Sophia Serve

The Book of Love

For anyone who devours books about Mary Magdalene—and I suspect
we’re a growing number since The Da Vinci Code movie and Brown’s prequel, the upcoming Angels and Demons have introduced more people to the Magdelene“heresy”—Kathleen McGowan is someone you need to know.

Ever since reading The Expected One, I’ve been eagerly awaiting her second—The Book of Love. She’s not an author who disappoints. Like her heroine, Maureen Paschal, it’s obvious Kathleen's mission is to uncover stories of extraordinary women who dared to challenge the world. History often either misrepresents these women or denigrates them—often actually killing them. Matilda the 11th century countess of Tuscany, heroine of The Book of Love, is one such woman. As it turns out, she is the only woman buried in St. Peter’s basilica and when you read the book, you’ll learn why.

But it’s her coverage of the origins and importance of the labyrinth, information about Chartres and the Cathars as well as the way McGowan

  introduces Sophia that captivates me. She reminds us that the Gnostics believed the Holy Spirit was female, in the guise of Sophia--sometimes depicted as a dove.

 
She quotes from the Gnostic Gospel of Philip: “Some say that Mary was impregnated by the grace of the Holy Spirit. But they do not know what they say. How can the feminine impregnate the feminine?” (p. 375) 

And she introduces readers to the Genesis verses that tell us God said, “Let us make man in our image…”  and “The Lord God said, ‘Behold, man has become as of of us, to know good and evil…”  The “us” indicates “The equal, female face of God, if you will. The feminine half that completes the male half of God.” (p. 376)

Sophia.  Our Lady.  Our sweet dove. She's far from a new idea, of course. In fact the mystical Lutheran shoemaker and writer, Jacob Boehme wrote about her as the third part of the Trinity way back in 1620. But now Sophia appears in what will undoubtedly become McGowan’s second New York Time’s best selling book. And many more people will discover Sophia, as well as that legendary lost manuscript, The Book of Love.

Happenstance and Geomancy

If I’m granted another lifetime, I may come back as a geomancer. Earth is alive and she’s talking to us and I’d like to learn how to listen even more closely to what she's saying.

What’s geomancy, you ask? 

Geomancy is commonly known as the “art of harmonious placement,” for it has been used to find the right time and place for all human activities.
~Richard Feather Anderson, The Power of Place

Before we built our labyrinth in the south meadow, our friend Laura and I dowsed to find its center. Just as medieval cathedral builders placed a pole in the earth to determine its altar placement and then built out from there, our labyrinth grew from its center pole.

  

(Illustration by Joel Speerstra

Hunab Ku,  p. 128.)

When the earth seems particularly aligned, when we sense wonderful energy flowing, each of us can, quite naturally, practice the ancient art of Earth magic. The Chinese called it Feng Shui—wind and fire. The chi, the dragon-energy under and around the earth, moves just right and creates harmony in all things. Since I was born in the Chinese year of the dragon, I take notice.