People have been turning to Mary for over two thousand years. Across countries, cultures and belief systems that do not agree on very much, she shows up. Women who are not Catholic light candles in front of her image. People who have left organised religion entirely still feel something when they encounter her. That kind of staying power is worth paying attention to.
The question worth asking is: what is it, exactly, that people are reaching for when they reach for her?
She does not offer solutions. She does not tell you what to do or hand you a roadmap out of your situation. Her presence is not a transaction — you do not bring her your problem and receive an answer in return. What she offers is something harder to name and, honestly, harder to find anywhere else. She holds space. She receives whatever you bring without flinching, without judging, without requiring you to arrive in any particular state.
For a woman who has spent her life being competent, being needed, being the one who holds things together — that kind of reception is extraordinary. The experience of being held rather than holding. Of being seen completely and met with acceptance rather than expectation.
What strikes me most about Mary, looking at her across traditions, is that she represents a kind of feminine power that the world rarely celebrates. She is not powerful because she fought for it or demanded it or proved it. Her power is in her capacity to love fully, to remain present in the most devastating circumstances, and to hold others in their pain without being broken by it. That is not weakness. Anyone who has genuinely tried to do that knows exactly how much strength it requires.
In the language of HerAwaken, Mary is the fullest expression of Divine Feminine energy in Western tradition. Intuition, empathy, unconditional love, the ability to hold space — she embodies all of it. And she stands alongside the Divine Masculine — represented in the teachings of Jesus, in purpose, in compassionate strength, in service — as a reminder that both are needed. Both are sacred. Both live in each of us.
You do not have to be Catholic to feel the truth in that. You do not have to be religious at all. The archetype of the nurturing, all-accepting feminine is older than any religion. Mary simply became its most recognisable face in one part of the world. Artemis carried it before her. Shakti carries it in another tradition. Kwan Yin carries it in another. The names change. The energy is the same.
What every one of these figures points toward is something that lives inside every woman. The capacity to love without condition, to receive without judgment, to remain present without losing yourself. That is the invitation. To develop that in yourself — not as a performance, but as a genuine way of moving through the world.
— Nylah, HerAwaken
