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Celebrating Twelve Days with Mary – Day 1

 

The yellow flower blossoms

She’s our mother

The goddess on the barrel cactus

is our mother

The obsidian butterfly

She our mother

She goddess of the earth

A deer’s what she’s become

There on the desert plain

– Song of “Teteo Innan’, Father Fray Bernadino de Sahagun, Florentine Codex


Song of Tonantzin, the Aztec goddess, translated by the Franciscan Fray Sahagun.


Tonantzin was revered in the same location where the Virgin of Guadulupe’s apparitions took place in 1531 and where the Basilica of Virgin de Guadulupe stands today.Tonantzin has been translated as ‘Mother of the gods’ or ‘Our Mother’ by Sahagun. The goddess Tonantzin demanded human sacrifice and the Council of Lima in 1552 ordered that all trace of her be destroyed. However, Tonantzin did not disappear; She was integrated or absorbed into the Virgen of Guadulupe
Unlike the blue cloak of many of Virgen Mary’s images, Guadulupe is recognized by her turquoise-green cloak and red dress. In Aztec mythology turqouise is the sacred colour of the earth as well as the moon mother goddess Tlazolteotl; the water and fertility goddess Chalchutlicue (The One with a skirt of green stones) and the fire and war god of the south, Huitzilopochtli. ‘The god was believed to be ‘immaculately’ conceived with a feather by his mother, the goddess Coalicue (Lady of the Serpent Skirt) – extracted from the book The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe by Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.
May she forge open
our hearts

so that we are
free to love and
embrace allLa Nuestra Senora,
Sacred Woman

Twelve Days with Mary has been happening on my blogCloister of the Heartt
since 2010 when I
first joined up with Rebecca of
Visit her blog to read her story and the posts of other Mary lovers.
For these twelve days I will be celebrating and sharing with you, the stories
of the dark
skinned Lady of Love and it will culminate on 12 December
on the feast day
of the Virgin of Guadulupe;
known in Spanish
as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe
and Virgen de
Guadulupe.
I invite you to
walk with us here and on Instagram
@thefrenchmadonna
and @walkingwithmary with the hashtags #walkingwithmary and #twelvedaysofmary #twelvedaysofmarylove.

My Twelve Days with Mary Love has always centred around art and sacred artmaking. This year I hope to convey, through my sacred artmaking ofthe Mysteries of the Black Madonna deck, a sisterhood of dark Latin madonnas, black African goddesses and the dark virgins and mothers of Europe.

For these twelve days I invite you to create a special Guadulupe altar and you may want to start your inner pilgrimage with a puja to Our Lady of Guadulupe and the Black Madonna. For those who are new here, you will find all instructions on my blog here.

I have included all the Black Madonna cards from the Mysteries of Mary deck on my altar and an offering of a round loaf of bread
For these Twelve Days of Mary Love I will share with you my system 
of accessing your Council of Twelve, incorporating
colour healing through the 12 houses of the astrological wheel and the tarot deck. The other exciting news is that the 12 house astro-tarot-colour spread that we will work with for these 12 days will be expanded in posts during 2020 on Patreon.

This chart shows the 12 colours linked to the 12 houses. They are also linked to the astrological sign of each house plus the chakras in the physical aura, as well as the higher centres in the spiritual body, i.e. the spiritual centres. Each one is linked to an archetype, a tarot card, a challenge or ‘dragon’, an archangel, a month of the year, the twelve days of the Epiphany, etc etc. I will share one on each of the twelve days.


Each house is related to an area of your life. You may already have your own take on this or otherwise you will find loads of information on the internet. To start off I kept it simple. I use my oracle set to indicate what each house means to me personally, just as a keyword for now.
We are doing a 12 card spread for these 12 days. In this spread each card represents the house and area of your life, as well as the month of 2020 and the chakra as well as spiritual centre that it will affect throughout the year. It can become quite a layered reading as time goes on, so I suggest that you keep a journal.
Shuffle your deck and place 12 cards in a circle starting with the first house and moving around anti-clockwise to the second house and ending with the twelfth house.
You can keep the cards face down and turn the applicable one over each day.


Today is the first day of the Twelve Days of Mary and it also relates to the first day of the Epiphany of 26 December.
The first card represents Aries (March 20 – April 21); 
The planet Mars;
The tarot card Emperor or The Good Father
the first house of ‘self’; or soul and life purpose
the root chakra;
and the spiritual center of the ‘head’

The colour of the root is RED, its complementary colour is GREEN
and its higher spiritual colour is WHITE

This card has bearing on  the time period of Aries for your personal year in 2020
but also to the area of that house, the chakra, the spiritual centre etc.
At the end we will look at and explore all 12 cards.

Today :


Add red to your altar, yellow flowers if you can;

small seeds, grains or corn symbolically seeding

insight and clarity over the next 12 days and 12 months


Give the The Good Father a voice in your day and heart;

what does he have to say?

We will uncover his place in your Council of 12 and his relationship
to your other Archetypes.

Place your twelve cards in their places on your Council of 12

Turn over the first card

I will share with you my own cards and how I read these in the next 11 posts.
p.s.  If you are creating a journal then start with House 9 of Sagittarius (the white)
and white is the higher spiritual colour of the Root chakra

This way you can keep your circle going year after year by merely doing a new draw

Meditation and contemplation on the first chakra (root)
and its higher spiritual centre (head)

Behold! with my senses I make all things new. With my imagination I see within my mind’s eye. With my creative power, my feelings and devotion, my creation is born into this world for the highest good of all. In the mind all things are possible. With the word behold! we invoke what is to be. We set in motion our life around us. Our thoughts take shape and all comes into us as we see it. We think and behold a concept, then all of nature follows through. With our mind together, we can create peace in the world, a new world of harmony and love, By seeing the sacred in everything there will be heaven on Earth.

So be it.
 blessings
 Hettienne 
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Outline of Week One

Blessings to you.
Welcome to Walking Thirty Days with Mary based on
the Mysteries of Mary tarot deck and the path
of art and altar making as a sacred spiritual path.

If you are committed to the thirty days

of  Walking with Mary you have joined a large community of people
from all over the world and from different traditions and paths.
We are dedicating energy and love to Mary in her various forms and aspects
and philosophies, beyond
religion and dogma. 
As explained earlier, these practises are part of the Temple of Mary
practises and it is a marriage between my Eastern Tantra and
Western Mysticism traditions.
We are working across many different time zones and to help you keep
some track of the flow of the meditations, I am sharing an outline
here,  But nothing is written in stone.
Day One and we start with the Immaculate Practise
– the first ritual is that of creating a sacred altar
and purifying the space;
– sanctification of altar and sacramental tools with the mantra;
– we add our deck of cards to the altar with the sanctification mantra
– the sacred words of the rosary mantra
– daily card draw

You may choose to wear a meditation shawl

Day Two is the Nativity Feast Day of Mary

Please gather flowers and roses to create a special
flower crown or garland for your statue
or altar in honour of the feast day
We will do a puja for this feast day
I have included the suggested preparations at the end of day one’s post
We will draw a card for the week

Day Three
Immaculate Practise  for Thirty days of Walking with Mary
Daily card draw 
Day Four

Today we will do a special Healing the Inner Child layout and ritual.
You may wish to split today’s practise into two sessions, unless you have
enough time t do all the practises.

Day Five

A repeat of day four.

Day Six
A repeat of days three and/or day four.
There will be a post on the blog for you to read and contemplate

Day Seven
A repeat of days three and/or day four

Day Eight
Today is the first day of the second week
You will receive a post with the theme, colours and an additional prayer

Creating a sacred space
It is a powerful practise to have a sacred space in which to meditate and focus on your activities. 
You can prepare this space beforehand with a special chair or space on the floor to sit on.
If you already have a meditation shawl, place it in your sacred space.  I suggest that you find
a special (meaning one that you use for this purpose) shawl with which to cover your shoulders or head.  In the bhakty tradition we wear white.
Create your altar with candles, incense, an essential oil burner, fresh flowers and of course a statue 
or image of Mother Mary.
Add your Mysteries of Mary tarot deck and healing amulet oracles
or any decks and elements that you are choosing to work with.

You will add items to the altar over the thirty days.  

Blessing and consecration of space and items

On the first day of this journey I will share with you the diksha to bless and
consecrate all your items.  
Gather the following items :

meditation shawl
rosary or mala or prayer beads
a few fresh lemons – at least one or two 
one or two cups of coarse sea salt

candles
colours are optional : white, red, dark blue, gold, yellow

small bottles of essential oils : eucalyptus, lemon and rose
(frankincense and sandalwood optional)

frankincense or myrrh incense

a journaling book
a couple of old magazines, calendars or picture books for cutting out images
cardboard to cut into A5 size for collaging
glue
start collecting holy cards, or any images of Mary

a blank book that you can alter with crayons, or paints

crafting items for a shadow box – a small cardboard box or deep frame

baby pictures of yourself
any items that you may have from childhood
any favourite childhood picture books

None of these are essential.  You will have enough time to collect whatever you want to create.
You may wish to create nothing at all which is also perfect.
I add these items for those of you who like to be prepared from the get-go. 

blessings

Blessings

Hettienne