It is a Sunday morning in July of 2023, and I am sitting up in bed, comforted by two pillows.
A few moments ago, I posted a chapter of the novel I have been writing -- or attempting to write. I started writing stories about my Italian ancestors in March of 2020, virtually the same day the pandemic began. I have written many many of these stories here, as blogposts, on MyStoryLives. And then, a few months ago, in March of 2023, I began writing in earnest the story of my great great grandmother, Filomena Scrivano.
God knows how many hundred pages I've written since 2020. But I am still writing, still posting.
Immediately after I post the Filomena chapter, I switch into email and this is what greets me at the TOP OF MY INBOX:
“Collaborate with those on the other side for wisdom, healing & miracles…”
WHAT?
What a coincidence, to get this email just as I am writing about my ancestor, Filomena, whose last name is Scrivano, which means scribe in English. I keep reading:
“How comforting would it be to know that your ancestors are always with you, wanting and waiting to help you?”
Wanting and waiting to help ME? This is too strange. So often in the last few months, as I have been feverishly writing about the romantic relationship that produced my illegitimate great grandfather, Pasquale Orzo, I have had the feeling that Filomena -- who in the story is a writer -- is looking over my shoulder, cheering me on as I spin out her tale!
Intrigued, I continue reading:
“Perdita Finn, co-founder of The Way of the Rose, [in Woodstock, New York,] shares that the departed — those we once held dear and even strangers from generations past — are still with us... not only waiting to comfort us, but eager to collaborate with us on creating blessings in our lives.
The departed are eager to collaborate with us? Really?
"In this context, miracles are not supernatural feats, but natural, organic occurrences available to everyone. They’re simple yet profound moments of connection, of feeling supported, loved, and understood in ways we seldom experience in our day-to-day lives.”
I am hardly new to miracles. I was seeing so many of them at one point that my husband began to call them "coinkydinkies."
Back in 2020, I started keeping track of the highly improbable “synchronicities” or miraculous coincidences.
The rosary interests me. Filomena turns to the rosary at every dark turn in her life. I too frequently recite Hail Marys in challenging moments -- like yesterday when I faced a difficult doctor's visit. As a cancer survivor it doesn't take much to trigger my PTSD. So I am often finding myself saying Hail Mary's, despite the fact that I converted to Judaism more than three decades ago, when my youngest child Noah was a baby.
Perdita Finn's book reveals the ancient history behind the rosary in goddess rituals. It also connects the rosary to "radical" feminist traditions. This is the first image in the book:
"The word rosary refers to the garlands that were traditionally woven from roses and offered to the Virgin Mary in the springtime. But long before [the Virgin] Mary, those same garlands were made as offerings to other goddesses by other names." These goddesses include Venus, the Roman goddess of love and fertitility, and Isis, the ancient Mediterranean goddess.
"The current form of the rosary didn't appear until the Middle Ages, when Christian leaders were forbidding pagan peoples in Europe from worshiping the Great Mother. But they were able to continue their devotion to her via the rosary. "In this way," the book points out, "the rosary became a kind of church within the Church."
In other words, the rosary, and the widespread worship of the Virgin Mary is a radical challenge to the Church fathers!
Filomena's story is also a challenge to the Church patriarchy. For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church in many European countries routinely forced unwed mothers to give up their babies. Thousands and thousands of those babies died of diseases that were rampant in foundling homes.
Back in 1870, in the province of Cosenza where my great grandfather was born, an astonishing 93 percent of the babies born out of wedlock perished! The fact that my ancestor survived at all is, in itself, a COMPLETE MIRACLE! The story about how Pasquale Orzo managed to avoid the "ospizia," the disease-ridden foundling home in his region, figures large in my novel. Meanwhile, the idea that the rosary links women (and men) in a kind of defiance of the Church, WOW! Now I am really intrigued. I order the book:
“The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.”
And then I go to Finn's website, WAY OF THE ROSE. That's where I read the rather quirky little story about the apparition. The Virgin Mary appeared to Clark Strand in the unlikely spot of Woodstock, New York on June 16, 2011.
HUH? Every month?
There is even an archive of all of the Virgin's messages!
Holy Heavenly Cow.
By now I am lying flat in bed. Birds are calling from outside the screen of the window. Tiny moths are fluttering, desperately trying to get in.
All of this "Way of the Rose" stuff seems like far too much to absorb. I ask myself, how can I possibly explain all of this?
I decide that I won't even try. I close my eyes and try to imagine the next chapter of Filomena’s story.
No comments:
Post a Comment