34. What Is The Divine Feminine and Who is Mary Magdalene? (Minibang)

You'll hear more of my heart in this episode (and maybe you'll cry with me), over the truth that so many generations have lived without, over the power that's been taken away, the power we've given away, the power I'VE given away in my lifetime.  The gift is in uncovering what literally feels like diamonds. It's the Alchemist, The Lord of The Rings, it's every plot line where we go searching for the treasure only to find that our power, our purpose, our joy, our best lives are always found when we return home. The treasure has always been within; the inner guide, our intuitive feeling nature, the Divine Feminine, the Myriam or Magdala or Mary that is embodied and encoded in you and me.

Footnote to all you listeners - I listened back to this a few times and there's so much more I wish I would have said. But then I realized that people spend a lifetime studying this and haven't uncovered it all, so I cut myself some slack and I hope you will too. I'm scratching the surface and learning with you. This is the nature of journeying together, I suppose. 

xx -Jen 

So much Love to all you bodies out there who are harboring the Divine. 

SUBSCRIBE and WATCH on YouTube

Follow Us!
Jennifer's Instagram
The Whole Shebang Instagram

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The divine feminine. Gonna be honest, which is always how I am with all of you, I have been wrestling with what to post on this mini bang today and was reminded this morning that when I launched this podcast, it was a commitment to be on a journey, to not be an expert to be on a journey and to invite you on the journey with me on a journey and to invite you on the journey with me. And so I'm on the journey of pulling a thread that is unraveling some things in me and I think is a thread that is unraveling some things in our society that is really powerful and really beautiful. And so I don't know how many this mini bang is going to be today, but I'm going to share with you what has been happening with me in the last week or so. Let me back up a little bit.

Speaker 1: 0:55

If you've listened to anything in this podcast, you know that there's a theme about the masculine and the feminine that has been woven in, and I've been studying that and working with practices on embodying the feminine and doing all. I've worked with coaches, I've taken classes, I've done all kinds of stuff over the last four-ish years on this and I think a lot of it has been from a sort of yogic and or energetic perspective on the masculine, feminine energetics, which, which we all have both within us. And I've heard people talking about the sacred feminine or the divine feminine and have been asking the question over the last two years like what does that even mean? How is energy sacred? And I can see that I can see a connection there, but I had felt like there's been just sort of this missing piece of what, what it means to have a sacred femininity, or the, the with capital T, sacred feminine. And so, um, as you know, a part of this work is following your intuition, and so over the last I guess, week and a half, two weeks, there've been a bunch of these little clues that have been pulling me towards Mary Magdalene. She's a historical figure back from when Christ walked the earth, and I knew very little about her. The idea that I've had of Mary Magdalene was that she was a prostitute in the Bible that Jesus sort of had grace with, and my impression was that he sort of felt sorry for her. And then I have one other little memory of some Discovery Channel or some kind of special that was on TV about, like the harlot whore, mary Magdalene. So those are the impressions I've had in my mind about her, which makes me want to cry when I think about it now. Ooh, um.

Speaker 1: 2:57

So I was like this is weird, why would I want to study Mary Magdalene? But I've learned to follow this, to follow this. So, um, through different podcasts, through two, two people that I interviewed like there's, there are all these people pointing me to this. So I ordered a couple of books. Um, sarah Jenks is a woman that works with some of this, and I had actually heard her a couple of years ago but wasn't really ready for this. Um, they say that the teacher arrives when you're ready, and apparently I'm ready, oh, so so I ordered these books and the first one that I opened up a few days ago, um, was called Mary Magdalene Revealed was called Mary Magdalene Revealed, and I had the most visceral response to this, which was really sort of odd. But I opened up the book and before I had even read a word oh, I can feel it now Before I had even read a word, I was instantly just like weeping.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Like weeping, um, it was so wild, um, and I and I still don't really know why I'm starting to see bits and pieces of why that is, but um, but I know. I know that it was grief because it felt very similar to what it felt like after my dad passed away. It was a very similar feeling in my body and, like these waves of grief that were washing over me literally for probably four hours a few days ago, there was nothing logical in my mind happening. There was no memory of Mary Magdalene, there was no memory I had in my logical mind that I was grieving, but my body knew the grief and what I'm learning now, and if you've been following me at all, what's so validating, is that so much of what Mary Magdalene was about and what she taught was also about the wisdom that our bodies hold, the truth and the power that our bodies hold, and that we deny a lot of that and we don't open ourselves up to that and we can't alchemize it and it gets stuck in our bodies. So pretty wild experience to begin with. But I think one of the main truths about the feminine is that we can't always make sense of it in our mind. The feminine isn't to be understood with logic. It's to be felt and intuited and alchemized and seen. It is to just be. That is the nature of the feminine in all of us, but it's been stripped from us or it's been laying dormant in us.

Speaker 1: 5:52

I don't have all the right words. Again, I'm trying to use human words for something that feels very hard to describe, but, uh, we're going to try and go on this journey together. So, um, a little bit about my story that I've also been Ooh, a little bit about my story that I've been really hesitant to share because I don't know, I guess I felt embarrassed about it or something, and some of you know some of this. But so I went to undergraduate at a private Christian college. When people ask what I did prior to real estate, I tell them I worked in nonprofit because I don't want to be associated with the Christian church or haven't wanted to be associated with it because of what it's meant for history and what the experiences that I had. But it's not to say that I don't want to know the historical figures of Christ and Mary Magdalene and all of that. And so, anyhow, I went to this undergraduate private Christian college and I don't ever remember learning about Mary Magdalene, but I do remember learning about the history of how the Bible was put together and I think this history is really important for me to punctuate today. So I also, just before I get to that, I went to a graduate school which is also a Christian private university, liberty and when people ask what I studied, I tell them leadership, because I did. The other half of my degree was worship, divine worship and leadership. So I have this interesting thread in my background that I haven't understood and all of these pieces are beginning to come together in a pretty wild way. So in my undergraduate studies, I vividly remember being in my freshman lecture course and they were talking about the history of Christ, the history of the canon and the scriptures and how they were put together. It was a required class that we all had to go to, and so a little bit of history for those of you that may not know is so.

Speaker 1: 8:15

Christ died, and then in 313 AD, so just over 300 years after Christ had died, um Constantine was a ruler of the time and he became, or he defined, that Christianity would be a state religion, and it was defined by men as the state religion at that time. Prior to that, people were living all forms of religion and different forms of Christianity, so there were all of these different forms of Christianity and man, men, human, saw a need to create some sense of system and unification and order around it. They didn't like that. There were variations of Christianity and so they decided to define Christianity and also make it a state religion. On a practical level, they were also trying to solve the problem of authority. So, with so many questions around Christianity, they needed to create a sense of authority. Can you see where this is going is going?

Speaker 1: 9:31

So in 325 AD, so just over 10 years after that point, constantine called a council of Nicaea and there was a council of men that got together and they decided which scripture would become a part of the canon and which would be suppressed and really ultimately subsequently destroyed. And so there were historical scriptures that were deemed or eventually heretical. And that is the viewpoint that I was taught throughout all of my schooling and the 10 years that I worked in church was that there were these other quote-unquote Gnostic gospels which had a very clear theme woven in all of them that I didn't know at the time, because no one in any of my classes and all of my degrees that I can recall highlighted the fact that those quote unquote alternative scripts had women in authority. They talked about a different kind of authority that was within and not without that. Those scriptures, those historical documents, described a divine feminine in addition to the divine masculine and as you can see, there was a slant on the scriptures that were taken into the Bible. Dr Karen King is a theologian and she talks about the slanted historical study of scripture. In addition to that, men were the ones that were interpreting. Hermeneutics is the lens in which we view historical texts or scriptures. And so men and granted, if, as women, we would probably be doing the same thing we all have a slant, we all have biases in which we, the way we look at the world, the way we look at things.

Speaker 1: 11:20

So, for all of those years that I was in the Christian church and working in the church, when questions would come up about that, it was sort of to me refuted with well, this is where we have faith. This is where we have faith that God destined it to be that way. This is where we just choose to believe. And so, as a good Christian, you believe that, because if you don't, then what? Then? You're essentially excommunicated from the church or you're condemned to hell, or all of these really scary things where you lose everything you have your community, your faith, your sense of belonging. So, naturally, throughout history, most people have chosen to believe that out of faith.

Speaker 1: 12:13

What's happened isn't just, it is. You can see that this is how the patriarchy came to be. Ultimately, it's about control and it's about authority and it's about taking away the power that all of us not just women, all of us as humans have an internal power, magic authority, holiness that is within us. But ultimately it was about taking that away so that the government that became a Christian government could have authority and power and rule and reign. And I experienced this on a really personal level, no matter what doctrine of church I was in.

Speaker 1: 13:00

I, throughout college, was in a Pentecostal church that taught that you had the Holy Spirit within you and that that Holy Spirit was authority and was power. But then there was still a bishop and a pastor that heard God on behalf of God for you and would discern things, quote unquote for you or prophesy things for you. There was, historically right, the Pope. So there was Catholicism that believed that the Pope was the way to God, and that's when Protestantism was born. So the Protestants believed that you didn't need a Pope to get to God, that you could get to God by yourself. But then there was still the nature of scripture, which was the ultimate authority. So if scripture had authority but the Pope didn't, then who had the authority to teach the scripture? The men who interpreted it the way that they did and who suppressed the other half of divinity. Who suppressed the other half of divinity, which is the divine feminine?

Speaker 1: 14:14

Mary Magdalene was one of the disciples and potentially a very close companion of Jesus's that preached, or taught and anointed. She was a priestess that taught some really fundamental truths that not everybody wanted to be heard, and the primary one or one that I've uncovered so far is that we have the power within us. So she's quoted as saying in the gospel of Mary be on your guard so that no one deceives you by saying look over here or look over there, for the child of true humanity exists within you. Follow it. Those who search for it will find it, and that is the ascension path. The path to getting connected to source is not one outside of us and I've been saying this intuitively but to have this confirmed in this kind of way that the path is inward, the path to knowing, the path to truth, the path to power, is deeper and deeper, in and down, and dark.

Speaker 1: 15:27

The feminine is in the. There are all kinds of historical texts outside of these Gnostic gospels that talk about the feminine being moon, lunar, yin, night and the masculine being sun, solar, yang or yang and day energy. So there is a masculine feminine in the divinity and the feminine is that, um, the moon energy that is receptive, that is dark, that is inward. And that is the journey that all of us have gotten. Um, I don't know like we we, uh, many of us have gotten. I don't know like we, many of us haven't really gone there, or society hasn't gone there because we've been so focused outward, we've been so focused on sun, burning, doing energy, that we haven't been able to hear the truth or tap into the intuitive power that we have, which is inward. So you can see why people would want to suppress that even today, because a woman and a man in their intuitive power threatens societal norms, threatens what makes us comfortable, it confronts our comfort, it confronts the way that we want to use and abuse resources and time, and it is very confronting as the feminine, the divine feminine, awakens. It is calling us to something that is different, very different than what has been.

Speaker 1: 17:11

One of the other truths that I'm uncovering in the divine feminine that is again of no surprise is that the divine feminine is in our humanness, in our bodies. If the divine masculine is sort of spirit, the feminine is actually within the body, the felt sense, the embodied version. It is the embodied version of divinity which is makes sense to me why sexuality has been so distorted. I think within the church, sexuality has been shamed and suppressed, I guess, and told what is right and wrong. That's another thing that Mary talked about is that there is only sin because we've created laws, that there is no sin if there was no law, and so it is the law that the man has created that has caused us to view it as sin. It's not sin outside of marriage, in marriage, gay, straight. None of that is, and that is a very confronting thing for some people to hear, because we want to control what we think is right versus letting people have true freedom from within in how they live their lives.

Speaker 1: 18:37

I think our society has also distorted sexuality and the way of making it like a disempowered, disconnected, unholy power, disconnected on holy. I'm so reluctant to put any words to this, but like that, we've masked the true feminine, divine power of it by, just like, hurried sexuality. So you can see why all of this is very confronting that if we have an intuitive power that is within, that is very feminine. Let me see I'm going to pull it from this book here. Egdalen is a word of great feminine power. Biblical Greek amygdala derives from the same roots and means almond or almond tree, and that has to do with the feminine tree of life, the first tree to flower in spring. It also suggests the amygdala region of the brain, the intuitive feminine feeling center in all human beings, which is a portal to the cerebral, universal mother consciousness and can initiate profound awakenings. Using this lunar wisdom, priestesses initiated others into the intuitive, visionary, divine love of the mysteries of Christ.

Speaker 1: 19:53

It is pretty wild to me when I think about what has felt like a pull or a dharma or a calling on me, the only way that I could have put it into words before, and you can see it if you look. I don't know that I need to say this, but I'm like kind of wowed by if I look back at my old Instagram posts or my blog posts from a few years ago, that that I just kept feeling, feeling called to tell people to like go in, that it wasn't actually a recreation, it was an unfolding of what was already on the inside of us, that the truth and our becoming was actually an undoing of the layers on the outside and just a coming back home to what we already know. And that's what this is. And when you awaken, reconnect, tap into your intuitive knowing that is in you, there is no way forward but to unlock the best, most powerful that life has for you. It is magic, that is the magic of it, that that is the manifestation. That is how we get what we want in life is to come back to the only guide. That is true.

Speaker 1: 21:13

So we can look for all of these outside, external signs. If they don't point to what is in you already, if they don't point you back to yourself, if they're pointing to some other source, whether it's a priest or a prophet, or a tarot card or a sign or whatever, those might be confirmations. But if they are not confirmations of something that you know, deep within you run. And one thing has become clear to me over the last few days that whatever I'm doing, wherever this path of mine is leading is that that if I'm a guide, I am guiding you to your truth, that I am not a teacher of any new truth, that I am a guide to point you back to your knowing, your intuition, your divine feminine, your holiness, the sacredness of your body. She knows, she knows in each and every one of us. I don't know, your friend doesn't know, your mom doesn't know, your partner doesn't know, the way that you know, and the more you listen to that, the more clear it will become how she speaks, how she moves, how she feels in your body.

Speaker 1: 22:42

And that's going to require some things of you. Honestly, I can give you some ideas of what it might require, but your journey is going to be unique to you. It might mean and these are just, I don't know, but I'm just going to be unique to you. It might mean and these are just, I don't know, but I'm just going to throw out some ideas it might mean that you do a media fast. It might mean that you go out in nature for a week, and that's another truth of the divine feminine that there is a connectedness to nature, that nature holds wisdom, that nature is a teacher holds wisdom, that nature is a teacher, and so it might mean for you listening in nature. It might mean connecting to your body through dance and music or sacred sexuality. Um, it might mean cleaning up your eating and eliminating sugar and alcohol so that your body is more clear, your that your body is more clear, your actual physiological body is more clear and receptive. It might mean some old relationships that you let die.

Speaker 1: 23:42

It can mean a lot of different things, but we're living in a hustled, loud, fast life and my experience, which is not yours, but my experience has been I couldn't sit down one day and just say, all right, I just want to hear right now, although that source is always there, it's kind of like going on vacation and it taking you three days to unwind, like it takes a minute for us to actually slow down enough where we can start to feel the senses. Our bodies are so numb right now we're numb to our senses. Can you feel the air on your skin right now? Can you notice the taste inside of your mouth? Can you hear the whispers Literally? I don't mean this poetically, but the whispers in the wind? Wind is not loud all the time. Sometimes it is, but can you hear that?

Speaker 1: 24:58

So, when we're moving so fast, it's no wonder that we've lost a connection to the divine feminine. We've lost a connection to the divine feminine. It takes patience, she requires patience, she requires patience and waiting and gentleness and receptivity. So, can you create space for her to show up? She won't be forced, she won't be forced, she won't be forced. She must be invited. How can you invite the feminine to speak? How can you invite the feminine to move this week? That's your invitation, my friends. That's your invitation.

Speaker 1: 25:59

All right, um, shoot me on a message. Shoot me a message. If you're hearing me on this, will you like? Shoot me a DM or send me an email. Um, I'm curious it.

Speaker 1: 26:18

My email for the podcast is Jen at the whole shebang with Jencom. It's a long, annoying email address. I couldn't secure any other URL for the podcast but Jen at the whole shebang with Jencom. Or shoot me a DM. Let me know if this is resonating with you. That would be helpful for me, one of the challenging things with this podcast.

Speaker 1: 26:41

I have a knowing, in a sense, that we are building a community and that there is power in the community that we are building. Um, it's uh, it's a different thing to speak into a microphone and not in a room with people. I will be bringing a room of people together eventually here. By the way, um, if you want to get on an email list for that and some events that I've got brewing in the background, you definitely shoot me an email for that too. I do have people reach out to me just to give me some uh, to reflect back what your experience is. That's so helpful. It helps me understand how how things are landing or how they're not landing and, um, helps me feel the connection to you guys too. Okay, have a banging week. Have a banging week.