Interview with Perfectly Provence
Can you tell us a bit about where you lived in France for 4 1/2 years?
Raylene Abbott
I lived outside of Paris in St Cloud a short walk from Pac du St Cloud and then 2 1/2 years I lived in Menton, known as the “Pearl of France.”
Do you speak French?
I can not say I mastered the French language but I got by with the French I learned.
When you arrived in France were you already planning to write a book on the Black Madonna and Magdalene?
No I was not planning of writing a book on the Black Madonna. My story began as trail guide in Mt Shasta California and at the time many French people were coming to the area for vacation. I had just finished writing a book about the Divine Feminine in 2006 and I gave a copy to one of my French friends. He took it back to a publisher in Paris and in a short 3 months, I was signing a contract to have the book publish “ L'émergence de La Femme Divine.” This began my journey.
My interest in Mary Magdalene and the Black Madonnas began in 1992. I was introduced to an alternative story of Mary Magdalene by a friend, Elizabeth Kelley that was researching the Bloodline Legends of Mary Magdalene and the
Black Madonnas of France. This was a turning point for me of looking at the hersey symbols hidden in the art, architecture and legends of France. I found myself studying the symbols of Sacred Flora of the 12th-15th century dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These older legends were woven from the original threads of the Ancient Goddesses of the Land before Christianity had come to Gaul.
Can you describe the pilgrimage route and where you visited in France?
My pilgrimage experience was a self arising event. It happened when I was traveling to promote my book. I did not follow a traditional route. Before I left for France I found an old copy of Ean Begg book “ The Cult of the Black Madonna” in paperback published 1983 first edition. This book became my bible. I was armed with my trusty yellow highlight marker, in the back of the car, I would mark the places we would be passing in route. I asked my interpreter to stop so I could pray at these sites. When I visited a site I allow myself to have my own direct experience before I researched the sites history. I wanted my mind to have a clean slate to experience what I felt at the shrine. I opened myself up through pray and the reading of what symbols I found hidden in the landscape and the church. It was after my experiences I would research the site and combine my research with my direct experience.
What was the most interesting or remarkable spot?
This a hard question to answer because I had so many experiences. France is so rich in history and hidden symbols in the church. It was a field day for someone like me. What I first like to share is how to approach a Sacred Site because this is very important for one to have a their own experience. Every Sacred Site has its own history and vibration. If you can understand the power of a particular site, then you can begin to understand how to align yourself with the site you are visiting. There is not only the vibration, but also the ley-lines of the lands. It is very important to understand the power of the land that creates a Sacred Site.
One can also become aware of their inner process before you visit a site. I have found with many times that particular issue that needs healing will arise the night before the pilgrimage, Because of this I usually pray or meditate the evening before I go to a shrine. I am very watchful for outer symbols along the way when I approach a site. When you arrive at your destination, take your time to really meditate and pray. Many times I have seen tourists come and go into the cathedrals without ever really sitting down and feeling and seeing what is really before them. It is through silent meditation and prayer that the Sacred will be revealed to you. It is more important to visit one place and have a deep experience of healing than visit a dozen places quickly and only walk away with a few photographs and no understanding of where you have been.
But let me tell you about my experience with the Black Virgin of Penzena. My journey began in the Medieval City of Montpellier where the Black Madonna “Notre Dame des Table” shrine use to be. Her feast day, at the time, was celebrated on January 20th. Our Lady of the Table was one of the many shrines that pilgrims would visit on their way to the great pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Notre Dame des Table was a black wood Madonna that was associated with a series of miracles in 1198. She stood upon a Byzantine style table. She was given the title “The Arm of the City. “ A church was built in 1230 to house her statue, but during the Protestant Reformation she was stolen, never to be recovered. The statue was replaced, only to be destroyed again during the French Revolution.
I had the pleasure to visit her shrine in Montpellier. My deeper experience with “Our Lady of the Table’s Presence” was felt mostly in the land and the food of the South of France. One day during a visit to the Black Virgin of Penzena, in a small village close to Montpellier, I had the following experience. I knelt before the Dark Virgin holding Baby Jesus when poetic inspiration rose out of my prayers to hear the following:
“My breast are the French Alps,
My hair is the grains of wheat that are ground and baked in the finest French Bakeries.
My womb is the Mediterran Sea. My perfume are the lavender fields,
While the vineyards are my blood-lines. The olive groves are my Peace.
My body is the Light that has taken form
In all of Nature.
I am the Blessing of Notre Dame des Table.”
The Black Madonna is such an important icon in this day and age. I like to share some of my reflections of who the Black Madonna is as an archetype;
The fires of human experiences blacken the face of the Black Madonna: birth, death, love, sex, betrayal, joy and pain. She has walked through the lessons of human experiences and realized the essence of herself. She walks through the fire and comes out smiling for she has digested life's lessons fully.
The Black Madonna is a metamorphosis of different ancient goddesses: Isis, Cybele, Persephone, Ceres, Artemis of the Trees, the Mother Earth, Aphrodite, Bona Dea, known as the Good Goddess in Europe, Bridget and Vestia, the keeper of the sacred fires. Many of the Black Virgin sites are actually built on ancient Goddess temples.
Where have these statues come from?
Some of them have been brought back from the East during the time of the Crusades. Other statues have mysteriously been found when a field was plowed, or hidden in the hollow of a
tree, or found in the blackberry brambles. Some statues have arrived in oarless boats, offering themselves freely to the town's people.
Each holy site has its own story and often seems to be connected to the Ley-Lines, holy wells or fresh water springs, great mountains or dark, fertile forests. Saints down through the ages have used these sites to gather power and vision for their work. Joan of Arc of Orleans went to mass daily and prayed before a Black Madonna to gather strength before going into battle. St. Bernard had visions of drinking the milk from a Black Madonna breast. He was also known to be a great mystic, who also understood the secrets of nature.
Black Madonnas have been associated also with the cult of Mary Magdalene. It was she who was the Most Beloved of Christ and applied the balm before his death. She was the first to witness his resurrection.
The Knights Templar were keepers of the Black Madonna. She also has been associated with the Merovingian Kings of ancient France. There are over three hundred Black Madonna sites in France alone.
I have found by going on Sacred Pilgrimages we can find keys of understanding for my own life. These Sacred Sites are like living archetypes. They can bring wisdom, healing and revelation.
Just to confirm, after that you discovered the fact that your Father’s bloodline traced some of the same path.
I had returned from France living back in the states and it was January, 19th 2014. My mother died a few days before my family gathered at my father’s house. My eldest son Joshua brought me a great gift, the ancestral family tree that can be traced back to the Merovingian Kings of France. I had never seen the family tree and had little knowledge of who my ancestors were. But when I saw the lineage, I understood I was looking at the Merovingian Bloodline. When I had lived in France I had visited the Merovingian gravesite and wrote about these same Kings. But what blew me away was that I had followed the Roseline...which is also called the Sangreal or “Royal Blood. The Roseline secrets is encoded into many of the shrine and cathedrals of France. I had profound experiences
at Basilique Royale de Saint-Denis in Paris. Dagobert I, king of the Franks (reigned 628 to 637) had the relics of Saint Denis placed in this cathedral. It became the final resting place for many of the Kings and Queens of France.
The Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés the first cathedral I visited in Paris in the year 2000 is where I had a deep mystical experience and in the same moment a woman bursted out singing Ave Maria in an empty cathedral. I felt in that very moment a deep silence, then an inner voice said “Welcome Home! my daughter” This was the burial place of Clovis I and Childebert I, my Merovingian ancestors. At that time I had no understanding of my families’s lineage, but somewhere in the DNA memory a part of me knew my own ancestors. My path of
living in France led me to the trail of the Black Madonna. King Dagobert I died on Jan 19th the last King of the Merovingian was the same day I received my lineage from my son Joshua.
What is the old Marseille tarot?
The Tarot of Marseille was purposely past down through the Royal Courts of Europe as a card game, and for those who had the eyes to see, could extract this hidden Magdalene heresy, so it would not be forgotten. This heresy was well known in the Courts of the Troubadours in the Province of Languedoc. A coded language was spoken that used multiple puns, double entendre in their songs, poetry and verse. This language was called by different names such as the “Language of the Birds,” the “Green Language,” “langure verte” or “Twilight Language.” Legend says that this language was understood by King Solomon and his dark skin consort the Queen of Sheba. This “pun language” can also be found in the Tarot of Marseille
It is believed that The Tarot of Marseilles was originally created in Northern Italy around 1430-1450, in the village of Ferrarana Bologna which is located within the boundaries of Milan. Tarocchi was the Italian word for Tarot. The original Tarot decks were exquisitely hand painted. The Romanies, also known as the “Wandering Gypsies”, introduced the Tarot to the Royal Courts of Europe, as a card game.
A Swiss clergy man, De Gebelin, from the Courts of Antoine, wrote about the Tarot Marseille. He proffered that the Tarot represented the wisdom mysteries. Other notable
commentaries accurately pointed out that the Tarot symbols were used by the Knight Templars in the Holy Land, in the time of the Crusades, and then were later used in the Marseille Tarot. By comparing similar symbols in the Marseille Tarot with the artwork of wood and stone carvings of the Knight of Templars’ Cathedrals walls, their theories can be validated.
For example, the construction of the famous Norte Dame Cathedral in Paris was build under the guidance and influence of the Templars, starting in 1200, and completed in the year 1225. Some of the same symbols that were used in the sculpting of this cathedral were also used in the Tarot.
Another theory that was proposed was that the Tarot Cards are related to the Gnostic perspectives of both the Knight Templars and the Cathars. The theory further points out that the Tarot was created to hide the heresy of Mary Magdalene.
In the 11th century, for example, many of the Knight Templars lived in the same areas as the Cathars in the South of France. Both shared the Gnostic teachings of Jesus, as well as the perspective that Mary Magdalene was the Beloved of Christ. Over the next century, under the direction of the Church, the Lords of the Land and/or the Kings of the time brutally killed the Gnostics. The fear and terror, generated by these purges, caused the Gnostic teachings, especially those of Mary Magdalene, to go underground.
The Tarot Marseille became popular card game in the Courts of Europe, centuries after the purges of the Knight Templars. Although there are many conflicting stories with regard to the
origin of the Marseille Tarot cards and their symbology, I believe that much of what is represented in the cards serves to convey what is sometimes referred to as the “Magdalene Heresy”... Mary Magdalene’s true relationship to Christ. It was dangerous, during this time when the Tarot was created and even afterwards, to hold these perspectives that were contrary to the teachings of the Church.
We may ask “who placed this heresy in the Tarot’s Major Arcana”? Not all of the Knight Templars were killed during the purges of Philip IV of France.
It is said that some of the Templars resurfaced in Portugal as the Order of Christ. There were also those who traveled to Scotland and were granted sanctuary by Robert the Bruce. Some people believed they sailed to the New World, leaving traces of their presence behind. There are also stories of them traveling east over the Alps, where they resurfaced in the Order of Teutonic Knights that came from Germany and what is now Switzerland. Their banking skills may have been the spear-head of today’s Swiss banks.,
Books I have written:
“A Mystic’s Journey to the Sacred Sites of France”
https://www.amazon.com/Mystics-Journey-Sacred-Sites- France/dp/1499783884/ref=sr_1_1? dchild=1&keywords=Raylene+Abbott&qid=1593447563&sr=8-1
The Hidden Magdalene in The Tarot de Marseille
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Magdalene-Tarot-Marseille- ebook/dp/B07ZN7FJ6X/ref=sr_1_2? dchild=1&keywords=Raylene+Abbott&qid=1593447563&sr=8-2
L'émergence de La Femme Divine
https://www.amazon.fr/Lémergence-Femme-Divine-nouvelle- vision/dp/2858294550
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