Maeve (aka Mary Magdalen) on the Papyrus Scrap

Maeve has been impatiently waiting for interview requests from The New York Times and other major media since The Times published that article about of a scrap of papyrus. You know the business-card size scrap in which Jesus makes a reference to (feel the shaking of the church’s one foundation) “my wife.” The press has been slow on the uptake, so Maeve has deigned to grant an exclusive interview at this blogsite.  

Interviewer: So Maeve Rhuad (aka Mary Magdalen) I suppose that Jesus might have had a wife comes as no news to you.  Do you feel a little insulted by the furor over a scrap of 2^nd century papyrus when you have been trying to state the obvious for over two thousand years?

Maeve: Maybe bemused rather than insulted. People do tend to get more excited over ancient bits of papyrus than recently published novels—unless they are by Dan Brown. That the article made reference only to Dan Brown omitting many other (sorry Dan and thanks for publicity) more accomplished novelists is the insulting part. 

Interviewer:  Why do you suppose the existence of Jesus’s wife (which is to say your existence) has been so suppressed all these centuries? What’s the big deal about a Jewish rabbi having a wife?

Maeve: Many people have speculated about my existence and there have been various heretical traditions about Jesus’s marriage among such sects as the Cathars. But if you want to know the real dirt, it’s all in The Maeve Chronicles. Readers will recall that I got off to a bad start with Peter. When I met him, I was running a holy whorehouse, and his wife came to us to …let’s just say resolve fertility issues. Even so, Peter and I had our rare good moments. But things fell apart when he laid siege to Temple Magdalen to try to take my posthumous daughter by Jesus. We finally cut a deal: I would keep my baby and disappear from the story. I got off to a bad start with Paul of Tarsus, too, and with Jesus’s brother James. There was one moment in my misadventures when I had those three church fathers, so to speak, tied up and held at knife point. I could have nipped church’s long, bloody history in the bud, but all I wanted was information about my daughter—whom they had kidnapped at the age of twelve! So the deal is off, as far as my disappearing from the story is concerned. By the way, in case you’re wondering, Sarah gave her kidnappers the slip, stowed away on a ship and later became a pirate.  

Interviewer:  The scrap of papyrus also refers to a female disciple. Many people assume she is the same woman as one he calls wife. Would you care to comment?

Maeve: Yes, I would, on my own behalf and on behalf of my friend Mary of Bethany who really was a disciple and who fought for the right of women to be not only disciples but leaders in the ecclesia. As for me, I am simply not disciple material. Jesus knew that, and that is why he finally broke down and proposed marriage to me. He was overwhelmed by his following. He needed someone who loved him passionately but was willing to tell him off—which I did from an early age and continued to do to the point of throwing figs at him in the Temple of Jerusalem after he blasted the fig tree (which I restored to life, by the way).  I never converted to Judaism or Christianity—though I did become a whore-priestess of Isis when I encountered that goddess during my sojourn as a slave in Rome.  

Interviewer: In addition to controversy over whether or not you were married to Jesus, there has always been speculation about whether you were a whore, for which there is no scriptural evidence. Many people now insist that casting you as a whore is a patriarchal defamation of your character. Would you care to set the record straight?

Maeve: Far be it from me to defend the patriarchy, but you see they cast me as a penitent whore, and that I never was and never will be. But yes indeed I was a whore, and so would you be if you were a young woman (or man) captured by a Roman slaver and sold on the block, which is what happened to me. When I finally won my freedom (an exciting tale included in The MaeveChronicles) I continued to ply my trade—but on my own sovereign terms at Temple Magdalen—the holy whorehouse I mentioned earlier. My biggest hesitation in marrying Jesus was the prospect of leaving Temple Magdalen and going on the road with The Twelve (though it was usually a lot more than that).

Interviewer: One last question. Can you tell us briefly what it was like being married to Jesus?

Maeve: If you really want to know, read the last part of The Passion of Mary Magdalen. In brief? It was no bed of roses. Jesus is supposed to have said “the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Well, he had my breasts, thank you very much! And I had only his less sumptuous chest. We did not have a typical married life. We never had a home together. We always had a lot of other people around us. Our child was born after he died and rose and disappeared (though lo he is always with me). We had a major rift towards the end of our marriage (see blasted fig tree) but we made it up when he saved me from being stoned as an adulteress. What was it like being married to Jesus? Blissful, agonizing, sweet, short.  Brief yet momentous. A mustard seed, a hazelnut, a scrap of papyrus.

Pause

between summer and fall

between one political convention and the other

between the full blue moon and the next new moon

between holiday and school

between breath in, breath out

between tide in, tide out

between young and not so young

between not so old and old

between labor contractions

between life and death

between knowing and not knowing

between toil and rest

between harvest and fallow field

between flying and falling

between waking and dreaming and the reverse

between disasters seen, unseen and unforeseen

between miracles, the same

between notes and grace notes

between the wide world and the small one

between the great silences that shelter us all

As I write, it is Labor Day. I am between chapters of the mystery (the novel-in-progress) but perhaps also the mystery. I started working on this poem a couple of days ago to try to express my sense of what may be a time of the year, a particular time in my life, or a time in our collective life. Whatever 2012 is or isn’t according the Mayan calendar and the plethora of interpretations, it is an election year for the presidency of the United States of America. The economy is in peril and many people remain without viable employment on this day that celebrates workers. Rights that we fought for and believed we had secured are under attack. It is another year of extreme and disastrous weather for many parts of the country.

Like many people, I often feel I don’t do enough to address the challenges of our time and/or I don’t know what to do.  So I just keep doing something, anything, and succeed mainly at wearing myself out. In the last month I have had my tenth bout of Lyme disease. Between the disease itself and the powerful antibiotics, I have experienced a mind-altering fatigue.  I have not taken to my bed (aerobic physical activity helps destroy lyme spirochetes). But I have been pausing more often. Sitting still and gazing. Yesterday I saw a ruby-throated humming bird not more than a foot away from my face. I have spent a lot of time looking at the reflection of sky in the water. Sometimes I just sit and close my eyes and let drawing breath be enough. Are nonattachment and exhaustion next of kin? I don’t know. I am finding it helpful to pause. Not to forget the sorrows of the world, but to remember the underlying, encompassing mysteries. Not sure I am being coherent. All I mean to say is: pause.

That said: here are few announcements and invitations. Please do visit my new website, if you haven’t yet and subscribe to receive updates. Black Earth Institute is featuring a project called Thirty Days Hath September, 30 poems by 30 poets to balance and reflect on all the campaign speak with which we are being bombarded. My poem, a ghazal entitled…Who Will Listen will be posted on my birthday, September 27^th.  You can subscribe to Black Earth Institute’s blog   to have these poems delivered to your mailbox.

I will be writing quarterly for Feminism andReligion, a refreshing and thought-provoking blogsite. Please do visit. My next post will be published on October 20^th. It is possible that Maeve (who is alive and well and trotting the globe) will write it for me.

Local folks, I will be at COTA (Celebration of the Arts) in New Paltz on Saturday, October 6^th,  performing from an early novel How to Spin Gold and talking about fairytales. On Sunday, November 11^th, I will be speaking at the Pine Plains Library. Details forthcoming at my website .

I am having fun writing the mystery novel, as yet untitled. After writing in Maeve’s  voice for twenty years, it is quite a change to write in the 3^rd person again from four different points of view. More on that another time. Suggestions on topics for this blog are welcome. Mostly I want to be in touch and wish you a beautiful Autumn.

Note: even though I have a new email address, I have not been able to persuade blogger.com to make the change, so this blog will be delivered to you from my old address.

The Wild Edge: Pondering Succession

The sun has moved far enough to the north that early light now finds the far end of the pond. In early Fall, I’d left this spot for warm sunny places closer to the house and gardens. Now the first Spring flowers are gone, and the weeds are asserting themselves, as is the lawn, still mangy-looking from being replanted after the septic system was moved. It is hard not to look at the yard as I imagine guests might see it now that we are entering the busy season. As I do my standing meditation, I keep stopping to pull weeds. And if I manage to keep my body still, my mind is worse, writing do-to lists and shopping lists and wondering if the stink the squirrels left over in the attic over the gathering rooms will ever air out.

I haven’t yet learned how to manage living where I work—a beautiful, overgrown, under-endowed, falling-down place where my tasks include housekeeping, yard work, hospitality, program direction and facilitation in addition to my chosen professions of writing and counseling. At best, I am able to approach High Valley as a Zen Koan. Much better than thinking of it as a business with potential (how I am coming to loathe the word “potential”), a legacy I must save, or a burden I must bear. At worst, I just keep working compulsively till I drop—which I did the other day. I can’t quite bring myself to have a complete nervous breakdown, but my body will periodically arrange for me to be so sick I have to spend a day in bed.

The day I return to the wilder edge for my sunrise practice, I feel a huge sense of release. There is nothing here that needs my attention. There is everything here that rewards my attention. Here I am just another living thing, a transitory living thing. (How I am coming to love the word “transitory.”) Instead of composing to-do lists in my mind, I find myself pondering—an appropriate thing to do next to a pond.

Today I ponder succession, understanding at a new level how obsessed rulers, institutional leaders, family farmers, business tycoons or anyone with a corporate enterprise must be. Who will keep the empire, the church, the farm, the firm going? My husband and I are perhaps not very successful successors to my mother in-law’s small, vast realm. She had her own vision and vocation. But she did not concern herself with succession and left us with some very dicey situations to sort out (not something I can write about). For many years while she was still here, I kept her not-for-profit going with an eclectic Center that evolved its own rituals and culture. But I never made any move to institutionalize what we do here. I never so much as formed a committee. The Center at High Valley, which has hosted many beautiful, meaningful moments and events, is by its nature transitory. I don’t, in any sense, know what (or who) will succeed.

When I am at the wilder edge, I feel more at peace with my lack of success and succession. The natural world has its own succession. As a species, we have interfered with that order yet we are still borne along by forces beyond our control. As a transitory being I find that thought oddly soothing, a bit like a day of enforced bed rest.

Do you see yourself as being and/or having a successor? What is your definition of success? I welcome your ponderings. I also appreciate suggestions of topics for Maeve to address. Her turn next.

Since it is poem-in-a-pocket day, I will close with a couple of tanka (5-7-5-7-7)

buildings falling down
too many people, too few
gardens overgrown
a land vessel going down
us, hapless crew, sinking too

there are these moments
sunlight on worn hardwood floor
they could be enough
bloodroot blooming amidst stone
heron unfolding blue wings

Jezebel and Me--and You: A post by Maeve

The infamous Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who married King Ahab of Israel, lived more than 800 years before my time, so we never got a chance to hang out. If we had, we might have been friends. We have a lot in common.

Neither of us ever converted to our husbands’ maniacally monotheistic religion. But Jezebel went me one better: she did convert her husband to the worship of Baal and Asherah. He even built them a temple. I never attempted to convert my husband. (That said, he did spend many an ecstatic night with me at Temple Magdalen, my holy whorehouse, before and after our unexpected wedding. He was also the catalyst for my apotheosis, however brief, as Isis.)

Jezebel did things on a grander scale. She is said to have fed 450 priests of Baal and 400 priests of Asherah at her table. She is also accused of killing off the priests of Yahweh. Her alleged persecutions drew the attention of the prophet Elijah who mounted a contest between Baal and Yahweh. (Winner: the first to cause a sacrificial bull to spontaneously combust. Prize: status as top dog, I mean god.) When Yahweh prevailed, Elijah slaughtered all Jezebel’s priests. Enraged but not intimidated, Jezebel scared the bejeezus out of Elijah and he turned tail and ran for his life.

The most underhanded thing Jezebel is supposed to have done is to procure Naboth’s vineyard for her whiny husband by illicit means. When Naboth refused to sell to the king, Ahab went off his feed. So Jezebel had Naboth framed for blasphemy for which he and his heirs were promptly stoned. “Got your vineyard for you,” she says to her husband. Meanwhile Elijah comes out of hiding to prophesy some very nasty, gory doom for Ahab, Jezebel and their descendants.

Whether Jezebel did the wicked deed ascribed to her, I don’t know. As Janet Howe Gaines points out in her excellent article “How Bad was Jezebel?” she herself might have been set up. The bias of the biblical writer is clear: Jezebel stands for everything that is abhorrent (and a threat) to the cult of Yahweh. She has to go down. And not only that, be eaten by dogs! But before her grisly end, she shows her metal, painting her eyes with kohl and arranging her hair, then gazing out the window till the latest usurper comes near enough for her to insult him.

Though there is no account of Jezebel doing anything but doting on her sniveling husband, she is also accused of harlotries—and sorceries. Idolatry and adultery were then (and sometimes still are) synonymous. Think of the biblical phrase: whoring after other gods. If a woman has power (or even if she is merely outspoken like me) she must be a whore, a witch—and in my case demon-possessed. Personally, I have no patience with exalting or demonizing women. As Aretha sings, "A woman's only human." We, too, are caught up in the glorious, disastrous mess of incarnation. Why shouldn't we make tragic mistakes, just as men do, and even commit crimes?

The name Jezebel, like the epithet whore, has long been used to intimidate women. We feel we must defend ourselves, protest our virtue. Well, next time someone calls you: Jezebel, whore, witch, go back to painting your eyes with kohl, finish brushing your hair, then turn and calmly gaze. Say, “Yes? And your point?”

For more about Jezebel and me see Bright Dark Madonna, Chapter 16: "Brawl" where the church fathers call me a Jezebel and threaten me with the same fate—all because I ran away to give birth to my daughter in a notorious and holy whorehouse.

Enough about Jezebel and me. What about you? Have you ever been called a Jezebel? Tell us your story.

Maeve's Mothers on Birth Control

In the current political climate (perhaps another manifestation of global weirdness) when birth control has (astoundingly) become a subject of debate, we thought Maeve’s mothers should lend their wisdom. Only two of the eight mothers are represented here, and the passage has been edited for brevity, but we believe their advice offers a much needed corrective. The passage concludes with a clarion call to all women. Enjoy! –Maeve and Elizabeth

For the unabridged version see Magdalen Rising, chapter 14: “What Your Mothers Never Told You.”

"What do you think, Boann?" said Fand. "Given our Maeve's impetuous nature, perhaps we ought to have a little talk with her. It occurs to me that her knowledge of relations between the sexes may be more theoretical than practical."

"Maybe we'd better start by finding out how much she does know," suggested Boann. "Maeve, do you know what Fand and I were doing last night?"

"You were offering King Bran the friendship of your thighs," I answered, proving that their tales of Queen Maeve of Connacht had not been lost on me.

"Well, yes." They smirked again, embarrassed but clearly enjoying themselves. "Now, do you know exactly what that means?"

"I've seen pigs and sheep." I did my best to sound bored. "I know which parts go together."

"Er, quite," said Fand, a little nonplused. "But did you know that people often -- not always, mind you, but often -- do it face to face? It adds a certain... je ne sais quoi."

"Most animals can't do it face to face," said Boann thoughtfully. "Comes of having four legs, I suppose. Think of trying to do it frontally with hooves."

"Well now, Boann, I have to say, I don't think it's just the number of legs." Fand gave her agile mind to the conundrum. "It's just that other animals don't walk upright. Therefore, the head in relation to the legs makes it difficult to embrace frontally. Don't you see?"

I knew from experience that any two or more of my mothers were capable of pursuing a bizarre tangent indefinitely. Now that we were on the subject -- you might say the subject -- I realized there might be more I did want to know.

"Okay. So people do it face to face," I broke in.

"With either partner on top," added Fand.

"Or both on their sides, don't forget," said Boann.

"Or standing. And remember the rear entry position is an option."

"Fand, I just thought of a great one." Boann was getting into to it. "Hanging upside down from a tree branch. Have you ever tried that?"

"I have, but I don't recommend it for beginners or for people with back problems."

"I disagree. I think it's an excellent position for people with back problems. It puts all the strain on the thighs."

"How old do you have to be?" I got right to the point, the one that mattered most to me. "When can I do it?"

Fand and Boann stared at each other, looking pretty dumb for a couple of shrewd witches. They had stumbled right into the pitfall especially reserved for enlightened parents. They prided themselves on their ability to impart information, but they couldn't make the leap to application. Talk about a gap between the theoretical and the practical.

"Well, Maeve, that all depends."

"On what?"

"Why, on whether or not you're ready." Boann sounded vague.

"And we don't think you are," Fand hastened to add. "You have to be mature, responsible...."

"Fand, I think we better get down to brass tacks. We don't have much time left. We can't have her getting pregnant."

"She can always say no. Abstinence is the better part of valor."

Valor?

"Ha!" snorted Boann. "Believe it! Listen, Maeve, let's get one thing straight. If you get pregnant -- you do know how that happens, don't you? That's what we've been talking about -- you might have to leave college. King Bran told us that the druids are admitting women for the first time this year. It's being regarded as an experiment by the druids and by the priestesses of Holy Isle."

"What happens if I do get pregnant?" I was careful to keep my voice neutral. I didn't want them to guess that I might not mind having twenty years of schooling cut short.

"That's just it. We don't know. Boann, we must have a conference with the priestesses before we go. They must have some sort of contingency plan. And surely they're planning to teach the girls how to protect themselves."

"Yes, but we can't leave sex education to the schools, Fand!"

"So educate me, already!"

I wasn't interested in the druid's open admission policy and the repercussions of pregnancy. I wanted something I could apply to myself -- and Esus.

"All right. Now, Maeve, you know about the moon?"

"The moon?" It took me a moment to sort out this apparent non sequetor.

"Yes. The moon goes through phases like a woman. Or a woman goes through phases like the moon. At the dark we bleed, and at the full --"

"We're horny as hell," broke in Boann. "Here's the catch, Maeve. At the full moon, you're most likely to get pregnant. But it's also the time you're most likely to get laid. Or to want to, anyway. "

"Don't mislead her, Boann. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. You see, Maeve, on Tir na mBan we're eight witches cycling together. Just us and the animals, and the moon and the tides. Very low stress. Nothing to break the rhythm. But you are young, away from home for the first time, and you're excitable -- to put it mildly. Anything could throw off your courses. You can't count on counting."

"Still," Boann insisted, "she ought to understand the theory. Even when she's out of sync with the sky, she ought to learn to know when her own moon is full. Do you know the signs, Maeve?"

I nodded. "It's as if you're an egg cracked open. You're all runny with egg white."

"You have to admit, our Maeve can turn a phrase." Boann beamed at me.

"If you know that much, then you better know not to go frying any cracked eggs in the bushes," admonished Fand freely mixing metaphors and euphemisms.

"But, Fand, that's just when she's most likely to lose her head."

"And her maidenhead."

"We should have thought of this." Boann was rueful. "We could have given her a supply of those seeds. You know, what-do-ya-call-ems. But it's not seed time now, even if we could find them. Still, maybe the priestesses have a store of them."

"There's stones," suggested Fand. "Listen, Maeve, as soon as you can, find a smooth flat stone, preferably from the beach. Before you do anything --and as I said I really don't think you ought to -- put it inside you as far up as you can."

I stared at her unbelieving. I could not connect stone with the glimmering I had of "it" as something hot, live, melting.

"It blocks the seed from reaching fertile ground," Boann explained. "Which is to say, your womb. Certain kinds of dried seaweed also work."

"Oh, I wish we had time to show you," fretted Fand. "I wish we had thought of this on Tir na mBan. We could have given you lessons, demonstrations. When I think of all the time we wasted on sword play and spear casting."

"Well, not wasted entirely," put in Boann. "It did improve her hand-eye coordination. But it’s no use moaning over missed opportunity. We've got to tell her as much as we can right now. There's one thing we haven't mentioned yet, and it's the most important of all."

"I can't think what we haven't thought of."

"Sovereignty," said Boann solemnly.

"Oh, yes, of course, sovereignty."

Sovereignty! I pricked up my ears. For the sake of her sovereignty, Queen Maeve of Connacht had fought to win the brown bull. "Fight for our sovereignty," she had urged me.

"Pay attention, Maeve," said Fand. "Never go with a man -- or a woman, come to that -- unless you want to."

"Not to please. Not to placate," Boann chimed in.

"Never on any terms but your own."

"Should we tell her about love?" wondered Fand.

"Doesn't love complicate matters unnecessarily?" Boann was dubious. "I've heard it sometimes results in temporary insanity."

"And what about marriage?" persisted Fand. "I confess I've never fully understood its purpose, but Queen Maeve of Connacht seems to have managed to have one on her own terms, though there was that unfortunate mix-up over the bulls. I believe marriage often leads to cattle wars."

(a chunk taken out for brevity)

"Tir na mBan stands for the sovereignty of women," concluded Fand. "If it exists nowhere else in the world, it exists there. Remember that, Maeve. Sovereignty is your birthright and your inheritance. Next to sovereignty, gold torques and brooches are mere trinkets. Never surrender your sovereignty, Maeve. Carry it with you wherever you go."

Their words were stirring but abstract. Then an image rose in my mind of myself as a sort of floating island, shining, a sovereign vessel on a vast and dangerous sea.

BIFF: A Message from Both of Us

Maeve Rhuad:

The completion of The Maeve Chronicles has been quite an adjustment for both Eliz and me after working together and living in each other’s imaginations for so many years.

Of course, I still live in Eliz’s imagination. I am, as someone once described me (with uncalled for condescension), her imaginary friend, forever. Make that her best imaginary friend forever. In current parlance, I suppose that would be BIFF. Who do you think she talks to when she wakes up in the middle of the night?

Who do you talk to?

Feel free to talk to me. I am quite real now, as real as anyone who ever lived. I have always been a time traveler. How else could I be speaking to you in the twenty-first century? Now, thanks to you, I also travel across the earth, way beyond my extensive travels in the first century. I’ve gone to New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Mexico, Turkey, Canada , and all over the United States. Who knows where I might go next?

Because I am alive and well in the greatest of all nations, the Imagi-nation! Your imagination. And I am grateful beyond words. (Really after four volumes, haven’t I said enough? Though as you can see I am still nattering on.) Anyway, thank you from my heart!

Many people have asked when my story will be translated to film. I wish I knew the answer. From your lips to the deities’ ears is all I can say at the moment. BTW I am told the kindle versions of all four books are in the works. Eliz and I will let you know when they are available. We’ll tweet and post on Facebook. That sort of thing. (Neither of us understands linked in, though Eliz is linked; nor do we fathom google+)

People have also asked Eliz to write another book or books about my daughter and granddaughters. I will let her speak to you about what’s next for her. Enough from me. I will see you in your dreams or in your waking. Talk to me! Lo, I am with you...whenever you like. (Don’t want to steal my beloved’s best line.)

Elizabeth:

I am noticing that I am resistant to speaking as myself. I have given up on the idea of a memoir for now. I completed the writing of Red-Robed Priestess last December, and for a year I could not fathom what fiction might come next. I can’t live well or happily without inhabiting a fictional world. So at last a story has come. At this point I am simply listening to the voices of the characters, writing their back stories. I never say much more than that until a story has quickened and I am sure it will come to term.

Will I ever write a book or books about Sarah, Lithben and Gwen? I don’t know yet. A glimmering of an idea came the other day, and I will let that tiny spark live in the fertile dark for now. I only know it is not yet time to write about Maeve’s descendants. I need to let go, not of Maeve herself, but of that way of defining myself and my life. If I turn to Sarah, Lithben, and Gwen, I want it to be on fresh terms, on their terms, not because I miss Maeve.

I join Maeve in saying thank you to all of you who have given Maeve life by welcoming her into your lives. Thank you also for spreading the word about The Maeve Chronicles. May Maeve be your BIFF!

WTFWMD?! Celebrating Red-Robed Priestess Publication

Here I am (Maeve, that is) as promised, celebrating the official publication date by answering the questions you’ve posed regarding WTFWMD. 

First a note about Eliz. She has just put her earplugs in because one of the neighbors is using a chainsaw. No diesel engines in the first century. I don’t know WTF to do about noise pollution. But you can read Eliz’s latest Huffpo post Longing for Silence and Solitude If I could I would whisk Eliz away to The Lake Isle of Innisfree or Tir na mBan.

Announcements

A few other items of business before I begin to ponder WTF I would do. I have a FaceBook page created by my combrogo Tim Dillinger. It will be unveiled on November 15. I welcome your friendship! Eliz has a FaceBook fan page created and maintained by her sister Ruth Cunningham.  Elizabeth herself is not on FaceBook directly, but she receives your kind comments and appreciates them.

The virtual tour schedule will be posted on the above FB pages. It is also appears in the post just prior to this one. Eliz and I have had several interviews that will soon be available for everyone to read. Also: 7:00 Saturday, Nov 19th at Oblong Books Rhinebeck, NY is the book launch. I hope we will be livestreaming. Check in later at the sites above for URL.

Questions and a caution

I am not sure who thought up the idea that I should answer the question WTFWMD? Eliz and/or Tim, but before I begin, let me remind you that I am outspoken, impulsive, and therefore often in trouble. So doing what I would do may not be such a good idea. That said, here goes.

One person asked a question that might be better directed to my friend Mary of Bethany. “Why in the world do some women act like men?”

Those of you have read The Passion of Mary Magdalen may remember that rather than marry Jesus, Mary B ran away with him disguised as a man to join the Essenes. She had a fine old time until she was discovered and sent home in disgrace where she lived as a recluse until she became a full-blown disciple. She acted like a man because, at the time, she could not fulfill her ambition to be a religious leader and teacher in any other way. Eliz just reminded me that the Bronte sisters wrote under male pseudonyms so that their literary works and ambitions would be taken seriously. Having “breasts to die for” (and I quote) I never had the option of passing as male, nor did I have any interest in doing so. My daughter Sarah, however, passed as a boy when she ran away from home. It kept her marginally safer. So I suppose my answer is that it was then and is still a hard world for women. Definitions of how men and women act also keep changing and individual expressions of gender and sexuality vary. A great day will come when we all feel free to be ourselves, without apology or disguise.

"If you had a young daughter in this day and time, what woman/women, would you encourage her to look to as a role model? "

This is a worthy question and I wish I had more knowledge of women in your time. (Eliz has spent so much time hanging out with me in the first century, she doesn’t know a whole lot more than I do about twenty-first century women of note.) If you read Magdalen Rising, you will remember that my role model and namesake was Queen Maeve of Connacht, a warrior queen known for her quantities of lovers. My mothers felt she was an excellent model of women’s sovereignty. With a caveat about practicing safe sex, that kind of woman is still a good model. Not because of the quantity of lovers but because she had the power to say yes—and no! Too often, as regards sexuality, women have felt bereft of choice.

Speaking of my daughter Sarah, when she was twelve (and a runaway!) my old friend and nemesis Mary B found her and took her under her wing. They were an excellent match for each other, being more temperamentally similar. Mary could understand and help Sarah in ways I could not.

More important than a famous role model are older women who can be friends and mentors. The Cailleach, Dwynwyn and Anna the Prophetess all filled that role for me. When Eliz was a teenager, she became close friends with an older woman in her father’s congregation. I would say pay attention to who your daughter likes among your friends, in your community, in her school. Encourage that adult to play a part in your daughter’s life. Teenagers desperately need trustworthy mentors who are not their parents (who they must, to some extent, resist and reject at that time). A good mentor can make all the difference in the world

Several people mentioned estrangement from daughters, difficult marriages, having no money. One person noted that in my life I have faced all these situations and that she consults the novels.

I did have a period of estrangement from Jesus. I threw figs at him in the Temple Porticoes and returned to whoring. We reconciled when he saved me from being stoned as an adulteress. These ways of dealing with marital strife may be a bit dramatic. Today I would go to a couples counselor like Eliz. BTW Eliz says couples counseling is for clarity. Sometimes a couple will reconcile, sometimes they will part. It’s good to have the support and understanding of a third party in either case.

The mother-daughter relationship is so profound, primeval really. When we are in our own mother’s womb, we already carry the egg that will one day be fertilized and grow into our daughter. In our matrilineage, we are like nesting dolls. Many daughters struggle mightily to differentiate themselves from their mothers. Many mothers—Eliz and I included—take that struggle personally. If we were wiser or had more perspective, we might not have.

I find the Demeter-Persephone story helpful. In some versions the daughter is not abducted, but chooses a path that is incomprehensible to her mother. For a while she disappears. The mother rages and mourns, but the daughter returns—and goes away again—then returns—and goes away again. Seasons, tides, moons, all these things teach us about the mother-daughter relationship.

Also, in my experience, some relationships are so profound, you do not experience them on the surface but at the root. Just love your daughter. That’s all I know to do. I love Sarah, I love Boudica, though it is not clear to me that we ever fully reconciled. Still I love her.

One last question: "When you are in an unhappy marriage is it more honorable to stay or leave? If you love someone in a marriage like that, what do you do?"

My own marriage was sadly brief and as ecstatic as it was stormy, so it was not at all like a longterm chronically unhappy marriage. Honor and honesty have the same root, and you cannot have one without the other. The truth can be complex. When people marry they make vows in the moment that are meant to last through circumstances that cannot be foreseen. Is it ever honorable to break a vow? Maybe not. But to say I made a vow, and I no longer want to keep it is at least honest. The thing about honesty is that you cannot predict how the other person will respond. You cannot control it. Lying is a way people try to control another person. Instead of admitting the impulse to control, people often say they want to protect the other person. And they may believe it, too. Honesty begins with facing yourself.

If you love someone in that circumstance, let him or her be. Acknowledge that he or she has to do things in his or her own time. He or she has a lot at stake.

If you are asking would I sleep with someone who is married, see the above caution. I think relationships can take many forms. My favorite example of marriage is Maeve of Connacht’s. She had a husband and a chief lover and everyone was quite content—until the Brown Bull wandered from Maeve’s herd into her husband’s. Now that was a problem. I hope you don’t have to deal with livestock as well as potential adultery.

If you love someone, love that person. Give up attachment to form or outcome. Do nothing deceitful. Deceit hurts more than anything. Truth has consequences, but in the end I have to agree with my beloved: It sets you—and others—free.

Now everyone, please celebrate the publication of Red-Robed Priestess in some way. Have a party, invite all your friends. Eat, drink, and be merry. Open the books randomly and read passages as a form of divination. If you are on twitter, quote a favorite passage with #holywhorereturns as a hashtag.

Finally, thank you all for inviting me into your lives.

Love and Blessed Bees,
Maeve

In the Midst of Death we are in Life

“Or in the midst of life we are in death,” as it says in the Burial Service in The Book of Common Prayer.  Both statements are true, each one the complement of the other. The ecstatic, orgiastic rites of May Eve gaze across the year at Samhain (translation: summer’s end) also known as the Eve of All Hallows (souls) when pagans and Christians alike honor the beloved dead, the communion of saints, the connection between the seen and the unseen.

We recently cleared the overgrown flowerbeds around the house. In the new-turned earth, I planted tiny seeds: three kinds of Poppy, Black-eyed Susans, Irish Eyes, two kinds of Forget-Me-Nots, and something orange and red (whose name I don’t know and whose seed packet I can’t find), all according to preferences for sun or shade, dry or damp. Then we covered the beds with straw. It seemed the sheerest, most magical act of faith, to plant spring and summer flowers under a lowering October sky in a chilly wind. (I believe, help thou my unbelief.) What better way to celebrate the Celtic New Year than to sow the seeds of new life in the midst of death.

In another garden, a white Iris that bloomed in Spring is blossoming again amidst leaves fallen from an ancient and ailing maple tree and brazen marigolds that just won’t quit. In the late afternoon, the Iris draws all the light to its papery, translucent petals. I have to stop whatever I am doing and bear witness.

There’s a lot going on in my life, too much, really. But that’s all I want to say right now. I published two posts last week in other places. At Tikkun Daily: Keen on Occupy Wall Street and on Huffington Post: Credo: Community without Conformity. Please do visit.

My combrogo Tim Dillinger asked me to remind you that Maeve’s FaceBook page will soon be revealed. You make a friend request now.

The official launch event of Red-Robed Priestess will be Saturday, November 19th at Oblong Books and Music in Rhinebeck, New York at 7:00. We hope to livestream this event with better sound than our previous attempt. The performance will begin around 7:30 after people have nibbled and guzzled for a bit.

In closing I will note that all the other Maeve Chronicles were published on April 1. Seems right for Red-Robed Priestess to be published in November when we remember that in the midst of life we are in death and in the midst of death we are in life. You'll see what I mean when you read the book. (PS: In answer to a query, here is the indiebound link for the book: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780982324691 )

Next post here will be 11/15 Maeve's answer to: WTFWMD?

Happy Halloween! Happy New Year!

Myriad announcements from Maeve

Do you hear that buzzing sound? It is not just the bees working overtime on these rare sunny days after so much rain. It is also the sound of my 21st century combrogos, galvanized by Tim Dillinger, doing their best to generate excitement and spread the word about the November 15th release of Red-Robed Priestess, the fourth and final volume of my very long story—which of course, Eliz is reminding me to say, can be read first and is able to stand alone, like the other three. Here’s some of what’s happening.

November 15th unveiling of my FaceBook page. Tim and I worked on it last weekend. It was somewhat challenging as FB does not recognize some of the places I’ve lived or the activities I enjoy, though it did let me list caber-tossing among my sports. You do not have to wait till then to be my friend. You can go now and make your friend request. (Don’t worry, I’ll say yes!) http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002343434468

Monday, October 17th @ 7:00 Eastern time: Melissa Studdard interviews Elizabeth Cunningham for Tiferet Talk on Blogtalk radio. At the link below you will find a call-in number and you can also tweet or post the link on FaceBook. Elizabeth will be reading aloud a passage from Red-Robed Priestess. Please join her and get a live preview of the book. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tiferetjournal/2011/10/17/elizabeth-cunningham-tiferet-talk-with-melissa-studdard

Reviews: They have been coming in, and they are very favorable. Here is the link to The Publisher’s Weekly Review. When you go to the site, you can tweet it or post it or like it etc… http://reg.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9823246-9-1

Art Contest: Elizabeth’s long-lost, long-found cousin from New Zealand, Jane Cunningham, is conspiring with Tim to bring you a Maeve Art contest. Neither Eliz nor I know the details. It is my understanding that they shall be revealed next week.

Also upcoming: Eliz and I have been answering intriguing interview questions from three bloggers. When these interviews are posted, we will publish the links here, on twitter, and on Eliz’s FB page if mine isn’t public yet. Here is the link to her page, which her brilliant sister musician Ruth Cunningham created and maintains for her. (Eliz is such a luddite). http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elizabeth-Cunningham/137518912968862

WTFWMD? Speaking of questions, I will be answering that one to the best of my ability on November 14th so that the post will appear in your mailbox on November 15th. People have been wondering what sorts of questions to ask. One person did email to ask me how I would close the distance between myself and my first daughter when we finally meet. Great question and one that Red-Robed Priestess will address. If you tune in to the Tiferet interview (see above) Eliz plans to read the passage about our first meeting since Boudica’s birth.

Other questions: You can ask me how I feel about various contemporary issues. You can ask what I would do if I were in some situation you are facing, but please keep in mind, my judgment might be questionable. I am known to be impulsive and rash. You can also ask me about events or people from my time. Do feel free to ask me theological questions. Oh and did I mention sex? I know a bit about that. I will do my best to answer all questions, but there may be some I don’t know enough to answer or might be better answered by you. I am not an authority on anything. And I will always encourage you to claim your own sovereignty. You can ask questions below or tweet or DM @EliznMaeve on Twitter.

IndieBound link. You can pre-order Red-Robed Priestess from your favorite independent bookstore. Do support those hard-working booklovers! http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780982324691

Thank you all so much for your help in spreading the word about Red-Robed Priestess and all The Maeve Chronicles. I had to write this post, because Elizabeth isn’t shameless enough despite her twenty year tutelage with me. Apologies from Elizabeth if anyone is offended by my self-promotion. No apologies from me. I’ve waited more than two thousand years to find my audience. And here you are at last!

Love and blessed bees,
Maeve

A Brief Message from Maeve on WWMD

Hello, everyone. It's Maeve speaking, but this is not an official post. I am saying Happy Birthday to Eliz. She had contemplated a birthday post, but I am afraid it would have been about climate change and the clouds of mosquitoes that have prevented her from hiking today and mortality and things like that. I persuaded her not to whinge publicly. (I love that word whinge! Whining is for mosquitoes and chain saws).

If you would like to read a post by Eliz you can go to this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-cunningham/is-god-a-novelist-fiction-spiritual-truth_b_974187.html?ref=tw Our friend Tim Dillinger persuaded her to find out why her Huffpo password had stopped working. For some reason, they gave her a new one, and they published her post "Is God a Novelist?"

But that is not nearly as interesting a question as the one I am going to pose to you now. WWMD? Or if you prefer: WTFWMD? That's right. What would Maeve do? For my release date post which I will write on November 14th so that it will be in your email box on November 15th, I am going to be answering your questions on that subject. If there are more questions than I can answer in one post, I will keep posting till I answer them all. You can start asking them now in the comment section below or by email, if there is a way to do that from here. (Neither Eliz or I know). You can also tweet your questions on twitter to @EliznMaeve.

Following the Sun: Earth Science 101

For twenty-six years I lived in a house with a hill to the south and east. Most times of the year by the time I saw the sun, it had been up for hours and had perhaps once again determined there was nothing new under it. Only in winter could I see it rise from my bedroom. It appeared on the hill like a bright match about to ignite the bare winter wood.

On June 25th we moved to High Valley and as I have mentioned here before, I have been getting up early every day to do chi gung on the dock at the pond, for most of the summer the sunniest place at sunrise. I have written more than one haiku about the sun climbing the spruce trees across the pond. Recently, after a week of cloudy weather, I noted that the sun had moved over to a maple tree, but still the dock had plenty of sun.

This week there is no denying the sun has quit this spot. I have to walk past the dock to stand for a moment in a patch of sun. Before I finish preliminary exercises, the sun has brushed the end of the dock and hurried on. Yes, hurried. That’s how it seems to me. No gradual: now it rises in the maple tree and now over the barn. It is rising in a southward curve, casting one shadow and then another and another. And of course, each day it is rising later.

None of these observations are news. Every year the earth makes an elliptical orbit around the sun, its axis tilting away and towards, giving those of us in northern and southern hemispheres a palpable summer and winter. This is grade school stuff. Except suddenly it isn’t or maybe I am reverting to that age (I believe it’s called latency) when discovering things like the path of the sun or the phases of the moon can hold your attention, because you are not thinking about sex, or not all the time. I still do think about sex, but figuring out why the sun appears to be moving faster than it was a few weeks ago is occupying more and more mental space.

I would like to do a science project, and find a place where I can track the sun’s movement in miniature for a year. I have not yet found a place where there is no shade all day. So I expect I will continue to follow the sun every morning, seeking a patch of early light and seeing how long I can stay in it before it moves. I doubt I will get very scientific in my measurements, but I will continue to write haiku. And I will continue to do my chi gung practice early when the sun gives at least the illusion that everything under it is new.

A few thoughts on personification

We do it. I just did it with the sun. We name hurricanes. If your region or home was devastated by Irene, my heart is with you. Though we were in its predicted path, the east side of the Hudson River got off lightly. We also didn’t feel the recent earthquake, though only fifteen minutes away, others did. What I want to say is that people are quick to ascribe motivation to disasters—God’s or Gaia’s. People on both sides of the political spectrum do it. We like to believe that some force larger than ourselves shares our views and our judgments.

I wish we would all just become curious. There is some evidence of a causal relation between the recent earthquake and fracking. There is also considerable evidence that global warming will result in more frequent and volatile storms and rising seas. But who is affected, where and why, is beyond our ken. I just heard from a neighbor who lives ten minutes from me whose road was washed out. Here we had no damage at all—this time. Was it because I walked out early into the storm and asked Irene not to harm my trees?

I don’t need to know the answer to that question. And I will continue to talk to storms and trees and birds and flowers and insects, because that is my nature. Sometimes with familiar trees and animals, I am pretty sure the conversation is two-sided. But the trees speak like trees. And my translation is just that, a translation. Storms and earthquakes also speak. Let’s do our best to learn their languages before we tell other people what they mean.

Note from Maeve

I am a weather witch, and I pretty much concur with Eliz. BTW Tim is going to be giving me blog assignments soon as the publication date for Red-Robed Priestess gets closer. If you have a venue for reviewing Red-Robed Priestess or interviewing Eliz—or me!—let Tim know: tim@monkfishpublishing.com