Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes

Today is the final day of the

Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes

Today I am reminded of the universality of Mary

and the mystery of who she really is.

To some she is the literal figure in a Bible story;

to others she is a Western goddess;

some know her as Queen of Heaven and the Angels

and still others know as her Mama, Gaia,

Mother Earth and our nature.

Who is she to you?

What are the whispers in your ear? 

What are the winds stirring up in your heart?

It takes great courage to answer that call

and to step out of the comfort and security

of the unexamined room in which we live.

Has she been calling  you?

Then today is the day to answer.

Then today is the day to accept the call to step out

into the unknown

To do that which you have been avoiding,

to see and hear that part of yourself that has

been tugging on the hem of your coat,

begging for attention

‘I realized that all the powers of the Mothers, of Tara, Durga, Kali are in Mary.

She has Tara’s sublime tenderness;

Durga’s inaccessible silent calm force;

the grandeur and terribilta of Kali.

But Mary is also a woman,

a poor woman

and a human mother.

In her the full path of the sacred feminine is lived.

In her we have a complete image of the Divine Mother,

an image at once transcendent and immanent,

other-worldly and this-wordly,

at once mystical and political and practical.

and lives, the passionate, strong, serious,

simple and transforming life that shows us all how to live.

Mary is the bridge between heaven and earth,

between the human and the divine worlds,

between human and divine justice.”

                                                                             Andrew Harvey in The Return of the Mother

Blessings