I first met Mary Magdalene and the divine feminine as I know her now at the end of 2020, at the end of a profoundly healing year of great inner awakening. All of 2020 was a year where I really stared deep into my shadow, deep into my trauma, deep into the systems and heartbreak that broke me, that controlled me, that kept me small and in an emotionally stunted state of being. 2020 was a year that was hard and overwhelming and honestly I felt like in many ways it completely broke me, broke me in the best way, breaking open the parts of me that were my cage, my inner prison, broken and hurt, the parts the patriarchy programmed into me to keep me small, to keep me from my true knowing. I learned through what I experienced that year that standing in the darkness is essential to really see the glory of the light.
Leaving the Church of My Childhood
Growing up Mormon, I was taught to believe in God and to follow Christ. These teachings were an important part of my family life and culture of origin. I grew up going to Seminary, Sunday School, I attended Youth Conferences and attended church sponsored Universities (all 3 of the BYUs). I also served a mission for the church from 2005-2007 in Latvia, dedicating 18 months of my life to teaching the gospel of Christ as the Mormon church frames it. Talking about the scriptures, the prophets, and religious teachings was a very real part of the way I was raised. But, by the end of 2019 we had made the courageous choice to step away from the church, we were starting to catch a vision for our life that was untangled from the bounds of the patriarchy.
Years before I left, I had already begun the hard work of healing generational trauma. I started to recognize my patterns and to see that I was the common denominator in my life. The reality was sobering: my body was carrying layers of trauma. Trauma from childhood, trauma from my marriage, and trauma that kept repeating itself in different forms. It had left me with significant PTSD and a deep sense of self-loathing.
By 2019, I had already spent years committed to healing. But up until the end of that year, my approach was still shaped by the church. I had been taught to let the institution guide my process, so I followed the framework I was given. Yet the more trauma-aware and self-aware I became, the more I began to see the full weight of what I was holding, and the more I realized that something deeper was asking to be reclaimed. So when I finally stepped into trauma-informed healing spaces outside of the church, because Mormonism simply isn’t trauma-informed, I began to see clearly the invisible architecture that had shaped my inner life. I could finally recognize the cage my heart, mind, and soul had been living in. Leaving the religion and culture of my origin was no small feat, it required confronting fear, uncertainty, and the loss of everything familiar. And in many ways taking that step felt like being thrown into the spiritual deep end. Our anchor in the known vanished. We were left floating in the depths, desperate and hungry for truth beyond religious control.
It was true then, and it is still true now, that my soul longs for connection to the Divine. I have always felt myself walking in tandem with Spirit. Being a seeker of the mysteries is woven into my identity. So walking away from faith was never an option for me, even though I stepped away from organized religion. But in that transition, I felt both lost and confused, and at the same time, deeply curious about where that longing might lead me. And so, I laid my belief and faith out on the table. I was open to new ideas, new information and able to check it against my internal system, able to check it against the solid foundation of spiritual seeking that had literally been the foundation of my entire life. I had been raised to breathe the gospel through every fiber of myself. Other Mormons, and even former Mormons will understand what I’m saying here. Walking with the gospel in our every day is literally how we are raised. My identity was intrinsically tied to being a disciple of Christ. So who was I outside of my culture of origin? Who was I as an independent seeker of the mysteries, who was I as an outsider to organized religion?
I have come to believe that it should be commended, not condemned, to question even the very existence of God. It takes immense courage, especially when the culture you were raised in instills a real fear of eternal consequences for those who seek beyond its boundaries. And yet, to follow that questioning with integrity, and to arrive in deeper alignment with an unshakeable faith in the Divine, is one of the most sacred journeys a person can take. But what seems like something that would be celebrated, is actually feared within the context of Mormonism, because there is an exorbitant amount of fear of leaving programmed into us from a very early age through the teachings and the stories of the history of the church. As a 6th generation Mormon, church history was also my family history. To be the cycle breaker in a line like this carries immense weight.
The church leaders caution against questioning the narrative. As recently as just a few months ago, the president of the church, Dallin Oaks, said, “Members with questions should seek answers from faithful, well-informed friends and leaders rather than relying on podcasts or online critics.” We were told, again and again, that we must trust church leadership. That it is a sin to speak ill of the Lord’s anointed. That independent or critical sources were labeled “anti-Mormon” and should be avoided and even shunned.
Imagine the cognitive dissonance for those of us standing at this threshold. We are taught that seeking outside perspectives is dangerous, yet we are also told to be honest, to search for truth, to develop a personal relationship with the Divine. And when we do leave, we are called apostates. Brigham Young, the second president of the Church, once said this about people like me:
“If there is a despicable character on the face of the earth, it is an apostate from this Church. He is a traitor who has deceived his best friends, betrayed his trust, and forfeited every principle of honor that God placed within him. They may think they are respected, but they are not. They are disgraced in their own eyes. There is not much honesty within them; they have forfeited their heaven, sold their birthright, and betrayed their friends.” — President Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 12:20 (1867)
And yet, in the face of being labeled despicable and accused of deceiving others, in the face of rejection, both mine and my children’s, from the community and culture of my origin, I still chose this path. I knew I would be seen as the one abandoning my ancestors, the one breaking the threads that were meant to bind us together for eternity, the family member who stepped outside of the eternal structure. Even so, I chose to descend into the unknown and asked God to guide my steps. I had been taught that I could trust God, and so I leaned into that trust. I surrendered the certainty I once relied on and embarked on what would become the deepest quest of my soul.
Opening to the Divine Feminine
Where I had previously avoided teachings of an esoteric or spiritual nature from any sources outside of the church, after stepping away at the end of 2019, I opened myself to a much wider landscape. I began learning from mindfulness and spiritual teachers such as Joe Dispenza, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, and Neale Donald Walsch. As 2020 began, I found myself immersed in the Conversations with God series, followed by a deep exploration of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. These works were illuminating and helpful in my deconstruction, they helped me walk the brutally painful path of cognitive dissonance. But something was missing. And I wouldn’t know what it was until the end of 2020 through the visit of a dear soul-sister, Missy. The sacred feminine was calling.
The Moment Everything Changed
Missy was also a former Mormon, a mother of six, and she came into my life years before because she had been childhood friends with my husband, Britton. At the time of her visit to our home in winter of 2019, she and I had been a few years into the development of a sincere friendship. But most of this time our friendship was long-distance because she was living in Oregon. Her holiday visit to family in Utah was the perfect time for us to have an in-person hang out. And so, one evening during her visit, she came over to our home in American Fork to say hello. I remember that visit so clearly. I can still see us all in my mind’s eye, sitting together on our oversized, cozy couch in the living room.
We caught up on life, on marriage, on children, and on how it had led us to where we were. And then, as conversations between former Mormons often do, the conversation naturally shifted. We began to share more openly about spirituality, about what we had discovered, what we were questioning, and what we were beginning to sense beyond the framework we had all left behind. It was then that Missy said something that would radically alter the course of my life. Sitting on my couch, her beauty and grace radiating, she said “can I tell you about Mary Magdalene?” She then proceeded to tell me an entirely different version of Mary Magdalene, different from the one I was fed through my religious upbringing.
At this time in my life, I was primed and ready to understand things I had previously believed in completely different ways. She began to illuminate for me the truth behind Mary Magdalene’s life, her ministry, and her relationship with Jesus. Something ancient stirred within me. I had to know more. It was also dawning on me then that every voice I had learned from throughout my 35+ years of spiritual study and devotion had been masculine. There were so many male voices in positions of leadership, thanks to the patriarchy. These voices had filled my life and shaped all of my spiritual searching.
The leaders of the Mormon Church were all men. The prophets of old were all men. Those in positions of power and authority were all men. Even the idea of God was only framed from the context of his role as our Heavenly Father.
When it came to questions about the Divine Feminine, the Church has an official Gospel Topics essay titled Mother in Heaven. I feel impressed to include quotations from this official teaching to give context to how hungry my soul had become for the Divine Feminine, and how the sacred feminine was both acknowledged and also kept at a distance. These essays are available in the Church’s official library, and within Mormonism, members are counseled to turn only to this library as the primary source in their seeking.
The Church’s position is as follows:
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. As children of God, each person is divine in nature and has a divine destiny… Latter-day Saints’ knowledge about a Mother in Heaven is limited. The doctrine of a Heavenly Mother is a cherished and distinctive belief among Latter-day Saints. For reasons the Lord has not revealed, we do not know much about a Heavenly Mother… Prophets have taught that speculation about our Heavenly Mother is inappropriate. With this limited understanding, Latter-day Saints focus their worship on Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ.” — Mother in Heaven, Gospel Topics Essay, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
As I sat with Missy’s powerful voice and witnessed her love for Mary Magdalene, my soul began to awaken. It was then that I knew what I needed to do. I needed to put down the voice of the masculine and step more deeply, more consciously onto the path of the feminine. This I would do through the written word. This moment transformed my life and set me on a totally new timeline. One where I didn’t read male voices any longer, but instead one where I sat with the feminine, where I sought out words from women about their search for and relationship with the divine. And with this opening, my soul finally began to come back to life. I started with Mary Magdalene Revealed, by a feminine theologian Meggan Watterson. Missy and I then started an online bookclub: The Red Thread Bookclub. This bookclub would anchor me into these teachings over the course of the following 18 months and would be instrumental in guiding our departure from Utah and in helping to frame our world-pilgrimage. Each month, starting in January of 2020, we read books by women authors, seekers of the divine, all about the divine feminine. Books like Braiding Sweatgrass, If Women Rose Rooted, Come as you Are, Witch and more. My heart was ready to deepen into the feminine mysteries. Mary Magdalene was restructuring my life from the deepest parts of my soul. She called to me and leaning into her brought me home to myself. And so began the journey of filling my cup in my search for feminine truths that have been lost. We are the witches that were burned for believing in our own glory, we are the mothers who have embodied creation within our human form. We are the priestesses who fearlessly guide others to the light. Once a woman has awoken to her truth identity and spiritual potential, she truly becomes the master of her own destiny. No wonder women have been silenced for so long.
