The Storytellers Goddess Part 19

It wasn't always like that, though. About a thousand years after time began, the Spirit People began to complain.

"We're tired of making a dress every night," They said.

"Sun Woman won't mind if We make a hundred dresses and pile them up.

That way We can take a vacation. We can stack up lots of logs for Her torches, too."

It was summertime then, and Sun Woman was old. It took Her a long time to cross the sky. That evening when She hobbled under the desert sands for the night, the Spirit People gathered about Her.

"Sun Woman, Sun Woman," They said.

"We're tired of sewing every night. It's the same thing over and over again. Sun Woman, We want to work very hard for a while and pile up a lot of dresses and logs, and then We want to rest."

Sun Woman surprised the Spirit People with Her answer.

"I'm tired too," She said. She let out a big sigh and sat down heavily.

"I'm exhausted. Forget about making dresses and getting torches," She said.

"I'm too tired to go up to the Earth People for a while."

The Spirit People looked at each other.

"But, Sun Woman," They said, "if You don't go up there, there won't be any daytime."

Sun Woman shrugged.

"If You can take a vacation, so can I," She said.

The Spirit People looked at each other again. Then an Old Woman Spirit spoke out, "I know about being tired, Sun Woman," She said.

"I lived a very long time among the Earth People. My life there was very hard. But every morning, Sun Woman, You came again out of the ground, and there before me was a new day. I needed You, Sun Woman. I needed Your light so I could keep on."

Then an Old Man Spirit began to speak.

"I lost my wife and children when I was a young man," He said.

"I cannot face my life without my family," I said.

"I want to die." But my friend came and held my hands.

"Don't face all the days of your life," my friend said.

"Just face today. See. Here comes Sun Woman. Just stay this one day, until She leaves us tonight."

" The Old Man Spirit stopped for a moment. Then He said, "That's what I did. I stayed just for one day. And I kept doing that. Just staying for one day each day. That's how I lived for a long time one day at a time."

"Sun Woman," said a Baby Spirit.

"If You don't make Your journey every day, I don't want to get born."

The Spirit People nodded and talked aloud together.

"The Earth People need Sun Woman. And Sun Woman needs Us," They said.

Sun Woman soaked Her feet as She listened.

That night the Spirit People and Sun Woman agreed that no one would take a vacation. The Spirit People would ready one dress and one log for each of Sun Woman's journeys. And Sun Woman would travel up to the Earth People and cross their sky every day.

That's how it's been ever since. Sometimes Sun Woman is young, and then She hurries across the sky. Sometimes She is old, and then She walks very slowly. But always She comes, and always She returns to the land under the desert sands where the Spirit People busy Themselves with the one red dress and one burning log for each day.

Cerridwen (SAIR-i-dwen) Queen of Wisdom (Ireland) Introduction The Celtic people, called the Gauls by the Romans, once populated lands extending from the mouth of the Danube in Romania to the western coast of France. Called Galatians in ancient Poland and Spain, they were also the Galatians of ancient Turkey, to whom the Christian Paul wrote the missionary letter of the New Testament. In a saga that mirrors that of Earth-revering peoples today, this many-tri bed and -languaged group fled continually from Roman, Teuton, Angle, Saxon, and Jute invaders until they finally came to occupy only the outskirts of their once tremendous territory: today's Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. Settled in this island world, they received the gift of writing from the G.o.ddess Bridget (see story) and began to record their oral traditions.

In the context of legends that remember women as governmental, martial, political, and oracular leaders, Celtic storytellers told of Cerridwen, who personified the religious mystery central to the Celts: reincarnation within the Womb of the G.o.ddess. Cerridwen's name means "Cauldron of Wisdom," the vessel of disintegration and rebirth, a concept that celebrates the cyclical rather than linear nature of time.

The Cauldron, paralleling the Christian cross or sword, is a pivotal symbol for G.o.ddess wors.h.i.+pers the world over. It is called by Hindus the Pot of Blood in Kali's Hand (see story of Kali), and by Egyptians the Underworld Womb or Lake of Fire. (The latter concept was borrowed by Christian storytellers for their diaboli zed Underwvorld h.e.l.l.) The Cauldron is the precursor to the Christian Holy Grail or the mythological chalice of Christ's last supper. The Celts said that the endlessly boiling Cauldron was stirred by Nine Sisters (see Bridget's story). The Nine Sisters represent the Holy Trinity of Maiden, Mother, and Crone, each able to manifest all three of Her selves. They are related to both the Nine Muses of Greek mythology and Chinese stories in which the Great G.o.ddess was represented by Nine Tripod Mixing Vessels.

The Cauldron's magic, like that of the G.o.ddess Herself, is that of endlessly s.h.i.+fting shapes. Shamanic initiations in many cultures include hallucinatory experiences of psychic dismemberment, boiling, and rebirth in the Pot of the World (see stories of Inanna and Ereshkigal, Sedna, and Isis). The "year and a day" required for initiation in Celtic mythology (a time span encoded in dozens of today's fairy tales) refers to the thirteen 28-day lunar months of a year with one more day to make 365 days.

Cerridwen, as the Dark Aspect of the Triple G.o.ddess, also took the form for the Celts of the sacred Sow. In this form, She symbolized Earth, Giver of Life and Death. In an excellent example of cross-cultural symbolism, Cerridwen shared Her Pig shape with the G.o.ddesses Freya, Demeter, and Astarte (see stories). Ancient peoples in Spain and Malta, as well, wors.h.i.+ped the G.o.ddess as Mother Pig in sacred rites.

I invented Cerridwen's story, basing it on the one told by Merlin Stone in Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood. That story, in turn, was put together from the sixteenth-century work of the Welsh Elis Grufydd, who collected and recorded verbal accounts of ancient beliefs. Cerridwen, for me, is a mixture of Inanna and Ereshkigal; Her transformative powers parallel those of Isis. But I call on Cerridwen when the concern at hand is socially shocking or horrifying. To invoke Her, I make a fire of herbs or rubbing alcohol in a small, lidded, iron Cauldron.

The Cauldron of Magic and Regeneration At the beginning, Cerridwen, Queen of Wisdom, took the form of a huge bird and swallowed a piece of the sky. When, afterward, She felt life stir in Her, She flew to the mountain where the Nine Sisters live. There, with the Sisters moaning and shuddering about Her, She took the form of Woman among Them and began to swell with life. Truly then She was wondrous to behold: eyes blue as the day sky, skin black as the night sky, and hair the color of the sun.

And so it was that Cerridwen, Queen of Wisdom, made Her home on the mountain of the Nine Sisters Three forever young, Three forever in the middle of life, and Three forever old.

Cerridwen's child was born under the light of a star. When Her own moaning finally ceased and She held the boy b.l.o.o.d.y in Her arms, She washed him clean with Her tears and sang him a thousand little songs.

Like his Mother, the boy's skin was black as night and his hair as hard to look at as the sun. But instead of day-sky eyes, the boy's eyes were brown like the wings of his Mother when She'd conceived him.

Cerridwen named the boy Morfran. She saw how curious he was; how his tiny fingers explored every stone and flower in his little world. She knew that someday She wanted him to drink from the Cauldron of the Deep, from which all things come and to which all things return. With the Nine Sisters, She resolved to ready him for that day when he would drink from the source of Her wisdom.

And so, as Morfran grew, his needs and his wishes were respected.

Morfran thus grew to respect himself, the mountain, Cerridwen, and the Nine Sisters, who together formed the fabric of his life.

Cerridwen taught Morfran the names and properties of every herb and root that grew on the mountain. She showed him the precise movements of the sun, the moon, and all the stars.

The day came when Cerridwen knew that Her plan for Her son could be realized. She saw that he honored himself, his mountain, and his family. She marked just thirteen moons from Morfran's thirteenth year.

Then would be the time for him to drink from the Cauldron of the Deep; then he would be filled with the power and magic of Her wisdom.

Onto the fire tended by the Nine Sisters, Cerridwen and Morfran swung the huge black pot. Into it they dropped herbs and roots, each picked at the proper moment of the planets and the stars. They added the foam of inspiration and prophecy from the faraway sea and the ability to change shape from the clouds in the sky.

Cerridwen chanted this chant as they readied the Cauldron:

That you know what you know And see what you see:

This is the brew well brew for thee.

In My Cauldron Deep we'll brew this brew That wisdom walk far when it walk with you.

The brew would be stirred for a year and a day, and then Morfran would taste of its first three magic drops.