The Secret Lineage of Mary (and Maybe You Too)

Was Mary a Priestess? A Reflection on Lineage, the Sacred Feminine, and Remembering

Recently, I read The Secret Life of Mother Mary by Marguerite Mary Rigoglioso, after a friend recommended it — and something ancient stirred in me.

It was enlightening, eye-opening… and strangely familiar.

Like many women walking the path of the sacred feminine, I had assumed Mother Mary was a symbolic continuation of older goddesses — Isis, Inanna, Sophia. I thought perhaps she wasn’t a woman at all, but an archetype of the Great Mother, reimagined for a patriarchal age.

But The Secret Life of Mother Mary opened a deeper possibility:
What if she was both?

According to Rigoglioso’s research, Mary may have been a real woman, and more than that — a trained priestess. The early gospels, before they were edited and reshaped, hint that she came from a lineage of sacred women. She wasn’t merely chosen — she was prepared.

One revelation that stopped me in my tracks: the name Mary (or Meri) comes from an ancient Egyptian term meaning priestess. And the word virgin, long misinterpreted, originally meant “spiritually whole, sovereign, and devoted to the Great Mother.”

This changes everything.

Now, whenever I meet a Mary, Maria, Maryam, or even a Marilyn, I feel a flicker of recognition.
Could she remember too? Could she carry a seed of that ancient lineage?

But then again… don’t we all?

Most of us have a Mary in our family line. A grandmother, an aunt, a cousin. Perhaps they didn’t wear robes or walk temple halls — but maybe they stirred spells into soups, prayed with their hands, or passed down intuitive knowing in silence.

The priestess line never vanished. It just went underground. And maybe it’s rising now — through us.

Remembering Through Sacred Adornment

If you’ve felt this too — a remembering, a deep soul longing — perhaps your body is ready to wear what your lineage once carried.

My Holy Vulva Earrings are crafted as ritual adornment to honour the sacred feminine in all her expressions. They are an invitation to reclaim your priestess lineage — in beauty, in boldness, in remembrance.

✨ Shop the Collection
✨ Or Make your own at a Holy Vulva Earring Workshop — a sacred space to create, remember, and reclaim.

May you walk the path of the priestess in whatever form it takes.
And may your sacred yes echo through time.