Category: Sacred retreats;

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Invitation to a Sacred Retreat in the Love Fire of the Blessed Mary

It takes courage to burn in the fire of Love

An invitation to the Flamekeepers of the The Temple of Mary

I invite you to join me in either one day or three days
of sacred retreat into the powerful energies of
the Love Fire of Maryam, Maria, Mary,
the ancient lineage of Divine Feminine, priestess,
prophetess, alchemist and visionary.
I will be at Temenos retreat centre in McGregor
Monday 15 June, Tuesday 16 June (which is a public
holiday) and Wednesday 17 June (two nights)
and I invite you to join me.
The time will be spent in silence, meditations,
small ceremonies at some of the shrines, darshan,
praying of the rosaries and the Hours of the Day
according to the practises of the Temple of Mary.
We will create a circle of intent held by the Flamekeepers of the Temple of Mary.
There will not be a program – it will unfold as guided.
There will be no formal teaching
This is a retreat by the community of The Temple of Mary
and to be spent in celebration as well as silence;
in contemplation as well as participation
and connecting with the Beloved Within.
The focus will be on turning within and receiving the new energies
that She is currently pouring out.
The invitation is also extended to anyone that you know that
would like to be a part of these holy energies
Temenos rates are R365 pp sharing a cottage per night
or R385 pp in a single cottage plus meals – you can have all meals
in restaurant or self-cater – the price of the restaurant is very reasonable.
I have booked a limited number of cottages – shared
and single – so please let me know either way
Please let me know as soon as you can as I would like to
confirm the number of beds.


blessings
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Newsletter April 2015



Greetings from the Love-Fire of the Sacred Heart of the Mother of All
A bit about my story as it unfolds
The fire of love blazed in my heart
and consumed everything.
My books, my erudition and my mind
I put away on a shelf.
Now I write only poems
– Rumi
I am deep into the Otherworld of myth, metaphor, fairy tale and the incredible
symbolism of Mary.  I am working mainly on the Mysteries of Mary Tarot Deck – an
undertaking which seems almost impossible, but I am nearing completion!
My hands are creating 78 tarot shrines in this deck – each one received in dreamtime or
during trance states.  All the material has to be collected and gathered and I
use traditional Catholic figures.  At first I was perplexed by this instruction, but as the deck has been unfolding
it has become clear that there are many many reasons for this to be so.
Once the shrines are completed, they have to be photographed and then
they they will need some graphic design to be turned into cards.
I am concurrently writing the book which will accompany the deck of cards
and my biggest challenge is not to turn it into an encyclopedia.
The Wisdom just pours into my brain and profound knowledge as well as hidden
facts and history has been revealed.  At times I fear that I will have to go into
hiding once I have published the deck, but fortunately we no longer live in
the burning times and I am also supported by Blessed Mary in finding
academic research for all the revelations.  It is an amazing and blessed
and very humbling journey.
What would a year be without a pilgrimage?  I am very fortunate to be travelling
to Lourdes again this year.  And also to Assisi, the House of Loreto and Chartres.
All these places and their significance to the journey of our Souls in its current
mythos and evolution, appear in the deck.  In fact, you will discover, along with me,
how every single pilgrimage that I have undertaken the past 16 years, were
a very important and significant step on this holy path.
Staying in touch
I have been changing some of my blogs and also deleted some websites
in order to streamline the physical output in line with what is coming.
I have also created a new website http://maryammariamary.blogspot.com which
is the front page of all my work, posts, publications and links.
I am working on putting up some e-books and also online courses
for download.  These links will all be on this website.
Our website for the Temple is still being updated from time to time
I am planning a ritual at my home in May to dedicate a flame
to the Temple of Mary and its nine flamekeepers.
Those who live close by are invited to attend – please let me know –
and those who live far away or who cannot make it, you can
send a candle which we will include in the ritual and you can place
it on your own personal Flamekeeper altar and also light all other
candles from it.
(It will be on a Thursday or Friday morning in May)
I am available to you via email and whatsapp and the phone, should
you feel the need.  Some of you may notice that we are often having conversations
in the other realms or that I visit you in your dreams.  The work continues.
In fact, in a year or two, you will witness many changes and transformations
and you will be called to testify to the world of your personal dedication
to the Blessed Mother of the World as She sends out the Call to many.
I am also available for spiritual guidance and healing.  My time is limited
and I already have a few I am working with, so I do not advertise this too widely
I will be putting up more info on the website
I am blogging on www.path-of-divine-love.com, (Cloister of the Heart) and
www.hergracesacredart.com (Mysteries of Mary Tarot Deck) and
http://maryammariamary.blogspot.com (Mysteries of Mary) and there will be a post
today on www.bookofmarysacredheart.blogspot.com (The Temple of Mary) (if loadshedding
allows :D)
 so make sure that you
are subscribed if you want to follow the posts.
I do not write as often as I used to as most of my energy goes into
the tarot deck as well as created a sacred garden at home, ready to receive
the small physical temple dedicated to Mary which I am planning.
The Month of May is dedicated to Mary

Since the pagan times, the month of May always had a special significance for the divine feminine
and goddess.  In the North it is spring, so the Romans and Greeks dedicated this month to Flora
and Artemis.  The Month of May celebrates the crowning of Mary.  So take the time, create
an altar and weave a crown of flowers for your Mary statue.  Remember that your devotion and attention
invoke the holy Presence into the physical image and you can place water, oil and food on
your altar to be blessed by her presence.
I would like to invite you to practise the 30-day dedication and devotion to Mary
during the month of Mary.  This is a very ancient tradition and you will receive
the blessings if you do so.

Invitation to a retreat into Mary’s Flame of Love
I will be offering a retreat from the world into the powerful Presence
of the Flame of Mary’s Love at Temenos in MacGregor.
This call has been coming through very powerfully the past few months
and I have decided to stop resisting. 
I will be spending two or three week nights at Temenos during the
June school holidays.  Week nights are cheaper than weekends.
They also offer a winter special of three nights for the price of two.
All meals can be self-catering and dinner can be taken
together in the restaurant.

I am extending an invitation to you to join me.  The time will be
spent in silence, in walks, guided meditations at The Well,
small ceremonies at some of the shrines and satsang.
It will be a casual coming together of the Flamekeepers of the Temple of Mary.
There will not be a program – it will unfold as guided.
The focus will be on turning within and receiving the new energies
that She is currently pouring out.
The invitation is also extended to anyone that you know that
would like to be a part of the energies
Temenos rates are R365 pp sharing a cottage per night
or R385 pp in a single cottage plus meals – you can have all meals
in restaurant or self-cater – the price of the restaurant is very reasonable.
As spiritual director for the retreat my fee is R500 per person.
So all in all it is very affordable.  
It takes courage to burn in the Fire of Love
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Why Sacred Drama?

www.blancadance.com
Why enact the Sacred Dramas from the Lesser Mysteries?
I give you here a compilation of my own thoughts and information
found on the net and in books on this sacred ancient spiritual practise.
Rebirth requires descent; this is one of the mysteries. The ascent to another way of being, the ascent of transformation, cannot occur without disintegration, without the process of breaking down completely — being pulverized really, physically, emotionally, spiritually. If the container of self is not smashed, the vision cannot enter. The vision is the flash of light that re-organizes the self. Afterwards, if one is fortunate and graced by the generosity of the gods — one reconstitutes, or is reconstituted, according to the laws and principles of a new life, a new dimension, a new world, a new universe.

Descent takes place in our ordinary lives through sickness, ill health,
addictions, insomnia, frustration of goals and ideals, repeated failure
to manifest your goals, the loss of a loved one, through betrayal
and abandonment.  Re-enacting the sacred drama leads to a deeper
understanding and wisdom of the trials and tribulations of
daily life and its abduction into the Underworld.

     What distinguishes any Mystery religion, is that it is based upon mysteries. Its rites and practices take us deeper and deeper into the labyrinth or the underworld where we examine a series of unanswerable and awesome questions and, are, accordingly, altered by this willingness to enter and be worked upon by the elemental forces that live in the domain of the unknown and unknowable. This is not descending into chaos, though it feels chaotic when we are there. It is entering into domains that cannot be understood in the ways we generally seek and convey understanding. It is entering into worlds that operate by different laws altogether. Integrity is required and so we must be reconstituted; this is the way of transformation.

Enacting the Mystery of the Rape of Kore and the return of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
     But even more than this was at stake when the Mysteries were practiced. When the mystes offered themselves up to the rite of initiation, the gods, as they do everywhere when carefully and consciously evoked, came forth and made themselves known. Persephone was said to have appeared. This was the epiphany. How that occurred we do not exactly know, for participants were prohibited to speak about it on pain of death, and also, the experience was ineffable, meaning it is impossible to put such an experiences into words.

   Kore is pulled down into the underworld. Ultimately, she loses her innocence, gains a name and a Presence. The name is Persephone, Queen of Hades.
     This is what is not told in the myth: How did this transformation take place? What actually occurred during those three months in Hades when the innocent nameless one took on the Presence of the Goddess? What are the details of descent, deconstruction, and reconstitution? What do physicists imagine happens to someone who speeds through the worm hole from one dimension or universe to another? What happened to Christ in the three days before the resurrection? Where is the map of initiation that we must follow to shattering and breakdown before we are sufficiently transformed to emerge elsewhere? What is the process through which we are altered so that we can go through the door to the next world?
 but that it was our intent to, simultaneously, recapitulate the ordeal of the Mysteries, retell the story of Persephone, and, to perform our own individual stories of descent and vision. We had the task of creating the vision, the flash of light from out of the dark earth of ourselves so that for an instant, for a the moment of epiphany, we would each see and became, the arrhetos koura, the “ineffable maiden,” the dark Queen.
     It is inevitable as we re-enter the myth and the rituals, the moments of being dragged down, held captive, struggling for release and finally bursting forth in flames, the intense concentration of our particular individual agonies and ordeals, the disintegration and reconstitution that we each individually experienced, that we would become both “Brimo the queen of the dead giving birth in fire” and her mighty son, Brimos, and so, emerge like Dionysus, who is also central to these Mysteries, reborn, twice born.
     That is we were new born and we were ancient. To fully negotiate the domain of Persephone, to carry the wisdom and insight of the underworld, to be able to live according to the dark vision of Hades is to be as old as it is possible to be. Yet to be suddenly reconstituted in this new plane is to be reborn, and to be reborn is to be new and innocent; it cannot be any other way.

At this point in the Mysteries, one begins the long climb back to the earthy realm of the Mother, of Demeter, carrying the old wisdom like a great fire, or a small seed that will be planted again. But the one who carries such insight and vision into Demeter’s world, can neither be the Kore, the innocent one, nor Persephone of Hades. And though the Eleusinian Mysteries are the rites of Demeter, the earth goddess does not, herself, descend into the underworld. There is only one who incorporates all the worlds at once: She is Hekate, the goddess of child birth and death, the old one who, it is said, led Persephone out of Hades and who, from then on, never left her side, following her in the endless cycle of descent and rebirth. Hekate, the old one, who is by her nature constituted around the Kore as a seed within herself. Hekate who mediates between and contains all the worlds at once. Hekate, the Three in One, the Triple Goddess incarnate. The constantly shifting dynamic, the co-existence and co-extension of all the realms, is Hekate’s esoteric and embodied domain.
One way or another each kore went through his or her own individual disintegration, and then after the vision, after epiphany, returned, but transformed, to his or her own individual and parallel universe, as Persephone had returned to the earth realm of Demeter transformed – reborn
We may appear to be the same afterwards and we will not have words for it no matter how hard we try, but we will no longer be who we once were. When we are together with citizens of the new world into which we have been born, we recognize this among ourselves. We speak another language. We see what we have not seen before. We enter into dialogue with the spirits of this other world. This is the way and means of initiation. To enter into the mysteries is to be initiated. And to be initiated is to be able to walk in an other dimension.
       It was said that those who once enacted the Mysteries would gain their immortal souls in this world and in the next. To gain a soul is to gain the ability to walk in two worlds, to be admitted to that other dimension inhabited by the gods. The only way across is the arduous and mysterious path of dying to what one was and is so that one can be reborn.