Day 14 – September

Today is the final day of the second week of the

Suit of the Holyrood.

There are various archetypes and initiations in this suit

and one of them is Our Lady, the Eastern Gate.

Many people are familiar with the fact that Joseph and

Mary fled with the infant Jesus to Egypt at the threat

of the massacre of the innocents by King Herod.

This event is well covered by many artists

and it is seen as one of the seven sorrows of Mary.

However, what is not clear, is the amount of time that

was spent in Egypt and what transpired there.

The two accounts in the books of Matthew and Luke

do not correspond at all.  Luke mentions nothing about Egypt

and Matthew says nothing about a trip to Nazareth

soon after Jesus’ birth whereas Luke describes in detail

how Jesus was taken to the temple in Jerusalem

‘after Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses.’

The town of Nazareth is in the ‘kingdom’ of Jerusalem

and here we see Mary on the donkey riding

through the gate of Jerusalem.

In The Hebrew Goddess, a book by Jewish historian

and anthropologist Raphael Patai, we learn

that the Hebrew goddess Asherah was seen as the

mother of Yahweh.  

In the time of King Joshua the Hebrew goddess

had to go ‘underground’.  The use of her name and images

were forbidden and her devotees replaced her with

the tree, a pole or rod and the branches of the menorah.

She was known as the Lady of Jerusalem;

the Gate of Jerusalem and the Eastern Gate.

The Lady of Jerusalem was also depicted as an arch.

According to the Dead Sea Scrolls and

The Mother of the Lord by Margaret Barker,

 the ancients

believed Mary to be the incarnation of

the Lady of Jerusalem.

In Christian iconography from the East

we see Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn.

Her image is above the city gates (in Lithuania

and Poland) to protect the city and its inhabitants

and many miracles have been ascribed to her.

In Ezekiel it is written that the eastern gate of

Jerusalem has been shut

and that it will only re-open for the divine One.

So here we have Mary returning victoriously

through the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem

into the light of a new dawn.

A marriage of eastern and western iconography

and cultures and more importantly,

a marriage of masculine and feminine values

for our world.

This card is a way shower of the return of Mary

and her hidden and lost meaning to our world.

The deck takes us on a journey through the 

life, the initiations and the mysteries of Mary

as the Sacred Feminine and what it means

to our natural world as well as our spiritual,

emotional and social health.

May the values of mercy, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance

of all diversity as embodied by Mary

return to a place of honour and respect in our world.

Hail Mary
Ave Maria
Sanctum Gloria
Hail Mary
Hail Queen of Heaven
Hail Lady of the Angels
Salutation to Thee, root and portal
Whence the Light of the world has arisen
Hail Mary
Ave Maria