Mary Magdalene Portrayal Joins
Judith Laura's Other Art

Top detail from "Mary Magdalene"

Judith Laura's digital art honoring Mary Magdalene is now available on cafepress.com/judithlaura7m and zazzle.com/judithlaura as posters, prints, and greeting cards. The greatest magnification of the art is available on the zazzle site. The upper half of the full-length figure is shown here.

Other of Judith Laura's designs that are available on the above products, as well as t-shirts, mugs, journals, and many other products are available on both cafepress.com/judithlaura and zazzle.com/judithlaura  For a preview of some of the zazzle items, see the bottom of this column.

Judith Laura's depiction of Mary Magdalene is based on four different contemporary interpretations: (1) The historical theory that she was a disciple/apostle, had great intellectual and spiritual understanding and that her relationship with Jesus was the closest of all the disciples but wasn't sexual. (2) The historical theory that she was married to Jesus, that they had at least one child, and Mary and the child(ren) eventually went to France. (3) The mythological theory that she and Jesus were involved in a hieros gamos, or sacred marriage. (4) The metaphysical belief of some current gnostic groups who worship Mary Magdalene as the female counterpart of Jesus.

The symbolism in this work includes: a cup/grail inscribed with Magdalene's name in the language she spoke, Aramaic (the letters mem resh yod mem make the transliteration is closer to Miriam than Mary); a downward pointing triangle, a female symbol; a crown/halo above her head, embedded with 13 (the number of lunar months) egg-shaped rubies. (The egg is long associated with Magdalene as a symbol of life and/or resurrection.) The entire figure is composed of many oval and triangular shapes.

Other of Judith Laura's art available on zazzle.com and cafepress.com include:

The Thunder, Perfect Mind—3 panels of artwork inspired by the Nag Hammadi scripture, c.300-400 CE, unearthed in the 1940s in Egypt. The background of all three panels is deep violet and all panels contain various human and other figures as well as excerpts from the scripture in gold lettering. Scholars cannot clearly identify the text as Christian or Gnostic and point out that it bears similarity to some Isis texts. 

Panel 1  "I Am," is inspired by statements near the beginning of the manuscript. The words of the text appear as a lightning bolt. Among the human figures are a bride and a dancer-priestess.

Panel 2, "I Am She" shows an enthroned Goddess wearing the crown of Hathor, often seen in Isis images. The words of the text are above and beneath the goddess figure and emanate from her hands, which are raised in a traditional blessing pose.

Panel 3 "I Am The One" whose text includes a a promise of immortality, focuses on large flame containing the Coptic Greek letters Alpha, Omega, and Tee (which also appear in panel 1, representing the beginning and the end). The text appears on one side as a lightning bolt, and on the other side, emanating from the flame itself in a circular pattern.

Detail from "Asherah Enshrined"

Asherah Enshrined—Posters, prints and cards portraying the  Goddess called Asherah in Hebrew and Athirat or Athirat in Ugaritic. She stands in a shrine, between two deep blue pillar- or scroll-like objects emblazoned with gold and silver symbols. On the lower part of the shrine Ugaritic cuneiform spells out the Goddess’s full title, “Rabat Athirat Yam." Because “athirat” is the feminine form of the Ugaritic verb “to tread,” the English translation often given for this phrase is “Great Lady Who Treads on Water.”  Judith believes that while this may be correct, a more accurate meaning, taking into consideration the likely difference in colloquialisms between ancient Ugaritic and contemporary English would be “Great Athirat of the Sea” or “Great Goddess Who Moves the Sea.” You can see the artwork on cafepress.com/judithlaura1a or Judith Laura's Studio at zazzle.com,  Judith's other portrayals of Asherah can also be found at these links.
Also:
–Goddess logo items similar to the logo on the Goddess portion of this website; and posters that can be used as study aids for the Kabbalah section of Judith Laura's book, Goddess Spirituality for the 21st Century: From Kabbalah to Quantum Physics.
–Wisdom logo  lavender and green design, with "wisdom" in English, Greek, and Hebrew.   
–Products based on Judith's Tarot Fool which she originally created for the Tarot portion of her web site a few years ago.
© Copyright 2005-2008 by Judith Laura
 

Third Award for Beyond All Desiring
Judith Laura's novel Beyond All Desiring  has placed in three different award competitions. Beyond All Desiring received the top award in the 2006 Ulysses Award competition, and was award finalist in both the 2006 Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News, and the Media Darlings 2006 Word/Work Book Award.

The Ulysses Award, named after James Joyce's novel, is given by the Independent Literature Institute, also known as Indylit. Ulysses judges  selected two other novels to share the 2006 award, announced in March 2007.
  
The novel has become popular in book discussion groups. A free Reading Group Discussion Guide is available on this site. For more reviews and other information, go to http://www.judithlaura.com/beyond.html

Judith Blogs Around

Judith Laura now blogs on her book pages on Amazon.com and on Medusa Coils.

She was one of the first authors to participate in the AmazonConnect program, which enables authors and readers to communicate through what Amazon.com calls "plogs," which are very similar to blogs. To see Judith's plog, just go to any of her Amazon.com book pages, such as the one for Beyond All Desiring, where her posts include fiction-writing topics. Readers can click a link to see all messages.  People who have purchased any of Judith's books through Amazon may already be getting her plog on their Amazon home page. But even if you haven't purchased Judith's books there, you can have Judith's messages directed to your Amazon home page by going to any of her book pages and clicking under "Subscribed?" and selecting "Send me all further posts from Judith Laura."  Please note, the posts will be sent to your Amazon.com home page, not your email address.

Judith's posts on Medusa Coils are about Goddess spirituality and spiritual feminisms. There have also been a number of recent guest blogs about contemporary Goddess temples. Medusa Coils also features a monthly round-up of articles from other blogs, and an monthly "Events Coil" of places and times of upcoming Goddess events, and reviews of e-journals and books. The most recent book reviews are of Not in His Image by John Lamb Lash and  Did God Have a Wife? by William G. Dever.

Columns on Ethics, Storms

Judith Laura's column, "Who Says We're Weak on Ethics," excerpted from the print journal The Beltane Papers, Issue 38, has joined excerpts from other of her TBP columns now on this site. Also, more of her column "Keeping Faith in Stormy Times," giving a Goddess perspective on hurricanes and other disasters, has been added. Judith's other TBP columns include: "What Next? Goddess Spirituality at the Crossroads," columns on what to call the modern Goddess religion, ("Naming Ourselves"), modern concepts of Goddess ("Goddess as Flow") and metaphysical subjects, such as death.  Judith has been writing her column, Thealogical Musings, for TBP since 2002.