This story began as a piece about Venus’ descent below the rim of the horizon a couple weeks ago, her passage into the so-called underworld, out of sight. I liked the idea of Venus passing not “behind” the Earth but inside of it, a kind of sudden radiant benevolent hearth below all of our feet.
But then a few nights ago, this little story about Venus walking down into the Earth shifted, and became a version of the Russian fairytale of the Maiden Tsar** and her love for Ivan. It became suddenly far more human. A story of swan women, and eggs, and fishermen, of wise old men in huts and the oldest woman in the world who lives in the moon, of how to mend broken things, of figuring out how to love, and love well.
It became a prayer for friends of mine enduring sudden heartbreak, or long heartbreak, a prayer for fatherlines and motherlines and heartlines, a prayer for all the people I love, a prayer for the women in the streets of Iran standing and fighting for their freedom and the radiance of their lives, a prayer for something we perhaps all together have nearly forgotten, a prayer for what we cannot afford to lose, together on this Ark, our holy ground, our home.
This story is now available in a higher recording quality, with music & introduction, on my podcast, Kalliope’s Sanctum, for your listening convenience and pleasure.
** Note: My introduction to the story of the Maiden Tsar came from the beautiful book by Robert Bly and Marion Woodman, The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine. I have taken it and run with it, but the basic bones and gestures of this startling and beautiful Russian fairytale remain more or less intact.
Image credits:
- John Bauer, “Princess Tuvstarr, Trollens Styfdotter” (detail), 1915
- Edward Robert Hughes, “The Weary Moon”
Morning Star Woman & Ivan the Youngest Son