb of our women.