“Mary Magdalene of the Grail” oil painting by Marilyn Wells

The Mary Magdalene Grail returns again and again to our imagination, now for 2,000 years in the Western mind…“Mary Magdalene of the Grail” is an oil painting by Marilyn, 24″x48″ – $2300

After all the words and books, she seems to me the unsayable experience that comes at the intersection between deep, earthly love and the divine—when Being reveals itself as joy and repose and eternity.

Resources

I’ve read the books listed below. Of them, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene resonates most deeply in me and speaks of the Mary Magdalene Grail. I hear a story of a woman who, flawed and damaged and earthly real, as are all are, loved Jesus in the unspeakably deep way of love between a man and a woman, more particularly a very gifted man and a very gifted woman. Both were revealed as unusually talented in the arts of healing and making whole of others.

Jesus died an untimely death in the midst of his delivery of a message of life, love, and eternal being. Mary was devastated, in despair and mourning, when she “saw” Jesus in the “Nous” the dimension beyond ordinary seeing, and knew that life does not end in death but is eternal. She was given the gift we all seek, the gift of the Grail, the gift of the knowledge of Life Eternal.

If you have ever been deeply in love is the only way this story truly communicates itself. And who has not? And what you know, though books are written, is beyond words and the dimension we can describe.

We too are given this knowledge in the unspeakable mystery of the silence of wisdom, of Sophia. Jesus’ mandate was to “Not cling to me…”, which we try to do with our little knowledge in everything of this earth. The secret of this knowledge is revealed in not clinging to anything in this dimension, as true knowledge is of the dimension we are moving into. This is the great love story of all time and eternity.

Mary Magdalene is an embodiment of the story in my painting of the feminine, both divine and fecund. This is a primary theme emerging in all my work. The connection, the intersection is between the beauty and wildness and longing of this earthly life and the divine seeking us out also in and through love—to show us the way with and beyond forever.

This is the story I’ve attempted to portray in the form of an oil painting.

Useful references:

The Meaning of Mary Magdalene by Cynthia Bourgeault

Mary Magdalene by Bruce Chilton

The Woman with the Alabaster Jar by Margaret Starbird

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene trans by Jean-Yves Leloup