Breezes

 

After love making, Shiva told Parvati how Krishna wooed Radha, and multipled himself into a hundred Lords to dance with Gopi girls in the garden of Vrindavan, a personal Beloved for each of them! While Shiva was singing, the story seemed so real! But when it was over, Shiva awoke her and said, "Darling, it was only a dream, a story about my love for you, which is the union of the Self with its own luminescence."

While this was happening, Krishna lay with Radha in the kunj under a fruit-swollen tree in Vrindavan, telling her the story of Shiva and Parvati, which seemed so very real! But when it was over, Krishna said, "Darling, wake up! It was only a story, about the longing of the soul for Beauty, and the shower of grace which longing brings, flooding the dry land with rain."

Which story shall we believe? Are not all lies about lovers true?

I know this only because I am the hollow in Krishna's flute as it gently slips from his fingers when he falls asleep on Radha's breast. Breezes brush through the garden, a nameless sighing stirs me, and I become the song that all Gods sing, each to his Beloved, the human soul.

So it is that in these latter days, in a garden of Palestine, Jesus and Magdalene ate figs from a basket and drank from a wine skin. Jesus told her the story of Tamuz and Ishtar, the story of Attis and Cybel, the story of Baal and Asherah: how the Goddess wept outside the tomb of the sacrificed Shepard-God, and revived him, bringing Spring to the desert. Then Jesus said to Mary, "Darling, this is only a story about the Bridal Chamber in the heart."