Magdalene

Divine Silence rests in its Own Nature as eternal witness to creation. Yet Divine Silence vibrates for the sake of the dance, the play of manifestation. And when it vibrates, the Silence becomes breath. That breath pervades the cosmos.

Silence is the Beloved, who is pure awareness. To create worlds, the Beloved breathes his Shakti, his creative wisdom, as space-time. Shakti is the Goddess, who dances with God in the moment of creation, the energy that manifests all forms through vibration. She is the subtlest tremor of a quark, and the intergalactic tarantella. She is the motion and motive of Mother Matter.

Rumi said, “There is some kiss we want with all our lives, the kiss of spirit on the body.” Through our breath, creation kisses Christ Consciousness. Our breath is the precious thread that weaves the un-created Godhead into the body. When I am truly awake, this inhalation is the Holy Spirit, the very form of the Goddess, embodied in my dust. And with this exhalation, She returns to her Beloved through a sacred kiss. In Christian tradition, she is the Magdalene.

When I offer this exhalation back to the Beloved, She carries the fruit of the senses, the passions, the pain and beauty of my tears, the fragrance of my wounds. My breath returns to the Creator, bearing creation back to God as an offering, the inward Eucharist of respiration. Breath is Mary, Christ's paramour. Between the outbreath and inbreath, there is a sacred pause, the moment of their kiss. There are no longer two. Only annihilation, ananda, bliss. This kiss is the Ayin Soph, the dark and pointless dot from which all worlds of light are born. Then comes the next inhalation, a gift. So'ham.

The Gnostic Gospel of Phillip teaches that Jesus often kissed the Magdalene. The kiss of Magdalene and Christ is the same mystical kiss that Rumi and the Sufis speak of, the kiss of Radha and Krishna in the garden of Vrindavan, the kiss in the wedding bower of the Song of Solomon, where we read, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth," a favorite scripture of Christian mystics.

What happens when lovers kiss? You know this. If you could stop time in that moment when parted lips touch, what would you experience? No thing. Where is the thinking mind? Nowhere. Are there two lovers left? No, they have become one sweet annihilation. No difference, no boundaries, no form.

This kiss of annihilation the Sufis call fana' in Arabic, and the Bhaktis call bhava, in Sanskrit. It is the moment when the soul merges with God, sending a creative tremor through every atom in the cosmos. Yes, when the soul touches God, the body touches God. And this kiss not only renews your own body, but other bodies. The whole environment kisses God. From the no-thing of that kiss, all nature is refreshed.

According to Bell's Theorum in quantum physics, a sub-nuclear particle is immediately connected, beyond the thresholds of space and time, to every other particle in the cosmos, because all particles are excitations of one field, vibrations of one silent vacuum. In the prescient words of Sir Arthur Eddington, a founder of quantum theory, "When the electron vibrates, the whole universe shakes."

The kiss of Christ and Magdalene, in the secret heart of the mystic, is a wave of re-creation that thrills the whole environment.

When we say that this kiss transpires in the heart, we are speaking of the actual heart. Your cardiac plexus is not just a physical organ, but a spiritual vortex, a flowering of neuro-electric energy. This mere muscle of gristle and blood is also a radiance that expands beyond the outline of human physiology, beyond the forests and mountains, beyond the moon and stars.

According to the Gnostic Gospels, the kiss of creator and creation is the supreme sacrament, called the sacrament of the Bridal Chamber. Where is the Bridal Chamber? The Bridal Chamber is the portal between one breath and another in the core of your own heart. This is where you participate in the mystical marriage of Christ and Mary.

So let us practice together. Let us breathe together. In this very breath, let the Magdalene gather up your teardrops, your laughter, your pain, and bear their offering to the Bridal Chamber. This is no mere theological speculation, but a sensation of secret fire in the body. Let all your earthly experience pour into the chalice of kisses that rests on the alter of your breastbone. Offer this cup to Christ. Drown in the nectar of bewilderment. Renew the universe through the oblation of a single breath.

Don't you know that the Milky Way streams through the soft-spot in your crown? If you truly fortunate, that tender fontanelle never quite healed. The bones of dogma never quite hardened and sealed you in. You can still sink into the deep well of your body, which is the well of meditation, letting galaxies flow down your spine, to fill the grail in your chest to overflowing. Don't ask, what can I offer? Offer this.
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Painting of Mary Magdalene by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a treasure in the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington DE, where I grew up. Whenever I go home, I visit this painting. You can listen to an audio of this meditation HERE.