Part 18 (1/2)

Then, out of the swelling, out of the thick, heavy, coiling dark, out of the belly of the Queen of Heaven, out of Her, slipping and searing, into the soothing of the beloved husband, into the dark of the stable, into the giant night, slid the Sun of the World.

Out of the body of Mary came the Son of Light. There at Her breast He slept, while the beloved husband smoothed back the Queen of Heaven's hair. There slept the Child, filling the stable with light. There moved the animals. There slipped the tears down the face of the Queen.

There in the night glowed the new light of the world, precious, whole, and alive at the center. And it came to pa.s.s that the night was filled with mult.i.tudes of heavenly hosts praising Her name and crying hosannah to the highest and the lowest and all the bleating, mewing worlds that lay between.

I hate the word surrender. It reminds me of war and rape and invisibility. Surrender has been a G.o.d word for me: it has been about having to buckle to the very thing I loathe in order to prove my piety.

It has been about conquering myself, about strangling the full range of my emotion. In the att.i.tude of surrender, I have been sure that my will, my innermost person, would lie squirming beneath a ruthless boot.

Needless to say, I have not wanted to surrender to anything or anybody.

Indeed, I have spent most of my life identifying with my will and avoiding any activity I thought smacked of the loss of it. Certainly surrender could have nothing to do with my relations.h.i.+p to my juicy, flowing G.o.ddess.

Or so I thought. It is true that my new understanding of surrender in G.o.ddess consciousness does not degrade me or strip me of my sovereignty. I have been greatly healed, for example, by coming to know a legacy of witch women who, before they were burned for it, practiced a religion in which they bent, not to outside authority, but rather their own wills when they worked their craft. How sweet it has been to learn of civilizations that wors.h.i.+ped submission only to the womb and the tomb, not of one person to another.

But it is not true that my relations.h.i.+p to the G.o.ddess has nothing to do with surrender. On the contrary, my sanity and sobriety depend on my admitting my powerlessness relative to Her Great Power, which I am not equipped to fully understand. The Order That I Cannot Know, I call Her. She embodies the facts as they are: in relations.h.i.+p to the G.o.ddess, I must relinquish my childhood-based certainty that I can and must somehow force the facts to be different.

Refusing to surrender forced me to manipulate my perception of the facts. The world was too complicated if I did not simplify and call facts either black or white. I became obsessive about my efforts to change people, things, and even places in order to fit my version of how things should be. My att.i.tudes, in turn, were manipulated by my obsessions. I was anxious and unreasonable without knowing it.

Surrender to the Power greater than myself has been the key to serenity. Paradoxically, when I live with ambiguity and helplessness, in the context of the Order That I Cannot Know, I gain a clarity and peace about my actions that I never had when I poured all my energy into trying to order my world. The G.o.ddess is gray: She mirrors the states of a world in which everything, including myself, is constantly fluttering out of the reach of my b.u.t.terfly net and silver pins. The truth is that I love and hate inconveniently; I get tired when I'm supposed to be performing; friends have feelings that dash my expectations; and my behavior disappoints others when it pleases me. I get angry; I get sick; grief does not clear up like a cold.

I became tremendously caught up in my efforts not to surrender. I created in my own life a personal control culture. I disregarded real information about myself and the world if it did not fit how I thought it should be. I became so unaware and un accepting of my own feeling states that I could not imagine believing that my own real needs and wants might be the beginning of a conversation between myself and a Greater Power. Today, Earth-centered spirituality has given me back the night, the dark, blood, Crone, under, and lower. It has given me back surrender, too. Earth-centered spirituality focuses on the truths however murky and contradictory of my body, partners.h.i.+p, and the Planet. Today, I can say that I picture surrender not as a rape or an invisibility, but as the awe I feel when I allow myself to accept not fix or dominate the endlessly s.h.i.+fting facts of existence.

Devi (DEE-vie) Queen of All (India) Introduction Devi, Sanskrit for ”glowing with brilliant illumination” and cognate for the English word divine, is G.o.ddess of All the Patterns of the Universe. She is not external or separate from Earth: She is the spiritual essence in all things that exist and occur.

The Harappans who first wors.h.i.+ped Her in India's Indus Valley called Her Danu, the same name used by the Celtic peoples of Ireland for their Mother. The Harappans were practicing agriculture by 5000 B.C.E. and by 3000 B.C.E. had built large cities of two-story brick buildings. The people of the Indian Danu flourished for another thousand years before the Aryan invaders arrived in 2000 B.C.E. The Vedas, the earliest writings of the conquerors, describe the ma.s.sacre and enslavement of the G.o.ddess wors.h.i.+pers by the Aryans, who enforced a caste system that subjugated dark-skinned peoples in the name of their holy male trinity: Indra, Mitra, and Varuna. Indra, the Vedic story goes, killed Danu, and patriarchy replaced ma trifocal Earth-centered social systems.

Not for fifteen hundred years did the story of the Great Mother reemerge. In 500 C.E.” storytellers from non-Aryan groups who had lived only at the fringes of Brahmanic caste influence put together the Tantras and the Puranas, new collections that painted the G.o.ddess once again as powerful, She Who could obliterate the entire universe by closing Her eyes even for a second.

Devi, they called Her, the ultimate Shakti, the One Whose image all other names and forms illuminate. Splitting the G.o.ddess into multiple aspects may have been a demotion in many cultures; the very same act, however, has also served to focus and clarify Her immense complexity.

As separate chapters in an epic story teach a whole worldview, so separate personifications of the Great Mother can paradoxically instruct about Her simplicity. Knowing Her as Devi, Shakti, Maya, and Kali (see stories) and by Her hundreds of other names and forms emboldens and humbles us at once.

The areas least affected by Brahmanic Aryan influence in today's India are the Malabar coast of the southwest and Bengal and a.s.sam of the northeast. Malabar remains largely matrilineal and ma trifocal and the practice of polyandry (one woman having several husbands) was common until the last century. Wors.h.i.+p of the Ammas the Mothers is of primary concern there, and numerous woman poets over the centuries have thrived, more than one writing joyously of lesbian love. Tantric orders in Bengal and a.s.sam include women in the highest clergy possible, and caste discrimination is discouraged.

I adapted Devi's traditional story from the one told in Merlin Stone's Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood. This story, in turn, was drawn from several books of the Puranas. I have used a crown and a purple cloth to invoke Her great power and centered ness in my life.

Devi and the Battle with Durga the Evil One Once long ago, in the heavens over the land of India, Durga the Evil One took the shape of a Demon Buffalo, raised up on his hind legs, and drove the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses from Heaven, forcing them to seek refuge in the forests of Earth. Bellowing, he smashed the holy places and crashed through the skies to the Earth below.

There Durga the Evil One stole fires from hearths, pushed great rivers from their paths, and dried up the rains. He uprooted mountains with his horns and dusted himself with the powder of gold and copper he found there.

The people cried out to the G.o.d s.h.i.+va.

”Dancing Prince! Save us from the monster Durga. Muscle the Evil One away. Tear out his horns!”

Prince s.h.i.+va was powerful, but he found the strength of his armies no match for the Durga. The Demon Buffalo continued his rampage.

When the people gathered at the palace of the G.o.d Kalatn.

”Guardian of the Night,” they called out.

”Sneak up on the Durga. Tear out his tail from behind, and when he whirls to meet you, kill him with your power. We beg you. We are longing to be safe.”

But Kalatri, too, found that his powers were nothing against the Evil One's storm. So the people gathered their jewels and went to the Devi.