The newest version of our chapter on Mantra
Mantra, the repetition of sacred names and petitions, is one of the most ancient ways of settling our minds and finding the rhythm of our heartbeats amidst the noise and busyness of everyday life. Mantras get us out of abstractions and ideas, all the chatter in our heads, and into a felt physical reality that connects our bodies to the body of the world. They unite us with the murmurs and whispers in all of nature, from the choruses of frogs on a spring evening to the rustling of leaves in the fall.
For a thousand years the Hail Mary has been prayed so often, and by so many people, that it is now one of the best-known mantras in the world. It only takes surrendering to the soothing rhythm of its syllables to restore our life-giving connection to our Mother and to the Earth. The simplicity of this is so breathtaking that, at first, the mind can find it impossible to take in. But no matter. The Hail Mary works like a lullaby, comforting us with a sense of belonging and a feeling of eternity, right here in the world we live in now.
The Lady we call out to in the Hail Mary embodies the original, oldest trinity—the “Triple Goddess” of Maiden, Mother, and Crone who is enshrined in the three parts of the mantra itself. The powerful Maiden stands ready, like the Earth in spring, to bring forth life in all its myriad forms. The Mother births us and guides us on our passage through the seasons of this life. The Crone, the oldest and most mysterious of the three, understands our frailties, forgives our failings, and takes us in her embrace when winter finally arrives.
The first two parts of the mantra would have been familiar to medieval people from scripture. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee” is the Angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary. “Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus” comes from the lips of her older cousin Elizabeth. But the words of the third part are not found anywhere in the Bible. They were added later to complete the mantra by people whose ancestors had worshipped the Triple Goddess for millennia before Christianity arrived in their part of the world.
They knew the Lady was not just an ordinary woman but someone older, bigger, and more mysterious than God himself. She was the Mother of God, a description that invited them to extend their imaginations beyond the limits of the knowable. At the end of the prayer Mary is recognized in her older incarnation as not only the Mother of All Life but as the ancient Crone, old as dirt, who will take our bodies back into the earth when we are done with them. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
Each Hail Mary follows the course of a human life from the inner darkness of the womb to the waiting darkness of the tomb…after which, like all mantras, it begins again. By saying it repeatedly—day after day, year after year—we rehearse the eternal drama of coming and going from this world. Like birds we sing as the sun rises to welcome the day, and we sing, too, as it sinks below the horizon and night begins to fall. Gradually, almost before we know it, our bodies learn what our minds cannot grasp: there is no time when we are separated from our Mother, there is no place we can go where we are not held in her embrace.