Eat, Drink, and BE Mary

Eat, Drink, and BE Mary

By Marguerite Mary Rigoglioso, Ph.D., author of The Mystery Tradition of Miraculous Conception: Mary and the Lineage of Virgin Births

I had a dream. Recently. It was a difficult dream, one that stayed with my emotional body for three days.

In this dream, I was confronting a person who had been a very close friend decades ago as to why she was no longer communicating with me, even though apparently she’d been visiting near where I live at least four times in the past year.

I was feeling hurt, betrayed… and also, deep down, guilty in my heart. Because in the dream, and, really, in life, I knew why she’d detached from me in a way that she hasn’t done with some of her other long-term friends.

But I pressed her: Why? What was up? I was defensive.

And she was defensive back. She explained her choices with words I don’t exactly remember. Then she said something I DO remember: “There, I’ve said it. Now I need to curl up and go to my safe place.” And she curled herself into fetal position right there on the floor.

The sense of what she was telling me was this: You can be kind of a difficult person, Marguerite. You can be emotionally needy… and harsh. None of this draws people to you.

God. It was like a glaring light was shining on my most tender, raw, shadowy aspects. I knew this was true on some level—at least in the past when she and I were in regular communication. And I was grief-stricken, ashamed… and enraged.

As I ran from the building, I heard my friend shout something else out the window, and I screamed, “F- you, b-tch!” Defensive, hurt, self-protective.

I woke up in grief.

If both of these dream characters are me—one way of approaching this dream—what does this mean? It tells me there’s the one who is acting out these challenging behaviors, and the one who is vulnerably witnessing them and daring to confront myself. Clearly both are “younger” parts, one of them even needing to curl up like an infant.

I don’t so much see myself as needy and forceful in the ways I once was. I realize this dream comes like light from a star, reflecting the reality of the past rather than the present. But it’s shining a beam, indeed, on something that apparently still needs to be looked at.

Reflecting on all of this in meditation, I realized that what was being revealed in my dream were aspects of myself that still exist, and that need tenderness, acceptance, and forgiveness. These are aspects of my personality that became wounded and distorted owing to the early traumas of loss, abandonment, and abuse—leading to a life that felt, at core, unsafe, unwelcoming of my soul, and unfriendly.

Yes, I was “needy,” you might say. But what was that all about? I needed what everyone else needs: love and guidance. And these things and more are what I didn’t get enough of in my formative years, leading me to always be seeking them.

I also had an edge of anger in the way I dealt with life, people, and my communications. But what was that all about? It was a reasonable response, really, to abuse. Having been wronged by certain people, I had developed a keen desire to see all the wrongs of the world righted. This stoked my forceful, warrior spirit. That spirit was great for a mission to change the world, which I’d obviously come into this lifetime with as part of my larger soul path. But not so great in relationships.

Not that I haven’t always ALSO been a loving, giving, well-meaning, of service, helpful, insightful, high-functioning, achieving, loyal person. But there was that other aspect that rendered me… challenging. A wounded animal is sometimes a little rough around the edges, for sure.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve been working with the Sacred Master known as Mother Mary to assist me. I’ve come to relate with her not only as a mother, but also as a teacher, a mentor, and a model for spiritual growth.

I’ve been praying with her, meditating with her, working with her to help me, and to help me bring her gifts of healing and spiritual awakening to others.

In my most recent work with her, I’ve received the message that I should invite her to merge her light body with mine, chakra by chakra. I’ve done this for weeks now, asking her to heal and clear each of my chakras, and bring them up to her level. Not just the seven chakras of the body, but also the Holy Womb Chakra overlaying the abdominal area, as well as the Earth Star chakra a foot or more below my feet, the chakras of my limbs, hands, and feet, and the eighth through twelfth chakras above my head.

In short, Mary has been inviting me to BE her. Not so that I can BECOME her, but so that I can become more of WHO I TRULY AM: A Divine Angelic Human.

She always reminds me: “I am just you at your highest level. Let me reflect you.”

Throughout this process, Mother Mary has also helped me to see another personality trait that it is now time to heal and clear: a tendency to judge others. Yes, after years, decades, of this habit serving me on some level, it’s time to let it go.

This means consciously redirecting my thoughts every time something negative about another person comes to mind. It doesn’t mean relinquishing discernment about what they are doing, it just means releasing the tendency to mentally condemn them.

After decades of surviving by identifying others’ bad qualities and either calling them out or steering clear of them as a means of self-protection, it’s time, Mary is showing me, to relax that harshness, turn off the spotlight, and focus on compassion.

I guess I’m ready for this now in a way I haven’t been, because I have developed enough inner strength—in part by working with Mary. I now try this new tack out every time I start mentally criticizing someone. I stop the thoughts and release the energy of anger and the mental process of relentless scrutiny. And I practice having the attitude of understanding that this person is simply doing the best they know how… and that their missing the mark doesn’t jeopardize my well-being in any way. It needs a loving nod, and no more.

As it turns out, moving through the world in this way is ending up to be a huge relief. It takes the sour edge off everything. It restores me to my heart.

And it restores my own ability to be kind to myself. That’s huge, because I’ve been a big self-critic.

Forgiveness for all. Compassion for all. Letting people be.

This is the teaching and gift of Mother Mary to me in my life right now. And I could not be more grateful.

(Incidentally, if you’re reading this and you are someone who knows me and who has had an experience whereby you’ve felt hurt by me, I send you a light-filled apology and blessings from Mother Mary.)

Merging with Mother Mary’s energy body is something you can do for yourself in meditation by following through what I’ve suggested above, chakra by chakra.

If you’d like to experience it in an easy way in community, however, I invite you to join us for our Monthly Mother Mary Love & Empowerments Circle on Thursday, December 15, where I’ll lead you through the process of BEING Mary step by step.

As I see it, working with Mary on our human selves this way is part of the work of becoming the Christ-Sophia within, activating the Divine Light as a way of being. Toward that end, on Saturday, December 18, I’ll also be offering an online Sacred Cacao Ceremony in which we call upon Mother Mary, facilitated by the gentle mind- and heart-opening plant spirit known as Ix Cacao, to help us all experience that Inner Light more brightly. The ceremony is the perfect accompaniment to the Winter Solstice, the time of year in the Global North that is all about the seeding of the light.

This holy season, may Mother Mary heal you, uplift you, and illuminate you. May you feast, drink, and BE the Divinity that she has come to the earth plane to help you become.