Somewhat to my surprise, the way was partially blocked by a grove of cedar trees.
“It is the grove of Tammuz,” said the little girl who had taken my hand. “The pagans mourn him at the same time as we weep for Jesus in the spring.”
I blinked at this easy acceptance, but Eusebius had warned me that some of the Christians in the country district were little better than pagan themselves. It did not seem so bad a thing to me, if it allowed them to live in amity.
The cave seemed very dark after the bright afternoon, but an oil lamp was flickering, and as my eyes adjusted I saw the clay feeding trough where the walls sloped sharply inward to the grotto’s end. Inside the manger someone had laid a bunch of flowers. It was very still.
Eusebius had knelt to pray, with Martha beside him, but I stood, eyes closed and feet rooted firmly in the ground, and something that had been tensed since I had first been ordered to make this journey began to relax. Beneath the scents of old incense and lamp oil and a hint of goat there was something else, which after a moment I identified as the clean aroma of damp stone. Stone is eternal, I thought, and moved to the side so that I could lay my hand against the cool surface. Stone holds memories.
I extended my awareness into the rock, searching for impressions of the past. For a time all that came into my mind were the elemental needs of the beasts that had been kept here. Then, for a moment, I sensed a woman’s pain, the profound relief of birth, and a flare of ecstasy as the child was put into her arms. Whatever Jesus was, I can believe that he was bom here, I thought then.
When I opened my eyes, Martha and the little girl were both gazing not at the manger but at me, with wonder in their eyes.
“I am thirsty,” I said briskly. “Is there water here?”
“A well—among the trees,” whispered the girl.
It was late afternoon by now and the light slanted golden through the grove. Strips of cloth and ribbons had been tied to the branches of one of them, that overlooked the little pool.
“Thus they do also in my own land,” I laid my hand upon the rough trunk and closed my eyes, allowing awareness to follow the life of the tree down to its roots and upward once more to the leaves that drew in life from the sun.
And then, for a moment it was not a tree but a female body that I was sensing, feet rooted in the soil and arms reaching for the sky. The image transmuted and I saw a tree trunk carved into the image of the goddess. Women whirled around her, garlanded with flowers. “Asherah …” they chanted, “Asherah …”
These were the Asherim that the prophets cut down in the Courts of the Temple! I realized in amazement. They were trying to destroy the Goddess. And it is She, before Tammuz, who was honoured in this holy grove!
As the vision released me I realized that the girl was still speaking—
“Trees are for the Mother, the Virgin who gives birth to the Child of Prophecy. In Mamre, which is just down the road, there is an ancient terebinth tree where Abraham dreamed of his descendents. The family of King David is a tree, and Jesus is at the top of it… I hope they will not cut these trees down.”
“When I give orders for the building of the church here I will ask the architects to save them.” I replied.
No doubt Eusebius would have disapproved of the child’s mixed theology, but it seemed to fit that moment, and I realized that in their own way, the rustling trees were also witnesses to the fact that once more the Mother was being worshipped here.
It was growing dark by the time we got on the road once more. The villagers had begged us to stay the night and join their celebration, but I judged that a journey with my own bed at the end of it would be less taxing than a night on a lumpy mattress with fleas. But as we started to descend the last slope I heard a squeal and one of the soldier’s horses reared.