” The Gifts of the Magi Were Meant for the Mother“
with Laura Shannon
Thursday,  January 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time  

   Facebook Live Promo Interview on 1/5/26:

In the Christian Nativity story, the Magi brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, symbolising Christ’s kingship, divinity, and death. In this presentation, I suggest that the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were actually meant for the new mother, Mary. I will also consider the theory that the Magi were not only three, and were not only men, but may have included women healers and midwives among their number.

The original gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh – now preserved on Mt. Athos – take the form of gold filigree pendants and beads of blended frankincense and myrrh. These elements are now divided into smaller segments, but originally would have been joined together in one long loop, in the style of North African bridal necklaces of scented paste beads and flat gold filigree lockets.

The flat gold lockets were known as meskiyah, and were intended to contain fragrant substances. The beads, called skhab, are also powerfully fragrant, formed from resins and spices such as cloves and roses, or indeed frankincense and myrrh. These were ritually blended for a bride before her wedding in a custom which is still practiced today in North Africa.

With this and other artistic, iconographic, and medical evidence, I hope to shed light on indigenous value systems honouring mothers and childbirth, and to offer grounds for (re)placing the Holy Mother at the heart of the Nativity story, as the one for whom the sacred gifts were intended.

Laura Shannon has been researching and teaching traditional women’s circle dances worldwide for 40 years. With degrees in Intercultural Studies, Dance Movement Therapy, and Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred, she is currently a PhD candidate researching the roots of women’s ritual dance. A faculty member of the Findhorn Foundation Sacred Dance Department since 1998, Laura is also Founding Director of the Athena Institute for Women’s Dance and Culture; Director of the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, following Carol Christ; and an Honorary Lifetime Member of the Sacred Dance Guild in recognition of her ‘significant and lasting contribution to dance as a sacred art’. Laura has published numerous articles and chapters on ritual dance in multiple languages, and as a musician and singer, has produced several recordings of traditional dance music. Laura lives in Greece and the UK.

See related article in Feminism and Religion

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Upcoming Scholar Salons (3pm Eastern Time):

Thursday January 22 “Women of Ancient Western Asia” “with Dr. Pinar Durgun

Thurday February 5, with Dr. Joan Marler, on the legacy of Marija Gimbutas

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event.