A friend recently forwarded me an article about the Magi from a pagan angle, written by Erick DuPree (http://wildhunt.org/2017/12/column-we-the-magi.html). I appreciate the idea that these three wise people (could they have been women?) traveled a great distance to affirm the one-ness of different spiritual traditions.
These Magi were not Jewish, but they came to honor the “King of the Jews.” As DuPree puts it, “When the Bible tells that the Magi, upon seeing Jesus, ‘bowed low in homage to him,’ it wasn’t about believing that Jesus’ spiritual tradition was more valuable than theirs, but instead bowing to one another out of mutual respect. It was an Epiphany – a profound, intuitive realization that people from all spiritual paths have gifts to give one another.” And the path can be long and arduous—it can take 12 days of crossing deserts and mountains from who-kn0ws-where to be able to share a gift. All inspired by faith in a star in the sky.
The gifts the Magi gave symbolize regal power (gold), priestly power (frankincense), and the power of death and the after-life (myrrh, used to anoint the dead). Could these be interpreted as practical power, mystical power, and the power of bridging those worlds, as in the border between life and death? What more can we give our children and ourselves but these three things: grounding, soaring, and crossing between states of being with grace?
Perhaps the Magi carry keys to any spiritual path. If we seek those three gifts, to give and to receive, what star must we follow? What journeys must we take?
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