The Storytellers Goddess Part 20

One day, as Morfran sat resting from stirring the brew, he was startled to see someone very like himself appear on the other side of the billowing smoke. This stranger was clearly a boy, but he was larger than Morfran, with skin so pale that purplish blue marks showed on it.

The new boy drew back when he saw Morfran and covered his eyes against the brightness of Morfran's hair.

"Who are you?" asked Morfran.

"Gwion," said the boy.

"Where do you come from?" asked Morfran.

"The valley," said the boy.

"Who is your Mother?" asked Morfran.

The boy said nothing. Then he tried to look at Morfran.

"I can't look at your head," he said.

"Your hair's like the sun."

"It's my Mother's hair," said Morfran.

"Hey, I know." Morfran scooped up some ash from the fire and rubbed it on his hair. The brightness immediately dulled.

"Look now," said Morfran.

The boy looked. This time he could keep his eyes on Morfran. Morfran could see that the boy looked frightened and hungry. When he handed him a bowl of food, the boy flinched but then grabbed it and ate quickly.

"Who is your Mother?" asked Morfran again when Gwion had finished eating.

"My mother is the richest, nicest queen in the world, and my father is the strongest, most wonderful king," he said.

That evening Cerridwen tied a cloth around Her head so Gwion could look at Her. Cerridwen, the Nine Sisters, and Morfran shared their food and made a bed for Gwion, and they listened as he boasted about how powerful and good his parents were. When Cerridwen asked him why he'd left his parents, Gwion said he was tired and went to bed.

Cerridwen and Morfran sat together a long time in the dark.

"Mother," said Morfran finally.

"Gwion is not well, and he is lying about his parents."

"What a magician you're going to be," said Cerridwen, "when you are so wise already."

The next day Cerridwen asked Gwion how he'd gotten the bruises on his arms and legs. Gwion began to cry. The Nine Sisters held him, and after a long time Gwion told them that his parents were not really a king and a queen. They beat him, he said, and sometimes he thought they did not even know his name. His job was to fetch things for his parents, and even when he did that, they hit him anyway.

"You are welcome here on the mountain," said Cerridwen. So Gwion stayed. He found that he'd come to the mountain of Cerridwen, Queen of Wisdom, and that Her son Morfran was stirring the Cauldron of the Deep, from which all things come and to which all things return. In less than a year and a day now, Gwion learned, Morfran would drink the first three drops of the Cauldron's brew and would walk in wisdom and magic.

Gwion was amazed at all that he saw. He had never felt so free and safe and cared for. Many times he pretended that his real mother was Cerridwen and that Morfran was not his friend but his brother. But many other times, Gwion was scared. He remembered so clearly his pain and loneliness in the valley, and he was sure it had all happened because he was bad. In his secret heart, Gwion began to hate Morfran.

Even though he helped Morfran stir the brew, played games with him at the side of the fire, and told stories with him at night, he cringed to see Morfran getting hugged by Cerridwen, and he told himself that Morfran was ugly and weak.

As the year and a day drew to a close, Gwion began to ask himself why it should be Morfran who got to drink the first three drops from the Cauldron of the Deep.

"He has everything," said Gwion to himself.

"Why should he get those drops, instead of me?"

As the brew neared its time, it grew thicker and harder to stir. On the night before Morfran was to turn thirteen, Cerridwen stirred the Cauldron the whole night long. In the morning, Morfran took Her place.

"Soon, son," said Cerridwen. She smiled at him, and Her blue eyes shone with pride.

Gwion wished he had a mother who would look at him like that. Today, he even felt how much he liked Morfran.

"But it's not fair," he told himself. Then Gwion tensed. He saw that Cerridwen had gone away to lie down. He looked anxiously at Morfran.

Morfran was looking into the fire, his face calm but his eyes glowing.

Then Gwion saw that Cerridwen had fallen asleep.

"It's ready, Gwion," said Morfran softly.

Something burst inside of Gwion. He ran at Morfran and shoved him away as hard as he could. Then three times he dipped the tip of his own finger into the huge pot. When he'd tasted the last drop, the Cauldron split in two with a roar. The liquid inside smothered the fire underneath and poured out all over the ground.

Morfran shouted. Cerridwen awoke from Her nap. With a cry of rage, She tore the cloth from Her fiery hair and lunged after Gwion.

Terrified, Gwion used the magic now inside him to turn himself into a rabbit. He leapt away, and Cerridwen turned Herself into a greyhound and bounded after him. Just as She was about to catch him, Gwion changed to a fish and plunged into a river. Cerridwen's body took the shape of an otter and dove at the tail of the fish. Nearly out of strength, Gwion turned himself into a bird and shuddered to see that Cerridwen was now a giant hawk gaining on him with every push of Her wings.

Exhausted now, Gwion spied, in the valley from which he'd come, a pile of wheat. There he plummeted and turned himself into a tiny piece of grain.

Cerridwen turned Herself then into a black-crested hen in that yard with the pile of wheat, and she pecked and pecked until She'd eaten the boy whole.

Then, for a second time, Cerridwen the Bird felt life growing in Her.

But this time, when She went to the mountain with the Nine Sisters, Her son was there, and Cerridwen had rage in Her heart. This child inside Her had taken from Her son what was rightfully his. She swore She would never let this boy inside Her live. She waited out the birth, knowing She would kill him when he was born.

But when the baby came and She held it b.l.o.o.d.y in Her arms, She could not bear to kill it.

No one knows what happened to Gwion. Some say Gwion got his wish and that Cerridwen Herself raised him as Her second son. Others say that he was raised in the valley from where he'd come, but this time by parents who could respect and love him. Those people say he became a great poet and magician who could change his shape at will and tell the future.

The Nine Sisters, it is said, pieced together the Cauldron of the Deep, and on the mountain They stir it still, keepers of the place from which all things come and to which all things return.

And Morfran? No one knows either what became of him. But many say he walks the Earth still, with hairs gray from the ashes he applied so long ago. He is not a poet or a magician, people say, but a wise man who knows what he knows and sees what he sees.

Maya (MY-yuh) Masked Woman of the Primordial Void (India) Introduction The G.o.ddess Maya of India is the relentless Process of Life itself. The spell of Maya is blind life energy continuously manifesting itself: originating, growing, decaying, and vanis.h.i.+ng, forever veiling from Her creatures the true nature of Her Void. Maya is the neutral screen on which the endless characters and plots of our souls' moving pictures project and complete their dramas. She is the inward dream of the senses and the cosmic mystery, mixing the desire of human hearts and supernatural tension in a paradox of wisdom and enchantment. In Maya, there is nothing static, nothing abiding. Demonic and beneficent, She is the name of our illusion and delusion: Her face both beguiles and opens the way to transcendent enlightenment.

Hindu mythology dresses the Aiystery of the World in fantastic personifications. Maya, like the Shakti, Kali (a form of the Shakti), and Devi (see stories), are all manifestations of the primordial Feminine in Whose embrace the great Masculine energies of Brahma, Vishnu, and s.h.i.+va come to throbbing, proliferating, and peris.h.i.+ng life.

Although most renditions of Hindu mythologies suffer from the pervasiveness of patriarchal bias, today's actual wors.h.i.+p of the Great Feminine in India is explicit and inspiringly current.

Maya's name is shared by G.o.ddesses of Mystery and Illusion in many parts of the world. Central Americans called Her Mayahuel (see story); the Greeks called Her Maia; the Irish, Maga; and the Scandinavians, Maj.

Maya's story has something of the flavor of a Zen koan and is a retelling of the traditional one recounted by Heinrich Zimmer in Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Culture. The movie Cinema Paradiso was a brilliant evocation of Maya for me. I think of Her when I play with a kaleidoscope; this G.o.ddess helps me come to terms with both my need to make the universe meaningful and my sometimes overwhelming sense of its meaninglessness.

The G.o.ddess Behind the G.o.d It happened that the saint Narada had practiced so long and thoroughly the renunciation of the things of the earthly plane that the G.o.d Vishnu Himself went walking with him. The two talked deeply about many things. But the G.o.d Vishnu only smiled enigmatically and was silent when Narada asked that he be allowed to know the great Vishnu's Maya.

Narada insisted, however, and said, "Great Vishnu, I know that You Yourself are only a manifestation of Your Maya. If I am to truly know You, My Lord, I must know the G.o.ddess from Whom You come."