According to the canonical gospels, Mary Magdalene was present at the crucifixion, she was there at the burial, and she was there alone at the empty tomb. And she is the first to witness the resurrection. Let me say that again: Mary Magdalene was the one Christ resurrected to. In the Gospel of John, Christ gives Mary Magdalene special instructions and commissions her to be the one to announce the good news. Her. She is the one he chooses.
The word apostle comes from the Greek apostolos, meaning “one who is sent.” Mary’s status as the apostle to the apostles also comes from this moment when Mary is the one who is sent by Christ to tell the other disciples that he has resurrected. Without her capacity to receive this vision of Christ from within her, to see that he had risen, the other disciples would not have become apostles themselves.
Mary Magdalene is one of the main speakers in several 1st- and 2nd-century texts recording dialogues of Christ with his disciples after the resurrection, like The Sophia of Jesus Christ, from the 2nd century, where Mary is one of the seven women (and twelve men) who gathered to hear Christ after the resurrection.34 Also the 3rd-century text, the Pistis Sophia, where Mary is preeminent among the disciples, because, as Christ explains in it, “You are she whose heart is more directed to the Kingdom of Heaven than all your brothers.”35
And in the Gospel of Philip, whose Coptic version dates to 250 A.D. and whose Greek version dates even farther back, to 150 A.D., Mary is named as the companion of Christ. The word in Greek is koinonos. It translates as companion, partner, or consort. Logion 55 of the Gospel of Philip, reads, “The companion [koinonos] of the Son is Miriam of Magdala. The Teacher loved her more than all the disciples; he often kissed her on the mouth.”36
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene confirms that Mary had gone through a process that allowed her to “see” Christ from within her. She could receive a vision of him. And the fact that Mary can see Christ, according to her gospel, is the proof that she has become “a child of true humanity,” the anthropos, fully human, and fully divine. That process involved going through the seven powers of the ego, which is how I interpret the seven “demons,” in order to unbind her soul—or in order to remember that she is also a soul, and not just this mortal, stressed-out, perpetually threatened ego that will die with the body in death.
Before Christ gets cut off by whoever found his full response to Mary’s question too incendiary for us to know, he tells her that a person sees a vision with the “mind,” which is between the soul and the spirit. And we know at this point that the Greek word for mind, nous, is actually the highest aspect of the soul, “the soul’s angel,” the aspect of the soul we can perceive while embodied. This is what the Hesychast experienced as existing within the heart, that treasure house inside us. The nous is like the microphone, or the movie projector, within the heart that translates the ancient and amazing truths our own soul wants to say to us, while we’re here, living, and can still use this tremendous opportunity of being an embodied soul, to evolve.
Rumi suggests that “everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of their hearts.” This is what I think Mary Magdalene achieved through this process her gospel relates. I think Mary had clarity of heart, and this is how and why she could perceive Christ.
So why now, after nearly two millennia of being misunderstood, her spiritual authority, her ministry, and her gospel being buried and silenced, why is she now rising in stature? Why are we suddenly curious (and even reverent) about this woman who has stood in plain daylight as the central figure in Christ’s life?
If you asked me this, first I would tell you that truth is a phoenix and can never be burned; truth will always emerge from the ashes and find its way to the surface of our consciousness.
Next, I would tell you that I think we are finally ready for her teachings, for the other half of the story that began not with Christ’s birth but with his resurrection. The story of a potential we all possess while we’re human to be the bridge between heaven and earth. The story of a woman who was beloved to Christ not because she followed him, or worshipped him like an idol or a being far greater than she could ever be. But rather, because she followed his example and became the love that he was also.
And I would tell you that this love she became is what our world needs most desperately. It’s a love that renders all things sacred, from the animals to the angels, from the poorest to the most powerful. It’s a love that sees the inherent worth in all living things. Mary Magdalene is the embodiment of a love that reaches where it never has before.
Mary Magdalene is most associated with Easter, with the resurrection, because she was the one there at the tomb, the one who waited in the dark, past his death and absence. She was the one he resurrected to. She was the first to see him, and she only recognized it was him when he called her by name.
But let’s back up.
I think it’s significant to realize that she didn’t just happen to be there, in the right place at the right time. There’s a prominence inherent in the fact that she was the one to be there, to see him first. There’s a love we’ve overlooked for so long. The human love between two people, as a love that never ends. And I think it’s time we recognize it.
I have always wondered how the story of the resurrection would shift fundamentally if we realized it was also a story about a love we all possess. That when we can let love reach where it has never been before, out past the ego’s idea of the self, then we quite literally come back to life. We die, and resurrect. Hopefully several times at least before we pass away, into whatever’s next for us.
In Chapter 20 of the Gospel of John, titled “The Risen Life,” from A New, New Testament, Mary is weeping from the loss of Christ’s body outside the empty tomb and then she sees two angels clothed in white, standing there where the body of Christ had been. I’ve always loved this for two reasons. First, that she can see angels at all. But second, and more significantly, that when she’s at her most human, sobbing, and feeling separate from Christ, when she’s at her most broken, and vulnerable, this is when she can perceive the angels.
And they ask her, “Why are you weeping?” They ask from their position of already knowing that she can never be separate from Christ, that he is in fact already standing right behind her. She lets them know that she’s crying because she misses his physical form. She loved him entirely, body and soul. And then she turns, and Christ asks her the exact same question the angels asked her, “Why are you weeping?” But she doesn’t know yet this presence she sees before her; she thinks he’s the gardener. And so, she repeats her need to tend to his actual flesh, to find his human form and care after it. This is when he calls out to her, “Mary.” And in hearing her name in his voice, she knows again that Christ is with her, that he had in fact never left.
I’ve always imagined that although physically she was at the tomb, in the garden of a cemetery, she met with Christ in a place that’s far less literal, and far more difficult to describe. I’ve imagined that this meeting she has with him takes place not because of sight but because of vision. I think she could perceive him with a spiritual aperture that exists only in the heart.
It’s a re-education to see Mary Magdalene as an apostle, as a beloved disciple Christ considered worthy enough to want to return to first. Worthy enough to want to have her as his witness. To come to her, in the dark, beyond death, because he knew she was the one who could see him with her heart.
It’s a re-education to think that Christ needed Mary’s love in order to resurrect, in order to be witnessed. Just as the angels need us to know how worthy we are to perceive them.
I love imagining that his ministry and hers are still inextricably linked. That his purpose was fulfilled because she was there to meet him. That he was only able to bridge heaven and earth because of the human love between them. I love to imagine that we might still have a love story to unearth. A love that has been age after age, making its way to the surface of our consciousness. A love that we are finally ready for.
A love that is as human as it is divine.
No One Was There to Witness the Witness
And Desire said, “I did not see you go down, yet now I see you go up. So why do you lie since you belong to me?” The soul answered, “I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You mistook the garment I wore for my true self. And you did not recognize me.”
— MARY 9:2–6
I want to return to the resurrection, again. It is so much more significant than we have ever given it credit for—that Mary and Christ were together first when he resurrected. That he came back to her, for her. Or this is how I see it.
Mary Magdalene exclaims in Hebrew, “Rabboni!”—or Teacher—according to John 20:16. After he calls out to her, after she recognizes him by hearing her name in his voice. This is an intimate exchange. She is his witness, not by accident. She is there because she is a part of the story of how and why he was able to rise.
And then Christ says the line that has confused so many for so long: Noli me tangere, Latin for, as many have translated it, do not touch me. A more apt translation is, do not cling to me. And this is what makes sense in the trajectory of his ministry.
He was all about sitting with outcasts, eating with untouchables, and drinking from the well with the Samaritan woman. It just makes zero sense that suddenly, once no longer incarnate, he would get squeamish over a woman’s touch, a woman he loved the most.
This has been misinterpreted to emphasize Christ’s purity and chastity (and also women’s power to defile the holy). And it has been held up as further proof of Mary’s “sinful” status as the penitent prostitute. The idea is that Christ is telling her, essentially, don’t touch me because I haven’t ascended to god yet, meaning, you might mess with my ascension.
Artistic depictions of this moment, for example Italian Renaissance artist Correggio’s Noli Me Tangere, place Christ above Mary, who is usually below him on her knees or at his feet. Christ’s one hand is pointed up, indicating his ascension, and his other hand is, well, giving Mary the hand. He’s depicted as blocking her from coming near him.
But there’s a different translation of this moment that has to do with the spiritual path he had mastered and that he had led Mary Magdalene through, to completion. The kenotic path, a spiritual path of self-emptying love. The core practice of this path is to not cling to anything. Not even to her own beloved, Christ. It’s to disengage “the egoic operating system” and “upgrade” consciousness by descending into the heart.
In Christian theology, kenosis is the Greek word for the act of emptying. It’s the act of releasing the ego’s idea, or will, and allowing the divine will to act through us. But how do we do this? When we are gripped by something or someone the ego desires, how do we practice this path?
We are missing so much of Christ’s response to Mary’s question of how a person perceives a vision, through what aperture, with what spiritual faculty. We are missing four pages of his answer and also presumably his instruction in how we then practice or use this spiritual capacity to perceive with the nous, within the heart. Mary could be speaking about what stages Christ led her soul through, and here we are at the third, desire, when the gospel starts back up again in Mary 9:2.
Egoic desire, or craving, thinks that the soul “belongs” to it. And because of this, the ego cannot recognize the soul. It has always haunted me when the soul says, “I saw you. You did not see me.” The soul can see the ego. But the ego can’t recognize the soul: “You mistook the garment I wore for my true self. And you did not recognize me.” The soul is saying here to the ego’s desire, I am not this body, not essentially. I am what exists before the body and after. But if you are only focusing on the body, on the egoic garment I am wearing as a soul, you will not recognize me.
What this means to me happens, actually, every day. It’s very ordinary. It’s referring to those moments when we get so caught up in what we want, we can’t see the bigger picture. We cling to the outcome like a lemur. And, if you’re like me, we obsess about it. We go around and around blind as a bat, missing out on the present moment because we’re so clenched to this idea of what we think we want.
And what Mary’s gospel is saying in this passage is that the key is to become unattached, to try not to touch and cling. To release our little lemur hands from around the desired “object” and trust that a will greater than our ego has things covered for us in ways we can hardly imagine.
There will be seven “demons,” or powers that test the soul and try to bind the soul to the ego. The way the soul moves through this power of desire, and all of the climates of the ego, is simply to let go of all attachments, all judgments we might have. This immediately frees the soul. (For that moment.)
I’ve always been a little suspicious of what Christ said to Mary in John 20:17. Because after all, Mary not only was the first to witness the resurrection, but was also the only one there. No one was there to witness the witness. No one actually heard Christ say to Mary, “Noli me tangere.”
I love the translation of this moment in A New, New Testament. Christ says to Mary, “Do not hold on to me.” (The idea that this is in response to Mary trying to touch Christ or reach for him is actually an interpretation; it’s not stated within scripture that she did.) “Do not hold on to me” feels like a comment to reinforce this path of self-emptying love.
Noli me tangere is Christ’s reminder to Mary that there’s no need to reach for his physical form. He’s not outside her, appearing before her in the gardens by the empty tomb. He’s still where he has always been, and will never leave. Inside the walls of her mystical heart.
Noli me tangere, beloved. There is no need to touch me, to cling to me, to hold on to my physical form. I am with you, from within you.
The Power to Judge
[The soul] came to the third Power, which is called ignorance.
It examined the soul closely, saying, “Where are you going?
You are bound by wickedness . . .” and the soul said,
“Why do you judge me, since I have not passed judgment.”
— MARY 9:8–13
In the gospel of Mary, Mary 9:8, ignorance calls the soul “bound by wickedness.” (Which always makes me laugh. It’s what makes ignorance ignorant. It calls out in others what it can’t see in itself.)
Ignorance is the power, or the frame of mind, we all enter into when we have so aligned with the ego that we think we are in a place to judge. And most often if we are judging someone else, we are doing a number on ourselves, also. We’re quietly pouring corrosives into our heart with words that judge where we are on this path that leads back to the heart.
Another word for ignorance is unconsciousness. And this is what can be so tricky about ignorance. We are unaware, unconscious of what we are doing when we judge others and ourselves. And the more we do it, the more it clings to us; judge and we are judged.
The canonical gospels emphasize the importance of releasing judgment. In Luke 6:37, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And, in Matthew 7:1–2, “Do not judge and you will not be judged. For just as you judge others, you will yourselves be judged, and the standard that you use will be used for you.”
And in the Gospel of Mary, the soul makes clear that judgment is the only real obstacle that keeps us from a return to consciousness, to love. The soul continues to move through these powers, or to face these inner demons, by refusing to judge. The soul refuses to pass judgment. Because judgment is what binds us then to that power, that demon, that thought or fear.
Why does this matter, and how is this relevant to you?
It matters because we oppress ourselves. Or we continue the work of the oppressor, if we’ve been terrorized or traumatized into silence. We silence ourselves from within before we even dare to speak. (And there’s no judgment for how long each of us needs to stay silent. It has taken me years to write about Mary Magdalene because I constant
ly judged everything I wrote as not good enough.) This power to judge keeps us in our place. Keeps us small and bottled up. Keeps us contained, restricted to the same pathways that have existed before.
This is what silences us from within us. This power to judge, if it remains unrecognized, is what keeps us from ever really expressing the truth of who we are.
The Red Spring
I have been bound, but I have not bound anything. They did not recognize me, but I have recognized that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven.
—MARY 9:14–15
If I could give you an aerial view, like a drone, that starts slightly above our little eco-hut, so you can see how close we are to the Tor (peak) in Glastonbury; it looks as if we’re at the base of it. And as the view draws closer to the huge windows that line the living room and look out over the stunningly verdant English countryside, you’d see three people all facing the window in workout gear, barely holding it together as they tried to keep up with a Beyoncé-themed workout blaring from the iPad propped up on a table in front of them. Modern pilgrims at their best.
Christiane let me borrow one of her cashmere sweaters the next morning. It was far colder than I had thought it would be in September. Her book Goddesses Never Age and my book How to Love Yourself (and Sometimes Other People) had both just come out. So we had flown over to London together for events, and Kyle, my Scottish soul mate, had picked us up and taken us to Glastonbury. It was so picturesque I felt like I was in a photo shoot for Town and Country. Little gorgeous white-as-snow sheep dotted the impossibly bright-green hillside.
We started our hike up the Tor, Christiane and I just kind of taking it all in with a stroll, and Kyle bounding up before us with his boundless energy. We could hear him screaming once he had reached the top, even though we still had far to go. We locked eyes and started laughing.
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