I am beyond happy to announce that my eco-feminist historical fiction reimagining of the gospels from the perspective of Mary Magdalene– The Madonna Secret – has found a home with Inner Traditions. If you know me well, you will remember when in late 2016 I began to allude to the fact that I was working on a “sexy Jesus book.” Finished in late 2019 the book is my epic attempt at the kind of ecological storytelling I write so much about. What does it mean to rewild a myth? What does it mean to give abstract characters back their bodies? Their smells? Their loves and foibles and mistakes? What does it mean to plant them back in their ecosystems? Is it possible to sensually resurrect the daily life and ecological reality of Second Temple Period Jerusalem and Galilee?
The Madonna Secret show us the gospel writer Leukas (Luke) on a perilous journey into the remote wilds of Provence to find Miriam (Mary Magdalene) before she dies in order to receive the true story of the gospel from her own lips. The novel “rewilds” the Christ drama from Mary Magdalene’s point of view. It honors the forgotten voices of the women of first century Palestine – oppressed, defiant, visionary –and, just as important, it honors the forgotten voice of the landscape that inspired the nature-based parables of the wandering Rabbi called Yeshua. The Madonna Secret reframes the conflict of the Magdalene’s identity – holy prostitute or divine vessel of Christ’s child – as a wealthy, autonomous spiritual seeker and mystic in her own right; and offers an explanation for the events of the Gospels that is at once more shocking and far more tragic than the traditional reading of the Christian scriptures. Most important to this story is the “resurrection” of a Jesus with appetites and desires, a sex drive, shame, doubt, and a sense of humor. Here is the wily, impatient rabbi shaman hinted at in the Gnostic Gospels, popularized by Elaine Pagel’s bestselling book.
The three-year process of writing of this book was at once exciting, excruciating, and all consuming. To prepare I read hundreds of books – targums, primary documents, mishnahs, scripture, histories, purity tracts, ancient perfume recipes, accounts of Second Temple Period midwifery practices. And it could be argued that as the child of two religious scholars I’ve been preparing to write this book since I first started interrupting conversations between them and visiting rabbis, monks, gurus, priests, nuns, and theologians. I could not have written this book without the support of my family and my friends. In particular I want to thank early readers Hannah Sparaganah, Marion Albers, and Diana Rowan Rockefeller. I want to send a deep, wild, Galilean rose-scent wave of gratitude The Way of The Rose who read excerpts and cheered on this project from its first conception. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.
I can’t wait to share this book with you.
