Welcome to The Magdalene Thread.
We began with one woman and a question: what if the story we inherited about Mary Magdalene was only a fragment of the woman she had been?
Inquiry led to curiosity, and curiosity to adventure. We followed Mary through scripture and history, art and architecture, forgotten texts and sacred symbols.
Our first insights emerged here, on Substack, through essays and conversations. But we quickly understood that we needed to go deeper to bring forth the true identity of Mary Magdalene.
So, we moved inward, into the research and the writing, and emerged almost two years later with our book, Fishing on the Right Side of the Boat.
And on the other side of our book, Mary Magdalene became not just the answer, but the threshold—to the long, traceable diminishment of the feminine inside the sacred, and the continual exploration of what may still be recovered.
What to Expect
Our essays here follow the shape of our book, inspired by our subtitle… every month you will encounter:
A story. A figure, a moment, or a tale that shaped the memory of Mary Magdalene and of the feminine, especially inside Christianity.
A symbol. An object you have seen a thousand times and never questioned. A jar. A pinecone. A five-pointed star. Some are tangible. Some are stranger.
A history. A scholar, their work, and how it changed the way we see Mary and the long legacy of women in the Western imagination.
For each, we move with the same approach: experiencing it with all our senses, blending intuitive questioning with a rigorous commitment to following the evidence, and remaining open to wonder, rather than rushing to certainty.
Who We Are
The Magdalene Thread was born of a thousand stories exchanged within our daily routines and the rhythms of nurture, in friendship and the messiness of motherhood. There is no precise way to convey the series of synchronicities that led us here to share this work with you, but it is certain that it is beyond us.
As two cradle Christians, spiritual seekers, and creatives, we have spent years thinking about faith, wholeness, and what it means to live fully. We share a deep love of learning, especially where history, spirituality, creativity, and life’s mysteries meet.
Alicia has five children, ages seven to seventeen, and lives in Bedford, New York. Kelly has four boys, from eight-year-old twins to a one-year-old, and lives in Lyme, Connecticut. Nine children between us, most of this work was written in the margins of our days.
Motherhood has formed the lens through which we view the world. It has transformed our experience of faith and inevitably shaped the way we perceive Mary Magdalene, women’s stories, and the feminine within our culture.
Who We Are Not
We are not telling you what to believe and we are not selling a secret.
We are not scholars by profession, but we have been trained to research, interrogate sources, and follow evidence. We intend to remain grounded in what can be known while staying open to what has not yet been considered possible.
We question structures and institutions, and the narratives that have been created to support them. But we also question the counter-narratives that arise in their place. We question gurus, certainty, and anyone who claims to possess a monopoly on the truth, because we certainly do not.
And we do not believe wisdom surrounding Mary Magdalene belongs to a select few.
Whatever can be learned through her story, whatever questions she awakens about love, faith, courage, grief, embodiment, knowledge, or the feminine, belong to all of us. No teacher, institution, lineage, or spiritual authority owns access to them.
Our hope is to present what we find on our treasure hunt and present it here with open arms. The ancient texts, the scholarship, the art, the history, the strange details, the beautiful possibilities, and the unanswered questions… all of it.
Then you can look for yourself. And decide the shape of your own faith, and continue exploring.
Our Book
Fishing on the Right Side of the Boat, published on her feast day, July 22, 2026. Twelve chapters alternating six pilgrimages with six historical deep dives, and a signature hidden inside the Bible.
