The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [133]
Out of the darkness, the chaos of time,
The whirlwind gave birth to the Mother sublime.
She woke to Herself knowing life had great worth,
The dark empty void grieved the Great Mother Earth.
The Mother was lonely. She was the only.
From the dust of Her birth She created the other,
A pale shining friend, a companion, a brother.
They grew up together, learned to love and to care,
And when She was ready, they decided to pair.
Around Her he’d hover. Her pale shining lover.
Her full, rich voice seemed to fill the entire space and depth of the great cave. Ayla was so moved, she not only felt shivers, she felt her throat constricting and tears forming.
The dark empty void and the vast barren Earth,
With anticipation, awaited the birth.
Life drank from Her blood, it breathed from Her bones.
It split Her skin open and sundered Her stones.
The Mother was giving. Another was living.
Her gushing birth waters filled rivers and seas,
And flooded the land, giving rise to the trees.
From each precious drop new grass and leaves grew,
And lush verdant plants made all the Earth new.
Her waters were flowing. New green was growing.
In violent labor spewing fire and strife,
She struggled in pain to give birth to new life.
Her dried clotted blood turned to red-ochered soil,
But the radiant child made it all worth the toil.
The Mother’s great joy. A bright shining boy.
Mountains rose up spouting flames from their crests,
She nurtured Her son from Her mountainous breasts.
He suckled so hard, the sparks flew so high,
The Mother’s hot milk laid a path through the sky.
His life had begun. She nourished Her son.
He laughed and he played, and he grew big and bright.
He lit up the darkness, the Mother’s delight.
She lavished Her love, he grew bright and strong,
But soon he matured, not a child for long.
Her son was near grown. His mind was his own.
The deep cave seemed to be singing back to the One Who Was First, the rounded shapes and sharp angles of the stone causing slight delays and altering tones so that the sound coming back to their ears was a fugue of strangely beautiful harmony.
For all that her full-bodied voice filled the space with sound, there was something comforting about it to Ayla. She didn’t hear every word, every sound—some verses just made her think more deeply about the meaning—but she had the feeling that if she were ever lost, she could hear that voice from almost anywhere. She watched Jonayla, who seemed to be listening hard too. Jondalar and Wolf both seemed to be as enraptured by the sound as she was. As the singing continued, Ayla was lulled into feeling the story but not really hearing every word, until Zelandoni came to the verse that Ayla loved best.
The Great Mother lived with the pain in Her heart,
That She and Her son were forever apart.
She ached for the child that had been denied,
So She quickened once more from the life force inside.
She was not reconciled. To the loss of Her child.
Ayla always cried at this part. She knew what it was like to lose a son and felt as one with the Great Mother. Like Doni, she also had a son who still lived, but from whom she would be forever apart. She hugged Jonayla to her. She was grateful for her new child, but she would always miss her first one.
With a thunderous roar Her stones split asunder,
And from the great cave that opened deep under,
She birthed once again from Her cavernous room,
And brought forth the Children of Earth from Her womb.
From the Mother forlorn, more children were born.
Each child was different, some were large and some small,
Some could walk and some fly, some could swim and some crawl.
But each form was perfect, each