Customer Reviews

14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene

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I have been slowly reading this thoughtful book. It is divided into small sections. Reading it is very simple. However, taking time to ponder the questions and images it awakens requires extra time. I have always been interested in the hidden stories or untold stories of Jesus' life. It only makes sense to me that when creating the Bible, humanity (MEN) had their own way of explaining the events of his life. While most books about the untold stories of Mary Magdalene's role in Jesus' life are trying to prove to the reader that these stories are true, Norton focuses on the spiritual significance of this sacred union. This book lifts the stories into the consciousness of our daily lives. I believe it is a great book for men. It may take a few steps for men to become comfortable with the fact that it is written to and for women. I believe that is part of the healing this book offers. Think of all the books written to and for men that women have read. This book gently softens our understanding of Masculine and Feminine. It nudges the reader to understand their own one sided views of Christianity and the stories of Jesus. Jesus becomes more human when we realize that he was partnered with someone who loved him in an intimate and private way.
I would love to see how a group of men would respond to this book. I believe it would make a great premarital workbook for couples.

As I've come to know Joan Norton, I believe I've come to know the essence of Mary Magdalene. And in this, her newest book, co-written with Margaret Starbird, Joan helps readers learn how to tap into that divine energy. Calling upon her experiences channeling Mary Magdalene, Joan has been gifted with much insight and she shares that as she details the work of the Mary Magdalene Circles she led in Los Angeles and across the country. I appreciate the guidance offered by Norton and Starbird, including the suggested questions at the end of chapters what gives us pause, makes us question, and brings us into a closer understanding of the Beloved of Christ. I believe this is an important book that raises awareness of the sacredness of the Divine Feminine and calls women who might not have been touched by that knowledge closer to knowing Goddess, the Sacred Feminine or the Great She - within and outside themselves.

Joan's warmth and inclusiveness is the embodiment of Mary Magdalene, Jesus, her Divine Groom and our beloved Mother who enriches us all.

This book is a must for those who feel a yearning to know Mary Magdalene. And they shouldn't miss Joan's first book, The Mary Magdalene Within. As I've come to known Joan and Mary Magdalene, I've come to see and feel Jesus and Mary as the Divine Couple, Sacred Masculine and Divine Feminine, side by side, in wholeness, love, harmony and balance. They have little in common with the patriarchal institution of the Church who has disappointed so many. The love and aspects of Jesus and Mary reflect what was more likely intended for their Church. With this in mind, I urge non-Christians to give this book a look as so many Goddess Advocates have embraced the other books of Margaret Starbird. These are books that build common ground and bridges between traditions that might not on the surface see their similarities and commonalities. It helps those of us who have long ago departed from the dogma of the Church reconcile our spiritual past with a more authentic and relevant view of the Divine Couple.

I am enjoying this book. The one problem I have with it is the same problem I have with most books about Mary Magdalene. The portrait painted of her is that of victim. Because this is a devotional, readers are encouraged to touch those places inside where they can identify with the various ways Mary Magdalene was victimized in her life and in the mythos that was created about her by the Roman Catholic Church.

If what is written about the Magdalene is true, she led a life of great adventure and love, worth and meaning. Of course, to go there, perhaps we first have to begin with no longer seeing Jesus as a victim but as the powerful creator of his life and destiny. I don't believe it serves her memory or us living now to focus on the victimization at the expense of experiencing Jesus and Mary Magdalene as co-creators with God of their lives and their destinies!

How can we take charge of co-creating our own lives when religious and spiritual leaders and teachers continually teach that we are victims? By having the courage to step even further outside tradition than the Magdalene teachers do!

As a sexual abuse survivor, I especially celebrate and recommend 14 STEPS TO AWAKEN THE SACRED FEMININE. Sexual abuse thrives in cultures like ours that have banished the Sacred Feminine, and here is a book that shows how to awaken her and bring her back!

Beautifully written and designed, 14 STEPS TO AWAKEN THE SACRED FEMININE is a gentle, loving guide for individuals or groups that want to heal and reclaim the empowering archetypes of the Sacred Feminine which the Western Christian tradition has hidden, denied, degraded, and banished. This book is the feminine HERO'S JOURNEY for the intimate, individual journey to the inner world to resurrect our part of the Sacred Feminine and to call her forth into our daily lives through story, image, meditation, and reflection.

By engaging personally with the seven historical and seven legendary archetypes of Mary Magdalene, we can shed the historical distortions and cultural and doctrinal practices that changed Her story, which then captured, distorted, and degraded the Sacred Feminine in each of us. We can emerge with the mystery of our own divinity restored, empowered to be Her in a world that so badly needs and wants the strength, compassion, and balance She brings.

This is a good book for people who want practical ways to bring the Sacred Feminine into their lives. Each chapter has a brief explanation and overview, a guided meditation, and questions for reflection and journaling/discussion. The poetry alone is beautiful and inspiring. It is more creative and personal to me than some of the other books I've read on the Sacred Feminine and Mary Magdalene. Most of them were scholarly dissertations on the validity and history of Magdalene and the Sacred Feminine. I already accept that women have had an important and definitive place in Spirituality and was looking for ways to honor and experience Sacred Feminine presence. This book delivered that for me.

The Resources chapter was also very helpful and interesting. It includes other books, groups, organizations, artists, and websites devoted to the Sacred Feminine.

Both new age and women's studies collections will find inspiring this guide on how to create a personal Mary Magdalene circle. Magdalene Circles are groups of women who focus shared energies on the wisdom of Mary Magdalene: here are 14 guided lessons to start the process, perfect for new age holdings.

This is an amazing book for women's groups. An inspiring guide, it helps women create viable, intensely functional Mary Magdalene Circles. What are Mary Magdalene Circles? They are groups of women who share their focused energies on understanding and enacting the wisdom that has come down from Mary. The purpose: to gain insight and understanding of the path life takes and how the sacred feminine can enhance and enrich personal growth. There are 14 lessons in the book, which are the steps to creating that path for women who have come together to share and help one another to discover that inner light and strength that comes to both Christians and spiritual feminists alike.

For many, this book will provide a conduit to self-understanding and awareness. It brings forth the call to appreciate and proclaim the validity of the Sacred Feminine, long kept under the thumb of the Church. Western Christian tradition has kept secret, denied, tainted, and exiled positive mentions of Mary Magdalene in biblical and religious writings. This book will help transform that trend into an affirmative way to experience and enjoy the revered female side of faith, without being defensive or critical of mainstream religion.

The book is divided into two halves, each vital in recovering our beliefs and standards. Part One covers the steps, called lessons, to educating women in the Magdalene story. It covers the warped history of Mary as a prostitute, the time with Jesus in the garden, the weeping Mary and more. Starbird and Norton discuss with great clarity the mythology and the metaphors that abound in Christian literature and the way women have been denied their place as partners in the hierarchy and oligarchy of the Church. Their intent is not to criticize or demonize traditional beliefs, but to show us that the Sacred Feminine should be part of our lives, part of the profound, deeply personal journey to the inner self.

Part two is equally remarkable. Focused on Prayers and Poems to Complement the Lessons, each section corresponds to the lesson in the first part of the book with the same name. In Lesson Two of Part Two, (where the erroneous history of Mary as a prostitute is discussed,) there is a prayer-poem by Susan Kehoe-Jergens, Self Re-Creation through the Magdalene. Powerful and hopeful, we can read these within our groups, or alone, to help us understand and appreciate the need to acknowledge and affirm our personal soul power.

The resource section of the book is extremely useful as well. It lists Internet Discussion Groups, Spiritual Training and Sacred Feminine Information Websites, Books, and Art and Icons. This inspirational book should help those struggling as individuals to comprehend that part of our feminine psyche. We do not have to struggle alone; we can create or join groups that will give us clarity and strength to be complete as women, awake and aware of our passions and our passages through a spiritual life. To know that as women we can be part of a greater whole is a life-changing piece of knowledge, a step I encourage us all to take.

by Laura Strathman Hulka
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This book is a long needed call to return Mary Magdalene to her rightful status as bride of Christ. The excerpts from Margaret Starbird and the meditations and questions posed by Joan Norton are a powerful way of assimilating this information brought to our awareness and experiencing the essence of Mary Magdalene in our bodies, hearts and minds. Kudos to creating a book that informs, stimulates and embraces the rightful place of Mary Magdalene. Long live this Goddess!

In 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine, Joan Norton & Margaret Starbird do an excellent job in presenting details about the history of Mary Magdalene and why its important to tell her story today in order to balance feminine and masculine energies in the world.

This fast-paced easy-to-read format also offers tips for creating your own spiritual circle group.

Can small, seemingly insignificant gatherings of women cause global change? Margaret Starbird and Joan Norton believe so, and have formulated their system of Magdalene Circles where groups of women focus their shared energies on alignment with the divine feminine.
Do a "google" on Mary Magdalene Circles and you will soon discover that the phenomenon of women gathering together to share the once obscure divine feminine wisdom is now sweeping the planet. There are literally hundreds of these groups meeting and meditating on the sacred pattern laid out in the story of Mary Magdalene. The figure of Mary Magdalene gained prominence during the last twenty years as many researchers have uncovered evidence that she was in a sacred and intimate relationship with Jesus and is the matriarch of a secret bloodline. The descendants within this bloodline, including the well known "Merovingians" or vine of Mary, also includes French and British royalty, and more recently, Francis Bacon who many believe was the secret author of all of William Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, and also an illegitimate child of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Margaret Starbird and Joan Norton's book, 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine" does not speculate on bloodlines or ancient secrets but rather focuses exclusively on the life or legend of Mary Magdalene herself.
I highly recommend this book to groups or individuals with an attraction to the sacred feminine that Mary exemplifies for us all. I myself travelled to Jerusalem and completed the Stations of the Cross, through the tightly packed streets only to find a feeling of incompleteness. I then walked instinctively to Bethany, now behind the East Jerusalem wall, and found the old cobbled streets of Palestinian Bethany had a stronger and profound impact on my soul. The legendary ruins of Simon the Leper's home still stands in a rubble-filled field where a deaf boy grazes his goats. Here at last I felt the gentle touch of the Goddess and the presence of Mary Magdalene. Of course not everyone can travel to Jerusalem or find themselves compelled to walk through the gap in the gray concrete walls that now divide the ancient village from the great city of Jerusalem, but the footsteps of Mary are available to all who are called. Joan Norton and Margaret Starbird's book offers a thought-provoking and sensitive offering to those whose hearts still belong to the Goddess.