The Storytellers Goddess Part 9

Osiris pulled away from Isis and looked for a long time at Her face.

Then with His fingers, He petted the soft feathers of Her wings.

"Mama, will I get big like that soon?" Isis sighed.

"Soon enough, Son," She said.

"Mama," said Osiris, "If I get big, then little on Your lap, will I get big again?"

"Yes," said Isis.

"And then little, and big, then little over and over?" asked Osiris.

"Over and over," said Isis.

"Will You always remember to swallow me when I'm in pieces?" asked Osiris.

"Always," said Isis.

"I will never forget."

"Mama," said Osiris, "Is that because We're magic?"

"Yes, My Son," said Isis.

"It's because We're magic."

"Good night, Mama," said Horus-Osiris, and He put two fingers in His mouth.

"Good night, Osiris," said Isis, and She folded Her wings over Her Son to shut out the light.

The Three Zoryas (ZOR-yahs) Keepers of Dawn, Day, and Night (Russia) Introduction The Zoryas are G.o.ddesses whose mythology is rooted in the northern Slavic land of the primeval forests. In Russia, for example, the forest is the nursery of culture, and its beauty and danger color customs and stories. Food and friends.h.i.+p are hard to find in that cold, dense land, and its peoples compensated by developing warm traditions of hospitality. Life in the frozen forest was built around the dwelling in the clearing and its source of heat. Indeed, heat, not light, is the way to the spirit.

Slavic peoples in these regions dealt with harsh seasonal cycles; the ebb and flow of nomadic conquerors; the constant possibility of fires gone out of control; and insects and rodents gnawing up from below. In this beautiful but unfriendly context was born the Triple G.o.ddess known as the Three Zoryas or the Dawn G.o.ddess (Zorya Utrennyaya); the Morning Star G.o.ddess (Zvezda Dennitsa); and the Sunset or Evening Star G.o.ddess (Zorya Vechernyaya). The myth of the Three Zoryas gives Them responsibility for keeping the Dog of Destruction tied securely to the constellation Ursa Minor, lest it run loose and end the world.

The ancient religions of the Slavs respected natural processes: the ripening as fruit ripens and the growing as gra.s.s grows. They kept alive a pa.s.sion for seeing beauty and spiritual truth in concrete rather than abstract forms.

While writing the story of the Three Zoryas, I felt as if I were painting instead, so tangible did I feel their loving, steadfast, absolute warmth to be. Sometimes I make tea and do housework, very slowly, in honor of the Zoryas. And because, to me, They are the Great Boundary Keepers, I use a piece of rope on my altar to symbolize the strength and flexibility of Their help with interpersonal boundaries between myself and other people.

The House of Heat for the Beloved Visitor

At the top of the forest that reaches the heavens live the Three Zoryas, who endlessly tend the dawn, the day, and the night. Safe from the fighting, the frosts, and the fires live the Three Zoryas in a dark wooden hut next to the corral of the Sun. Ever heating in that hut is the stove on which swells hot bread and steams the samovar for tea for the beloved visitor.

"Stay! Stay!" welcome the Zoryas, bundling the traveler's blue hands and wet feet in furs. They give her the place of honor right next to the glowing heat.

Over and over again the Zoryas renew her tea; they light a beeswax candle and make ready for her a bed of piney boughs. No matter the length of time that pa.s.ses here in this fragrant home, the visitor is warm and fed; always she is safe from the fighting, the frost, and the fires.

And no matter the length of time that pa.s.ses here, always Grandmother Zorya is first up at the dawn. White haired and slow moving, She kindles again the stove. No matter the pain She might have in the joints of Her hips that morning, Grandmother Zorya leaves the hut at the break of light for the corral of the Sun Horses.

She croons softly to them as She unlatches the ancient gate. They are nickering and nibbling at their troughs, and their faces are beautiful and aware as Grandmother Zorya's wrinkled hand lets swing the gate. The colder the air, the slower She moves, but finally, never failing, She opens the gate. Like the burst of energy from a hot popping log, the white horses break and snort and plunge rippling and smooth into the sky with the light of the Sun expanding pink and aqua about them.

Grandmother Zorya returns then to the hut, where She sets the samovar again to boil.

Early or late the Sun Horses may have begun their gallop, but always the Maiden Zorya makes Her way too into the day. When the visitor follows and climbs the hill behind the hut, she may see the Maiden Zorya setting out against the immaculate liquid blue of the sky. Or, on a day when the air is cold, Maiden Zorya moves quickly, and sometimes the visitor can barely discern Her thick bundled form against the clouds. The winds then drown any sound of the Sun Horses' hooves and the visitor returns early to the warmth of the hearth.

But on a day when the hooves still echo to the listener on the hill, Maiden Zorya is a dream of muscle and laughter in the field below the stable flung wide, where even the new fallen dung smells of the fresh air. There that st.u.r.dy Maiden Zorya tosses the heavy yield of the hay while the poppies seethe in the open s.p.a.ce and the birds grow fat on wild berries. If She disappears, perhaps She is gathering mushrooms, moss, or bark deep in the forest. But always She returns in the soft or the swelter: the moss will cover the floor of the hut, the bark will make shoes and paper. The thoughts of the visitor might whisper on this day. Or, for the colors alone she might break into song.

Sometimes the visitor might nap with her Maiden Zorya, right there on the billow of the green hill while the plums on the tree overhead purple in the light.

No matter whether the time is pa.s.sed hunting in cool green leaf of forest, or reaping in the yellow ocean of rye, always the strength of the Maiden Zorya spends itself finally and She and Her visitor walk arm in arm back to their supper.

The birch trees at the edge of the corral are dappled and their leaves take on the sheen of fading light. Mother Zorya, Keeper of the Night, covers Her head against the deepening chill and walks slowly to the gate of the corral. She readies the water and the hay for the tired animals. Closer and closer trot the Sun Horses. The sunlight behind them is like a cut melon, delicious and cold in the paling sky.

Whinnying greeting, flanked in sweat, the Sun Horses fill the corral with their aliveness and Mother Zorya shuts firm the gate. Perhaps She stays inside the corral to brush the coats of the animals. Perhaps She just sits, still and silent, watching the quiet animals sink their noses to their feed. The light is dove colored now; shadows melt and mingle, colors mute. The visitor inside the hut feels a longing and a sadness in her chest.

Mother Zorya must do another task before Her never-failing work is through. The horses are fed and watered; the gate is shut tight. Now She must feed the dog chained to the iron stake at the sky place where the stars take the form of the Little Bear.

The visitor is wistful. She wishes Mother Zorya would hurry with Her errand. She will feel complete and able to drop away to sleep only when all Three Zoryas sit together by the crackling hearth. She offers to help Mother Zorya carry the bucket of sc.r.a.ps to the dog in the sky.

Together they travel. The darkness is gleaming now with stars. The visitor feels afraid when She sees the dog. The dog is thin. It strains at the chain, teeth bared, hairs high on its neck, ears back.

Mother Zorya calls softly. The visitor hangs back and watches. Mother Zorya heaves the contents of the pail before the dog. The animal tenses. But its ears are forward now and its eyes are sad. Mother Zorya talks gently. The dog throws itself to its meal.

"No matter how much it eats, it is hungry," says Mother Zorya.

"It is the Dog of Agony and Destruction. It is always afraid, but I always come. I never forget."

The dog seems sated now. It is lying down. Only its hindquarters are tensed. The visitor feels a lump in her throat.

She returns with Mother Zorya to the hut, empty bucket wobbling between them.

Embers glow, sinking to ashes. The Zoryas Grandmother, Maiden, Mother sing the visitor to sleep. The Sun Horses stand, leaning their big heads on one another in the dark.

That visitor might be you. The Zoryas make you welcome any time. They are delighted to see you. There in Their hut, safe from the fighting, the frosts, and the fires, you may sip the tea of Their cheerful little samovar. It is there you may repair when you need to firmly shut the gate of your corral, to say no, this is done, this is enough. It's time to eat and be inside. Or it is there you may go when it's time to open your gate, to let the flood of your expression and strength prance, wind playing in the fine hair of your mane. Or perhaps you will linger there, because timidity and hopelessness fill you. Perhaps then you will remember to feed the dog who strains at your chain, whose eyes turn from wild to lonely and whose fears you may quiet for a time with your devoted attention. Perhaps you will visit that hut of the Zoryas because They are the Limit Setters, the Boundary Keepers, and you need Their unflagging responsiveness to the slow rhythm of your day. Maybe you will come when it's hard to say yes. Then Grandmother Zorya and Maiden Zorya will help you fling your gate and fill your sky.

Maybe you will come when you are terrified to say no and the unknown snarls before you like the fangs of a beast. Then Mother Zorya will help you shut your gate and feed the endless questions until the morning comes.

III. Spirit Incarnate:

G.o.ddess as Earth and Beauty In Mexico, I was struck by the slang word carnal (accent on the last syllable) used by men to call a buddy something equivalent to "brother" or "bro." It seemed a wonderful word to me: the word carnal in the fundamentalist Christianity of my youth had always been spoken in the same breath as sin. In phrases that never failed to intrigue me, ministers would explain that we Christians were not to be "of this earth, earthy," and that we were to "put away the things of this world."

My body, in the religion of my childhood, was a trap. Though we called it a "temple," I was taught that it would betray me and lead me astray from the "paths of righteousness." Because, like most children, I was interested in feats of prowess, conquering my body and its desires appealed to me. Especially in settings in which grownups were unable to acknowledge, let alone meet, my needs, why not just get rid of needs? Why not accept a philosophy that made desire and sensation the lowest of the low on a hierarchy that conceived of even the word base as bad?

Living in my head made a lot of sense in a context in which physical and emotional feelings appropriate to circ.u.mstance were not allowed.

Sensation would just get me into trouble, I reasoned. My religious teachers must be right. Better I should make my highest concern control of my body and feelings.

Such a mind-set was abetted, of course, by the larger, secular culture.

Just as the religious culture equated the color black with sin, the secular culture a.s.sociated black with bad, dirty, and ugly. The religious culture admonished control of the body; the secular culture pressed the same restrictions, particularly on people labeled as more "physical" than "mental": children, women, and people of color. Ferret out what needs fixing and adjust it. Tone it down, keep it together, sit up straight, be quiet, and keep a smile on your face. Erase yourself.

Earth, in the culture of control, is a list of resources that need to be managed. Like women, children, and people of color, Earth, in control culture, should look nice but cause no trouble. Across history and in the present time, peoples who do not have controlling relations.h.i.+ps with Earth tend to identify with the Earth. They see the Earth as live and animate; they relate to the spirits in rocks, foxes, and rivers. Throughout the history of control culture, the stories of people identified with Earth have been crushed, their images misshapen, and their lands taken for "resource value." Like the minds and bodies of girls, women, and people of color, the Earth Herself has been stripped, raped, poisoned, desecrated, and left for dead.

But like the people who are Her consciousness, the Earth has begun to rise again. Over and over again I hear the stories of people, otherwise steeped in rational, left-brain thinking, who feel they hear the call of the Great Eeminine Flow of Life, asking them to stand and create for Her. Left for dead She has been, but She has not died. Like a part of ourselves crushed or swollen, shaking with effort, She is reviving Herself. She is calling racism, s.e.xism, cla.s.s ism ageism, h.o.m.ophobia, and colonialism by the name of body hatred, and She is linking the politics of control back to the abuse of Flerself. She is making us wonder how our personal insistence on consumer convenience is really different from the sense of ent.i.tlement with which the corporate colonizer turns a forest into a beef ranch. She is promising us that feelings count: the agony and the anger teach us where we are. She is a.s.suring us that our desires help us clean our house: pretending we have no needs is a recipe for victimization.

The G.o.ddess is Earth. She is incarnate. She is knowing, willing, daring, and silence. She is East, South, West, and North. Out of Her silent North body coils East's knowing. Out of the knowing blazes South's will. Out of South's fire floods West's daring waters of change. North's body accepts the imprint of Her change. In silence comes again East's mindfulness that bends South's will and frees West's daring. And so on for us everlasting.