Goddess Sita

With a little help from unexpected gods, Hanuman rescued Sita.

Sita, the smart, decisive, loving and dutiful wife of Ram, was kidnapped by Ravan, the strongest demon of all. It was natural…Ravan desired Sita. Her ethereal beauty was not simply her physical form. It was an energy that bloomed from the inside. An electrical beauty that spun soft, thin metallic threads, millions of them from within, and this constant spinning was a hum, barely noticeable, but definitely present, like a carefully plucked note from a harp. It vibrated a single melodious note without end. This soft, electrical sound and sight reflected from the crown of her head to her tiptoes.

Ravan was smitten, and because he was a demon, the only way to acknowledge such beauty was to conquer it. Beauty, as all demons knew well, was to be owned, encased, pillaged, torn apart and put together at their will. Essentially, demonized. Ravan, with his ten heads, was a collection of compounded anger and envy, and he wanted Sita like nothing he had ever wanted before in all the lifetimes he had already lived. He had lived millions of them.

Ravan lured Sita away from her home in the forest, swiftly. So swiftly that the oil lamps in all the homes sputtered out, singeing their last breath. The forest homes and all the homes beyond it experienced sudden and utter darkness. Since Ravan’s chariot traveled in the uppermost layers of the cosmos, it could not be seen by Sita’s husband, Ram, or by his brother, Lakshman. Gods who lived in the numinous were the only ones who could sense Sita. And, in this case, it was felt most intensely by one in particular. Shiva. And that’s only because a chariot flying through the uppermost layers of the cosmos had disturbed the moon that lay resting in Shiva’s dreads, healing itself from an annoying cold. The moon saw Sita’s current like lightning, and began to cry. Shiva slanted open his eyes slightly, and understood there was trouble as the moon’s milk descended his body. He then felt the snake travel up his chest and slither around his neck. It had been a minute since Naag had cozied up around Shiva. Naag’s hood was flared, and as he circled up and around Shiva’s torso, the jewel in the hood shone a powder blue so brightly that Shiva’s slit eyes widened — a strange concentrated depth in them. He came with news, of course. From the Goddess of the Universe, Mary. She was often, but not always, found inside the walls of the deep roots of trees, or, like a thin blue line in the crevices of stones and minerals. Occasionally, she crawled out, walked across the Earth and climbed up to the top and stood there.

Goddess Mary,

Mother of the Universe.

On this occasion, Mary was pounding seeds for tea for the roots to drink, and she was livid. Mary’s blue mantle softly hung, circling the walls of the tree, and Naag cautiously wound himself in it. He didn’t particularly enjoy how pieces of roots spat out of the pestle and onto his skin. Mother Mary glanced over. He sighed; his rest was short-lived. In one glance he understood. About Sita. He slipped out of the blue mantle as quickly as he had wrapped himself in it. Charged with her message, Naag began his journey upward, eager to get to the mountainous torso of Shiva.

Shiva understood what he had to do. He summoned Hanuman with his dumroo. Hanuman, the monkey god who had inconveniently forgotten he was a god…and needed to be reminded. There was a goddess in need of saving, a goddess who was the daughter of the Mother Goddess upon whom the Universe stood anchored. Since Hanuman had forgotten he could fly, Shiva slipped himself into Naag and descended to the monkey forest and found Hanuman lost in deep love for gods he had yet to meet. With the end of his body, Naag drew a circle around Hanuman. As Shiva began relating the kidnapping of Goddess Sita, Hanuman began to remember what he had forgotten. His chest expanded, and the image of the gods he loved and yet had to meet began to glow at his sternum.

Naag guided Hanuman to a column of trees. Once he sized himself as small as a caterpillar, he crawled down. Further and further down. Eons below, he found the color blue. Mary’s mantle. She gathered him in her blue garment, sang him a song, and anointed him with jasmine oil. The song and the oil released stories he was meant to hear...about a journey of searching that he had already begun, of seeking a presence whose electricity is the numinous language carried in the meridians…like phantoms from the highest to the lowest ends of the cosmos. Back and forth. Up and down. Dancing to the phantom monosyllabic songs of the meridians. Hanuman set off on his journey. To find the Goddess Sita.

In bringing her back, he would restore the numinous universe to its delicate balance of phantom play.