October — The Celebration of the Victory of Good
Aifa looked out the window, a little worried about a couple of leaden clouds that had started gathering over the horizon. The feast of the Victory of Good over Evil was mostly celebrated outdoors, and she didn’t want the rain to ruin her delicate silk garments or wash off the intricate body painting that several of her relatives had worked so hard to finish the day before.
The dances had already started in the streets, and people were slowly gathering in the Market Square, where preparations were being made to set evil on fire.
“Do you think we’ll have good weather?” she asked her grandmother, frowning at the thought of her apple green moire scarf getting blemished by water stains.
“All weather is good weather,” grandmother gave her the response she always had as far as the whims of nature were concerned.
It was the end of October, still very warm for the season, and the entire city had gone overexcited with the preparations for the feast. Aifa had put off several projects in order to start them during the days of the feast, for good fortune.
The front porches were covered in flowers and lanterns, and they made it look like the old stones of the city had started to bloom, an image made even more unusual by the unwinding of the growing season.
Grandmother looked at Aifa and almost didn’t recognize her: the girl’s hands, arms and feet were decorated in intricate floral designs, her shoulders were wrapped in green silk taffeta and her forehead was adorned with jewelry. Grandmother didn’t know what to say, so she said the first thing that came to her mind.
“You’ve grown so much, granddaughter!”
Grandmother’s and mother’s hands and arms were covered in colorful flowery motifs too, because for this celebration of the divine feminine all the women wanted to look like flowers.
They arrived to the Hearth just in time to see the Twins, whose every inch of visible skin had been painted and bedazzled, seated in high chairs, just as intricately decorated as they were, and carried on people’s shoulders towards the center of the square. The whole place was in motion, in the swirling of people coming and going, in a flash of colors and lights whose location was difficult to pinpoint due to the constant movement of the crowd.
“Why is there so much agitation, doyenne?” Aifa asked, concerned about her garment again. Since she had put it on, she didn’t even want to sit down, so that she wouldn’t stain or wrinkle it.
“It is the second part of the ceremony, the one which celebrates action,” grandmother said. “Our lives need three building blocks to thrive, if either one is missing, we find it difficult to keep ourselves together: the matter, the action and the knowing. The matter is the building block of the solid, of that which is asleep. It reminds us all the time that our bodies came from the earth and they are going back to it, so we do not spend our energy on cultivating the temporary, but attend to the needs of the spirit. This part of the celebration is focused on the second building block, that of the energy that fires our lives and drives us to action. This energy always wants you to do something, and everything it touches, it amplifies.”
“Is that good or bad?” Aifa asked.
“Like most of the things in creation, it is neither. If you apply your energy to good things, you will get good results. If you apply your energy to bad things, you will get bad results.”
“So why not apply your energy only to good things?”
“That’s where the third building block comes in. The energy and the matter have no knowing. They do what is in their nature: the matter’s nature is to be inert and return to the earth from which it had sprung. The energy’s nature is to push for constant action, without regard for the consequences. As far as the fire is concerned, it needs to burn, without discriminating. The knowing raises the two from instinct and irrepressible drive to the level of intent. Then you can be in control of your body and your soul, and both of them will thrive.”
Aifa kept looking at the movement of the crowds; the people were now swirling around the burning effigy of evil, at a speed that almost made her dizzy.
All of the sudden, the spinning motion stopped. The Twins were getting closer to the fire and the people moved out of the way respectfully, to make room for them.
“The Twins have brought the spirit of knowing,” grandmother explained.
“Which building block is the most important, doyenne?”
“Neither one is more important than the others. Take one away and the whole falls apart. You have to have reverence and gratitude for all the parts of your being, and not allow the proportion in which they impact your life to be thrown out of balance. Some invest in their body, and acquire power, some invest in their actions, and acquire power, and some invest in their enlightenment, and acquire power, but the goal is not to acquire power, the goal is to liberate your spirit from the entanglements of illusion. That is why you participate in to all the aspects of your life which make demands of you, you treat them with the respect they deserve, but you do not give in to any of them. When you have gained mastery of all three aspects of your being, that is your day of victory.”
The effigy had burned down to the ground and the makeshift caravan started moving again, flowing through the streets and alleys of Cré, pooling here and there in the wide banks of the larger streets, where people were waiting to throw verdant branches at the feet of the Twins.
Aifa remembered their conversation and realized how wrong she had been about them. She had always felt sorry for the Twins, whose life seemed like a perpetual sacrifice to her. Even though they didn’t seem to have any regrets, any desires, and nothing ever disturbed their perfect peace, this poise, akin to being a living statue, unsettled Aifa, who found it artificial, and had figured that the Twins’ still veneer must hide a world of pain underneath it, the pain of the denied life whose mourning they weren’t allowed to express. During their brief conversation, however, she had glanced inside their souls and found nothing of the sort, and she couldn’t help but be a little jealous of that river of joy and peace that was their spirit, a river that was springing from nowhere and going nowhere, complete in and of itself. They seemed to be perfectly content with the way they were, and the way their life unfolded, and didn’t yearn for anything that was not in it already.
As the caravan passed her family, Ama saw Aifa and winked at her, in the most ungodlike manner possible. She then resumed her statuary pose, which did not betray the fact that her garments and jewelry were incredibly heavy. The crowd moved slowly behind the Twins, past street performers and sweet smelling culinary delights, floating lanterns and flowers on top of a kaleidoscope of colors.
“How are they so happy, doyenne?” Aifa asked her grandmother. “What is there to be happy about, they have nothing to call their own?”
“But you already saw that isn’t true,” grandmother replied. “Happiness is not a result, happiness is a state of mind. The Twins live in that state of mind.”
“What does that mean?” Aifa asked confused.
“The world of the spirit has places, just like the world of things. We feel good in some places and uncomfortable in others. Some places are cold, some are drafty, some are crowded, and when you are in them, they make you ill at ease. It is the same with the world of the spirit. Some places in the mind are sad, some are angry, some are petty and vengeful, and in some you can never find peace. It seems like the Twins have cleaned and beautified all the places in their minds, and they feel happy and content in all of them.”
“Is this hard to do?” Aifa said.
“It is not easy. The spirit has a hard time letting go of old feelings, just like we can’t part with objects that no longer serve us.”
“She winked at me,” Aifa pointed out.
“I noticed,” grandmother nodded.
“How does she wink at people? She is of divine nature!”
“So, in your opinion, everything of divine nature has to necessarily be solemn,” grandmother commented.
“Of course!” Aifa blurted. “Don’t you? How is one expected to be pious towards a divinity that winks at her?”
“So, you disapprove of the divine for not meeting your standards for divine behavior,” grandmother clarified.
“I can’t have the same relationship with a living deity that I have with my friend across the street!” Aifa elaborated.
“Why not?” grandmother asked.
“For one, I don’t bring offerings to my friend.”
“Sure you do! You brought her cookies last week,” grandmother joked.
“You know what I mean,” Aifa insisted.
“I think I do. The Twins want to get closer to you, and you push them away because their divine nature makes you uncomfortable. I understand this very well. Being a Caretaker is an emotionally difficult task, you are the Twins’ mother, pupil and servant at the same time. When I have difficulty wrapping my head around what my role should be in their life, I try to remember one thing. Love never steers you wrong.”
“So, the next time she winks, what should I do?” Aifa asked.
“I believe that Ama was trying to elicit a smile. You are so tense, granddaughter. I think the Twins sensed that.”
“But why? What difference does it make how I feel? I’m just one of their many Caretakers, why would they even notice me?”
“For the same reason your name was carved in the stone of the Hearth, from the moment you were born. Because they love you.”
Aifa took a moment to ponder the implications of being the beloved of the divine, she pondered the pros and cons of the situation and arrived at exactly the same point of emotional impasse from which she’d started.
“People can’t browbeat you into worshiping the divine with prostrations and self denial for millennia and then ask you to invite it over to your house for tea and giggles, it’s just not right,” Aifa concluded, unable to free herself from the sneer of logical dissonance. “What’s next? We go play hide and seek? What if I say the wrong thing in jest and they decide to smite me?”
“It is very hard to love and fear something at the same time, granddaughter. You have to decide which one you prefer and stick with it. If I were you, I’d pick the love. Fear never gets you anywhere.”
Aifa made a best effort to relax and just think of Ama and Jal as her friends, and tried to picture what activities they would like to get involved in, and then remembered that they turned into water when nobody was looking, and decided that this whole ‘getting to know your living deity’ was completely preposterous. Her name carved in stone or no, the fact remained that the Twins were immortal beings, whose essence she would never comprehend, and her current abilities qualified her as their scribe at best.
With a little over a month left of her apprenticeship year, Aifa finally started realizing the implications of her status. She had begun the year with confidence, after all she’d been studying the history of Cré and the divine nature of the Twins for many years before she had turned thirteen, and she was convinced that knowing the ceremonies as well as she did, and being so dedicated to the Hearth, it would be a piece of cake to go through her apprenticeship. All she had to do, she thought, was to get through all the feasts of one year without incident, something she’d done many times over, and that would prove to her grandmother that she was fit for her new role. She’d started the year sure of everything she knew, and she was approaching its end unsure of her very existence. If anybody had told her before the year started that the Twins would talk to her and reveal their true nature, she would have considered herself privileged, superior, above the rest. Nothing could be further from it now. She couldn’t explain it rationally, but she felt culpable for her awareness, as if she’d violated a sacred boundary that humans are not allowed to cross.
