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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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Walking with Mary September QnA – updated post



I am sharing some of the personal tools and ritual which I garnered
through my experiences and spiritual practices over the years.
I have found these practises and blessings to be of great value in my own journey  and believe that they may be of value to you as well.
I am not teaching a specific practise complete in itself with precise lists of what you have to do, but rather I will share with you some of the key practises and prayers which you can adapt to suit your own expression
and consciousnesness.
Some aspects may seem particularly vague, but that is done on purpose
as it will enable you to fill the gaps with your own inner understanding and to stretch yourself into ever-deepening
 layers of connection with self and the Divine.

May these practises and energy transferences (diksha) lead you deeper into the well of wisdom.

Energy Clearing

I will share some inspiration on how to create your sacred space in advance before you start with the meditations. 
It is also important to clear your space before you start with the consecration
of your altar and shawl, etc and before you receive the first mantra for the blessing (diksha) and meditations.

There are various ways of clearing your space : these are just a few that I like to use : burning sage or mpepho (a local indigenous plant in South Africa); 
burning aromatherapy oils;  holy water; sacred waters and salt.

My favourite way of cleansing is the following :



A whole lemon placed in the room and one on the altar.  I leave the lemons in place for weeks (until it has naturally dried out).  
When the lemon starts to rot it has absorbed negative
energy and you have to put it into the compost or garden and replace it with another fresh lemon.

Lemons are powerful energy clearing fruit and one of the oldest holy fruits that we know.  The lemon also aborbs the sacred energies 
of the activated altar and space and you 
can eat it as prasadh (blessed food) after your sacrament.

Secondly I use salt.  
I place a bowl of salt on my altar and this is replaced with clean salt regularly.
It is also a good practise to sprinkle a bit of salt 
in the corners of the room and to sweep
them out regularly. 
 You may be familiar with bathing in water with 
a few tablespoons of Epsom salts
added to it.  I also add slices of lemon to my bath water 
or to my shower, especially
after I had done personal clearing or healing work on others.



In preparation of my sacred space and before any meditation or healing work, I burn frankincense
and myrhh granules (on lit charcoal)
 or a good quality vegan incense.
I clear the entire room with the smoke of the frankincense.

I also clear my space by sprinkling blessed water on everything.

Music is also a powerful energetic cleanser.  We all have different vibrations
and resonate with different frequencies.  I have my favourite music which includes
classical music by Mozart and Beethoven, chants by Krishna Das and my
absolute favourite are the chants of Lourdes.  You can find these online :
Les 20 plus beaux chants pour la messe
and
Lourdes : 150 Ans de chants


Blessing of the Altar

Placing sacred items and images on your altar, sanctifies and blesses everything
that is within the energy field of those items. 
 If you work with a pendulum you can
prove this fact to yourself.  You can test the frequency and vibration of a space
without a sacred image.  
Then place the image or holy water or rosary which had
been used for prayers, back into the space and test the space again.
You may be amazed at the increase in vibration. 
 Our cells consists mainly of water
and prana and these vibrate in resonance with its surroundings. 

Essential oils

I will share with you the secret recipes for meditation blends
during the weeks to come.

We will use lemon oil, eucalyptus oil, rose oil and if you can afford to,
sandalwood oil.  Frankincense oil also has a very high vibration but is very expensive.
Candles and colours over the four weeks

You can keep the same candle for the four weeks or you can
change the colour and/or image of the candle that you work with..

Feel free to change the colour of your altar cloth and flowers too.

We will do a draw, layout and reading from the 
 Mysteries of Mary tarot deck
for each week, but you can use any deck that you choose to.

The overarching theme for the entire 30 days will be

Mary, Our Lady of the Rose

The themes for the four weeks are :

Week 1 – Saturday 7 September to Friday 13 September 2019
The Nativity of Mary 
– the inner child –
The Suit of Vessels
 BLUE AND GOLD


Week 2 Saturday 14 September to Friday 20 September
Mary as Beloved, Bride and Magdalen
– the tree of life –
The Suit of Holy Rood
RED and GREEN


Week 3 Saturday 21 September to Friday 27 September
Mary as Sophia, Our Lady of Wisdom, Shekinah
– high priestess –
The Suit of Distaff
DARK BLUE

Week 4 Saturday 28 September to Friday 4 October
Mary as the sacred rose garden
– Cosmic Mary –
The Suit of Roses
RED


I will share posts during each week with support, 
discussions and other tools such
as creating soulcollage cards, keeping a journal, dream work and so on.
You can share and connect with the Walking with Mary community
on Instagram #walkingwithmary #thirtydayswithmary 
@walkingwithmary
We are also on www.patreon.com/thefrenchmadonna
and I share on FB on the Mysteries of Mary tarot page

blessings

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Thirty Days with Mary September 2019

Walking with Mary for thirty days
7 September 2019



When you pray to Mary, mother of Jesus, you pray, without knowing it,
to the World Mother in her many forms. –  The Mists of Avalon
You are invited to join me and the Temple of Mary in a 30 day practice with the metaphor, Sacred Presence and iconography of Blessed Mary.  
We will start Saturday 7 September 2019 on the eve of the Nativity of Mary
 and continue till Sunday 6 October, the eve of the feast day
of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Walking with Mary focuses on the tarot deck
Mysteries of Mary tarot deck.  If you do not own the deck you can still
join in.  There are daily practises, mantras, chants, ritual, dance,
soulcollage, tarot spreads and more.

A  Walking with Mary community exists around the globe and
we are united in our love for the sacred feminine in the embodiment of Mary.
If you wish to, we share on Instagram with the hash tags
#walkingwithmary
#thirtydayswithmary
#30dayswithmary

and on Facebook on the Mysteries of Mary tarot deck page.

You can subscribe to this blog on the right hand side column
‘Subscribe by email’ and you will receive the posts via email.
You can also follow this blog.
I have a group on Patreon called Walking with Mary.
You will find us on www.patreon.com/thefrenchmadonna
and for $5 a month you will receive monthly posts and background
information on the deck and an on-going spiritual practise.

You can participate wherever you are and you can spend as much time as you can afford to on the daily practise.  The month of Walking with Mary will include special prayers, contemplation, spiritual exercises and tools to uncover your own Sacred Heart and strengthen your relationship with 
Blessed Mary.
This is a free event and open to everyone
Over the next few days I will share here a few items that you have to collect and prepare beforehand.
If you own the Mysteries of Mary tarot deck and/or the  Amulets of Mary Healing Oracle,
you can bring them to this event.

We will consecrate our decks and we will set up a special Walking with Mary altar.  

The Walking with Mary online retreat in January and February is
devoted to Our Lady of Lourdes, the Immaculate Conception.

The Walking with Mary online retreat in September is devoted
to Our Lady of the Rose.

You may like to read my Art Novena to Lourdes or Mondays with Mary posts
on my blog Cloister of the Heart at
http://pathofdivinelove.blogspot.com
for some background to my sacred path of art as spiritual practise
and what you can expect of Walking with Mary.
You will experience the flowering of peace and joy and you will see the changes in your personal life unfold as you walk these thirty days with Mary.
blessings
Hettienne