🌿 The Lineage and Foundations of the Journey
Reclaiming Her Voice: A Women’s Pilgrimage to Southern France
This pilgrimage grows out of years of study, reflection, and lived experience exploring how women reclaim voice, authority, and spiritual agency within sacred tradition.
It emerges from sustained engagement with scholarship, spiritual practice, and time spent in sacred landscapes — both alone and alongside teachers, writers, and guides whose insights have shaped my own.
Many women arrive here not because they were searching for a pilgrimage, but because something within them has been quietly stirring — a sense of being called.
Called to pause.
Called to listen more deeply.
Called to walk into landscapes that carry memory, meaning, and resonance.
Scholarly & Theological Foundations
Academically and theologically, I stand on the work of scholars who have explored early Christianity, women’s spirituality, and the evolving understanding of Mary Magdalene’s role in history, myth, and faith.
These include Katherine Ludwig Jansen, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jane Schaberg, Karen L. King, Elaine Pagels, Margaret Starbird, Yves Jean Leloup, Marjorie Malvern, Jacobus de Voragine, and many others whose work continues to expand the conversation.
Archetypal & Depth-Psychological Influences
My thinking has also been deeply informed by archetypal and depth-psychological traditions, drawing on voices such as Carl Jung, James Hillman, Marie-Louise von Franz, Anne Baring, Marija Gimbutas, and Lionel Corbett.
Their work has shaped how I understand symbol, psyche, myth, and the sacred feminine — not as abstract concepts, but as living realities that continue to move through individual lives and collective consciousness.
Experiential Learning & Pilgrimage
Equally formative has been experiential learning through pilgrimage itself. Walking the land, listening, reflecting, and engaging sacred sites has profoundly shaped my understanding of place, presence, and devotion.
I am especially grateful for teachers and guides who have held these experiences with depth and integrity, including Nancy Qualls-Corbett, who led the first women’s pilgrimage to France in which I participated in the early 2000s.
I also honor the trail-blazing work of Kathleen McGowan, whose lifelong dedication to researching, writing, and illuminating Mary Magdalene’s story — and the many spiritual streams that have carried her legacy forward — has brought this lineage into wider awareness. Through her work and pilgrimages, many have been introduced to Magdalene traditions, sacred sites in France, and the enduring spiritual legacy of Mary Magdalene.
This pilgrimage is further enriched by my collaboration with Véronique Flayol, whose lifelong immersion in the Magdalene traditions and the land of Provence carries a living lineage and local wisdom — shaped by devotion, stewardship, and presence — that cannot be learned from books alone.
My Own Path
On a personal level, my relationship with Mary Magdalene began long before my academic work. From a young age, I felt drawn to her story and never accepted the false narrative that cast her as shameful or fallen. Even as a child, something in me recognized her dignity, courage, and spiritual authority.
Over time, that quiet knowing deepened into study, prayer, and lived inquiry — eventually leading me, after years of feeling persistently and unmistakably called, to center my doctoral dissertation on Mary Magdalene.
That work became not only an academic undertaking, but a form of devotion: an effort to engage her story with rigor, humility, and reverence for both scholarship and lived faith.
I understand this work not as ownership, but as relationship — one that continues to unfold.
This pilgrimage is offered with respect for those who came before, gratitude for the paths they opened, and a commitment to integrity, humility, and continued listening.
If this work calls to you as well, Véronique and I would be honored to walk this journey with you.
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