A response by Cynthia Bourgeault to the release of
Mary Magdalene, the movie
After hearing about the release of the movie Mary Magdalene overseas last year, I have been waiting with some anticipation for its eventual release here in the United States (April 12, 2019).
European students of mine had been reporting their positive reviews, noting with delight that this Hollywood portrayal of Mary Magdalene was uncanny in its resonance with my own description in my book The Meaning of Mary Magdalene. The filmmakers—writers Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett, and director Garth Davis—did indeed portray Mary Magdalene in a pure and imaginative way, re-centering her as an apostle without the usual sexual or erotic innuendos. While I wish that Jesus would have been portrayed younger (so he wouldn’t register physically quite so much as a father figure), more light-filled and perhaps less conflicted, I was gratified to find that his fully incarnate, human suffering came through loud and clear. My own assessments aside, I welcome this opportunity that the US-release of the film has provided as a moment of a collective and cultural remembrance of this central figure at the heart of the Christian Gospels.
As Holy Week. . .
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A three-part blog series by Cynthia Bourgeault
As many of you know, I have been breaking ground on a new book on the Imaginal Realm. While “breaking ground” may be a bit of an overstatement, I at least have a few rough sketches on the drawing board, which in the spirit of the season (thanksgiving and anticipation), I thought I’d throw out to you as trailers. These preliminary sketches have been shaped into three blogs; what final shape they will assume remains to be seen, but you can at least get a glimpse of what’s capturing my creative imagination these days. Enjoy!
What Is the Imaginal Realm?
It’s all too easy when exploring topics as inherently elusive as the imaginal realm to stray into abstraction. Many of the world’s sacred traditions (though not all) acknowledge something roughly analogous to what I am here calling imaginal reality; the temptation is to launch into a scholarly or technical comparison of these various systems. Is the imaginal “the same” as the Platonic “intelligible universe?” The Hindu “subtle” level of consciousness? The bardo realms of Buddhism? Maybe yes, maybe no. That work of scholarly refinement I leave to others. What I. . .
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“Teachers of contemplative Christianity, who acknowledged the limitations of human knowledge and the inconstant nature of human sentiment, instead encouraged a commitment to practice. A scripturally grounded commitment to practice and service—rather than a reliance on unsteady belief and feeling—is the fulcrum of contemplative Christianity.” —Paula Pryce, The Monk’s Cell
From time to time in the unfolding life of a lineage, it becomes important to stop and ponder together “whur we come from” (as my teacher Rafe used to call it): i.e., the fundamental understandings that called us into being as a particular expression of the wider tradition of Christian contemplative Wisdom. As the Contemplative Society, our flagship Wisdom vessel, now celebrates its twentieth anniversary and a new generation of seekers and board members assume their turn at the helm, it seems like an appropriate occasion for just such a moment of reflection.
Wisdom, like water, is itself clear and formless, but it necessarily assumes the shape and coloration of the container in which it is captured. Between formless essence and manifesting particularity there is a reciprocal dynamism; you can’t have one without the other.
Our own particular branch of the great underground river of Wisdom. . .
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