One of my dear Mary mentors, author Charlene Spretnak, once gifted me a blank holiday greeting card with the words “Eat, Drink & Be Mary” beside an image of the Blessed Mother holding a very full wine glass. It was the perfect card for someone like me to send on to someone at Christmas time, but I’ve never been able to part with it.
Over the years I’ve come to realize that this punny joke reveals a truth: You really CAN be Mary! In fact, increasingly I’ve been devoting my teaching and writing to helping people do just that, and I’ve been working my own “inner Mary,” as well.
What does it mean to BE Mary?
Well, that’s the stuff of books, courses, and many hours of inner exploration. But, just briefly, being Mary means being A Mary… which, in my research means being a Priestess of Divine Love. Yes, the name “Mary” comes from the Egyptian Meri, a term meaning, essentially, “to be the love and to love others.”
Yes, Mother Mary was, above all, an emissary of the holy love of Mother Divine.
(I’ve written some about this in my book The Mystery Tradition of Miraculous Conception, but this fact will be the centerpiece of my forthcoming book, The Secret Life of Mother Mary.)
When you embrace Mary as a priestess of embodied Love and aim to emulate her in this way, you you automatically elevate the quality of your life. Being loving makes things so much easier and more pleasurable. It adds spice, fragrance, healing, and well-being to your reality. It’s the gift that keeps on giving and that keeps being returned to you.
This holy season, as you try to cope with the commercialization of the sacred, over consumption and over spending, and the blur of festivities, do try out Being Mary a little bit more. You know how to tune into that vibration, just put your mind and heart into it. You’ll find it to be an elixir more potent and pleasurable than any holiday food or drink. And you’ll remember that it’s the greatest gift you can give to others, as well.