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The following essay was written by Margaret Starbird,
and is published here with her permission. I was
fascinated with her observations after several
discussions about them. I asked her to write something
on it that I could post on this site. It is with much
gratitude for her having taken the time to put this
together that I present this here.
-- R. K. Jusino
The Little Mermaid and the
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And what is the condition of young Ariel? She, too, is
besieged. She is chided and teased about her wish to be
human. Her kindly father and the sea witch even
conspire to prevent her from being joined with her
beloved. Her voice is stolen and she is unable to speak
her truth. In a similar way, Magdalene's voice was
"stolen" when she was called prostitute (without any
scriptural justification whatsoever!). Her story was
desecrated, her robes and mantle of honor, like those
of the Bride in the Canticle, were stripped from her by
the "guardians of the walls" (5:7).
An interesting aside is that the Merovingian bloodline,
identified as the "vine of Mary" in the heresy of the
Holy Grail, is said to have had a mermaid as a
progenitoress and to be descended from a king "Merovee"
who was half man, half fish. Mermaids are prominent
among the medieval watermarks related to the heresy of
the bloodline, and some are rendered with the
fleur-de-lis of the Merovingians entwined around
their double tails. The connection of Mary Magdalene
with the mermaid and the "Queen of the Sea" is very
old.
Carl Jung speaks of the condition of the patriarchy at
the end of the age when its energy has been spent and
it is no longer able to uphold the "establishment" it
has built over the millennia. The "masculine" suffers
burnout. Jung calls it the "enantiodromia." At some
point, the feminine rises and returns to lend her
strength and for a period the two are reconciled and
unite to forge a new cultural "thrust" for the next
age. It is time now for the "sacred feminine" to
reemerge to play her role in the waning hours of the
Age of Pisces, for her "prince" can't be whole without
her!
Ave Millennium -- MM!
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Copyright © 1999 -- Margaret Starbird. This essay is
posted here with her permission.
Posted: November 7, 1999
Margaret Starbird is the author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary
Magdalen and the Holy Grail (1993) and The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming
the Sacred Feminine (1998)
Margaret Starbird's e-mail address: starbird@wa.net
Margaret Starbird's webpage: www.MargaretStarbird.net
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What happened to this "Goddess" of the ancient
world--she who was "Queen of Heaven and Earth"? She has
been systematically devalued and made diminutive,
relegated into the watery depths of our unconscious
(like Ariel, the seventh of seven sisters),
controlled and patronized by the "benevolent"
patriarchy (Ariel's father, King Triton, in the Disney
movie). Ariel's face is dark, like that of the Bride in
the Song of Songs (1:5), "swarthy" from her
labor in her brothers' vineyards. And she has long wavy
red hair, a commonly held attribute of Mary Magdalene.
And what is the dream and desire of Ariel, the littlest
mermaid? Why, to walk upon the green earth, out in the
sunlight. It is interesting to note that in the Disney
film, it is not Ariel who needs to be saved, but rather
it is the "handsome Prince" who is in deep trouble,
shipwrecked and dying (the condition of the partriarchy
at the dawn of Aquarius??) it is Ariel who is HIS
redeemer, not the other way around!
In her cave under the ocean, Ariel collects artifacts
from Spanish galleons shipwrecked at sea. She examines
the commonplace items used by humans and wonders what
they are for and what it would be like to be human.
Among her treasures is a painting by Georges de la Tour
called "Magdalen with the Smoking Flame." Mary is
gazing at a candle burning on the table beside her. In
the film, Ariel tries to pluck the flame out of the
picture.
Of all the possible pictures available from art
galleries around the world, it is incredibly
significant that the directors of the Disney® film chose
to place Mary Magdalene at the bottom of the sea, for
it is SHE who represents the lost Bride and the
archetype of the "Sacred Feminine" as partner in
Christian mythology. She also represents the Church as
Bride and was recognized as the model for "ekklesia" by
the early Christian fathers -- the "beloved community"
redeemed by Christ. In this connection, it is almost
uncanny that the little mermaid is called Ariel, for
Ariel is a synonym for Jerusalem, the Holy City
besieged (see Isaiah 29:1-8). Either the use of
these symbols was deliberate on the part of the
directors of the film, or it rose spontaneously from
the depths of their unconscious and was intuited to be
appropriate!
In the film, the little mermaid does not carry a book
and a mirror by accident. These are icons readily
identified in Medieval art. The mirror is not just a
symbol for feminine vanity but represents the role of
the material world (Mater, mother, matter) to manifest
the Divine in "the flesh," as the moon mirrors the sun.
The "Sophia" is called the "immaculate mirror" of
Divine energy. The book represents all natural and
spiritual law -- science and revelation -- and the
Wisdom of seeking to know God's precepts. In Medieval
times the adage "Nothing is without meaning" applied to
every icon in every painting. I would love to ask the
Disney® film director if these icons were used by holy
accident -- or by design.
What is the ultimate desire of the "devalued" Feminine
archetype personified by "Ariel"? Of course, it is to
be reunited with the "Divine Masculine" in sacred
partnership -- not sublimated to his interests as her
savior and mentor, but as his partner, his Beloved and
his equal -- something women are barely able to imagine
after centuries of being the "little sister," one of
the poignant epithets of the Bride in the Song of
Songs! (8:8)
How interesting that the image of the little mermaid,
with the MM's of Mary Magdalene formed at the ends of
her two tails and in her crown, is posted at
streetcorners worldwide in the form of the Starbucks®
logo! She is the "siren" calling to us from our
unconscious, hoping that we will hear her voice! She is
intent on finding her way into our conscious lives as
she rises to join her Beloved!