Marrying East and West

Sleeping Beauty
IV Distaff (traditionally Swords)
Mysteries of Mary Tarot Deck www.hergracesacredart.com

The Mysteries of Mary Tarot deck is a marriage between

East and West. or more aptly,
between esoteric Shakty Tantra tradition that I was initiated into and
Christian mystical tradition that I have been studying.

In the spiritual journey which takes you back towards the

soul and unity consciousness, it is vital to make the 'two into one'.

In fact, this is the crux of both the Western and Eastern spiritual

traditions.  And in this deck, and on this path of wholeness,

the myth of the Western religious traditions are married to the

spiritual practices and understanding of Sacred Embodiment of

the Eastern religious traditions.  The Mysteries of Mary is the Divine Path of Love

and it takes you step by step through the three aspects of embodied soul,

the physical, mental and emotional and then culminates in the fourth suit

of Roses, in the marriage of heart and mind, Soul and Spirit,

and ultimately awakened embodied kundalini with Divine Source or God/All That Is.

The name of the deck tells you everything that is important to know about the cards.

The word 'mysteries' has more than one meaning and interpretation, all of which

describe the purpose of these 78 shrines and the stories that they tell.

Mysteries refer to myth, initiation, esoteric (inner), secret and hidden, and knowledge to be

revealed.  The Mysteries of Mary is a spiritual path to our highest spiritual potential,
to your own unique being

and its unfoldment in the details of your life.
It is a step by step path which unfolded to me and as my

own journey, over 40 years.  Obviously, in hindsight, it unfolded from the day I 

was born, but I consciously started working with it when I was older.

 This path I set out to share with others

as The Path of Love and then later as the Temple of Mary and then

eventually it called for a work of art, each shrine depicting a story,

your story.

If you work with the cards regularly and you immerse yourself in these

mysteries, you will find that the meaning of your own unique path is revealed and made obvious

 around these universal secrets.  Mysteries, amongst other meanings,  

refer to myths and myths are universal stories

of great importance and potency in our collective subconscious.  Fundamentalist

religious persons (and conversely those against religion as well) read the myths 

of religion as literal.  This is not the case on this spiritual path.  

There is much confusion about the religious stories and

the historic events and the facts around them.   You can lose yourself and the true

purpose of these stories and myths when you get involved in that way of thinking and

thus lose the profound Mystery of esoteric (hidden inner) religion or spirituality.

Joseph Campbell, and others, have done extensive research on worldwide myths 

and have shown how these are all connected despite culture and tradition.  All myths

have a universal thread and message.  It is obvious that our subconscious self knows and

understand what it is that we are living, and it births stories which reflect back to us

what is hidden in our inner depths.  We cannot make sense of ourselves, our reactions, our feelings

and their consequences, without a mirror reflecting Life (God) back at us.

The shrine of Sophia holding the mirror of existence
II Mary Sophia
The Mysteries of Mary Tarot www.hergracesacredart.com

 When I started to work with my own dissatisfaction and resentment of life, 

I discovered a deep aversion

to any Christian story and especially to patriarchy and the way that all spiritual teaching

had been removed from religion.  I tried to eradicate the idea of the Christian-Judaeo

God from my mind and especially the story of Jesus.  I found wonderful revelations

in the works of Marion Woodman, Barbara Walker, Marina Warner and many other

powerful feminist authors and slowly but surely I started to see that there is a different

way of interpreting the world and that I do have the power to make my own choices.

I immersed myself in mystical Catholicism of contemplation and self-knowledge

and Thomas Merton and other great Catholic saints and mystics became my guides.

However, my search was still not over as I yearned for a deeper knowing and 

understanding of a Divine Woman and I continued to search for that mirror

of my own feminine nature.  Thus I discovered the new Goddess movement 

where I really came to understand the power of myth and how our myths have been

sanitized and changed and distorted in order to cut out the feminine and all things

'un-masculine'.  But once again I found the tendency to make things literal present here as well..

Feminine does not only refer to gender, but also to a way of being, an inner principle

that is alive in every human being.  It is a complex area which does not always

fit into a box of rational logical thinking and one which is often denied or avoided

for that very reason.  However, we need both principles, that of feminine and

masculine, to truly make inner and outer progress on the spiritual journey.

From coming to know the Goddess tradition, it was but a short step to

the esoteric Hindu path of Shakty Tantra. The Eastern path of spirituality

has the most powerful practices essential to a path of truly waking up to

the True Self.  Nowhere in the Western world did I come across such depth

of understanding and embodiment of Spirit and such fearless pursuit of the depths

of thought and energy, as in India.  Here I came to know Kundalini Ma,

the divine feminine in her three aspects of Being, and the three aspects of

Being that is available to and present in us.  This was the final step for me as I could

completely surrender to the Eastern path of submitting to a guru combined

with my contemplative path of self-knowledge from the West.

But eventually I found that I do not have the deep seated understanding

and emotional connection to the Hindu stories and myths.  When I used

the word 'God' it still harped back to the figure in my children's Bible

and I still had a mental block against all the Bible Stories.  I could not

access a large part of my inner self and my subconscious because I could

not enter into the sacred heart of the christian myths.  And so I had to go back to

my roots and unpick the lies and distortions of the mind and enter

the heart of the myth of Mary and Mary Magdalene and Jesus and all

the other great characters of these stories.

The stories that Mary and Joseph and Jesus and Mary Magdalene

live are the stories that we live.  When we read these powerful

mysteries as myth, then we can enter the heart of God and understand

how God is our very Being and that our lives are the very unfolding

of Being.  When these mysteries are read as only literal, then all that power

which is available to us, is lost. Then it becomes a rigid, empty doctrine

filled with ritual which has to be repeated continuously to simulate real Power and

the word God becomes a stagnant idea and concept of a Being outside of ourselves.

Shrine of St Sara la Kali
V Vessels
Mysteries of Mary Tarot Deck www.hergracesacredart.com

Let's take for instance the myth of Sara la Kali.  There are many different 

versions of the story of Sara la Kali.  Each story has different implications

and different outcomes.  When we accept that it is a myth, it opens up

a new world of possibilities for oneself.  It demonstrates that there are many

options and possible outcomes in life and that we are not limited to

one story and a perfect outcome.  When we can let go of the fearful and

limiting mind and rather 'keep an open mind' and a willingness to see

things differently, then we create the inner space to be with and

to hold the ultimate mystery of life.  When we do not hold on so tightly to

our own version of events and the meaning of events, then our life

stays fresh and alive, each moment alit with the potential and possibility of

new experiences and the amazing creativity of life and being alive.

When we try to throttle life and its many changes and cycles, into a

neat and tidy story with a specific message or lesson, then soon

everything stagnates and there is nothing new to be gained.  Powerful symbols

of deeper and ever-birthing realities become jaded and ignored and the

mind does not even register the true in-the-moment message any more.

Every symbol and every story has a new message for you, centred  in your being,

in this moment.  Thus you can use these cards over and over and everytime hear

a new message and receive new guidance and see in the mirror clearly.

blessings

Hettienne