The Red Egg of Mary Magdalene

I've been in hibernation mode these past weeks, turning inward and tuning in since the winter solstice. It's been a quietly fruitful time and I know that much is shifting and purging within and also in the outside world. If you too have been feeling this way, be sure to take time for self care and introspection along this journey.

In this post, I want to share with you a piece that I have just finished. If you've been receiving these blogs for a while now, you'll know that the alchemical egg has been featuring very strongly both in my dreams and work. Over the past month or two I have had an extraordinary urge to paint the egg red. I didn't consciously know why and so I took to the oracle of the day, Google, and typed in 'red egg' and 'alchemy'. And to my surprise, up popped a beautiful story which I hadn't come across before. Mary Magdalene is an energy that I often find with me in meditation, so it was a beautiful surprise.

Mary Magdalene and the first Easter Egg - On a visit to Rome, Mary Magdalene is purported to have told Caesar that Jesus had risen from the dead. To explain his resurrection she picked up an egg. Caesar said that a human being could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. The egg in Mary Magdalene's hand turned red immediately. This story is said to be the origin of the idea of the Easter egg.

I sat with this story during the painting of this piece, and the painting feels like an homage to this story, and to my own journey of rediscovery, and to all of our unique journeys of rebirth/resurrection. During our lives we have many small deaths and rebirths, and if we are on the journey of awakening these occurrences become more frequent and more conscious in our lives. Sometimes these deaths are small, but they add up. At other times it feels as though the self that you knew is literally being annihilated. But after each death is a rebirth into a clearer and more refined level of consciousness. We have become somehow better because of it, and that inner growth trickles out to all around us. We are all doing this, some consciously, others unconsciously. When we are aware and conscious, I believe the momentum gathers and the process speeds up. I also believe that each individual journey, the work that each and every one of you does, adds up and contributes to a collective healing. A healing in the wider world.

And interestingly this week, this wonderful article was shared with me which I think says it more beautifully than I ever could:

 "Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. 

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. [...]
In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."
--Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The soul heals and lights up through our inner journeys, our inner deaths and rebirths. Then the light shines forth to others. Sometimes we do this alone, and other times we gather in circles with kindred souls. After a couple of months going inward, I will be be beginning to hold circles again in March - mandala creation and meditation. It is always powerful to do this work together.  I'll be in Glendalough, Galway, Cork, Wexford and Kilkenny. I hope to add another Dublin date and also a Sligo date soon. So if you feel to be a part of it, check out the workshop page on my website.

I think I will call this piece simply "The Red Egg", the symbol of the womb of the Goddess and of our rebirth. The painting is available for sale at €890, and measures 70cm x 70cm on deep edge canvas. Please message me if you're interesting in giving it a forever home and as always, I am open to people paying in installments.