By The River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept

'Is that what the woman meant?'

He hesitated before he answered. 'Yes. I have a different view of things: I believe in the feminine side of God.'

I sighed with relief. The woman was mistaken; he couldn't be a seminarian because seminarians don't have such different views of things.

'You've explained it very well,' I said.

The girl who had winked at me was waiting at the door.

'I know that we belong to the same tradition,' she said. 'My name is Brida.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Of course you do,' she laughed.

She took my arm and led me out of the building before I could say anything more. It was a cold night, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do until we left for Bilbao the next morning.

'Where are we going?' I asked.

'To the statue of the Goddess.'

'But… I need to find an inexpensive hotel where I can stay for the night.'

'I'll show you one later.'

I wanted to go to some warm cafe where I could talk to her for a bit and learn as much as I could about him. But I didn't want to argue. While she guided me across the Paseo de Castellana, I looked around at Madrid; I hadn't been there in years.

In the middle of the avenue, she stopped and pointed to the sky. 'There She is.'

The moon shone brilliantly through the bare branches of the trees on either side of the road.

'Isn't that beautiful!' I exclaimed.

But she wasn't listening. She spread her arms in the form of a cross, turning her palms upward, and just stood there contemplating the moon.

What have I gotten myself into? I thought. I came here to attend a conference, and now I wind up in the Paseo de Castellana with this crazy girl. And tomorrow I'm going to Bilbao!

'O mirror of the Earth Goddess,' Brida was saying, her eyes closed. 'Teach us about our power and make men understand us. Rising, gleaming, waning, and reviving in the heavens, you show us the cycle of the seed and the fruit.'

She stretched her arms toward the night sky and held this position for some time. Several passersby looked at her and laughed, but she paid no attention; I was the one who was dying of embarrassment, standing there beside her.

'I needed to do that,' she said, after her long adoration of the moon, 'so that the Goddess would protect us.'

'What are you talking about?'

'The same thing that your friend was talking about, only with words that are true.'

I was sorry now that I hadn't paid closer attention to the lecture.

'We know the feminine side of God,' Brida continued as we started to walk on. 'We, the women, understand and love the Great Mother. We have paid for our wisdom with persecution and burnings at the stake, but we have survived. And now we understand Her mysteries.'

Burnings at the stake? She was talking about witches!

I looked more closely at the woman by my side. She was pretty, with hair that hung to the middle of her back.

'While men were going off to hunt, we remained in the caves, in the womb of the Mother, caring for our children. And it was there that the Great Mother taught us everything.

'Men lived through movement, while we remained close to the womb of the Mother. This allowed us to see that seeds are turned into plants, and we told this to the men. We made the first bread, and we fed our people. We shaped the first cup so that we could drink. And we came to understand the cycle of creation, because our bodies repeat the rhythm of the moon.'

She stopped suddenly. 'There She is!'

I looked. There in the middle of the plaza, surrounded on all sides by traffic, was a fountain portraying a woman in a carriage drawn by lions.

'This is the Plaza Cybele,' I said, trying to show off my knowledge of Madrid. I had seen this fountain on dozens of postcards.

But the young woman wasn't listening. She was already in the middle of the street, trying to make her way through the traffic. 'Come on! Let's go over there!' she shouted, waving to me from the midst of the cars.

I decided to try to follow her, if only to get the name of a hotel. Her craziness was wearing me out; I needed to get some sleep.

We made it to the fountain at almost the same time; my heart was pounding, but she had a smile on her lips. 'Water!' she exclaimed. 'Water is Her manifestation.'

'Please, I need the name of an inexpensive hotel.'

She plunged her hands into the water. 'You should do this, too,' she said to me. 'Feel the water.'

'No! But I don't want to spoil your experience. I'm going to look for a hotel.'

'Just a minute.'

Brida took a small flute from her bag and began to play. To my surprise, the music had a hypnotic effect; the sounds of the traffic receded, and my racing heart began to slow down. I sat on the edge of the fountain, listening to the noise of the water and the sound of the flute, my eyes on the full moon gleaming above us. Somehow I was sensing—although I couldn't quite understand it—that the moon was a reflection of my womanhood.

I don't know how long she continued to play. When she stopped, she turned to the fountain. 'Cybele, manifestation of the Great Mother, who governs the harvests, sustains the cities, and returns to woman her role as priestess…'

'Who are you?' I asked. 'Why did you ask me to come with you?'

She turned to me. 'I am what you see me to be. I am a part of the religion of the earth.'

'What do you want from me?'

'I can read your eyes. I can read your heart. You are going to fall in love. And suffer.'

'I am?

'You know what I'm talking about. I saw how he was looking at you. He loves you.'

This woman was really nuts!

'That's why I asked you to come with me—because he is important. Even though he says some silly things, at least he recognizes the Great Mother. Don't let him lose his way. Help him.'

'You don't know what you're talking about. You're dreaming!' And I turned and rushed back into the traffic, swearing I'd forget everything she had said.

Sunday, December 5,1993

We stopped for a cup of coffee.

'Yes, life teaches us many things,' I said, trying to continue the conversation.

'It taught me that we can learn, and it taught me that we can change,' he replied, 'even when it seems impossible.'

Clearly he wanted to drop the subject. We had hardly spoken during the two-hour drive that had brought us to this roadside cafe.

In the beginning, I had tried to reminisce about our childhood adventures, but he'd shown only a polite interest. In fact, he hadn't even really been listening to me; he kept asking me questions about things I had already told him.

Something was wrong. Had time and distance taken him away from my world forever? After all, he talks about 'magic moments,' I reasoned. Why would he care ahout an old friend's career? He lives in a different universe, where Soria is only remote memory—a town frozen in time, his childhoodfriends still young boys and girls, the old folks still alive and doing the same things they'd been doing for so