Kayleen Asbo, Ph.D
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    • The Blessing Thread 1: Mary Magdalene and the Contemplative Tradition: Provence
    • Pilgrimage 2: Wales and Ireland >
      • Beginning Your Pilgrimage
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      • Schedule and Links
      • Celtic Knots and Brigid's Cross
      • Doll Making with Polly Paton Brown
      • Celtic Legends with Justin Coutts
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      • Recipes
    • Claiming Our Light Retreat
    • Mystical Scotland
    • From Grief to Garden: Holy Week with Mary Magdalene
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    • Ariadne's Thread
    • The Map of the Heroine's Path
    • The Art of Lamentation: Isis and Nepthys
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    • Anchored in the Heart >
      • Week One: Drinking From the Well of Virtue
      • Week Two
      • Week Three
      • Week Four: Images and Visions
      • Week 6: Time and Seasons
    • Dante Retreat >
      • Welcome letter
      • Session One: Love, Loss and Longing
      • Session Two: Hot Sins
      • Session Three: Where Our Hearts Grow Cold
      • Session Four: Arriving on the Shores of Humility
      • Session Five: Returning to Innocence
    • 22 Days of Magdalene
    • The Mystic Path and Poetry of T.S. Eliot >
      • Week One: Prophet of Despair
      • Week Two: Beethoven, Dante and Eliot
      • Burnt Norton
      • East Coker
      • Dry Salvages
  • Poetry
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Day One: From Alexandria to France


The  13th century fresco above by Giotto depicts the Voyage to Provence of Mary Magdalene and her companions: Martha, Lazarus, Sidonius and Maximus. Though oral tradition and early and Medieval all concur that these "Companions from Bethany" or "Les Amis de Bethanie" arrived in a rudderless boat after  fleeing persecution by Roman soldiers, details dioffer greatly. 

 Sainte Maries de la Mer, in the Camargue region of southern France, claims that the boat also held St.Marie Jacobe and St. Marie Salome. These two women (the "other Marys" who were Mary Magdalene's myrrhbearing companions at the cross and at the tomb in the Gospel of Mark have a special feast day in the village in May, along with the enigmatic St Sara, patron saint of the Romani people. 

Every year in May, there is a Romani pilgrimage festival to this seaside village 

and the Medieval hagiography 
The Golden Legend by Jacobus Voragine, 

Legend also holds that the boat contained the bones of St. Anne, Jesus's grandmother whose feast day is celebrated on July 26 in Apt, France with a procession of relics.
Picture
Picture

"The Beloved "(also known as "The Bride")  by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This Pre-Raphaelite paintings inscribed with two quotes from the Song of Solomon: ​My beloved is mine and I am his (2:16) and Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine (1:2), passages that were used in early Christian litrugies for the Feast of Mary Magdalene.
The presence of a young African girl ecokes the La Conneau legends of St Sara as the adopted daughter of Mary Magdalene.

​

St. Sara le Kali, patron saint of the Romani people who hold a feast every year in her honor at Saint Maries de la Mer. The statue is taken in a procession to the sea where it is bathed in wine and honey before being immersed in salt water, a continuation of preChristian goddess wroshiop.

Contact Kayleen Asbo: mythicamuse@gmail.com
  • Home
  • Pilgrimages/ Retreats
    • The Blessing Thread 1: Mary Magdalene and the Contemplative Tradition: Provence
    • Pilgrimage 2: Wales and Ireland >
      • Beginning Your Pilgrimage
      • Morning Circle
      • Schedule and Links
      • Celtic Knots and Brigid's Cross
      • Doll Making with Polly Paton Brown
      • Celtic Legends with Justin Coutts
      • Brigid's Blessing Hand Instructions
      • Recipes
    • Claiming Our Light Retreat
    • Mystical Scotland
    • From Grief to Garden: Holy Week with Mary Magdalene
  • Heroines
    • Ariadne's Thread
    • The Map of the Heroine's Path
    • The Art of Lamentation: Isis and Nepthys
  • Classes
    • Anchored in the Heart >
      • Week One: Drinking From the Well of Virtue
      • Week Two
      • Week Three
      • Week Four: Images and Visions
      • Week 6: Time and Seasons
    • Dante Retreat >
      • Welcome letter
      • Session One: Love, Loss and Longing
      • Session Two: Hot Sins
      • Session Three: Where Our Hearts Grow Cold
      • Session Four: Arriving on the Shores of Humility
      • Session Five: Returning to Innocence
    • 22 Days of Magdalene
    • The Mystic Path and Poetry of T.S. Eliot >
      • Week One: Prophet of Despair
      • Week Two: Beethoven, Dante and Eliot
      • Burnt Norton
      • East Coker
      • Dry Salvages
  • Poetry
  • Art
  • About