Do you crave depth? Community? UNION?? Join us at the Modern Mystics School!
Celtic spirituality, depth psychology, and Mary Magdalene
with Kayleen Asbo
Kayleen Asbo is one of the most interesting conversationalists you’ll ever meet. Weaving threads from her studies in depth psychology, music, mysticism, myth and history, she crafts a warm and beautiful tapestry before your very eyes. Today we’ll talk about:
🔸 Celtic spirituality, and its 5 core practices
🔹 What in our psychology draws us to pilgrimage (to travel in order to find ourselves)
🔸 The best spiritual advice she’s ever received
🔹Her journey to seek the ground of being
🔸 Carl Jung’s connection with the mystical tradition
🔹Why beauty will save the world
🔸What it means to embody Mary Magdalene’s sacred femininity today!
Kayleen will be our first guest speaker at the Women Mystics School! On Feb. 5, she’ll give a masterclass on Mary Magdalene as Mother of the Contemplative Life. We’ll welcome this first Apostle out of the statuary and onto the plush chair, where you’ll get to know her through Kayleen’s decades of research and experience. Learn more at www.womenmystics.org!
And to immerse yourself in Kayleen’s work - music, mysticism, beauty, and more! - visit www.kayleenasbo.com.
Kelly Deutsch
Well, deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch, Hi, everyone. Kelly Deutsch here. And welcome back to the spiritual wanderlust podcast. Today I am joining me, Dr. Kaylene as well. And normally when you meet someone, it's usually pretty easy to tell if they live from their head or heart or gut.
00;01;30;20 - 00;02;02;04
Kelly Deutsch
But our guest today is one of those beautiful people who seamlessly seems to pull from all three. And Dr. Kaylene ASBO, is brilliant on a head level with several advanced degrees in psychology and music and myth and history. She's lectured at Oxford and Sartre, France, in Assisi and Berkeley, and for several operas and symphonies. But perhaps what I love most about Kaylene is how her curiosity and genius is rooted in her passions Like you feel in your own body, how deeply grounded she is and hers.
00;02;02;13 - 00;02;20;08
Kelly Deutsch
So when she speaks, it's not just this intellectual exercise, but a full body of experience. So I'm thrilled to have her on the podcast today to talk about this intersection of mysticism, myth, psychology, history, pilgrimage, and a little about this Mary Magdalene book I hear she's working on. So welcome, Kaylene.
00;02;20;15 - 00;02;23;04
Kayleen Asbo
Thank you so much, Kelly. What a pleasure to be with you.
00;02;23;12 - 00;02;37;19
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, so glad to have you. So you are many things, Kaylene. You are a musician. You're a cultural historian. Your amethyst, you have degrees in depth psychology. You lead pilgrimages. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
00;02;39;09 - 00;02;39;22
Kayleen Asbo
What a great.
00;02;39;22 - 00;02;40;27
Kayleen Asbo
Question. All of the.
00;02;40;27 - 00;03;04;28
Kayleen Asbo
Above. But I think I started off wanting to be a storyteller and a musician. My very first dream was actually that I remember is when I was two and I dreamt that I was crawling towards a piano. And if I didn't get to it, I would die. And from that time on, I began begging my mother for music lessons, which didn't happen for years and years and years later.
00;03;05;26 - 00;03;21;10
Kayleen Asbo
But that was in my heart. And at the same time, the world of stories was such a rich place. And I've come to see that for many years. Those are two of the biggest doorways to the spiritual experience, to the numinous.
00;03;21;17 - 00;03;35;03
Kelly Deutsch
Mm hmm. Yeah, I like that. So out of all the various things that are present in your life right now, it sounds like those are threads that that weave through most of them into either music or story or perhaps some element of both.
00;03;35;09 - 00;03;36;03
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah. Both.
00;03;36;23 - 00;03;37;18
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah.
00;03;38;13 - 00;04;22;10
Kayleen Asbo
No, I actually feel like my path is sort of like the five fingers of the hand. You know, I've been thinking a lot lately about Celtic Christianity and this meeting of these two worlds. And really deep into this study of early Christianity, when it arrived to Wales and Ireland and went to Iona. And, you know, one of the things that I love about the Celtic tradition is that they really sort of felt like it was this five fold path approach in many ways, that the doorways to the numinous included a study of history in many cases, you know, Christian history, but also there was a doorway that was poetry and some poetry.
00;04;22;16 - 00;04;58;00
Kayleen Asbo
And then there was the doorway that turned into art with the illuminated manuscripts. And then music was so important in that contemplative tradition, as was nature. And they all met together, if you will, in the palm of the hand with silence and friendship. Hmm. And I think of that as being a wonderful model for a contemplative life to engage in those depths that can yes, you can do the study in the library and reading the texts and copying the texts.
00;04;58;10 - 00;05;14;26
Kayleen Asbo
But ultimately, you know, that's if you just use that, that's just one finger. But if you do all of these other pathways that they meet together in this deeply, profoundly transformative experience, that resonates in your whole being.
00;05;15;05 - 00;05;38;01
Kelly Deutsch
Yes, that's beautiful. And I love I think the closer you get to the center, the more you begin to see how all those spokes meet in the center. I remember I had my first kind of I don't know what I would call it, maybe intellectual ecstasy of sorts. When I was in college and I studied humanities. And so for the first time, I was studying periods of time where, you know, let's say in the Middle Ages, we would study.
00;05;38;01 - 00;05;50;07
Kelly Deutsch
It's like history, it's art, it's literature, it's politics, it's philosophy. And I was like, oh, my gosh, truth really is one. You know, I just like seeing how it all fit together. Like, Oh, yeah, I had that before.
00;05;50;07 - 00;06;17;04
Kayleen Asbo
So absolutely you know, I think it's, it's actually only sort of in our rationalist age that we've separated and cut things apart so much. And some of my favorite favorite beings were those who wove them all together. You know, I think especially of Hildegard of being and I know you're probably going to have a program on her later to come up but, you know, she was the Renaissance woman before there was a Renaissance hundreds of years before.
00;06;17;04 - 00;06;51;27
Kayleen Asbo
And it's fascinating to note that, you know, people tend to segment her. They know her medical work or they know her theology or they know her music. But she was all of that in the context of a contemplative life. She was a fearless leader, a social activist, one of the first composers that we know. And also, if you're not familiar with her illuminated manuscripts, they'll blow you away because she was painting things that, you know, were a prelude to Leonardo DA, which is Vitruvian Man.
00;06;52;03 - 00;07;09;11
Kayleen Asbo
She was doing mandalas that look like they come from Tibet. I mean, it's just mind blowing. But they were all part of this rhythm of living and breathing, a contemplative life that flowered in many, many aspects. Not just one.
00;07;09;26 - 00;07;20;00
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I love that. And it's I feel like so enriching, you know, for all of us, just when you are able to live in that way, that's not fragmented or segmented, but dismembered.
00;07;20;01 - 00;07;20;13
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah.
00;07;20;17 - 00;07;21;13
Kelly Deutsch
Right. Yeah.
00;07;21;13 - 00;07;45;10
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah. You know, when my favorite things I like to say is that the word religion comes from the word rela gari, which means to read ligament to put things back together again. And so that place where we can be our whole being, where we can bring all of our self to, I think that that's a place of homecoming that we all longed for in the depth of our being.
00;07;45;27 - 00;08;18;29
Kayleen Asbo
And my experience is that when you enter into that place where you allow, for example, the wonder of science and the cosmos to a light your imagination as an artist or as a poet, there there is this profound integration, this return to wholeness that really is not just enlivening and transformative, but it connects you with with the rest of the world in a way that is so deeply healing.
00;08;19;09 - 00;08;25;10
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes, I, I had a spiritual director who used to always tell me holiness His Holiness Kelly.
00;08;25;21 - 00;08;26;23
Kayleen Asbo
Yes. Yes.
00;08;27;05 - 00;08;27;23
Kayleen Asbo
And I think.
00;08;27;25 - 00;08;46;13
Kayleen Asbo
You know, one of my favorite places to go in the world is Charlotte Cathedral. And so I, I've been there, I think, 12 times as a pilgrim and led LED workshops there. And one of the things I was fascinated to know about, you know, in the medieval times before there were universities, you would go to a cathedral school.
00;08;47;05 - 00;09;11;15
Kayleen Asbo
And at Shard, they thought that there were seven rungs on a ladder before you could really talk about God as God. You had to be able to see the numinous and the sacred in language, in poetry, in music, in astronomy and geometry. And when you could see that divine pattern all around you, in these different places, then were ready.
00;09;11;15 - 00;09;34;09
Kayleen Asbo
Then you were ready to start talking about theology. But not before. Not before you could see the wonder of the patterns that are all around us. But but most of us, you know, have our eyes closed. So that to me is what gets gets really exciting is when you can see that I love Parker Palmer's phrase in wholeness.
00;09;34;15 - 00;09;57;17
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes. I love that. Hmm. There's so many directions that I want to go. I want to, like, pull on the Celtic string and I want to pull on some more of, like. Yeah. Just the Middle Ages I think are completely fascinating. Let's, let's start with a little bit of the Celtic, because I feel like that's something that people are really hungry to learn about.
00;09;57;17 - 00;10;08;19
Kelly Deutsch
Because they've discovered that, oh my gosh, there's other forms of well, often other forms of Christianity is where a lot of people that I'm running into are like, Oh gosh, it doesn't have to be this way like that.
00;10;08;19 - 00;10;09;12
Kayleen Asbo
Yes.
00;10;09;13 - 00;10;31;25
Kelly Deutsch
I'm curious, a, how you discovered the world, this like Celtic world, and B how you would describe the heart of it, like those who are unfamiliar with it because it is kind of shrouded in mystery. And you might hear terms like, you know, thin places or on Omkara or things like that, but now if you're unfamiliar with it, it's kind of like, okay, but what else is it besides that?
00;10;31;25 - 00;10;33;22
Kelly Deutsch
So your story. Yeah.
00;10;33;25 - 00;10;58;02
Kayleen Asbo
Okay. So it is it's such a huge juicy topic. I mean, it's just so wonderful. And, you know, you use the word threads before and that's something that like I feel like I'm following a thread as I I look at this and, and the Celtic perspective, the Celtic, the nurturing of that mindset is underneath the ground of so much of what I love.
00;10;58;27 - 00;11;22;01
Kayleen Asbo
So for example, just as a great example, you know, and Hildegard Opinions Monastery, which was in the Rhineland underneath the foundations of the Benedictine monastery for hundreds of years before, had been a monastery established by a wandering Celtic monk, one of them not so, so that you find it's like hidden there under so many of the things that I love.
00;11;22;10 - 00;11;34;07
Kayleen Asbo
And some of the great teachers at Heart Cathedral actually were monks who came from the Celtic Islands. So one of the things that I love about it, this is goes back to John Scott, as I.
00;11;34;07 - 00;11;36;16
Kayleen Asbo
Can never see his name the way I want him. Eric.
00;11;37;29 - 00;11;38;08
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;11;38;21 - 00;11;44;26
Kayleen Asbo
But one of the things that he said is that there's a big book and a little book that you should read from every day. The little book is the Bible.
00;11;45;13 - 00;11;46;09
Kayleen Asbo
The big book.
00;11;46;21 - 00;12;22;21
Kayleen Asbo
Is Creation in Nature. And I love that, that we have both of those in the Celtic tradition. There is a sense not on original sin, but that this seed of what is good best, what is most human is actually the spark the divine spark of original goodness. And I would characterize the philosophy at its heart as saying that we have kind of fallen into asleep of forgetfulness and that we need to rouse ourselves from this sleep of forgetfulness through practices.
00;12;22;21 - 00;12;52;07
Kayleen Asbo
And those are like the practices of those five fingers of the hand, you know. And and it was a deeply contemplative and personal pathway that was profoundly empowering of women, that women and men were side by side. There were many of these double monasteries and many of these double monasteries. The women the women were the abysses, and the men were there on them, car or spirit, friends or partners.
00;12;52;18 - 00;13;22;09
Kayleen Asbo
But there unlike many forms of Christianity in which women are subjugated. This was really a partnership, a pairing that was so beautiful and that welcomed in the imagination with a kind of wild abandon. And and so for them, you know, this idea of picking up a harp and very often they would play them with a swan feather. And that would be how they.
00;13;22;12 - 00;13;26;13
Kayleen Asbo
I would just think about that just as an image playing heart with a swan.
00;13;26;13 - 00;13;29;27
Kelly Deutsch
Feather. I mean, I didn't write some drama.
00;13;30;02 - 00;13;31;28
Kelly Deutsch
I mean. Yeah.
00;13;31;28 - 00;14;05;19
Kayleen Asbo
And singing then and having the art be this doorway, you know, all of those incredible things like The Book of Kells, they really felt like Image was another doorway into sacred beholding and that the practice of art was a spiritual pathway, not a trivial pathway, but a deep and profound and numinous spiritual pathway. And unlike many other forms of Christianity, that have evolved, it was a deeply embodied spirituality.
00;14;05;20 - 00;14;37;27
Kayleen Asbo
So initially, you know, the churches were outdoors, you know, they were around the sacred oak grove. So they were in connection with nature. And the the communities that formed in these early Christian communities like in Kildare around St. Saint Bridget, for example, the Abbey was in the center and it had the bells. But then surrounding that were the part of the village that had the musicians and the artists and the scribes.
00;14;38;03 - 00;15;03;20
Kayleen Asbo
And then surrounding that where the blacksmiths and the seamstresses and the metal workers and the surrounding that were the farmlands. And it was a mandala, if you imagine, with the abbey at the center. And so rather than it being a priest model, it was a model of teaching. So there would be the wise teachers, men and women that would draw together people in contemplative practice.
00;15;04;08 - 00;15;31;28
Kayleen Asbo
And one of those contemplative pieces of practice was to go walking on pilgrimage and to go to these holy sites where holy hermits like Saint Brendan had lived and to go deep into the cave. I love the phrase The Cave of your heart through silence and song and be connected to nature, not necessarily in a building, but in a cave in a grove.
00;15;32;12 - 00;15;55;02
Kayleen Asbo
And that thread, you know, we see that come again alive in the Middle Ages with Saint Francis. That's exactly what he would do. He would go off for his silent contemplation into the caves in the mountains behind Assisi or into living, and he would go into the cave of his heart. We had these stories that he would take up sticks and he would pretend he would mind playing the violin.
00;15;55;02 - 00;15;57;22
Kayleen Asbo
And he would sing and people would be drawn by his.
00;15;57;22 - 00;16;23;08
Kayleen Asbo
Song. And then he would tell a story and and that was the prelude to opening the heart. And so I think that the the Celts were masters at this. And if you look then at lives that mirror this Celtic pattern, you see this profound friendship between men and women in which nature and poetry and music and art are all deeply embraced.
00;16;23;26 - 00;16;47;07
Kayleen Asbo
And that for me is like that is the thread. And I trace that, you know, I got so excited about the Celtic role when I was first introduced to it. Certainly the works of some of the great writers like John O'Donohue and John Philip Newell are great places to start. And and then it was the actual act of going on pilgrimage.
00;16;47;07 - 00;17;16;03
Kayleen Asbo
Myself and behold, I followed that thread and I found out that those Celtic monasteries had these deep roots with southern France. And I found out that, for example, St Patrick, many people think of as the founder of Christianity in Ireland, well, he had become a monk in the southern part of France in Gaul, on an island where they would walk on pilgrimage to the Cave of Mary Magdalene singing.
00;17;17;14 - 00;17;30;29
Kayleen Asbo
And so there's this kinship, I'll say that a fellowship, a kinship of these mystics that at their heart go into this cave of the heart to practice rather than belief, you know?
00;17;30;29 - 00;17;31;27
Kelly Deutsch
Mm hmm.
00;17;32;13 - 00;18;08;04
Kayleen Asbo
And I think that's something that speaks to our time, you know, the spiritual wanderlust. You know, I think in my experience, there's been a lot of people who've been wounded or hurt or deeply alienated by religious structures. And sometimes the ideas or the dogmas are can be very alienating. And it's so interesting that that's similar to what was happening in the earliest part of Christianity as it went from from Egypt with the desert fathers and mothers in southern France.
00;18;08;04 - 00;18;24;01
Kayleen Asbo
And then it migrated to the Celtic realms where it was it is in this these practices that we share together, these embodied experiences that we share together, where the doors of our hearts open and we can.
00;18;24;01 - 00;18;47;29
Kelly Deutsch
Meet with joy. Yeah. Do you think so? This idea of spiritual wanderlust connotes like a almost like an existential restlessness, you know, like you're struggling with this mystery that you can't quite name and, you know, modern person might go eat, pray, love or, you know, something like searching for themselves, right? Mm hmm. Do you think that's what ancient people like?
00;18;47;29 - 00;18;56;07
Kelly Deutsch
What's spurred ancient people to take these pilgrimages, or what do you think, let's say, at least in the Celtic imagination, what spurred them on these pilgrimages?
00;18;57;08 - 00;19;30;27
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah, I think there were a couple things. One of them was just this sense of wanting to draw closer to people who in their imagination, where their guide to a heart centered life. And there, I mean, I will say, I, I, I have had some of the deepest experience of my own life going on pilgrimage to learn things that there are things that you can feel and that you sense in that you see that you can never read in a book however close to you want to be.
00;19;30;27 - 00;20;03;17
Kayleen Asbo
There's, there is something about that that is, that is profound and can be utterly transformative. But I think it was also this idea to speak and switch to psychological language right now. Part of the idea of going on a pilgrimage is to leave behind. There's always this threshold moment where you're leaving things behind and you're letting go of your attachment to your fixed schedule, to your fixed ideas, to the fact I'm always going to have my latte at eight 30 in the morning and it's going to have oat milk.
00;20;03;17 - 00;20;31;24
Kayleen Asbo
And, you know, all these things that we become attached to that it is the letting go and shedding of all of these things to wander into the unknown territory. And and so much of my experience is these very deeply profound places are in nature, somewhere where you're closer to the wild, where you can hear that still small voice whispering in the wind and feel it, you know, in your heart.
00;20;32;11 - 00;20;47;03
Kayleen Asbo
And so I think part of the psychological practice of pilgrimage that they were quite astute about is let's leave behind the world. And with all of its noise and all of its chatter and let's get ourselves out of our habits.
00;20;47;24 - 00;20;47;29
Kelly Deutsch
To.
00;20;47;29 - 00;21;19;03
Kayleen Asbo
Sit in a place of radical simplicity, you know, the experience of being a pilgrim was often this liminal space. It had its dangers. Absolutely. You know, but it was also like this idea of stripping things down to what is the essence? What is the essence of who I am? Where can I meet God in that essence without all the trappings without all of the habits of mind, without all the.
00;21;19;03 - 00;21;43;06
Kelly Deutsch
Noise? Yeah. I feel like it's almost inviting in a in a conscious way. Though, like, traditionally, things like ego death come through crisis, you know, where something big or tragic happens. And the difficulty in life and I feel like going on pilgrimage is almost consciously choosing some degree of that, where you're taking yourself completely out of your comfort zone.
00;21;43;06 - 00;21;53;09
Kelly Deutsch
You start asking like, well, well, who am I now? Is God, you know, like, what does this all mean? And, you know, those questions that Francis would ask, you know, like, who am I God and who are you?
00;21;53;23 - 00;22;08;15
Kayleen Asbo
And that's right. That's right. And and there is something in that to be able to be a hold the world with that kind of newness and freshness, you know, makes you see things more in the eyes of a child again.
00;22;08;25 - 00;22;09;11
Kelly Deutsch
You know.
00;22;09;11 - 00;22;25;04
Kayleen Asbo
So we don't have it easier to let go of our judgments sometimes when we enter into that space. And to take that on intentionally can accelerate a lot of internal development.
00;22;25;09 - 00;22;28;10
Kelly Deutsch
Mm hmm. What was the first pilgrimage you went on?
00;22;29;22 - 00;22;53;03
Kayleen Asbo
The first conscious pilgrimage that I went on was to Sharp Cathedral It was it was a double pilgrimage, actually. It was one of those serendipitous experiences where that I had gotten like some special miles that somebody had given me, but I could only use them at this one particular time. So I was going to go to a workshop, a labyrinth workshop at at Grace Cathedral, where we were from.
00;22;53;06 - 00;23;22;13
Kayleen Asbo
So at started Cathedral, taught by the Canon pastor of Grace Cathedral, Dawn actress who who really revived the modern labyrinth movement. And but beforehand, there had just been I could I could only get there a few days earlier and had tiny little budget, you know, like no money to stay in hotels in Paris. And she suggested to me, because I had told her about this really deep experience I had had and something called Tacey, which she might be familiar with.
00;23;22;26 - 00;23;48;12
Kayleen Asbo
It's a contemplative form of prayer, which is really just singing. I mean, that there's a it's almost a western mirror of the idea of kirtan, of chanting mantras that you chanting words from the psalms or simple phrases like drama, stay. And I have this profound experience where I started crying so hard when I sang this one song. And she said, Well, why.
00;23;48;12 - 00;23;50;28
Kayleen Asbo
Don't you go to Daisy, find out what that's about.
00;23;52;13 - 00;24;13;04
Kayleen Asbo
So I did And I it was it was mind blowing my three days at Daisy. And before I even got there, I got the best spiritual advice of my life. I was sitting at a bus stop waiting because to get there is hard. You have to take the train from Paris, and then you have to wait for the bus to come.
00;24;13;04 - 00;24;16;19
Kayleen Asbo
And then you take the bus. And, you know, it's a journey. It's an arduous journey.
00;24;16;19 - 00;24;20;05
Kayleen Asbo
It's not walking to Santiago de Compostela, but it takes a while.
00;24;20;25 - 00;24;40;05
Kayleen Asbo
And I was there waiting for the bus. With this nun from Africa. And she said to me she was going to Cluny to this day. And she said, She's in her French. She said her elegant French. She said, Why are you here? And am I very broken child French? I said, I don't know. But every time I hear ubiquitous, I cry.
00;24;40;14 - 00;24;42;07
Kayleen Asbo
And so I'm going to Daisy.
00;24;42;20 - 00;25;11;26
Kayleen Asbo
And she said, I yes, yes. And then she explained to me, in France, they have a phrase like, If you cry in response to you, you're a Madeleine. And she said, You must always follow your tears because they will. Tears are holy. They are a gift when you cry in response to an experience that touches you in your job, that is your royal road to God.
00;25;12;19 - 00;25;14;13
Kelly Deutsch
Wow. That's beautiful.
00;25;15;13 - 00;25;34;06
Kayleen Asbo
And I found that to be the best advice I had ever received. You know, I think we I hope I hope all your listeners have had that experience work. You don't know why you hear a song. You see something, a child speaks to you and you go, I don't know why I have a lump in my throat, ray of tears in my eyes.
00;25;34;06 - 00;25;55;12
Kayleen Asbo
And what I had goosebumps, you know, and that embodiment. And this gets us back to the Celtic stream you know, they believed that the body was a way of speaking to us, you know, and that we could listen to that. We have to discern, you know, the difference between the soul's longing and cravings. Those are two different things.
00;25;55;29 - 00;26;17;24
Kayleen Asbo
But that pull, that tug on our heart when we feel our heart like ready to burst. There is something there that speaks to us about our journey, about our next steps and if we follow that, we come closer to that, that inquiry. Who am I and who are you? Who is now?
00;26;17;28 - 00;26;39;09
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes, I love that that's that's often what Well, I'll just say that's one thing that I love about many of the writings of the mystics is how they speak of prayer as desire, you know, of that some longing and the Holy Yes, like in and of itself is is already your prayer. It's not just like, Oh, I longed to be with God.
00;26;39;09 - 00;26;44;05
Kelly Deutsch
Why isn't it like, no, no, that that very longing is already divine presence in you.
00;26;44;10 - 00;26;44;27
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;26;44;27 - 00;26;55;06
Kayleen Asbo
Let me has this great poem called Love the Dogs, you know? And he's like, he's crying out every night. And in some sense, it comes and says, have you ever heard an answer?
00;26;55;06 - 00;27;16;14
Kayleen Asbo
And so he stops, he gets up. And at the end of the poem, it's such a great part. He says, that is exactly what you were saying. That longing is your answer. And then the last lines, as translated by Coleman Barks go something like There are. I felt that that that longing that you feel in your heart is the moan of a dog for its master.
00;27;17;04 - 00;27;24;07
Kayleen Asbo
There are thousands of dogs who give their lives to that song. Give your life to be one of them.
00;27;24;25 - 00;27;27;19
Kelly Deutsch
Wow. Because he just goes.
00;27;28;04 - 00;27;28;19
Kelly Deutsch
Wow.
00;27;29;28 - 00;27;30;20
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;27;30;21 - 00;27;53;17
Kayleen Asbo
And that's what I find the contemplative, you know, the first lines of the rule of Saint Benedict are, listen, my child with the ear of your heart. And if you were to ask me to define, you know, what is mysticism, I would say it is this centuries long quest to learn to listen with the ear of the heart, see the world with the eyes of the heart.
00;27;53;27 - 00;28;18;24
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah. It's it's amazing the reawakening that's happening around. I'll say especially around the Christian mystical tradition, because I feel like, you know, for several decades, at least, the West has suddenly discovered the East River, like, oh, wonderful. Like, Buddhist, you know, practices and traditions and such. But it's kind of fun to see people discovering, like, oh, wait, we have this to go.
00;28;19;03 - 00;28;23;11
Kayleen Asbo
Wow. That's a great revelation. That is absolutely great revelation.
00;28;23;11 - 00;28;56;18
Kayleen Asbo
When I introduce people to the Gospel of Mary or the Gospel of Thomas, they are blown away because, like I thought I had to go to Buddhism to have this kind of material. And, you know, when you encounter the saying some of the sayings that the desert fathers and mothers of Egypt, it so much of that is, you know, we find these parallel threads and I'm doing a lot of work right now where I'm talking to people who have been deeply immersed in Buddhist traditions for decades and decades and decades.
00;28;56;29 - 00;29;26;13
Kayleen Asbo
And, you know, they have this shared dialog of looking at the Buddhist tradition and the teachings of non-attachment, for example. And then you look at the Gospel of Mary, where the first saying is really about attachment to matter. It gives rise to a passion against nature. That's the first thing in the end, you compare that to the Buddhist noble truth of and look at those things and it's, wow, the parallels are amazing.
00;29;26;22 - 00;29;27;12
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;29;27;18 - 00;29;39;19
Kayleen Asbo
Not nearly as far apart as often people thought. And so many of the mystics, you know, they have they've they've acknowledged that, you know, they've come to that Thomas Merton, for example, you know.
00;29;39;19 - 00;29;40;02
Kelly Deutsch
Who.
00;29;40;21 - 00;29;54;28
Kayleen Asbo
Did a deep dove into Buddhism as a Benedictine monk or meet Griffith who went off to India and founded this ashram. But he was still a Benedictine monk, you know, and I'm fascinated by that, that meeting point.
00;29;55;02 - 00;30;07;16
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes. It's the overlap there. I've often heard it said that a two mystics from different religions have far more in common than a mystic and a fundamentalist of the same religion. Absolutely found that to be true.
00;30;07;26 - 00;30;09;12
Kelly Deutsch
So the percent of the time.
00;30;10;08 - 00;30;11;03
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah, that's right.
00;30;11;14 - 00;30;15;25
Kayleen Asbo
That's right. The mystics often get burned as heretics by people of their own religion.
00;30;16;08 - 00;30;17;10
Kayleen Asbo
Unfortunately.
00;30;17;10 - 00;30;18;17
Kelly Deutsch
But yeah, it's.
00;30;18;22 - 00;30;20;06
Kayleen Asbo
Whether it's Christianity.
00;30;20;06 - 00;30;24;03
Kayleen Asbo
Or, you know, in the East, too, you know, they were there. They have their own examples.
00;30;24;07 - 00;30;35;02
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm curious how you first stumbled upon this contemplative path. Like was it prior to, you know, the pilgrimage in the TSA or where did that come about?
00;30;35;03 - 00;30;45;29
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah, well, you know, I think I've always had this yearning to find what was the deepest ground of being my parents, not.
00;30;46;17 - 00;30;46;23
Kelly Deutsch
In.
00;30;46;25 - 00;31;13;10
Kayleen Asbo
College as the only two non-Mormons in a class on contemplative religion. And they were about as far apart as you could possibly get. And so their marriage, not surprisingly, did not last. But I grew up with this very strange life where, you know, for a while my mother was a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher, and then she got remarried to a Catholic.
00;31;13;21 - 00;31;37;06
Kayleen Asbo
And then they they couldn't go to the Catholic Church because she was divorced. And and they were told that she was not welcome that way. And so then they went to a Baptist church. But my father was on this other gypsy path. He was this bohemian artist. And like my bedtime reading were these tales that were the tales of the incomparable Mullah Nasreddin, which is a Sufi stories.
00;31;37;15 - 00;31;49;17
Kayleen Asbo
So seven years old. And he was reading these Sufi stories during the summer. And then I'd go back to Sunday School with my mom. And so, you know, and and one of the times where he came to visit me, I was only about eight.
00;31;49;18 - 00;31;50;14
Kelly Deutsch
And.
00;31;51;04 - 00;31;59;08
Kayleen Asbo
He pulled out the Bible. He's like, Okay, let's tackle Genesis. And he took the first verse. We kind of did an exegesis on it. Yeah. And it was just an old.
00;32;00;03 - 00;32;02;04
Kayleen Asbo
And so he gave.
00;32;02;04 - 00;32;14;07
Kayleen Asbo
Me this smattering of things that was Eastern religion and George Orwell and, you know, like this, like this wild cornucopia. And here I am as a child trying to make sense of that.
00;32;14;07 - 00;32;42;25
Kayleen Asbo
And then going back into a much more contained environment where I was very prescribed. And I think, you know, at the heart of that, then what that planted inside of me is how can I develop language or can I find an experience that is big enough to hold it all because of my own family? I had people from so many different religious pathways, and my friends, so many of my friends were Jewish.
00;32;43;07 - 00;32;54;13
Kayleen Asbo
And then you know, I had this wonderful high school teacher who was a mystic who introduced me to Carl Jung and and the Vedanta Temple. And I would go and chant Vespers with nuns.
00;32;54;13 - 00;32;54;29
Kelly Deutsch
There.
00;32;56;01 - 00;33;27;10
Kayleen Asbo
And I would find these little glimmers of peace or tranquility or warmth in the heart in these different places. And it felt to me, you know, like as a musician, like when you recognize a particular kind of note. So it's like, oh, there they are, all touching on that same note in different ways. They're themes and variations. And that became my quest is to find what is what is the bigness behind it.
00;33;27;29 - 00;33;50;28
Kayleen Asbo
And then, as I say, with music, like I still to this day, some of the biggest, most the biggest I would call them religious experience is mystical. Experience for me has come from the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. And for me, that you know, like, I even started something I called Buck Church for a couple of years because I feel like that that's it.
00;33;51;16 - 00;33;52;23
Kayleen Asbo
Like, for me, that's the.
00;33;52;23 - 00;33;57;23
Kayleen Asbo
Door And he points to that through his music in a profound way.
00;33;58;26 - 00;34;00;12
Kayleen Asbo
You know, sometimes people.
00;34;00;12 - 00;34;02;19
Kayleen Asbo
Have referred to him as the fifth evangelist.
00;34;03;24 - 00;34;04;15
Kelly Deutsch
That's wonderful.
00;34;05;10 - 00;34;20;05
Kayleen Asbo
So so that was that's kind of the root of that quest is like what what is that thread that goes through everything? I tasted moments that felt like deep wisdom in these different traditions.
00;34;20;09 - 00;34;21;00
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;34;21;20 - 00;34;39;06
Kayleen Asbo
And so that kind of led me to it. And then then my first retreat, that was a Benedictine style retreat, a three day retreat that wove together chant and silence that just like the the it's not like the door blew off. It's like Dorothy in Oz where the.
00;34;39;06 - 00;34;41;17
Kayleen Asbo
House got picked up and moved to a different.
00;34;41;17 - 00;34;42;07
Kayleen Asbo
Location.
00;34;42;13 - 00;34;44;23
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.
00;34;47;25 - 00;34;48;03
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm.
00;34;50;11 - 00;35;18;23
Kelly Deutsch
I'm curious to how in all of these elements and all of these threads that have been brought up from music and the spirituality and history, the Celtic, I'm curious where so you say that your teacher in high school introduced you to Carl Jung, and I'm, I'm intrigued. You know, you see a lot of people who are interested in human psychology also end up interested in kind of the world of mysticism.
00;35;19;02 - 00;35;22;01
Kelly Deutsch
I'm curious if that was the case for you and why that might be.
00;35;23;22 - 00;36;04;20
Kayleen Asbo
I think the kind of psychology that I'm drawn to is very much the depth psychology. And I did a really deep dove with Carl Jung, like my Ph.D. in mythological studies with an emphasis on depth psychology at Pacific University Graduate School. And for me, they they are very much parallel pathways that that Jung actually became fascinated in the midpoint of his life when he discovered the early Christians that were in Egypt and ones that have gotten this name that I think is a kind of erroneous name.
00;36;04;20 - 00;36;26;13
Kayleen Asbo
But Gnostic but what what it really points to is that he was looking at these people who are grappling with this question of who am I in the depths and how do I find my sense of alignment with the numinous and. And he said, you know, those those Christians in the early fourth century, those were the world's first psychologists.
00;36;27;06 - 00;36;53;17
Kayleen Asbo
What they were doing with their practices, what they were doing was very close to what he had developed as active imagination. And a process of dialoging. And we see this in Hildegard work, you know, in the in the 12th century as well. She had developed a process of working where she dialogs with virtue and vice. And she actually created a whole proto opera called Already Fair to Tom.
00;36;53;24 - 00;37;28;18
Kayleen Asbo
Well, that is so similar to what Carl Jung was doing in the Red Book, his great masterwork that was just published a few years ago. That was the basis for all of his psychological theories. And so I think, you know, I think it's very easy to say that Jung was a mystic, was a mystic. Who then managed to translate his mystical experiences into a more scientific language of psychology because he had also had a background as a doctor, you know, at psychology.
00;37;29;05 - 00;37;48;14
Kayleen Asbo
But this is why he had this great falling out with Freud, the had started off as friends and colleagues, and then they became almost bitter enemies because they had this parting of the ways where Jung is like, you know, in the depths of the human being, is this collective unconscious that is numinous, and Freud would have none of that.
00;37;49;05 - 00;37;57;28
Kayleen Asbo
He thought that that Carl Jung had gone off the deep end by saying there was a something, a something, you know, in the depths to him.
00;37;58;28 - 00;38;27;05
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah. I love that. I just the whole idea of shadow work, I love that that's becoming much more of a common practice slowing like. Yeah, my favorite is really just using ifs or parts work in that I feel like it's such an easy way in to be able to access all of those parts. You know, essentially like the Hildegard White speaking with your virtues and vices and like what they have to say and to reveal to you.
00;38;27;05 - 00;38;38;12
Kelly Deutsch
And it's just so illuminating. Instead of projecting it out there somewhere on the world or the people that you hate or the current president or, you know, whoever it is that gets up your sleeve. So I just.
00;38;38;22 - 00;39;06;04
Kayleen Asbo
You know, and I think that the mystics of all the traditions have eventually what the mystics that I love. Oh, come to this. You know, John Cassian has done some gorgeous writing around that's in the Philo Collier and then pick Nat Hahn, who just passed, you know, his poem Call Me by My True Names, where he's like recognizing that everything is a part of himself, you know, like that is such important work for us all to do.
00;39;06;05 - 00;39;31;02
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. And I think that's often the missing part of spiritual growth, like when people are really trying to like how do I grow? Is sometimes that like emotional, psychological part that, you know, it's great if you're, you know, working on your meditation practice or whatever spiritual practice that you have. And that's really important. But I feel like your spiritual growth at a certain point starts to get stunted unless your emotional and psychological growth parallels it.
00;39;31;15 - 00;39;49;27
Kayleen Asbo
That's right. And and as when we reach up towards the light, we also like a tree. You know, we have to go deep, deep down in and look at our own shadows in our own darkness. And, you know, I think that it's very common now, that phrase spiritual bypass, you know, oh.
00;39;49;27 - 00;39;53;01
Kayleen Asbo
I want to go and have you know, sit on the mountain of ecstasy and.
00;39;53;10 - 00;39;59;18
Kayleen Asbo
And and yet, you know, none of the great mystical traditions teach us that that's a good way.
00;39;59;18 - 00;40;02;20
Kayleen Asbo
To go. You know, Jesus had to go off.
00;40;02;20 - 00;40;28;28
Kayleen Asbo
In the wilderness. You know, Saint Francis had to go wrestle with his things. You know that the desert fathers and mothers talk about the hardest journey is confronting, you know, oneself and what's inside oneself there. Yeah. And that is just utterly critical, because when we don't do that, then we do start to project onto everybody else. And that's the tragic history, especially of Christianity, is the failure to do that work.
00;40;28;28 - 00;40;45;19
Kayleen Asbo
And then suddenly pointing the fingers, whether it's, you know, the Muslims or other Christians or women with the witch burnings, you know, and that that's where it's just so painful and so tragic and just have to not do it.
00;40;45;22 - 00;40;57;27
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, right. It's like whenever you sense that, like any fear or hatred or, you know, especially when you despise someone, I mean, that's such a loud invitation from our bodies, like.
00;40;58;04 - 00;40;58;17
Kayleen Asbo
Right.
00;40;58;17 - 00;41;13;23
Kelly Deutsch
What's, what's going on yeah. You know, I'm curious, but it's yeah, it's so remarkable how much that I guess it's just much easier to hate something out there than to hate yourself. Yeah, it is.
00;41;13;23 - 00;41;42;07
Kayleen Asbo
And and yet, you know, owning it, you know, I would even say baptizing it, you know, welcoming it back and say where did that come from? You know, following that thread? Where does that aversion come from? That is that reminding me of? And then when you get to that, oh, oh, moment, then it all you know, it shifts it and and you can embrace what you wants and put a part away from you.
00;41;42;07 - 00;42;03;21
Kayleen Asbo
You know, one of the the deepest spiritual books in literature is the personal story. And this is what I went to actually to study with Lauren, our trips on that first pilgrimage and at Church Cathedral. And there's this marvelous moment at the end where Percival is like going and he wants to heal the world and he's got this true heart and everything.
00;42;04;05 - 00;42;29;12
Kayleen Asbo
And he encounters this other night and he starts to fight with them. And then they come to a moment where they say, Let's catch our breath. And the night takes off his mask and he recognizes that it's his long lost half brother who is half black and half white and war. And he sees him and he goes, Oh, wait, you're my brother.
00;42;29;21 - 00;42;52;13
Kayleen Asbo
And they embrace. And at that moment, the Grail Castle appears and they can enter into it. And that's when the healing happens. And I take this and unions have always taken this story as like, that's the wrestling with your shadow. And when you take off the mask and then you say, you actually knew who I thought were my enemy, are actually my long lost kin.
00;42;53;02 - 00;42;59;10
Kayleen Asbo
And I welcome you into my heart that that's the moment where the healing of the world can happen.
00;42;59;23 - 00;43;02;07
Kelly Deutsch
Mm. I love that. Mm.
00;43;02;18 - 00;43;30;28
Kayleen Asbo
I think we are all called to do that individually and collectively. Young after the the atom bomb was dropped, he thought, well, he was asked if humanity, he thought would humanity survive. And he said yes, but only if we all do our inner work. And I think then part of our time is radical realization that, like, wow, it's going to take all of us and it's not going to happen by imposing laws out there.
00;43;30;28 - 00;43;45;26
Kayleen Asbo
Only it it will happen by each of us doing what this does. Fathers in mystics knew of, like, sitting in the cave of our heart and befriending the parts of ourselves that we have cast away.
00;43;46;02 - 00;43;46;22
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;43;46;28 - 00;43;48;19
Kayleen Asbo
Learning to see stranger as Friend.
00;43;48;28 - 00;43;58;09
Kelly Deutsch
I feel like we should do a whole podcast just using like depth psychology to look at the history of religion. That archetypal like.
00;43;58;23 - 00;43;59;02
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah.
00;43;59;13 - 00;44;14;28
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there are some books out there like that. Look at Young and Teresa that I love, for example, and that's a pretty good one. And I did a series of things. I would I'd be delighted to do things with you.
00;44;15;03 - 00;44;47;01
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah. Really, just this topic. Yeah. Interesting crossover, is it? So I just find the world of psychology can just be so illuminating, especially now that there's so much happening with like, neuroscience and pop theory and, you know, all these things that are developing and it just, it just makes things so much clearer. You know, like, I remember one client in spiritual direction that I introduced to AFSC now and here's parts work and here's and she was, she was like, I feel like this was like a wide toothed comb to like the tangle of my inner life.
00;44;47;11 - 00;44;49;16
Kayleen Asbo
You know, great metaphor.
00;44;50;03 - 00;45;14;18
Kelly Deutsch
And that. Yeah, but that's kind of what the world of psychology and neuropsychology has done, at least for me. But it just makes things so much clearer instead of this kind of vague knowing that's more like an unknowing, you know, that you just have a hungry intuition about and makes it very clear so that it's not only your right brain that's like, I think I but your left brain's like, Oh, this is why.
00;45;15;25 - 00;45;50;19
Kayleen Asbo
And bringing this two together is so important, because otherwise we will feel ourselves as divided people, you know, they call it. She has done the studies on the split brain at people who have split brain and, and the ways that they really operate differently. And this is again why I think that the cuts were so brilliant because they found with the brain, you know, that we have things that are more logical that and logic and mathematics and parts of language really activate one part of our brain, but the art and the image activates the other.
00;45;50;19 - 00;45;53;20
Kayleen Asbo
And it's the music that actually activates both.
00;45;53;23 - 00;45;54;09
Kelly Deutsch
Music and.
00;45;54;09 - 00;46;05;04
Kayleen Asbo
Poetry. So if you want to be a whole being, if you want to be a whole spiritual being and you bring yourself together, you know, and part of the history of religion is the.
00;46;05;13 - 00;46;07;01
Kayleen Asbo
Part who wanted to.
00;46;07;01 - 00;46;08;29
Kayleen Asbo
Cut out one part of the brain. You know.
00;46;09;23 - 00;46;16;04
Kayleen Asbo
There is centuries was like, no, you can't study science. No, you can't do that. You know, you'll be burned at the stake.
00;46;16;04 - 00;46;44;18
Kayleen Asbo
Or logic has no place. And now in our modern world, we're often in the other hemisphere where we cut out the embodiment and and the spiritual life, and we'll never be whole without bringing them both together and psychology, you know, the word psychology psyche plus is a story of the soul. And so we can't be our souls can't be whole until we story it in a new way and tell it in a new way.
00;46;44;20 - 00;47;00;17
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes. And I think that is a great parallel to the kind of the masculine feminine, you know, and I know we'll talk in a little bit about about the women mystic school, but that sacred feminine. And I think there's just such a resurgence happening among people.
00;47;00;18 - 00;47;01;18
Kayleen Asbo
Starting for that.
00;47;01;18 - 00;47;25;28
Kelly Deutsch
We so are. And I think that's exactly what you were just referring to. There is how much there's the kind of archetypal masculine energies that are very like left brained and scientific and rational but how much we just yeah, there is just a starvation diet that happens in most of the West, you know, on on things that include embodiment and just beauty.
00;47;26;04 - 00;47;30;22
Kelly Deutsch
Subtlety, beauty. Oh, my gosh. I know. Passion so much.
00;47;30;28 - 00;47;38;21
Kayleen Asbo
Yeah. You know, and one of the other great stories that I just love and I teach every year is about Dante's Divine Comedy for.
00;47;38;21 - 00;47;44;08
Kayleen Asbo
People who have no interest in reading it. But, you know, Dante for Dummies, what's so.
00;47;44;23 - 00;48;02;13
Kayleen Asbo
And and just, you know, he gave us such a great blueprint for this because he's talks about like, being lost in the middle of his life and just coming to in this dark force and sort of like going, where am I and how do I get out of this mess? And just feeling like every road is blocked. And his first guide who guides him through hell is.
00;48;03;10 - 00;48;05;19
Kayleen Asbo
A the ghost, if you will.
00;48;05;19 - 00;48;10;06
Kayleen Asbo
Of a Virgil, you know, a man from the Roman Times who.
00;48;10;15 - 00;48;11;04
Kayleen Asbo
Is able to.
00;48;11;04 - 00;48;31;17
Kayleen Asbo
Get him and navigate him through hell and even through purgatory, where he starts to change and develop habits. But then he can't go any further. And at that point, he says, I can be your guide. No, longer. And then it becomes a woman. Be a treat. She who represent this love and beauty and the sacred feminine, and she's the one who guides him the rest of the way.
00;48;31;28 - 00;48;48;08
Kayleen Asbo
And so, like, for that journey, like, okay, the left brain can help get us out of hell. But, you know, to come into our fullness, to claim our gifts, to find our sense of union, we have to have the sacred feminine. And we need both. It's not here or we need.
00;48;48;08 - 00;48;52;17
Kelly Deutsch
No region why it's.
00;48;52;17 - 00;49;10;05
Kelly Deutsch
So good. It's the line from Dostoyevsky comes to mind. You know, that beauty will save the world. And that's why the longest time was my favorite quote of yours. There's something like, Wow, we've hammered truth down people's throats for so long, whether it's like religious battles or just and.
00;49;10;14 - 00;49;12;10
Kayleen Asbo
You ought to you should be.
00;49;12;12 - 00;49;22;20
Kelly Deutsch
Right. I know, but it's like beauty is just so arresting, you know, it just sneaks in the back door and you don't have words for it, and that's right before it. That's right.
00;49;22;24 - 00;49;26;16
Kayleen Asbo
And for Dante, Dante's journey in paradise is the question.
00;49;26;22 - 00;49;30;23
Kayleen Asbo
This is this is a preview for the Don't Dawn webinar, but the question.
00;49;30;23 - 00;49;56;27
Kayleen Asbo
Is how much beauty can you bear? Because we actually have to learn to practice beauty. If you can take nothing else, because once you practice seeing the beautiful and the other person before you or the world around you, we are so much of at the time. We walk through sleepwalking and we don't notice and and we can really be dragged down to despair.
00;49;56;27 - 00;50;18;04
Kayleen Asbo
Then one of my mentors who does all this profound work on grief, a psychologist, Francis Weller, go read his books. It's amazing. But he he talks about, you know, carrying the sorrows of the world. And we can only do that if we're also attentive to how much beauty. So he'll ask people who come to the grief workshop. Did you see the daffodils as you walked in?
00;50;19;01 - 00;50;39;04
Kayleen Asbo
Did you hear the nightingale? And they'll be like, no, I didn't see it. And so it's like the practice, like, can you go back and this is will bring us back to Mary Magdalene, because she says this is why the good with a capital G in the Gospel of Mary, this is why the good has come into your midst.
00;50;39;18 - 00;51;03;18
Kayleen Asbo
To reunite you with your roots. And so how do we practice seeing the good and the beautiful and the true and the more you can cultivate this in your life and say, okay, when I was a preschool teacher putting my way through college, I worked at this one preschool where they said, our job every day is to catch the children being good.
00;51;04;10 - 00;51;08;09
Kayleen Asbo
And then to say, like, at lunchtime, like Jonathan, I.
00;51;08;09 - 00;51;08;29
Kelly Deutsch
Saw.
00;51;08;29 - 00;51;35;04
Kayleen Asbo
You. You stopped when Jeanne fell down and you gave her a hug. That was so sweet. There are tension as a culture has been on what do you do wrong? Not what do you do well, what what have been your moments of grace. But this was a spiritual practice that actually Dante knew about in southern France. Of catching people, being good and secretly sending them notes to admire their beauty and goodness.
00;51;35;22 - 00;51;42;16
Kelly Deutsch
That's lovely. That's a lovely practice. There are like 18 things I want to talk to you about, but I'm also aware.
00;51;42;16 - 00;51;43;13
Kelly Deutsch
That we don't have to.
00;51;44;01 - 00;52;00;23
Kelly Deutsch
Talk through everything. Okay, so first okay, let's do two things. First of all, I want to hear a little bit about this book you're working on, on Mary Magdalene. How did this start? And where you going with it? What does it explore exactly?
00;52;00;24 - 00;52;21;25
Kayleen Asbo
Sure, sure. So the book is an outgrowth of my dissertation that looked at Mary Magdalene through myth, art and culture. And this goes back to that. Reading a book of text will only get you so far. But so much of what I learned, I learned through following the thread of embodied liturgies throughout the centuries to art and through music.
00;52;22;17 - 00;52;45;09
Kayleen Asbo
And it's actually an interactive book that's related to a program I've run for years online called Magdalene Emerging. 22 Days. That looks at the historical part of how she was in the Bible in tradition. How did she go from being the first apostle to the apostles to being the penitent center, to being a prostitute and and the restoration.
00;52;45;21 - 00;52;50;13
Kayleen Asbo
But more importantly, this is a psychological piece is like the archetype of masculine.
00;52;51;03 - 00;52;51;08
Kelly Deutsch
Is.
00;52;51;08 - 00;53;08;11
Kayleen Asbo
The archetype of Mary Magdalene, is what is it to be able to stay present for suffering with compassion and courage, but also to have the eyes to see new life when it appears, when you least expect it.
00;53;08;23 - 00;53;09;21
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. I love that.
00;53;09;21 - 00;53;34;06
Kayleen Asbo
And I feel like that's what we're all called to in this time. We're in a time of collective collapse, dissolution, where between COVID and the environment and everything, the world as we know it is changing like sand underneath our feet. It's different, and it would be easy to hide, to numb ourselves, to, you know, to turn away, to become addicted to things.
00;53;34;13 - 00;53;37;04
Kayleen Asbo
So what is it to see that and witness that.
00;53;38;07 - 00;53;38;24
Kelly Deutsch
But.
00;53;39;01 - 00;54;03;08
Kayleen Asbo
Also to have the joy, to speak your truth when you sense a new life emerging. And I feel like that's so important for all of us. I see you doing that. That's part of what your whole mission statement with this is. It feels like is like, where's your truth? How do you say it? And how do you stand in that place of radical hospitality and courage and conviction and compassion?
00;54;03;19 - 00;54;03;27
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;54;03;28 - 00;54;08;24
Kayleen Asbo
So I think she's just such an incredible figure that way. And and frankly, her.
00;54;08;27 - 00;54;09;29
Kayleen Asbo
I'm going to say something that you might.
00;54;09;29 - 00;54;40;10
Kayleen Asbo
Want to edit out, but I think that Christianity like its survival depends on in some ways on the restoration of the feminine. And the way we have to start is by going to the root. And she is there at the root. She is the only person who is named in all four gospels. She is the one consistent element and she has been cut out and left out and and vandalized across the centuries.
00;54;40;27 - 00;54;45;10
Kayleen Asbo
And like we have some serious atonement to do around that Syria.
00;54;45;12 - 00;54;56;21
Kelly Deutsch
Right. I was reading an article on her, I think it was on the Smithsonian, and the article started off with a statement that essentially said the history of Mary Magdalene is the history of women and sexuality in the West I was like.
00;54;57;00 - 00;54;57;19
Kayleen Asbo
Oh, that's right.
00;54;58;14 - 00;54;59;06
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, that's funny.
00;54;59;13 - 00;55;19;15
Kayleen Asbo
And it is it is a painful and dark history, which in our own time is being liberated and brought to our light in profoundly inspiring ways. And so for the past 15 years, I have met people all over the world who are doing amazing things and I'm gathering to them together for this online conference because.
00;55;20;00 - 00;55;22;10
Kayleen Asbo
Okay, this is where I'm going to start levitating. So I need a.
00;55;22;10 - 00;55;47;09
Kayleen Asbo
Seat belt but I feel like in Christian history, for 600 years, we have followed the wrong footsteps in the Christian liturgies for Holy Week. We walk in the footsteps and take the parts and recite in Palm Sunday the words of the man who denied and betrayed and abandoned Jesus. And we think that's the whole story, but it's not.
00;55;47;20 - 00;56;10;15
Kayleen Asbo
There was a whole group of women who didn't I didn't betray, didn't abandon, who stood at that foot of the cross, watching the horrific suffering of someone that they loved, chanting the Psalms with them with love, cradling the broken bodies in their arms and coming together with their jars of balm and healing to offer anointing and.
00;56;10;15 - 00;56;11;06
Kelly Deutsch
Love.
00;56;11;11 - 00;56;26;01
Kayleen Asbo
And devotion. And it was to them that the resurrection happened. It was to them that it was chosen. You go spread the word. And so I feel like we need to collectively, like, why.
00;56;26;01 - 00;56;28;24
Kayleen Asbo
Don't we walk in those footsteps? Why aren't there.
00;56;29;08 - 00;56;52;11
Kayleen Asbo
Such rituals every holy week where people literally take if we don't even know their names, how many people know it's Marie Jacob and Marie Salaman, Saint Peter's mother in law, and we don't know their names. We don't know their stories. Mary Magdalene was turned into a prostitute. We must reclaim them. And what would happen if we embodied them?
00;56;53;01 - 00;56;53;13
Kelly Deutsch
What would be.
00;56;53;13 - 00;57;18;11
Kayleen Asbo
Happen if we created rituals where we felt their presence within us, where we could see with our own eyes, oh, it wasn't a man abandoned and forsaken by himself. There was a community of faithful, devoted, loving, compassionate, courageous women who stood by him every step of the way. And I honestly believe that would change the narrative of so much in the world.
00;57;18;19 - 00;57;43;25
Kayleen Asbo
It would encourage people to find inside their inner witness. They are the person that could stand by the suffering of their loved ones or the stranger, like it would activate something inside our human hearts that would be profoundly transformative. And so that's why I've created this little conference that's coming up, like to see what's a smorgasbord of 20 people from around the world who are doing amazing work.
00;57;43;25 - 00;57;54;02
Kayleen Asbo
And it's like, Okay, here's a feast. Take something and use it in your own life to create your own circle. Even if it's only two or three people. What is it like to do that?
00;57;54;11 - 00;58;09;15
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. If people want to find out more either about that conference or other things that you're up to, because I know you also do like virtual pilgrimages. You have a class on like T.S. Eliot and like the mystery. I was like, Oh, man, there's so many good things to tell. Our audience was so.
00;58;09;15 - 00;58;10;23
Kayleen Asbo
Great to my website.
00;58;10;23 - 00;58;14;14
Kayleen Asbo
Which is W WW dot Kaylene ASBO dot com.
00;58;14;21 - 00;58;15;15
Kelly Deutsch
KSL.
00;58;15;27 - 00;58;17;01
Kayleen Asbo
And SB.
00;58;17;01 - 00;58;57;25
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I really encourage everyone to check that out. We also, Kaylene is going to be our first speaker at our Women Mystic School that's kicking off. And so we get to geek out even more about Mary Magdalene and learn. I'm so excited because I feel like it's there are tons of different people who talk about Mary Magdalene, but I don't find too many who have such a breadth and depth of different disciplines, you know, that can be kind of cross-pollinate and weave together, you know, and that that's what makes us such a rich tapestry, you know, is all the different threads that gets put together to make this beautiful and warm and.
00;58;58;18 - 00;58;59;06
Kayleen Asbo
Well, what I.
00;58;59;06 - 00;59;21;04
Kayleen Asbo
Love most is to gather all of these different pieces together and then to invite you to ask the question for yourself, you know, who's Mary Matalin for you? Because that's the most important thing. It's not what I say or Cynthia Boucher or anybody else says, you know, it's like, oh, encountering these stories and these images, what happens in your own wild human heart?
00;59;21;10 - 00;59;41;25
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes. And that's what I'm most excited about for this series, is each person that we've invited to be a speaker really embody this as well. So it's not like an academic course that. Oh, sure. Right, right. Like each one is meant to be something where it's like, all right, pull up a chair next to Mary here. Let me introduce you to her.
00;59;41;25 - 00;59;42;04
Kelly Deutsch
Like.
00;59;42;14 - 00;59;44;17
Kayleen Asbo
Actually family reunion time.
00;59;44;18 - 00;59;53;15
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because each of these women were were full bodied and beautiful and complex and flawed and gorgeous like all of us are.
00;59;53;27 - 01;00;05;24
Kayleen Asbo
And no, this word that's so important to me from the early to early scriptures that didn't make it into the Bible, the word Anthropocene, fully human. And I love the people that you've chosen. I've taught about.
01;00;05;24 - 01;00;06;24
Kayleen Asbo
Most of them this.
01;00;06;29 - 01;00;18;07
Kayleen Asbo
Past year, and I can't wait to see what other people say. And then there's two that are brand new for me. So I'm going to be pulling up my chair to be in the audience for each of these programs. It just looks delicious.
01;00;18;07 - 01;00;42;17
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes, I'm very excited. So if anyone listening is hungry for more about Mary Magdalene, the Mystics, you can join us. Kaitlyn is speaking on February 5th but you can even join afterwards and catch the recording and you can just go to women mystics dot org to check that out. And I highly encourage you to check out Kathleen's website too, because she has lots of wonderful courses and resources and other wonderful things there.
01;00;42;17 - 01;00;47;25
Kelly Deutsch
So, Kathleen, this has been so rich, I feel like forever.
01;00;47;25 - 01;00;48;04
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
01;00;49;24 - 01;00;51;22
Kayleen Asbo
Glad we get to do something soon again.
01;00;51;25 - 01;00;59;22
Kelly Deutsch
Yes, indeed. I thank you so much for joining us. And everyone, thank you for listening today. Bye bye. I.