More Poems For The Chorus Of Rocks

Griselda Steiner

In my play, "MARY M and THE MAD PROPHET", that spans millennia from the Old World to the Biblical Time of Jesus to the Now – the Chorus of Rocks appear on stage as actors draped in white robes in the desert.  The Chorus follows the story of two Mary Magdalenes, Bride and Hor, as they journey from their archaic past as the Double Goddess into my interpretation of the New Testament story. One sister, Mary the Hor, leaves her cruel pimp to be baptized and is then healed by Jesus. She becomes his disciple and anoints him at Bethany.  After the resurrection, she escapes to the contemporary church to await her sister. Mary the Bride marries Jesus in a secret ceremony, joins him as a disciple and after his death escapes to the south of France with her daughter Sarah to become a preacher.   The sisters are reunited in a modern church at the end that accepts them as dual aspects of the Divine Feminine.  The Chorus comments throughout the play in poetic voice.

(The MAD PROPHET receives the Gnostic Gospels in which Mary Magdalene is depicted as Jesus's companion.)

ROCK CHORUS
And so the Double Goddess stepped into the Gospels
As Mary Magdalene
Gnosis hidden when womanpower was wrung from cannon
The divine feminine shattered and divided
When a son with no wife and a mother who was virgin
Were sanctified
Now women who hope to be whole seek the Magdalenes
Will the church let them in?

(MARY the HOR escapes from SIMON THE PHARISEE, who raised her as an orphan, raped her and now pimps her to the Romans.)

 ROCK CHORUS
When did the double standard take hold?
If value were set by tongues and not gold
The slut – whore – prostitute
Would make men indiscriminate debtors

(After being baptized MARY the HOR approaches Jesus to be healed by him.)

ROCK CHORUS
Life echoes
In the leaves in the memory of nature
Where the bird of your heart slept
Naked and ready to fly
Between the Dove's white edge
And the planet earth.

(MARY the BRIDE marries Jesus.)

ROCK CHORUS
When the Goddess reigned - She ruled by seasons
Heredity, property and name came through the matrilineal line
Then warriors ruled with iron weapons
They gave the Mother an evil name
Heredity, property and name came through the patrilineal line
When clergy were made celibate
Heredity, property and name could rob the church estate
Where the Bride was scorned

Yeshua of the House of David
Will wed Mary from the House of Benjamin
Two royal bloodlines united
From the grail in Mary's womb
A vine of kings will bloom
In the fruit of many generations
The French Merovingian
She will live again

(Forlorn that she will never marry and remain childless, MARY the HOR wanders the desert alone.)

ROCK CHORUS (Call)
Why is the virgin fertile?
And the whore sterile?

(Response)

Because the bride is the mother
And the whore is the priestess.

(MARY the HOR enters Jerusalem to buy spikenard to anoint Jesus.)

ROCK CHORUS
Dawn over the City of Jerusalem
Ancient Jewel
Shimmers in the first light
Warms the sand
Dries the olive leaves
Lifts the shadows off the city walls
Lights the Lion's Gate

(After the crucifixion, MARY the BRIDE sails from Egypt to the South of France.)

ROCK CHORUS
She lived in the cradle of heresy
In the tales of the Templars – Cult of Zion – with the Cathars
In the Tarot – Black Madonna  - she was found
In feasts, legends and churches
Ethiopia, Scotland, Egypt and France
In Le Sainte Marie de la Mer
Lives the Grail Romance

(The MARYS are reunited in a modern church.)

ROCK CHORUS
Before we awake our sleep is deeper
Before the spring, the harsher the winter
When we awake the brilliant light shatters
All forms, all life, all dreams, all matter