What follows is not offered as historical claim or doctrinal assertion, but as a personal meditation shaped by art, myth, and spiritual reflection.

 

I was raised Catholic and though my spirituality has wondered a bit, I remain sentimental and nostalgic about aspect of the religion in which I was raised, especially the mysticism, ritual and reverence for the divine feminine.

 

One of my great joys in life is travel. When I first visited Italy and Spain, I found myself repeatedly drawn into Catholic churches, spending hours moving from one to the next. What moved me most was something I had not encountered in the churches of my upbringing in the United States. In many churches there, it is not Jesus who greets you behind the altar, but the Virgin Mary. Jesus is more often found in side chapels, alongside other saints. I have often wondered how it shapes the psyche of men and women to be raised in a culture where the divine feminine is exalted so centrally.

 

Interestingly, I have never heard Mary referred to as a goddess. She is most often called “the Virgin” or the “Immaculate Mother.” Yet the emphasis on virginity and immaculate purity arises from patriarchal purity culture—a system in which a woman’s worth is morally defined by her sexuality. In Mary’s case, this valuation is so absolute that it becomes embedded in her very identity.

 

Though I still honor my Catholic roots, I do not feel bound by them.  That has given me the freedom to worship Mary--and Jesus for that matter--outside of the traditional Catholic context.  It gives me peace of heart to recreate her, freed from human moral judgement surrounding sexuality and goodness.

 

I have come to believe that Mary—Miryam, the name likely given to her by her parents in their Aramaic language—was not simply a woman who gave birth to a son who later became a realized being, but was herself a realized being in her own right. As such, she may have possessed capacities often attributed to those who attain spiritual enlightenment, including what we describe as miraculous powers. One of these may have been the ability to consciously alchemize the energy of Creation itself, giving birth to a male who would bring Light into the world.

 

Setting that personal interpretation aside, the idea of a mortal woman impregnated by a deity is not unique to Christianity or the Abrahamic traditions. Versions of this story appear in cultures across the world, including Greco-Roman, Hindu, Egyptian, Sumerian, and Persian mythologies. We often assume the stories we inherit are unique to our own religious traditions, when in fact they are continuations of far older narratives carried across cultures and centuries.

 

Mary herself was born in Jerusalem to a Jewish family. At the time of her birth, the region was a crossroads of religious influence. Roman and Hellenistic paganism coexisted alongside Judaism, and cults dedicated to deities such as Isis, Cybele, and Mithras were widely practiced. These belief systems shaped the religious landscape from which both Judaism and Christianity evolved.

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When we consider the cult of Isis in particular, we can see its influence on early imagery and understandings of Mary and Jesus. Isis, the Egyptian Mother of the Gods, was revered as the goddess of motherhood, magic, fertility, healing, and rebirth. It was through the devotional practices of her cult—and especially its iconography—that the idea of a deeply personal relationship with the divine took form, influencing the religious climate of the region.

 

Separating Miryam from the patriarchal framing of one version of her story does not diminish my faith in her narrative; it strengthens it. It allows me to consider her in the fullness of her being. When I contemplate her evolution from the goddesses who were worshipped before her, I feel connected to something far more ancient than doctrine. I am moved by the veneration of a woman—an enlightened being—whose oneness with Creation gave birth to the Light of the World, not as an abstract or distant myth, but as a real person whose devotional life gave rise to miracles.

 

This painting is my meditation on that mystery.