Founding Eaden
Leaving the church to walk with Mary
Founding Eaden is an essay series exploring the work behind the foundation of an Earth church settled in heartland of Central Wisconsin. The series is both personal shares, documentation of processes and ideas to help inspire others to give form to the desires of their heart.
When I left the church I did so without looking back. I needed to. I needed a full break from the space that created the twisted beliefs of my foundation laid down by people who themselves were acting out of their own wounding.
I needed that break to find what was real to me.
One thing that remained slightly consistent was my belief and reverence for Mary.
She came first as Mary of Magdalene. Holy consort and absolutely not the prostitute that she was made out to be. She led me to my feminine, into the depths of my womb.
You see, in my time within the church pleasure had been demonized. The memory of the frail, women clothed in baggy sweaters and skirts shines through brightly. “Sex is for procreation, not recreation”, she said as she spoke to her take on the theology of the body.
It was that very thought pattern that held me in a relationship long past its due date. Sex wasn’t supposed to be good, it was something to endure. And something about that just never sat right.
Here we women are punished not only for sins in childbirth but again in the act that makes them.
Leaving gave me the freedom to look into the roots of the bible, to find a new lens. Mary of Magdalene was there for me when I was ready to reclaim the feminine sensuality that I would later realize is our birth right, our super power.
I walked the rose path for several years finally feeling like what was missing from church was reclaimed. Until, it wasn’t.
After the birth of my son Mary of Magdalene’s message started to fall rather flat. It no longer encompassed the totality of my experience. It was still lacking the fullness that is the feminine experience.
I spent a few years journeying with deities of my ancestors, northern Germany and Slavic traditions. Those practices brought me home. They grounded me into the earth, into my lineage.
It wasn’t until I became pregnant with my daughter that I began to feel Mary’s presence again. This time she came to me as Mother.
Mother Mary was the force that cleaned up that which I couldn’t create peace with. She reminded me that she had always been there. Like a patient mother she held space without judgement and with a gentle hand she led me.
She led first to Marguerite Mary Rigoglioso and gave me a new perspective on how she (Mother Mary) too was a mystic of the womb.
How she was born of divine conception herself.
How she was a devoted practitioner of the feminine arts.
Later came Hildegard of Bingen. An ancient mystic, abbess, herbalist, composer, and powerhouse of the arts, sciences and politics of her time. Hildegard showed me the old ways. The way religion was led prior to the patriarchal take over.
Lastly, and most importantly, she came to me through the rosary. After many years, I finally felt called to come back to the practices that were so rooted in my childhood church experience.
My call back to the rosary was quiet, but persistent. It came first as an urge. A passing thought. “Maybe I should find myself a new rosary.”
Then it became more persistent. It started showing up everywhere. My cousins were talking about their experience at Lourdes, with the emergent message to “pray the rosary daily”.
It was “The Way of the Rose” that finally gave me the permission I needed. Just as every other aspect of the feminine in the church has deeper, truer meaning, so did the rosary. I highly encourage wandering minds to explore this book on their own. But it explored the rosary as the trojan horse of catechism. The vessel which carried through the deeper wisdom that attempted to be erased.
The true feminine energetics that the rosary carries through comes from its simplicity. It’s not a competition. No one is better at the rosary than another. There is no way to quantify time, or energy, or any of it really. It’s a circle. Once completed, you simply begin again. Around and around we go. Spiraling in and out of our hearts desires.
Even her shape itself, she is the feminine. No spiritual practice or modality has ever had the impact that the rosary did. Nothing connected more quickly to my true heart’s desire than time spent with Her in this way. It instantly became a daily practice. The clarity and empowerment She offered compared to none.
I quickly learned that the biggest benefit of the rosary was in my ability to slow down. Sure, I could hurry through and check it off my to-dos. But there was deep, heart opening pleasure that came when I worked slowly. Allowing myself to feel each word. To envision it in my head.
To view my reconstruction of the prayers said in the rosary, please consider subscribing to paid level.
To my surprise, that pleasure jumped over into my sex life. It was no longer about how quickly we could complete the act but rather how slow I could go. How much I could open. How much I could feel.
That healed me.
It reset everything. Life became not something to hurry through or complete. But something to open up to. Something to feel with depth.
I am excited to share more about my experience with Mary, the wisdom I’ve found through here and the world of clarity she brought me to. In the past six months, my life has done a complete 180 in the best of ways. I’m now living my dream life. All of which is done with devotion to Her, through Her, for Her and the benefit of all peoples. So often we journey through life wishing we could find our purpose, our hearts true desire. They didn’t say it would be as simple and the oldest Christian tool. The rosary.
Please share your own experience of the feminine in religion in the comments. My most favorite topic to nerd out about is the intersection of religion, spirit, and feminine mysteries — would love to connect with other kindreds of the same thread.