ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BRIGHT DARK MADONNA
“Elizabeth Cunningham has again delved into her fabulous treasure trove of impeccable research, and come up with gold. In Bright Dark Madonna, her interweaving of Biblical-Celtic themes brings the first century to life with unexpected freshness and many surprises.”
—Katherine Neville, author of The Eight and The Fire
“The turmoil of that first generation of Christians is remarkably recreated here with Maeve once again surviving against great odds. These were the years when her story got lost, but Cunningham’s erudition, keen insight, and imaginative voice won’t let that story be forgotten. Reading Bright Dark Madonna is a sheer joy.”
—Tom Cowan, author of Fire in the Head:
Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit
“Powerful, moving, hilariously funny, a brilliant blend of paganism and Christianity, Elizabeth Cunningham’s new novel imagines the missing, feminist story of the New Testament. And what a visionary tale she tells. Anyone who loved The Passion of Mary Magdalen will be ready to snatch up this sequel and continue to follow Maeve’s journey through the lustful geography of the soul to grasp the ever-changing identity of the Bright Dark Madonna.”
—Mary Swander, author of The Desert Pilgrim:
En Route to Mysticism and Miracles
“It is a testament to Elizabeth Cunningham’s genius that (unlike the New Testament) her story loses none of its narrative momentum after Jesus leaves it. Deeper, more reflective than the previous volumes, yet even more audacious, this latest installment of the Maeve Chronicles is the best yet.”
—Catherine MacCoun, author of On Becoming an Alchemist
“In Bright Dark Madonna, Elizabeth Cunningham performs a miracle of her own, breathing life into an important historical period we only dimly see through the haze of myth, legend, and dogma. She gives us the best gift a talespinner can—a perfectly possible reality that appeals both to our intellect and to our imagination.”
—Jack Maguire, author of Creative Storytelling and
The Power of Personal Storytelling
PRAISE FOR THE MAEVE CHRONICLES
MAGDALEN RISING: THE BEGINNING
“Smart and earthy... richly imaginative...
the epitome of the storyteller’s art.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, chosen as one of “The Year’s Best Books
“Destined to become a classic of womens literature.”
—Booklist, starred review
THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN
Named “One of the Best Spiritual Books of 2006”, Winner of Sacred Feminine category, Spirituality & Health Magazine
Book of the Year Award finalist, Religious Fiction, 2006,
ForeWord Magazine
“The Passion of Mary Magdalen explodes off the page with its tales of love, hope, power, and redemption, making it a great read for a wide variety of people. Book clubs looking for a great discussion, take note.”
—BookBrothel.com
“Sassy, salty, sexy... Those without an irreverent sense of humor will likely balk, but that just leaves more copies for the rest of us to pass around.
—LesbianNation.com
“The Passion of Mary Magdalen offers a digestive to Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, and a fascination way beyond Dan Brown’s exploitation of this Mary’s story in The DaVinci Code.”
—Pages Magazine
“Magdalene fans are in for more surprises in Cunningham’s classy, sexy novel.”
—Booklist, starred review
“…an unforgettable fifth gospel story in which the women most involved in Jesus’s ministry are given far more representation...”
—Library Journal
“Amazing story!”
—Historical Novels Review
OTHER NOVELS BY ELIZABETH CUNNINGHAM
Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy
The Wild Mother
How to Spin Gold, A Woman’s Tale
THE MAEVE CHRONICLES
Magdalen Rising
The Passion of Mary Magdalen
Bright Dark Madonna
POETRY
Small Bird
Wild Mercy
Bright Dark Madonna copyright 2009 by Elizabeth Cunningham
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher except in critical articles and reviews. Contact the publisher for information: Monkfish Book Publishing Company 22 E. Market Street, Rhinebeck, N.Y. 12572
Printed in the United States of America
Book and cover design by Georgia Dent
Cover art used with permission:
Alonso del Arco
La Madgalena despojándose de sus joyas
Oil on canvas, 170 x 123 cm.
Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias
The poems Poem for march 23, Song of Isis, Egypt and Poem for May 27, Egyptian Prayer
to Isis, Eighteenth Dynasty, 1567-1320 B.C.E., Poem for November 12,
Egyptian coffin texts, have been reprinted with kind permission from The Goddess Com-
panion: Daily Meditations on the Feminine Spirit by Patricia Monaghan copyright 1999,
Llewellyn Worldwide, 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125-29899.
All rights reserved.
eBook ISBN: 9780983358985
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cunningham, Elizabeth, 1953-
Bright dark Madonna : a novel / by Elizabeth Cunningham.
p. cm. -- (The Maeve chronicles; 3)
eISBN 9780983358985
1. Mary Magdalene, Saint--Fiction. 2. Women priests--Fiction. 3. Jesus Christ--Fiction. 4. Religious fi ction. I. Title.
PS3553.U473B75 2009
813’.54--dc22
2009001105
Bulk purchase discounts for educational or promotional purposes are available.
First Edition
First Impression
10987654321
Monkfish Book Publishing Company
22 E. Market Street
Rhinebeck, New York 12572
www.monkfishpublishing.com
Table of Contents
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BRIGHT DARK MADONNA
PRAISE FOR THE MAEVE CHRONICLES
OTHER NOVELS BY ELIZABETH CUNNINGHAM
Title Page
Copyright Page
A note on reading this book Or this is not your mother’s Mary Magdalen
PROLOGUE: MY FEAST DAY - How to Become a Saint
PART ONE - THE PENTECOSTAL ALLEY BLUES
CHAPTER ONE - FAILURE
CHAPTER TWO - MY THREE FATES
CHAPTER THREE - LEVIRATE OR HOW TO SALVAGE A LINEAGE
CHAPTER FOUR - WHAT MEN ARE FOR
CHAPTER FIVE - TWO OR THREE TOGETHER
CHAPTER SIX - IN WHICH MA AND I ARE INTRODUCED TO THE ECCLESIA
CHAPTER SEVEN - BRING FORTH THAT WHICH IS WITHIN YOU
CHAPTER EIGHT - TRUE CONFESSIONS
CHAPTER NINE - WHITHER THOU GOEST
PART TWO - AVE MATRES
CHAPTER TEN - MY PEOPLE
CHAPTER ELEVEN - COUNTING DOWN
CHAPTER TWELVE - BLACK DOVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - SIEGE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - HOLY HUBBUB
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - BRAWL
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - WHEN TWO ARE GATHERED
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - OUR LADY OF EXILE
PART THREE - MOUNTAIN SONG
CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY - WHERE IS MY DA?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - BEDTIME STORIES
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
- LIFE GOES ON
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - THE DELEGATION
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - BLOOD
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - THE LEAST OF MY BRETHREN
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - IN HIS NAME
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - FATHER AND SON
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - PREACHER MAN
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - RELUCTANT CAMP FOLLOWER
CHAPTER THIRTY - REVELATIONS
PART FOUR - PSALM
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - GUIDE MY FEET
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - A LAUNDRESS FOR CHRIST
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - OF FOOD AND FORESKINS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - CONTRARY MARYS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - TELL ME THE TRUTH!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - THE LORD’S SON
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - TELL MY MOTHER!
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - FIT TO BE TIED
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - THE WIND BLOWS WHERE IT WILL
CHAPTER FORTY - AT SEA
PART FIVE: HYMN TO MA OF EPHESUS
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - LOOSE CANON
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - THE MEETING
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - EPHESUS AND GREATER EPHESUS
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - MERYEMANA
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - ADVICE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - OLD AQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - BELOVED DISCIPLE
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - HOLY OF HOLIES
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - MUST IT BE WRITTEN?
CHAPTER FIFTY - IT IS WRITTEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - JESUS OUR MOTHER
PART SIX: THE BALLAD OF BLACK SARAH
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO - JAILBREAK
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - WIDE OPEN SPACES
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR - MY STORY, MY TRUTH
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - VIVE!
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX - SAINTED
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SOURCES
Ave Matres
A note on reading this book Or this is not your mother’s Mary Magdalen
OR MAYBE SHE IS. I don’t know your mother. She could be as wild and wise as Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen, narrator of this story and of all The Maeve Chronicles. Be assured: you do not need to have read Magdalen Rising and The Passion of Mary Magdalen to enjoy Bright Dark Madonna. Together the novels tell Maeve’s life story, yet each novel is self-contained and they can be read in any order. In Bright Dark Madonna there are occasional quotations from the previous novels. They are defined by italics.
I do not want to reveal too much previous plot or to explain how Maeve manages to travel across seas, continents, and worlds. But if you are new to Maeve’s story, here are a few facts about her that it might be helpful to know:
MAEVE’S CURRICULUM VITAE
She was born on the Isle of Women in the Celtic Otherworld and raised by eight warrior-witch mothers.
She attended druid school where she studied to be a bard—until she got kicked out, which is to say exiled, for saving the life of a certain young foreign exchange student.
She was sold into prostitution in Rome and worked at a brothel named The Vine and Fig Tree.
She eventually founded her own holy whorehouse in Magdala, Galilee.
She is a healer with “the fire of the stars” in her hands.
She loved and loves Jesus from “before and beyond time in all the worlds.”
She never became his disciple—or anyone else’s for that matter. She is not disciple material.
She has a mouth on her.
She relishes a good anachronism.
She is telling her story to you. Now. In the twenty-first century.
How to read this book? First, close it. Get comfortable. Pour whatever you like to drink, whether it’s herbal tea or a shot of Irish whiskey. Loosen up. Listen to some music, preferably the blues. Dance, sing along. Let your hair down (if you have any; I don’t—the real reason I am a novelist, the vicarious thrill of writing about someone with long, red hair.) Kick your shoes off. When you’re ready, open the book again, take a deep breath, and dive in.
I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
~ Elizabeth Cunningham
PROLOGUE: MY FEAST DAY
How to Become a Saint
IT IS JULY 22ND or, as they say in La Belle France, le 22 juillet. I am not going to tell you which year it is. It doesn’t matter. Time is not something I notice much these days, historical time, that is. But a feast day is different; it is one of those crossroads where chronological time and mythic time meet.
Also, it is hard not to sit up and pay attention when someone is parading your blackened skull in the streets.
Yes, that is what my devotees are doing, as we speak, in the village of Saint Maximin-La Sainte Baume. Though I apparently have fingernails, hair clippings, and bones scattered all over Southern France, and numerous churches have fought over which one houses my true remains, my (alleged) skull is enthroned in the Basilica of Saint Maximin. (Why a church dedicated to me is named for him, I have never understood.)
My skull is the main attraction in Saint Maximin’s over-crowded crypt. The bodies of three other saints (Marcelle, Suzanne, Sidoine, but this is not their story) rest discreetly in their sarcophagi, but my skull is on display, staring at you from behind protective glass as you enter. It is a real skull, and I am pleased to say that it is black, given my association with the Black Madonna who is worshipped all over Europe. And I’ve always loved that line from the Song of Songs: my love is black but comely. (In life, I was a redhead with the problem complexion that goes with that coloring.) The skull is encased in something that looks like a battle helmet with wavy locks flowing out over my shoulders—all gold of course. A brooch engraved with the image of haloed Jesus fastens my gold cloak. I also have wings, by the way, just like the goddess Isis—no accident, whether or not the artist intended it, for I was her priestess for many years. Below where my heart would be is a sealed glass cylindrical reliquary that displays a shred of tissue from my breast bone where he is supposed to have touched me when he said, “Noli me tangere” in the garden of the Resurrection.
I have my own memory of that morning:
I saw him clearly: standing naked under the tree, laughing, beautiful. His wounds still showed, and yet at the same time they were healed.
“Jesus!”
I wanted to rush straight into his arms, but something held me back.
“I know,” he acknowledged. “This body takes some getting used to. It’s the same as when a butterfly is first unfolding its wings. You can’t touch it yet. But cariad, you can come and stand with me, stand with me beneath the tree.”
I walked across the garden to the tree, my feet bare on the damp, sweet earth. I saw that, like him, I was also naked, naked and as radiant as the morning rising all around us. And so we stood together under the tree, not touching but taking each other in more deeply than we ever had before, taking in the whole singing radiance of the world, and giving it back to each other, giving it back to the world.
I have already told the story of how we found, fought and loved each other through death and beyond. I am telling another story now, the story of how I become a saint. I’m telling it, because I don’t quite know how it happened, and I am curious to find out. I mean, for goddess’ sake, people are venerating the bone of my breast, that cave that sheltered my heart—like the cave in the mountains of La Sainte Baume that sheltered me for a blissful time until my daughter dragged me back into the bloody world.
Today, on my feast day, people are celebrating me in that cave, too, La Grotte de Marie Madeleine, a smaller gathering for those pilgrims hardy enough to make the climb up that steep mountain to the cliffs I once shared with the rock doves. They’re saying mass, murmuring prayers, lighting candles, making vows to put up plaques if I will grant them favors, safe journeys, healthy births. They’ve made the place into a church with pews and altars and stained glass windows. For all that, it’s still a cave, my cave, warm in the winter, cool in the summer. And you can still hear the
sound of water dripping on stone, as eternal as anything in time.
So how do I feel about being a saint? Does it go to my head? Am I flattered? Wearied? Amused? Well, yes, and appalled, too. Terrible things have been done in my name, though nothing compared to what has been done in his. Still, there is something to be said for being a saint. Saints are what people have since the church took away their goddesses and gods. But in some ways, I have to admit, saints are more appealing than deities. Saints are homely, quirky, incarnate. They have fingernails, bones, and hair. You can touch them. You can talk to them. They might even talk back.
And if a saint also happens to be a Celt, like me, just try to stop them talking.
My name is Maeve. (It rhymes with cave.) You are welcome to call me what you like. Believe me, in my time (and timelessness) I’ve been called a lot of names. If you want to hear a saint talk, sit back, get comfortable. While my skull is being taken from its crypt for its yearly airing under the sun in Leo, while the rock doves still nest in the cliffs by my cave, I will tell you the story of how I became a saint—as much as I know.
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