The Madonna Secret (Sacred Planet)

Description

Mary Magdalene’s confessions reveal a sensual world of love and betrayal, magic and mystery, hidden within the Gospels • Reroots Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the lush ecology and complex spiritual culture of Second Temple Period Judea and Galilee under Roman rule • Rewilds the Gospels with the forgotten voices of defiant and oppressed women, the nature-based storytelling of oral communities, and the embodied eroticism of a lovable rabbi with appetites and desires, doubts and shame, and a playful sense of humor • Retells a familiar narrative informed by extensive research in botany and ecology, scriptural analysis, feminist studies, and the mythic traditions of the Mediterranean When Leukas, a Christian convert, ventures into the wilds of Gaul to receive the hidden teachings from Mary Magdalene before she dies, he discovers that hidden within the Gospels he thinks he knows is an epic love story—between an educated Jewish woman overwhelmed by her mysterious spiritual powers and a sensual magician devoted to the wisdom of the earth. The secrets she will reveal are both more shocking and more tragic than anything readers have encountered before. Beginning with Miriam’s childhood as a member of a wealthy Jewish family living outside of Bethany, we see her struggles as a young woman with spiritual curiosity and intellectual aspirations that drive her to combat the violence of Empire and the sexism of her own culture. Propelled by mystic visions, Miriam is finally drawn into the wilds of Galilee, where her destiny collides with a mischievous rabbi who will change her and the world forever. Trapped in a mythic story unfolding in events around them, the lovers strive not to repeat a tragedy older than the pyramids. In The Madonna Secret , Sophie Strand resurrects a richly textured world where complex characters reveal the lived reality of scripture and open familiar sayings to radical new meanings and possibilities. Review: Closest to who Jeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth has been - Sophie Strand comes the closest to who Jeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth truly was. He was one of the many heirs of the Jewish mystical tradition of the Merkabah. Unfortunately the time he lived in was so full of turmoil, that he started to display his powers ("siddhis" in the Indian tradition) which authentic mystical tradition do not allow, unless there is a permission to do so. He thought to have this permission, but he was wrong. He went down the slippery road of misusing his mystical powers, of self-delusion, of human hubris. The penalty is death. Review: Lifetimes of Mothers- this book is a gamechanger! - This gorgeous book! It has changed my bones, tapping into mythical stories deeper and older than the ones I thought I knew. This incredible eco-feminist retelling of the story of Miriam (Mary Magdalene) upends the whole story of the biblical narratives of her life and that of Jesus, known as Yeshua in that time. Sophie Strand weaves us bodily and sensually into the land, the people, the food, the flowers, rivers, and forests of the Second Temple period of Jerusalem with deeply researched smells, tastes, colors, textures, and sounds. What does it mean to be an eco-feminist retelling? This book is rooted in the land first and foremost, and then it is told from the viewpoint of the women. Young girls, mothers, grandmothers, servant women, rich women, hard-working country women. It left me both rejoicing and weeping for all beings and all mothers—all the mothers who have come before me, and all yet to come. “A groaning, heaving chorus of mothers. You are only here because hundreds of women did this. You are only one woman in a long line of women. Keep the blood moving.” A metamorphosis happens by the time you emerge at the end of this story—heartbroken, forever changed, and yet deeply fulfilled by this eternal love story we call life.