The Star of Yahweh
Mary Magdalene's story that should have been
in the Bible but wasn't.

Sample Chapters
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two

Prologue
Mary's Family Tree by Abishag

I passed through generations and worlds, through generations and worlds I passed, until I arrived at the open gates of Jerusalem. Then, I stepped onto this unknown land, and I set nothing in my mind or heart that had not slept there, like a white dove nesting on the great walls of our temple, waiting upon the right morning to spread its wings and fly. Then the north winds blew and the south winds, too. They blew upon my gardens and guided Solomon to me.

O daughters of Jerusalem, the keepers of our fruit, let me put up my throne, and set myself upon it so I may share with you all I can of my magical garden. A garden so fine that once my heart’s desire Solomon the Wise smelled the scent of its misty hills and fields a wash of blue from the grapevines heavy with berries, and he heard my voice, faint and delicate as a turtledove purring down at him from high atop the tallest tree, he fell crazy in love with me, and he did not wait for his prophets to read the signs before he set upon his horse and straight away he followed the wind-swept paths that led to me.

And so he rode like a young stag upon rugged terrain, past the valley plain of Megiddo, following the tracks of a gazelle, he did not stop until he made it to my gardens. And there, under the shade of a dragon blood tree, I spied him, the man that I fell in love with at first sight—for he was all radiant and ruddy; distinguishable among ten thousand mighty men—with locks as black as ravens, and eyes like doves bathed in milk, and a body made of ivory, hard and white like the tusks of an Egyptian elephant. And Prince Solomon, a man of perfect beauty, he stood behind our wall, and gazed into the windows. Through the lattice, he found me. And as our eyes first met, I knew he had come to fulfill my destiny.

For I, Abishag, a Shunammite from the Syrian border town of Shunem, my father had betrothed me at birth to a local sandal maker, but whence my father passed over into the land of our ancestors, my mother’s faith ran deep, and she honored a vision she’d had on the day I took my birth breath. A queen’s crown lay upon my brow. And from thence forward everything my mother did served as a lesson for me to marry my prince, including how to grow a royal garden, a garden so fine it was fit for a king with its hills of frankincense and fields of lavender and cinnamon and other spices. So fine a garden did I grow, people from as far as Egypt claimed it contained such pleasures that even the mandrakes did not shriek and drive men mad when uprooted from the fertile soil.

Then, Solomon the Wise, he paid me honor and pastured his flock among my early blooming lilies. So pleased was I that I brought him into my garden, and there, under the shade of the trees, my beloved ate the choicest fruits and he awakened me, his rose of Sharon. And I, his lily of the valley, opened to him, and he dwelled within my orchards of pomegranates as I ate apples that I plucked from my trees.

O daughters of Jerusalem thus did Prince Solomon set his seal upon me. He treasured me beyond the stars shining in the heavens above. But his father lay dying in Jerusalem, and needed a maiden to minister to him and revive his failing powers. And Solomon had known when he heard my voice in the wind that I was the maiden he’d search the world to find. For not just any woman would do; no, she had to be a princess by sheer beauty alone and possess the magnificence of our matriarch Sarah, for she would be the king’s maiden to carry the royal succession in her soft hands from the old king to the new. And since I could not refuse my Solomon’s behest to marry him whence he wore the crown of king, I dutifully traveled far with my future husband and he brought me to King David’s palace to lay beside the old king and offer him my young heat to warm his frail body.

And, upon first sight, his father opened his arms and hugged me. I knew at that moment I had found my home, the very place my spirit would one day finally rest. Thus, my days were split caring for the king and his enchanting queen. I spent most of my time listening to stories about battles won by a dying king, for King David was Yahweh’s chosen one and he never lost a battle. The rest of my time I visited with his queen, Michal, who loved me like the daughter Yahweh had not blessed her to conceive, and she taught me how to be the bones that supported a kingdom. In turn, I informed her of the events that happened in King David’s private chambers.

Only, I did not spy for her as the Harpers accused. My sole purpose in life had been to guarantee Solomon would wear the royal ring of the king upon his father’s death, for his older brother, Adonijah, was ruthless, and even though he’d known for many years that the Lord had revealed to King David that Solomon would reign as the third king of Israel once he’d died, Adonijah no longer cared. He cursed at Yahweh’s choice, and petitioned to all that he should be his father’s rightful anointed heir.

Then, unexpectedly, King David grew ill, and his flame sparked but a flicker. Many sought his royal throne for the Lord’s anointed refused to publicly name his heir. Only, those that loved him knew upon his father’s last breath the name of Solomon would be said. But then Adonijah tried to seize the crown from the king by force.

Thus, on the day his father lay dying, Adonijah rallied his powerful backing and engineered a coup. And to make sure King David’s subjects thought he had been given reign over his father’s kingdom, Adonijah rode through town upon the king’s horse followed by the king’s chief warrior and statesmen and fifty other men who ran before a string of chariots decorated in the royal regalia. His father’s high priest waited for him at a sacred spring to anoint him Yahweh’s king. Oh he rode proud, and so sure of himself, and he had muffled trumpets scream in a sinister voice that a new king had taken over this holy land. That Jerusalem had a new crowned king.

Only, I—a mere Shunammite had prepared for this moment an entire lifetime—I knew what must be done. For I knew if Adonijah succeeded in his takeover, I would be forced to marry him since by virtue of my personal service to King David I belonged to the royal household and I would be considered property to be passed on to his heir. And once Adonijah wore the royal ring, my beloved Solomon could not petition for me, since it would be treason for a subject to appropriate things or persons that belonged to royalty. Solomon would be put to death for his askance of my hand. And even if his brother did not charge my beloved in the courts with treason, he would send him into exile and declare him a madman, to live out his days with his new subjects, the death-distorted soldiers painstakingly sculpted from the charred trunks of the olive trees in the gardens of Gethsemane.

But I refused to allow Adonijah to seize what did not belong to him. Thus, I gathered into the king’s chamber the dying king to the rising king, and King David sat up in his bed, and there in the lion’s chamber, the youthful David that hid beneath the layers of wrinkled flesh, the one who slew the mighty giant Goliath from Gath, he called for me. To please me—for my king refused me nothing—he anointed my prince Solomon, king of Israel and Judah. Then, standing in for my deceased father, he gave my hand to Solomon, to reign with righteous wisdom beside my husband as his beloved queen.

And, upon King David’s balcony, with strong hands and breath, shofars blew a proud, righteous melody. And the sky opened and rose petals floated down to the earth from the heavens above. And in front of God and all, King David passed the crown to his rightful heir. King Solomon, wearing a bright red cloak lined with royal ermine, he took his father’s noble ring off the satin pillow with gold tassels and he placed it on his finger. A perfect fit. Then Solomon took my hand in his and intertwining his fingers with mine in a lover’s knot, he raised our arms high above our heads and we humbly bowed to our loyal subjects, as the new king and queen of Jerusalem and Judah. Cries of joy spread across the land. And, as the shofar gave forth a mighty blast, peace doves flew over our heads and soared up, and up, and finally disappeared into the clouds that floated like scrolls of truth across the azure blue sky.

Then King David died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor; forty years did he reign over Israel, and more since Solomon reigned in his stead.

And from that day forward King Solomon loved me above all else, and he built a stately palace to honor me, and he gave me—his queen, his one true love—all my heart desired. He even rode to my homeland and brought my mother back to the palace in a procession befitting the mother of a queen so she could see for herself how her lessons had prepared me to be the finest of queens. And the crown of a queen did in fact lay upon my brow, just as she had seen in the vision whence I took my birth breath.

Soon the pomegranate gave forth its seeds and we planted them in our garden and a new shoot like a mandrake bulb grew within me. We found great happiness in my pregnancy, until hard cramps squeezed my belly, and instinctually, I knew something was wrong. That this child would be the last present I would give to my blessed husband, but I did not share my feelings with him for he’d taken to fretting ceaselessly over me ever since my birth blood had stopped flowing for so many months.

And sure enough, his concerns would end up being justified. The child within me wanted out, but it was way too early. Of course the midwives rushed into my room, and after examining me, she lay the content of her birthing bag onto the clean bed of straw next to me: mint-scented oils, amphorae of cumin and hyssop, a knife, a string, and a reed, and a goddess figure of Asherah, the giver of all life. She then bowed her head and closed her eyes as she recanted birthing prayers to Yahweh, as well. Clearly, this had to mean the baby was coming today.

Soon, Solomon was asked to leave, but my beloved intertwined his fingers with mine in the same lover’s knot as on the day we’d married, and he refused to release me to the sole care of the midwives. For he was afraid something bad would happen to me as it had to his birth mother Bathsheba when God cursed his father and they lost their first born son as punishment for his sins. Only within our house, we had no rebellion to separate us from our Lord. For we were united as one by our love to Yahweh.

And so, on that day when I grew weak, and my labor grew long and hard, Solomon remained beside me and the room swarmed with women, each caring mother sharing her experience in birthing a child. No two woman’s story alike. Of course I felt privileged for entrance into this group of women, but it proved hard to concentrate as each poured out her heart to me. For the contraction were growing longer and my toes curled in pain almost constantly now. But I dared not show the pain, or my fear to my Solomon for he looked beside himself, fearful and worried.

Then pain crashed upon me like waves hitting the shore during a violent storm, and I nearly lost all dignity and composure and eventually only contractions rippled through me. I pleaded with my wise king to leave me, for I could not stand to see the fear I put in his eyes, but he pressed the bones of his mighty hand harder and harder against mine and he refused to let go of his Abishag.

And he called out to God that he had been a sinful man. That he had not always believed with all his heart in the one and only God, but he asked for forgiveness, and vowed to love only his Abishag, his pious wife, until the end of time. He beseeched God, for his Abishag’s sake, to let this child be born alive. I tried to console him, promising him that Yahweh would not harm me, but I could not make his worries cease.

Then, as though his prayers had been answered, my stomach cramped and I knew the time had come for me to push our baby out of me. I grunted for the midwife, sure this child would be born in this bed. Once she confirmed a red mass of dark hair could be seen between my legs, Queen Michal took hold of one arm, and Solomon the other, and I waddled with their help over to the birthing blocks. But when I squatted and bore down with the next contraction, bloody water gushed down my legs and I nearly fainted so embarrassed was I that I had wet upon the floor. But immediately thereafter another contraction stole the breath from me. Then another. Terrified, I cradled my belly to make sure the baby did not fall out of me. And that was when, for a brief moment, my beloved’s fingers lost hold of mine.

That was all it took for the angel of our Lord Gabriel to slip between my husband and me and he stretched his fingers long. And there, amidst his palm, I saw my future, and my daughter’s future, the song of my heart made flesh, my cherished princess, Baalit. For I had completed my reign here on earth and she had come to take my place. And I saw my lineage too, my granddaughter’s granddaughters, now of full royal blood.

Only, the life drained from me and I heard screams, and I saw the blood that covered the white and blue robe trimmed with golden threads Queen Michal had spun for me to wear for this joyous occasion. Then I heard above all else Solomon commanding like an echo the midwives to pull the child out of me. To do whatever, but . . . save his Abishag. Only, when my girl finally decided the time had come to make her queenly entrance, I was too exhausted to push her out.

Thus, the midwives stepped in and our little, little baby girl within ten heartbeats came into this world with a tearing violent entry. But her cries were as soft and gentle as still waters. And I knew she would grow up to be a good girl. A smart girl. A fighter for justice. A daughter that would make me proud.

And so, through prideful tears, I watched my strong husband cradle her in his strong arms and after praising her limbs, fingers and toes, her swollen little slit of female parts, he wiped her red wrinkled skin clean and dry and tears pooled in my eyes, so overcome with joy was I.

Then the room grew dim, and the dog-faced shadow of death appeared and crouched in the corner like a tiger ready to snatch my soul from my beloved’s kingdom. I cried harder, but silently now, for I could not stand to take flight into the night’s sky like a star and leave my beloved behind, the pain of parting from him and my daughter hurting me far worse than all of my birthing pains combined, and yet I had to remain strong for my beloved king or else I feared he might curse our daughter for taking his Abishag from him and give her to the hired help as revenge.

And so, hurriedly, before I took my journey into the endless night sky, I made my Solomon promise he would raise our daughter as a queen and give her as much love as he had given to me. And he graciously complied. With great pride he raised her little body cradled in his hands into the air so all could see his beloved daughter and he then promised to raise my jewel, his sacred girl Baalit, as I bequeathed.

Knowing my wise husband would never break his word to me, for he was a man of great honor, my daughter would never want for a thing, I now felt able to leave this world in peace. And so, with my next breath, I passed over to the land of my ancestors.

But do not cry for me, o fabled Queens, for I lived a magical life. Yes, I was not there with my husband and daughter as the years passed, but Princess Baalit, with help and guidance from her three grandmothers, she grew to rule her father’s palace like no other queen in Solomon’s palace. Oh I was so proud of her for she adored and honored her wise father, as I had done when my lilies covered the fields of our beloved garden.

And then the day came when my Solomon grew sad. Some would even call him mad. He’d known this day would come, for Solomon knew on the day his favorite child Baalit first drew the breath of life, the day he cried for his Abishag, that his daughter too would break his heart, for try as he might, the mightiest of kings could not control time, and his princess would eventually pack her whistles and her cloth dolls she played with in his palace and leave him to sit upon her queenly throne next to her handsome king in some faraway land.

Only, he’d hoped the sand in the upper chamber of the hourglass would trickle, grain by grain, until it slowly filled the bottom. But instead she had her first blood before he batted his eyes eleven times. So upon her twelfth year, his child Baalit rose from the darkness of childhood and emerged into the light of womanhood. And once betrothed to her king, she strolled with ease down the path of knowledge and ruled with wisdom just as her kingly father had done.

Then, all too soon, as promised by our Goddess Ishtar, the Song of Inanna sang once more, and her breath stirred the gentle winds of the night and shifted sand upon our ghostly footprints, and another fruit from my garden replaced the queen of the last. For my Baalit did sprout royal heirs, and my faithful daughter never forgot about me. And so my daughter’s daughters remembered me, and they passed on the love story of King Solomon and his beloved queen to their daughters and granddaughters alike.

Then one day, as prophesized, the heavy blooms of the Tree of Life burst wide open with my distant heir, and divine wisdom took flesh in a pure heart. And she was called Miryai and Mariam, and Mary of Magdalene. For, she was baptized perfection; Yahweh’s chosen “one,” G-d’s Treasury of Life.

Mariam possessed the beauty of the dawn; with her splendorous lapis lazuli eyes flecked with twinkling stars, eyes more rare than precious gemstones. And grace . . . she had the grace of an angel, with creamy nut coloured skin, and her shiny, long auburn hair that gleamed red in the setting sun, her whole presence announced Yahweh’s love for his people. Doves scattered at her feet as she strolled this earth, their wings shuffling the air, which smelled of flowers. The liquid notes of her voice blending with the falling water in the fountains she passed by.

And so, daughters of Jerusalem, I set my pen in its inkstand to rest my gnarled old hands that looked like branches of an olive tree so Mariam may share her own story.

For the time had come to open the depository retrieved from interior of caves to prevent alteration of the manuscripts, such as Isaiah, but also many other noncanonical texts, including the gospels she’d penned of her and the Teacher’s ministry.

Thus, when the hands of time had ripened the collective knowledge of humankind and the world was ready to understand the truth, Mariam cracked open the earthenware jars, and the wind blew her spirit back onto the pages of her treasured manuscripts. And she began to read the sacred text that told of the days when she strolled the desert, with twelve other men and her beloved Teacher, and scattered Yahweh’s seeds of light and love upon the fields of Israel forevermore.

Chapter One
Miryai’s visions

“There is no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God.”
Titus Flavius Vespasianus

I miraculously transformed into a white eagle and took flight, soaring into the future, into the time when Yahweh’s children had strayed too far from the covenant Moses had made with God on Mt. Sinai. Thus, the vulgar people who believed in the insane ravings of our priests were no longer living and courting God’s laws, and, as a result, the Jews in Jerusalem would soon pay for their disobedience, and most assuredly bring God’s judgment upon them as scripture forewarned since the days of old. And so, I cawed down to them, pleading with them to stop listening to the priests, that Yahweh prohibited us Jews to kneel before statues of the Roman Gods and Goddesses, and then pray for salvation in our temple.

Sure enough, when the sky turned purple, orange, and sage, and the heavens opened to allow in my prayers, and burnt offerings floated in the breeze, Yahweh upheld His promise and He gave authority to the Gentile nations to punish and deliver us Jews, the whole of the Jewish Nation, unto the flames set forth by our enemy. Thus, daylight turned to darkness and a sudden lightening flashed from the clouds and struck Temple Jerusalem, the ravenous beast that devoured gold and the souls of simple men and a fire broke out in God’s resting place here on earth.

Thus, when the Jews saw this, they stood up before me ashamed. Of course I prayed for them until my voice grew hoarse, and my mind drained, but as the intermediary between humanity and the divine, but thee was nothing more I could do, for the end was at hand, death would soon covenant this land.

And so I sprouted legs and arms and I transformed back into myself again, the priestess of the Temple Jerusalem. But as I stood on the highest step of the most holy temple, my fellow Jews clawed at me from every direction, and grabbed at me, and killed one another to kiss the hand of God’s beloved in hope that I could save them. Only it was too late. There was nothing I could do to stop the brutality that would soon befall my people. Even the sparrows had already taken flight and were now making a terrible fuss, flapping their wings and churring out the punishment Yahweh decreed for His children’s disobedience.

JUDGEMENT DAY HAD BEGUN.

I didn’t even have the chance to scream for my fellow Jews to flee the city before a cacophony of battle cries rose from behind the gray wall that separated Rome from us. And one hundred forty-three days after Passover, I heard the thunder of thousands of nail-studded caligaes stomping upon the sun-baked earth as Roman legionnaires marched toward God’s holiest of cities. I wilted to my knees, grasping my pounding head, and I cried uncontrollably. There was nothing, nothing I could do to save my people. The title I had been given at birth meant nothing—nothing to the bloodthirsty army that would advance upon Jerusalem soon. All I could do was pray and cry for the innocent souls that would most assuredly die alongside the guilty men who belied God and delivered this war upon the Jewish Nation.

And within a heartbeat, huge battering rams tore through our third wall of resistance and our protection from the highly trained soldiers crumbled to the ground. Then, the morning fog belched out in multitude swarms of fire bees. They charged into God’s holy city as though the Goddess Flora herself licentiously spread her legs and gave birth to thousands and thousands of savagery-honed Pagans. As soon as the idle worshipping Gentiles with knives and swords for hands stepped foot on this most sacred soil, they pillaged, and plundered, and set to work to destroy all evidence that God’s chosen had ever exist in Jerusalem.

And even though every man, woman and child fought to defend their land, the demonic rage spread swiftly to the plain Jews. Soon our holy temple burst into flames, while Roman soldiers sliced out the souls of my people. When I could no longer stand the death and destruction that surrounded me, I sprouted wings again, and tried to fly to the heavens above to beseech God to return and help His children, only my heart grew so heavy with grief it sent me tumbling down, down into the darkness, down into the ruins of this foreign Jerusalem, where dead bodies lay everything; even on the stairs of our once holy temple; body parts of old men mixed with infants all scattered in trees and gardens and streets; and women with their womanhood still covered in blood and the seed of their attackers, without a shroud to cover their nakedness they shamefully lay humiliated along with the others in this fetid interment that was once their homes. And since there was no one to moan for our dead to keep the birds and the beasts of prey away, death crows tore great chunks of flesh from the bodies decomposing into the filthy ground of this smoldering city in ruins.

Thus, during the hour when the owls screeched in the moonlight and the sun plunged angrily into the horizon, the last fire-engulfed wall of Temple Jerusalem toppled to the ground, save for the western wall that the Roman left standing to proclaim for all time their victory over the Jews, and our scripture blew aimlessly about in the wind, tumbling like weeds across the scorched earth, as though trying to find the chosen hands that would carry forth the words of Yahweh to the few survivors. But nothing, nothing would ever be the same, including the intimate relationship the Jewish Nation had once shared with the one and only true God.

* * *

The B’nai-Amen Temple of the Nazoreans

Simon Bar-Jona, known as Simon Peter in the B’nai-Amen Temple of the Nazoreans, he stepped into the street, and the fog swallowed him in the darkness. The haloed torchlights on the gates, the only light to guide him through the crowded streets. It gave an eerie glow to the early hours of the morning, and as unusual as it seemed, he liked it. For the mist that veiled the most ghastly secrets of this evil city, it also hid all that cursed him, as well. He did not need to cast his eyes toward the ground as he climbed through the sewers and underground streams of the city’s cisterns, trying to plot the safest path out of the city if the Roman army marched on Jerusalem as important whispered voices claimed it true. With his knowledge of that viperous animal-sacrifice cult, and the friction that had come between them and Rome, he believed it would happen soon. But he would be ready. For when he stayed at the temple, it was his position to be the rock that held back the enemies from gaining entrance into the most holy House of God, and he had free liberty to move about the city at his own leisure to protect his brothers and teacher, and master, too.

For the Nazoreans’ abhorred Temple Jerusalem with all its sacrifices, and they rejected the Jewish scripture that encouraged barbaric practices as forgeries. Its High Priest Caiaphas, that law-ridden animal-killing Pharisee, was not merciful to the Nazoreans and did not hold meetings with them for any reason. He even admitted if he had the power to do so, he would kill the Nazoreans when they stepped foot in his synagogue, he hated them that much. If Peter could have his way, he would take the dagger he strapped to his leg and end that corrupt man’s life. For didn’t that Roman-kissing fool serve the rich and reject the poor. They built ramps to their houses and created laws that the sick, the lowly, the poor were not permitted in this temple. Which made no sense. Then whom in God’s name did they serve?

But, the master of his temple adhered to the rigid Hebrew principles, and he claimed killing a sin. Even the one Peter called his Teacher of Righteousness, a prince in the line of King David that he felt would one day rise to become the ordained priest-king in the Zadok line, and kingly Messiah, he agreed with John the Baptiser, the High Priest of the Kingdom of Heaven, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, and cousin to his teacher. But, he preached, “To love your enemy and do to others as you would have them do to you.” He also preached other nonsense, as well. But Peter knew Yeshu the Nazorean only said such words to trick Rome so they would not suspect their attack once the temple had gathered and trained more soldiers like him. That the Essenes merely acted like pacifists and waited for the optimum time to declare war on Rome.

Of course their Master had not come out and said those words or threats to Peter, nor had his Teacher claimed it true, but Peter knew their text and sermons contained hidden meanings. Codes. Peshers. Something Peter had trouble learning, but he felt he was slowly grasping it to some degree.

But he was not a man of patience. It bored him to wait until they waded through pagers of syrupy sermons to get to the war plans. He just had to assume the temple’s higher ups had made the necessary steps. And yet, he had his own secrets. No one, not even The Teacher, knew of the summon Caiaphas had sent to Peter. The invitation to the temple was written in pretty letters he could not read, so he’d had to pay additional denariis to the whorelet who serviced his male urges often so she would read the message to him. Yet it hadn’t been worth it. The note only requested his presence in Caiaphas’ office early morning next to speak to the “Great One” about matters of national security and big money. Surely Caiaphas had to be up to no good, nothing but pure evil. Nothing more.

This invitation made no sense. He . . . a Nazorean, bending knee to Caiaphas when Peter stood beside the Messiah? No, Peter was a man of great importance. Why should he risk sacrificing his all-important position at his temple for a chance to meet with God’s fallen leader. Who did Caiaphas think he was? Peter sure didn’t need anything from him. For even though his teacher did not know it yet, Peter knew Yahweh had chosen him to protect the Holy One as he rose to power as the Messiah. What could Caiaphas offer to him that would be better than that?

Without Peter, even this city would be in a state of sheer chaos. For he protected this town whence the daylight surrendered to the darkness and the good Jew boys slept in their beds. No, nothing good could come of a meeting held during the hour when the dark still cloaked the sun. Surely that fraud who claimed his title merely by the lineage he adopted from his wife had to be up to no good, nothing but pure evil. And so Peter washed his hands of the animal-killing Jew.

Thus, tonight at the main entrance to the temple, he wore the darkness like a cape and he skirted around demons and prostitutes, and scholars teaching, and would-be prophets preaching, and beggars begging, and the upper-class Jews and Gentiles still socializing on the steps until he made it to the top of the grand staircase to the temple’s vast courtyard. And with his head held high, for he now had a sense of importance protecting the Teacher, a sense that he now belonged in Jerusalem, he took the scroll from the pouch that hung off the rope he used as a belt around his waist and he proudly tore up the parchment with its fancy letters into a thousand pieces and threw Caiaphas’ invitation into the wind. That would serve as his reply. He swiped his hands together and said a prayer to rid himself of any curse that Caiaphas may have put on him if he’d disrespect him.

Then he turned and headed back to where he was staying as of lately. For tonight, the pure evil ones had much work to do throughout the night. For the wee hours of Yom Kippur had approached. The festival of redemption would commence soon. He spat on the ground at the bitter taste the festival of the Red Heifer left in his mouth. What would the corrupt temple Jews know of the Laws of the Torah? To them, this festival was merely a daylong ceremony where the temple of robbers prospered. And their loyal followers filled the streets like the Lord plagued this city with enormous swarms of grasshoppers who dwelled in tents with curtains stretched out to the heavens and cattle tethered to their ropes. And the vulgar came as grasshoppers in multitude; for both they and their camels were without number; and they entered into the land to destroy it.

And they brought crime. Plus, a terrible odiferous smell. The stench of animals and man assaulted his nose with each breath. And they brought vile children and vile animals with them, the axils on their wagons overburdened with all they had brought with them. And the city smelled of them. It reeked of raw sex, of birth blood, of feces and baby dung, of vomit and the blood of dead animals killed to provide meat for their corrupt appetites. And when he drew in his next breath the smells soured his stomach and he threw it up like he’d ingested poison.

Unable to stand anymore, he held a white clothe over his nose and mouth, and he strolled toward his bed, consoling himself that this particularly dark and eerie night would pass like any other. Or so he prayed it would. And he did his best to check the streets for ghosts and things from the dark side trying to hunt him down to make him pay for the crimes of his past. But tonight, he felt confident that no one would be able to touch the hem of his robe. The dagger he had strapped to his calf would guarantee that. And so he cautiously headed west, to return to his temple before he was missed when the first prayer was spoken at dawn’s light.

But he still checked his back, for anger and fear made him sweat an intense, dark, dead-fish smell that oozed from his every pore. In his past, the stench had been so bad it had made him withdraw from the world, and he’d taken to the sea to avoid the painful ridicule cast upon him like giant nets by the crude “normal” people of Capernaum, his hometown. And the fish odor that had come upon him as a curse made it easy for the creatures that stalked him for his crimes to pick up on his scent even in a crowd. But then again, anyone could smell him even from afar, for he could not mask the offensive tang even when he tried. And he’d tried. Scrubbing only produced big open sores up and down his arms and legs and manly sack. And yet, the smell clung to him and his clothes like he’d immersed himself in its oil as part of some purification rite.

Then, one early morning while fishing off by himself in his hometown he’d made a friend. Yes, the “Teacher” had found him. Yeshu the Nazorean they called him, a man of God-like quality. And his new friend promised to make him a fisher of men, not fisherman, once he obtained high priest. And Peter knew right then that Yahweh had blessed him with this teacher that had cured him. That the days of hard work gutting and cleaning his daily catch had ended.

And it had. The smell had even dissipated some since he now stayed in town. Only, not before the dead fish smell seeped into the very fibers of his most honored white robe; the robe of a Nazorean Essene. The white robe of knowledge. His only possession in this world now, having left behind his riches to study scripture: his boat, his wife and child he’d left to study under The Teacher as a sacred protector; and so his white robe became more than just means to cover his ugly white body. It was now a symbol of his firmness of faith, and the inward love for his Teacher. Caiaphas would soon learn of his answer when he was alone in the night, eating peeled grapes as he stretched long on his cushiony couch. And he hoped Caiaphas choked on the grapes for he deserved it. Peter felt so ready to take off his robe and wash it using the strongest of lye to burn out the smell of Caiaphas so he could wear his only robe fresh and clean at tomorrow’s service. And now it smelled of him as he wandered toward the mystical temple where he now lived, finished with his mission for the night.

Then, about a block from his temple, and the mat he threw on the floor to sleep upon, he turned his head in all directions of the compass, listening intensely to the muffled noises of the city all around him. The fog held down a silence that echoed the strangest of sounds. Noises that made him nervous. He listened intently, the sheathed dagger wrapped to his leg itching, eager and ready to slit a throat and defend him from an assault. Then the sound grew louder and he ducked into a doorway, and silenced his breath. Strange noises came at him from all directions. Of course he could hear his own heart beating loud and fast, but the noise from the bells of mules in a nearby village mingled with the medley of prayers cried out in the heat-drugged sleep from the various religions honored in the crowded houses all around him. And, for one brief moment, he felt afraid.

He didn’t want to kill a human being, or else the sin would make him loose his good standing in the temple. And, the Teacher counted on him. He wasn’t about to loose his place in the world when he had just found it. He, a man that could not read or write, he had even started to study scripture. A task he did not enjoy, but it would deliver him unto his calling as sacred warrior. When he’d joined the Nazorean Temple, he had told them he did not want to become a priest. Healing people and exorcisms took too much patience and understanding for him.

No, he’d joined the temple because he believed in The Teacher. And somehow, in the course of a few weeks after he’d followed the Teacher home, the other members, barring the women of course—who in his opinion were not worthy of life and should not be allowed to have a voice in how they worshipped nor be able to run the temple—the men of the temple had made him feel as welcome as a brother, which he had never felt before. And even though he was a slender man of above average height, his pale complexion almost white, with no eyebrows, and black eyes that had flecks of red burnt into them from all the violent anger and weeping spells, he scared people with merely his looks. Not to mention the scent of fish. Therefore, he knew it was hard to like him. And he felt honored to have such good friends. Friends he would do anything to protect.

Thus being a spiritual warrior fit him well and he would die before allowing anyone to harm his spiritual brothers, especially his teacher. For he felt in his heart that Yeshu was the anointed one. That the Messiah that had come to overthrow Roman occupation. And he was sure the Teacher was God’s chosen one prophesized in the Hebrew Bible, the six-pointed star shining bright in the heavens above at the moment of his birth symbolizing the birth of the Messiah. And He would one day rise up to be the King of the Jews over Jerusalem and Judah. And Peter, with his sword drawn, he would be there standing proud to defend him. For the priests in Temple Jerusalem would try to kill him to remain in power.

All he had to do was stay alive long enough to claim his title. If he could stay alive. Just then he heard a loud nose echoing off the street. He took in the view from his left and then his right. And, as he did, a cat came slinking in front of his legs. He wanted to wring its neck like a chicken, but he threw it into the street instead. With a hiss and a loud whine, it ran toward the temple. Of course, the demon creature had to have been the culprit behind the noise he’d been hearing.

But to be sure, he still surveyed the area all around him. Everything appeared clear of strangers so he crossed the street, but kept a watchful eye out for spirits that may be stalking his back and waiting to pounce on him. One never knew when they might attack from behind. He especially wanted to make sure no one gained entrance to the temple when he opened the door. Evil spirits were sneaky like that.

Then a chill overcame him and he pulled his hood up to bring himself warmth. Yes, shepherds had guaranteed that the sheep had multiplied so spring had arrived, but the night air filled with demons could get a chill when the breeze came in from the west.

A voice then broke into the quiet of his thoughts. It had a ring of familiarity to it so he paused, but felt sure it was just the neighbors fighting again. With the houses built nearly on top of each other, fights broke out often between the Pagans and the temple Jews. Both believing they possessed the true path to salvation. He did not want to be dragged into another one of their fights, for he knew he would have to silence both men since neither knew the true path to his God, nor did they possess the knowledge of the sacred writings that the Master and the Teacher at the temple had taught him and so therefore they were just fools spewing ignorant lies. And he hated lairs with a passion.

And so, he hastened his step toward the temple, leaving the arguing men behind him, to make it to the temple before the ignorant fools tried to drag him into another fight. But as he extended his left leg to take the first step up to the front door of the temple, a hand grabbed him from behind, and covered his mouth, then twisted Peter’s arm behind his back until it felt as though the bones had snapped. Another man padded him down. When he finally made it to his calf area, he stopped. He raised Peter’s gown just enough to rip his dagger from its sheath. Peter struggled wildly, trying to bite his attacker’s hand. All the while, he mumbled for them to let him go. That he had no money or possession to give them.

But that did not even seem to matter to his attackers. They gagged and bound him in darkness by a burlap bag and pulling it tight, they knotted it in the back of head. His heart jumped in his chest from his fear and anger. How dare these men do this to him, a man of such great importance? What did these men intend to do with him? He struggled to free himself from their hold, but then something hard whacked him on the back of his head and his knees buckled and he nearly fell face first. Then a high-pitched ringing in his ears replaced his fear, and his head spun in circles as though he had drank too much wine. He did not think he could stand much longer.

But he would not give him up. He would die first.

He struggled to free himself from their hold, and warn the teacher, but then something hard whacked him on the back of his head and his knees buckled, followed by a high pitched ringing in his ears and his head spun in circles as though he had drank too much wine. Then he was shoved in the back of a wagon.

“Yeshu. Yeshu wake. It is not safe. Get out of here. Send help,” Peter silently prayed, hoping the Teacher could hear his thoughts.

“Let me go,” he insisted right before the wagon began to move and he toppled over. Then the sound of wagon wheels on stone told him they were on the road of the Upper City, probably heading toward Temple Jerusalem. But this attack had better not have anything to do with Caiaphas for right then he felt angry enough to kill him.

Then the cart took a sharp turn and he slid across the back of the wagon. And all at once he inhaled a terribly odiferous odor, so strong his eyes watered and it forced him to choke. He coughed, trying to exhale the filthy air from his lungs. For the stench of vile children and animal waste, the seed of man and the blood of raw sex, and birth blood, and feces and baby dung, the vomit and the carcasses of dead animals that had been shoveled off the city streets now covered his nose and he immediately threw up, knowing he had been thrown into the back of a shit wagon that traveled around the city cleaning up after the filthy Jewish pilgrims.

For godsakes, his anger flared. In his eyes his attackers were worth less than a mangy dog. He would make sure he repaid their generosity. Someone would die tonight. Just thinking about how he would kill them brought a little solace to this miserable night. And he screamed, “You are going to die,” with all the power of his being, which left him panting and he was forced to inhale the sickening smell again. Within heartbeats his stomach soured and he threw up in his mask. And his vomit mixed with the liquid that had soaked through the cloth from the outside and when he finally gasped for air, the mixture coated his throat and he threw up again.

Weak and dizzy, his head began to throb with a horrible ache and he realized he had hit something hard, hard like a boulder or a pile of bricks when he toppled over. Whatever it was, it was enough to make his muscles grow limp, and his vision darken right before he thankfully passed out.

Chapter One
Temple Jerusalem

It had all started on a night when slumber barely played upon my forehead. I woke from my visions, desperate and trembling. Something had disturbed me and left me with such a terrible feeling of doom that it jolted me awake, already sitting up, crying. And for a moment thereafter, I could not move, paralyzed by the fear that cramped me over like a curse. For on this night, even the air felt different on my lungs somehow. I glanced around my chamber to locate the source of what had awakened me, but the brutal visions of the war that Yahweh poured into my pillow played even louder before my waking eyes. Even the stench of death that followed me back from the dreams still assaulted my nose thousands of times stronger than the foul odor that came in through my window from the blood and entrails that drained down the side of the streets from the animals slaughtered in the temple. So pungent the smell, my stomach soured and I had to fan my face to keep from loosing my food on my bed. And trouble, it seemed to lurk in the darkness, where even the shadows seemed to come alive with faceless men in white and soldiers and demons of the night.

And it was these visions that had caused me such turmoil. For my inner sight felt as real to me as any memory. My mother had always told me to be quiet and not share that which Yahweh had shown to me in the nights. For they did not like a child telling them to stop their corrupt ways or else he would be forced to make them listen. And so, you might think by my age I would no longer be scared and alone after waking in the night having seen the future, but what had come over me in the last three moons haunted me and created a darkness scarier than anything I had ever seen.

Yes, Jerusalem was a tinderbox waiting to ignite, but my Avi (father) and the priests of this temple refused to listen to that which came to me from behind my darkened eyelids. And having been born of the inferior gender, I had been imprisoned in this dark house and unable to reach my people. But I did not need permission to follow the destiny Yahweh had shown me in my dreams. For He’d sealed His truths upon my lips and commanded that I spread His truths among the Jews of this temple. And so once the sun rose and set again my maidservant and I would flee this temple to do that which I knew would cause me trouble, terrible terrible trouble. If only . . . if only those in power had listened then I would not have been forced to hurt so many people.

Of course you’d probably heard the propaganda spread about me. Yes, the lies. I do not fault you for believing in them. Truthfully, I’d had no idea there were those who lived to discredit and destroy me. For I, the temple priestess, had been forced to live within the golden walls of Temple Jerusalem ever since a six-pointed star had shown in the heavens above and heralded my birth. And so, I had been naïve and trusting once. But there had even been times when I had been spun around like a sandstorm and found it hard to recognize my own life story beneath the layers of lies. Yet, I quickly discovered there was such a thing as evil. And after my eyes had been pried wide open, I found it impossible to remain silent like a jeweled doll displayed on Avi’s scripture shelf.

And so maybe it best for me to start at when Yahweh first came to me in my dreams and showed me in great detail the war that would soon destroy Jerusalem and the entire Jewish Nation. Truly, I did believe the brutality and violence I had witnessed in my sleep had been a message from my Lord. Yet I had never imagined by my honoring the visions, it would change my life so drastically. That the priests of this temple would erase the records of the years I’d spent living and teaching the Torah to priests and sons alike while the guards kept me locked within these temple walls as a sacred prisoner.

For come tomorrow I was to stand before the wealthiest, most powerful guests dressed in the traditional rainbow-colored nuptial toga, with its fabric so soft and light it moved like a puff of smoke floating through the breeze, and sign the Tena'im, swearing I’d obeyed all the conditions set forth at my birth and marry Yahweh as Avi had arranged for me. And yet tonight I was to also start my own ministry outside this temple as Yahweh commanded of me and fulfill my true destiny. Only I feared I did not have the heart to do that which I knew must be done.

Yet I tried not to let myself think about the pain I would cause Avi by calling off my wedding to take up Yahweh’s calling. But my mind would not rest, calling me a fool to think I could honor anything but Yahweh’s destiny. For Yahweh had so loved His people, so loved His creation He willed to seek and save the lost—not destroy them. And that was why I, Miryai, temple priestess of the Jerusalem Temple, born of the Kings of Judaism, the daughter of Jerusalem’s mighty ruler and rightful successor to the Davidic bloodline of the Jairus priests, had been selected to be a spiritual teacher for Yahweh.

And the worst part was that Yahweh had not given me a choice whether to accept His calling, or honor the arranged marriage Avi had destined for me to enter into come tomorrow, right after the cock lets crow his morning call at sunrise. Nay, truly . . . truly on my life, may my Lord strike me dead if I lied, Yahweh had laid charge on me and I had been commanded to answer His calling.

For prophecy called for a child to lead the innocent ones away from the fire that condemned the guilty and started the destruction of Jerusalem. That was why Yahweh called on me, the child who locks and pins had trouble keeping in. Yes, my Lord had called on me, His child who mindest not pins and lockings, to escape this temple and become that child for God. I just had to face the reality of the situation; that it was up to me to make my people hear and believe in that which pounced on me like a hungry lion and violently gnawed at my sanity once I closed my swollen eyes so full of sleep, or most definitely, they would die.

And as the mouthpiece of my Lord and devoted servant of Yahweh, I was now obligated, even required to violate the commandments of the priests of this temple, to flee the only home I had ever known with my maidservant Sarah beside me, if her Goddess Asherah gave her blessing to protect us on our journey, and we were to set off into the streets during the hour when demons and prostitutes owned the city to find my brother Lazarus and sister Martha’s house in Bethany and do as God commanded, tell my people of God’s warnings before there was no good Jews left to save.

Thus, when the Sukkot festivities commenced, and the dry technicalities of Jewish law waxed to poetic jubilation, and music filled the air, and even Avi would juggle up to eight lit torches at a time, but Sarah and I would not be observing them from my chamber window as usual. Nay, we would be sealing closed the golden doors of the temple behind us and melt into the sultry rhythm of the crowd as the Yom Kippur service ended and the pilgrims made their traditional walk, like a huge white tidal wave, back up the hillside to their tents set up in Bethany and become just another ordinary Jews searching to find the place where we fit within this crazy world.

But it destroyed me to think that all the goodness Avi had showered upon me my whole life, and I would return his kindness with agonizing grief? Such disrespect would surely condemn me as a sinner. For he had been generous to me, giving me things most women only dreamed of having. He’d hired the best of private tutors, and had me schooled in subjects normally only given to princes and the wealthiest of male offspring, I’d even studied the forbidden Jewish scripture of the ancestors. And gifts? He’d given me gold and silver, and all the fineries and respect given to a King’s daughter. But most importantly, he’d given me his love. And for all that, I repay him with . . . betrayal? It seemed so cold and cruel for Yahweh to ask this of me.

For it would be Avi who would be crying later tonight, once he came into my room to kiss me goodnight and he found my empty bed. Yes, he would be the one crying all alone in my room for what I had done to him. And it would hurt him even deeper than that. Knowing his big heart, once he had time to mull over my absence, he would most assuredly blame himself for letting me and our wedding guests down, and he’d weep over having failed us. That if he’d done more, if he’d been a better Avi, a better priest, I would not have chosen to sin before God’s eyes by committing the blasphemous act of breaking my promise to Yahweh, a promise my people took very seriously.

Thus, if I did not have a chance to talk to Avi about my new destiny prior to my leaving, then whence he found my bed empty, he would be put into the most troubling situation. His peers would never hear to my having visions with a different destiny from Yahweh. And so to save his title, he would be forced to tell the teachers, the great and the little ones, and all the tabernacle’s mighty rulers that I’d broken the conditions for my wedding and he could no longer allow me to wear the crown of temple priestess. And those corrupted priest who yearned to ruin me, they would surely fabricate slanderous lies and damaging accusations as they built their charges against me. Lies they would spew when they judged me before the priests and my fellow Jews.

But if Avi did not condemn me then it would ruin his career as the next in line to be high priest after Caiaphas evil rule ended. And I had to make him promise to disown me once I’d left this temple, just like he had done to my brother. For I could not allow him to relinquish the blessing for which he was born to perform for mankind. My Avi was too worthy of a priest to step down because of me. Nay, he was one of the few good servants of our Lord left in Jerusalem.

And so, when the sun rose this morning and kissed Avi’s eyelids apart, I was to meet him on the rooftop of this temple to discuss my wedding and that was when I planned to share with him my visions. And even though I would not tell him when I planned to leave, he would at least know how hard I’d struggled over my decision and after I’d left he would know why I’d followed the destiny Yahweh had given to me once I closed my eyes so full of sleep.

And hopefully he would draw upon the memory of our meeting when the times proved hard and he had to explain my leaving to the lowly, the sick and the lame that the priests thought below them and refused to help. Surely once he shared that Yahweh had forced my tongue to speak His truths amongst those who could not attend this temple, then I felt confident my fellow Jews would defend me, their intermediary who raised their prayers up to God, the one person in this temple who honored their plight and prayed to God to save them from the oppression, and the staggering high taxes and laws set forth by this temple and Rome. For it was getting harder and harder for them to survive. I’d even heard some had to sell their land and themselves into slavery to make the payments. But I knew, I heard, I cared and I prayed they would do the same for me and stand up to the priests and demand mercy be given to Avi and me.

But most importantly, if I did not speak to Avi before I left with Sarah later tonight, then for the rest of my days on this earth I would feel guilty, and deceitful, and completely unworthy of the special love he’d shown to me all these “times.” It frightened me to think of having to stand before him and do that which I knew what must be done. For I had seen how terrible he had treated my brother and sister when they’d planned to leave this temple and they’d tried to explain their reason for pledging their faith to another sect of Judaism. And even though they had not faulted him and included him in the reason why they were leaving, and they’d been kind when they explained it had been the corruption in this temple that had made them join the Essenes, but he’d still cursed them and had them thrown out of the temple by sacred guards. And he’d forbidden them to enter into this temple again.

And surely if I did not tell him of my visions before I left, then he would accuse me of betraying him, and he would bring upon me upset such as I had never seen before. And surely he’d do to me as he’d done to my siblings. For once my feet touched the ground of King David’s golden city, he would surely never, ever allow me inside this temple from thenceforth, nor would he ever speak to me again. And I for one did not want him as my enemy. With his being the chief priest of the Jerusalem Temple, a man of considerable power being the direct subordinate to the tyrannical Cohen, High Priest Caiaphas, he also had a terrible temper.

And the only thing I felt with any certainty was that he would never change his destiny for me. For politically he could not contradict the promise he had made to Yahweh at my birth. But even though that promise would make him one of the richest, most powerful men in Jerusalem and surely the next high temple priest of this temple as well; however, most certainly, he’d arranged for me to wed Yahweh because he believed he’d been shown my true destiny.

That his holy man, the prophet Pistus—a most profligate character; a slave to both money and pleasures—back in the days when prophets were still revered, he’d witnessed a giant wandering six-pointed star hanging over Jerusalem, and it shined so bright in the inky black sky that it dimmed all the others in the heavens above like a whisper upon the flame of a candle at the exact moment of my birth. And he’d declared with certainty that a royal event was looming, that this rare occurrence had been a sign from God; an indisputable sign that the Lord had chosen me to be His sacred wife, a virgin vessel never to be filled with life, only His light would be permitted to fill me clear down to the core of my soul.

Furthermore, I was to be locked within these walls of gold and stone and Lebanon wood in my sacred bridal chamber from thenceforth. To pray on behalf of those who paid Avi the highest tithing for my divine intervention for the remainder of my life. Such gifts were performed in broad daylight since the donations would be used to cover the financial obligations of my living in this dark house forevermore. And there were no laws to protect me from being locked away as his prisoner.

Thus, my whole life would be spent alone.

Forever and always alone.

Which truly scared me. From just thinking about the darkness that would inevitably cast a shadow on my days, and take away my breath until my head grew dizzy and I passed out, and that was the future awaiting me here in this temple. Only time was running out. I could not let myself think about not being able to find a way around the guards temple and make it to freedom, or else I would start to cry and have a terrible time stopping, I had to find something, anything that would distract me. And so I glanced out my window and into the soul of the universe, trying to read my true destiny in the stars as my mother had taught me to do before she had died. Yet, unlike her, I could see no signs that would help me.

But at least a full moon lit up the night. At least it would be nice and bright for us to leave tonight when Sarah and I became just another stitch in King David’s prayer shawl, and we melted into the estimated two hundred fifty thousand pilgrims staying in the tents spread out on the outlying hills of Bethany and Bethphage, having traveled far to honor their obligatory visit to Temple Jerusalem, to celebrate Yom Kippur and sacrifice a bull to our Lord for the atonement of sins committed against both God and their fellow man.

But I could not worry about that now, for I felt my eyelids were growing heavy, as though weighted down by temple coins, and sleep brought stars before my eyes. Thinking it best it best to grab a few more hourglasses of sleep before I had to rise early this morning to meet with Avi, I gave into my fatigue and soon a complete stillness washed over me and my body grew lighter, as though I floated above the clouds drifting over the earth and I no longer grieved or felt afraid anymore. And I drifted along, suspended in time, and in this blessed state where the sun kissed the edge of the world, where rainbows ended, where stars spattered the heavens above, and the universe became a part of me and I became a part of all life. I never wanted to leave this wonderful place that I had entered. But then a strange noise pulled me back, back into the darkness, back into my chamber and the reality of the night.

Then my eyes popped wide open, and the familiar sound abruptly jarred my mind alert. I bolted up as though lightening had struck my bed. That was it, the “noise” that had awakened me earlier. And now I just heard it again. It sounded like loud arguing in the hall. I remained perfectly still, listening to the voices as they grew louder the closer they came to my chamber. It seemed as though either temple guards or priests stood right outside my door.

Something crashed in the hall that sent a chill through me. The same feeling of doom that I had felt earlier returning. All I knew for sure was that whatever was going on out there it had something to do with me. I searched my dimly-lit chamber to make sure no one had sneaked in here while I’d slept, but only the familiar shadows of faceless men in white and soldiers and demons of the night came after me but I did not worry about them. For surely they could not harm me. Then I checked on Sarah to make sure nothing had happened to her. She was still fast asleep on the cot she had moved next to my bed to comfort me through the visions over the last three moons that were far worse than any curse that came to me in the night and filled my days with ungodly dread. She looked so angelic and harmless in the soft glow of the pomegranate lamps burning around my room. At least her one green eye and the other blue were closed to the world for now.

But then I heard someone in the hall shouting again, “Stop.” That sounded like a guard giving orders. Was there trouble out there? Nay, albeit a foreboding silence stilled the air, I heard no more arguing and everything seemed to be at peace again. It was not unusual for the sacred protectors to stop visitors in the night from sneaking into my room. The younger priests seemed to have a fixation on watching me sleep. It happened all the time. And so my priestly protector tended to be overly protective of my wing of the temple. But with my having a lower purity status, being a woman with special sanitary conditions that would contaminate the holy men if they came near me during moon cycles, I had my own hall far away from the priests which wasn’t good if I needed help no one would be able to hear my screams for help. Still, it sounded clear of trouble in the hall. Probably just one of the priests from another temple here to help with the grueling service today who wandered into my area.

And yet, my heart told me differently. I sat up in bed, listening to every sound. And just when I pulled my crying cloth from my sleeve, and I was about to blow my nose, I heard a forceful knock on my door. “Priestess,” a gruff voice said, scratching the silence of the night. It did not sound like the priest normally stationed at my door. The tonality did not sound right. The priest’s trained to chant the ai-ai-ai and liturgical poems in the temple had expressive voices that reflected inner-most feelings. This voice was abrasive, a man of muscle and war.

Now I worried we might not be able to wait until tonight to escape. Maybe, it would be best for Sarah and I to escape out my garden door, and take our chances in the streets before the men who fought in the hall burst into my apartment.

“Sarah,” I whispered to awaken her from her sleep. “Guards, Sarah,” I jiggled her cot to get her attention, trying not make too much noise to alert the men that I was already awake. I prayed they might leave if they thought me asleep. And so I waited, listening to strange words exchanged in the hall. Once Sarah’s lashes lifted and she stared back at me, I held my finger to my lips. “Shhhh,” I purred to keep her quiet. “Guards. They sound angry. I think they know about our leaving.” I raised my brows. “Possibly Herod’s soldiers.” I opened my eyes wide and nodded toward the garden door. “We need to get out of here, fast.” But, just as I said that, an inpatient knock pounded on my door again, telling me there was no time to escape.

“Priestess?”

“—Yes?” I said loud enough so the guards knew I was answering them, but I was actually stalling so I could make sure Sarah would be safe. “You go Sari,” I whispered. “Leave out that door. They will not hurt me. But you . . . I’ll come find you once I escape. Do not stop running until you make it past the gate to Bethany. I’ll meet you in the cemetery.” Sarah shook her head as she sat up and raked her fingers through the mass of tawny hair matted in the back of her head as though expecting important guests. She even pinched her cheeks to give them color. What was she doing? Didn’t she hear my order?

“Leave,” I commanded, louder this time. My hands shook so hard I could not steady my pointed finger toward my garden. Then another even louder knock made both of us jump in our beds. I was truly scared. We were trapped. This could be the end for Sarah and me. No one would hear our screams.

Surely, I hadn’t talked in my sleep, and called out for the Nazorean in white of my dreams. Nay, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I knew what would happen to him if anyone heard me responding to his kiss, even if it was only a dream kiss, surely they would nail him to a cross if they found him. If . . . if such a man existed. Nay, I would never expose the secrets I had buried deep within my heart.

Then Sarah coughed and cleared her throat. I peeked over at her bed to see if she was ready for me to tell the men to enter. She had already dressed and now she stood in the middle of the room with her stiffened finger pointing at the door.

“My sacred protector,” I said to her appreciatively through numbing lips. Sarah bowed back playfully. She had always done an admirable job protecting me. No one came near me when Sarah stood guard. For she possessed an anger so great, so deep, no one dared to harm her or me. She would give her life before letting anyone hurt me.

For she fought from her fear that she’d shoved so deep within her I wasn’t sure it was fair of me to take her with me once I left the safety of these walls and answered my new calling. Of course I would do everything in my powers to make sure she would not get hurt; however, I knew she would. For a darkness had stolen Sarah’s past and now she feared irrationally, her every moment spent in terror of the evil senator who’d raped her when she was but a mere child. It had left such scares for he’d then left her as dinner for the wolves in the thickets along the roadside, the blood gushing out between her tiny legs as heavy as the moon blood of a grown woman, leaving her barren and unable to accept the affection of another man. Now she was convinced that senator from Rome waited for her in the shadows of the streets to finish what he had started. So much so, the only way she would agree to leave this temple with me was if Asherah blessed us with her safety. We just had to find the time to summon Asherah to my room when guards could not see us or else with Goddess worshipping no longer permitted in this temple we would be severely punished. But, she was not afraid to fight anyone. She would, and I had seen her do it, she would take on any man inside this temple since she was my sacred protector, for she was tall, big-boned and muscular, and she moved with the grace of a woman, but the authority of a man and she was good.

“Priestess, ready?” She glanced at me. I shrugged, wondering if I would ever be ready for this day, then she glanced outside the window, obviously judging the time. “It’s too dark for help to come.”

I nodded, unable to answer for terror strangled me and choked off my words. All my fears, in the past and to come, gathered together in one huge blow. I’d dreamt of this moment before. I knew what would soon happen. I shivered, too afraid to move. And then, sure enough, my worst fear came to fruition. Just a Sarah started to say come in, my door burst open and three guards I had never seen before entered my chamber with swords drawn.

“Stop. Priests,” Sarah raged, shaking her finger and whipping her arm up and down at them. If she was afraid, I could not tell in her voice or her posture. She stood tall, her hands on hips, waiting for them to apologize for the intrusion. When none came, she added, “Do you think yourselves above God’s laws to come in here?” She left no room for doubt. She was letting them know she was upset with their rudeness, daring them to enter this sacred room without permission. “Who are you? No one dares come into my priestess’ room unannounced. Bow to her Holiness.” She put her hands on her hips and huffed. “Those beady of eyes of yours, trail them to the ground. Now, I said, or else, her Avi will hear of this and Yahweh will blind you if you continue to stare.”

When the men’s eyes continued to feast on me, I knew these men had not come on my father’s command. For it was unlawful to even glance at me unveiled. Had I known they planned entrance into my room, I would have pulled my headpiece on. The normal priests usually stood at my door and those sacred protectors even bumped into things so as not to break their gaze from the floor. Who these men worked for I did not know as of yet, but it did not look good right now.

“Sarah, where are your manners,” I said graciously to let the men know I wanted no trouble. “Please, most gracious ones, I have jewels if it’s money you want. I beg your mercy. Please let my maidservant go. Just give me your price,” I forced my voice to remain as smooth as the water flowing in the brook that ran through my garden. But as the men stepped closer, I must have shown my fear for I backed into the netting that surrounded my bed to protect me from bugs and hungry eyes trying to peak at me while I unsuspectingly slept. “Where is Avi’s guard?” I hugged my knees close to my chest in a hard, tight ball and pulled my covers up to my chin and over my head and face, save a slit for my eyes.

“Priestess,” the tallest man said respectfully, his head bowed. “I have not seen your father’s priest. We have come to the temple to help with the security for today’s service. Your screams . . . we heard them on our way to the sanctuary and wanted to make sure you are safe. Is everything all right? This woman,” he pointed at Sarah with his sword, “did she harm you, priestess?” He advanced toward Sarah rapidly, pointing his sword at her as though to cut her down upon my request.

All the while, the two other sacred protectors checked out the shadows around my room by torchlight, the flames jumping and dancing under furniture and behind my clothes. Surely they were searching for someone or something of value they could pocket as a souvenir of mine. But I feared this meeting had turned unlike any other, dangerous and possibly even deadly. Yes, real guards had already tried many times to come into my chamber to watch me sleep, their lustful eyes having scanned each and every curve of my womanhood before they startled me awake and they claimed an intruder had been spotted within the temple, but in fact they had been the worst intruders thus far.

Just from the way these men had been able to get into my door made me think these thieves had broken into the temple and killed my father’s guards that normally flanked my door at all times. That had to have been the arguing I had heard earlier in the hall.

Unless, of course I was wrong and I had in deed called out to the Teacher who visited me in my dreams. But I doubted that was true. I would never have done that. The white robed Nazorean who came to me in a lover’s quest, sweet, and deep, and strange he was, I kept dreams of him in the deepest chamber of my heart, so they would never see the light of day. For when he kissed me on the cheek in my dreams, I thought I would die of joy, my room wheeling about me, leaving me giddy and trembling, but once I woke and realized if I’d talked in my sleep this man would be killed upon a cross, for Avi had declared that any man who led his Miryai astray from this virtuous life or touched my sacred body intended only for Yahweh, he would have them hung upon a cross and tortured in the most humiliating way. But I did not even know this man was for real so my father could hardly kill a man I met only in my dreams. A man I knew neither his name nor his birthplace to locate him if he was made of flesh and blood.

What if he was real? What would that do to me . . . with my being a temple virgin? Would our meetings constitute a crime, punishable by death? Had the guards come to punish me for my wrong doings? Nay, I would not let them touch me over such foolish. Maybe if I took off running, I could outrun the guards all the way to my brother’s house? Surely he would protect me and hide me from their punishment. For he now wore the white robe of a Nazorean priest.

Yet it was stupid of me to think I could make it out my door without being caught. How far would I get in my sleeping apparel without a veil? Surely, if I did make it past these guards, the Antonia Guards, Herod’s blood-thirsty killers, even with the streets lined with tents and Jews asleep everywhere on this, the eve of Yom Kippur, they would spot me from high atop their fortress in the sky that looked down on us Jews like hawks that preyed over the dead in the desert, and they would capture me and hand me over to these men dressed in black robes.

Then the lead man, who was as stocky as any Roman soldier, with no facial hair and short cropped hair on his head and he acted with such disciplined he could be mistaken for one of Herod’s high-ranking soldiers, he took a few steps closer to my bed. “Yes, you screamed, my Noble Priestess. Are you troubled?” He straightened and puffed out his chest, filling out his robe with a warrior chest as he strolled closer and closer to me. He acted so noble until I returned his gaze, and I saw darkness . . . torture . . . death in his cold black eyes. “Are you in need of our protection?” he added, his eye telling me to be afraid, very afraid, that I needed protection from him.

“Nay, Sarah, have them leave,” I whispered toward Sarah, raising my chin toward her, a secret code for her to remove the men from my chamber at once. For I had already said more to these men than my title permitted. Being a priestess I was forbidden to speak to the lowly. I hoped this would let the man dangerously close to me now know I saw through their guise, that they were not temple guard and they’d best leave before I called the real protectors.

“You heard the orders of our priestess,” Sarah scolded. “Leave of your own free will, or else I will be forced to make you leave.” Sarah shook her head in disgust, clearly expressing her hated of men.

But that must have angered the man who continued to walk toward me because he snapped back to Sarah, “I spit on you. Unworthy whore. Leave. You are dismissed. I have important things to discuss privately with your priestess. Go at once, or else I will cut out you’re blabbing mouth, then remove your inferior brain from your head.” At that, the other men stopped rummaging through my things, shoving my jewels into their pockets until they bulged, and they dutifully headed for where Sarah now stood at the foot of my bed.

Surely now Sarah realized these men were imposters—hired assassins to keep me from my coronation as crowned high temple priestess the morning next by taking my virginity so I could no longer fulfill the bride requirements, the very reason Avi had always told me he’d kept guards posted at my door to prevent hired killers who could be bought and sold for the highest temple coins from defiling me and leaving me impure? I almost believed him now.

“Sarah listen to them,” I pleaded with her, arching my brows and nodding toward the door, in hope she would catch on and run for help. Or else, if she remained, I feared these thugs would silence her with their swords. For, as it looked now, death stalked at my door.

“Stop,” I heard Sarah scold toward one of the false warriors of Yahweh that sauntered toward my bed, cutting the air with his sword as though performing an ancient tribal dance. Yet he didn’t even flinch at her order. Instead, this man of muscles with a head of a pebble continued to saunter closer and closer toward me. With her lips curved down, she squeezed her eyes into slits and bound in front of this Goliath of Gath in three exaggerated steps, blocking his view of me. He tried to step past her, but she countered his every move. Then she shoved on his chest, as though fending off the senator who raped her years before, and she sent him back stepping toward the door.

“You dare not look upon her holiness. Leave or I will be forced to tell her Avi of your sinful acts. But he will not do nearly as bad of things to you as I will.” She opened her eyes wide and curled her fingers like a lion with claws unsheathed. Even I did not like the menacing way she looked with her one green eye and the other blue piercing into his eyes as though she was a black witch casting a curse on him. Those crazy beautiful eyes of hers had to make him run from here. Over the “times” they had frightened away even the worst of robbers. She even used those strange eyes of hers to scare her own staff, threatening to summon the powers of the dark side to eternally damn their souls into eternal exile in Sheol if they crossed her or threatened me. “If you dare take another step, I will gouge out your eyes and then summon hawks to pick your brains from the bloody sockets.” She dug at the air with her fingers, adding impact to her words. “Understand? Turn or loose them.”

At that, the man flexed his muscles, but said not a word. If he was afraid he didn’t act like it. Clearly her threats did not land on his lap for he answered her by poking the tip of his cold blade into the soft skin on the right of her neck, into the vein the guards called red death. Instantly blood trickled down and wet the front of her white gown. She stood stock still after that.

Seeing her wounded, I screamed, “Help,” with all the force of my being, scared Sarah would die within a heartbeat if I did not staunch her wound before she bled to death, but the leader of the men charged toward me and cupped his hand over my mouth.

“You—be quiet my goddess,” he bent over and whispered into my hair. “Or I will be forced to kill you, understand?” I nodded, tears pooling in my eyes. But I could not allow him to harm me without a fight. Plus my Sari needed me. Thus, I tried to bite him, and get flee from his hold, but he grabbed me by my throat with his hands the size of a scorpion, its tail pitched high ready to strike, and all the while, he tore off my bedding, then the collar of my gown.

And yet, lacking his strength, I felt so defenseless. There was nothing I could do to stop him. And I feared I would pass out soon. For silver stars already dotted my vision and my eyes hurt as though bulging out of my head. So this was how death would come to me. Unable to breath, I kicked and twisted in my bed, gasping for air as the room darkened, and my lungs burned; then tears streamed from my eyes for all those innocent Jews who would die because a few denarii’s drove this godless man to be such an evil human being.

But I couldn’t let that happen. If only I could yell for help from those in line outside my window. I knew it would take a miracle for them to hear me above their chanting and singing, and with my chamber being on the second floor, far far away from the central courtyard where most Jews convened before and after the services, I knew my voice was too weak for them to hear me, but I had to try. Thus, I screamed again, but my cry for help came out muffled, barely loud enough to hear even with my own ears. And so I fought back, until my body grew tired of fighting and thrashing.

Exhausted, I lay on my back accepting the horrid kisses this killer slobbered on my neck. All I wanted right then was to break flee so I could bath and scrub the filth off my holy skin. But then I heard shouting in a language I did not understand. From the corners of my eyes I then saw Sarah with her hands steepled at her chest falling to her knees. Now I knew not if my Sarah was dead or dying. “Sari,” I cried to her within my heart.

Only as I did, a strange, terrible clatter rose from my window. The shrill screaming grew so loud it silenced me. Regardless of what else was going on in the room, I couldn’t help but look at, at the . . . the hawks (?) . . . flying into my chamber. Hundreds of them flew into my room, while some perched like a Roman statue on the ledge, hissing and squawking a warning, and still others hovered outside the temple, clearly waiting for the order to attack. Shocked, even my attacker lightened his grip and watched as the first wave of hawks flew in a V formation toward us. Hadn’t Sarah promised that hawks would peck out the brains of the attackers brains through their eye sockets? My God, had she really summoned these birds. Please tell me she hadn’t called on the dark side for help? At the thought of that, fear rippled down my spine. Now what awaited us on the other side if we died by these ruthless killers? Oh Sari, what have you done?

I do not know what she’d prayed into existence, but the birds started attacking the “guards.” The men swatted the air all around them as beaks pecked at their skin even through their clothes. Soon, blood streaked their faces, their necks, their robes, as more and more birds flew in and joined the attack.

When at least five hawks pecked at the face of the man holding me down, beating him with their wings as they pecked out chunks of his flesh on his nose, his cheeks and neck, and he was forced to release me. He thrashed and flailed his arms, trying to protect himself, but he could do little to stop the many birds that flew at him.

Freed, I checked the position of the other men and saw they were also detained and under attack, therefore I rushed to Sarah’s side. She still sat on her knees just where I had last seen her.

“Sari, talk to me,” I insisted, hoping to bring her attention on me. When she didn’t move I feared she had been fatally wounded or had been killed and her body propped erect by the soldier’s blade. Hurriedly I checked her for signs of blood to determine where she had been injured, but by what I could see in such a rush, she had no wounds.

“Sari, it’s me, Miryai,” I said sternly and after I knelt beside her and stroked the hair back from her face, I held her chin and forced her blank stare to look at me. “No one is going to hurt us anymore. Sarah,” I spoke slowly and overly pronounced every syllable in her name, hoping she would recognize me, and feeling safe, she would come out of her shock. Then after I kissed her hand and pressed her long fingers against my cheek, her eyes blinked languidly as though she recognized the touch and my voice finally sank in. She then blinked, clearly trying to return from wherever she had fled to be out of harm’s way. “You’re safe now. Come my sister, we need to leave.”

“Priestess?” she replied, her voice quavering with fear. I nodded, then tried to help her stand, but her thin little legs shook so hard her body collapsed limp into my arms. But I couldn’t leave her here. And so I tried again. Only this time I put my hands under her armpits and I forced her to her feet. “Yahweh, a little help here, please,” I prayed and I put my arm around her waist and we took our first step together. Then we staggered to the door; all the while, she batted at the hawks as though protecting me, but in reality they didn’t fly close enough to harm us. In fact, they merely circled around us, not acting aggressive to us at all, more like protective really.

But the birds herded the evil ones with terror streaked on their bloodied faces toward the door in the hall. They thrashed their swords through the air, trying to fend off their attackers as they backed their way out of my chamber, but with sudden and swift attacks, wings fluttering, and flapping ceaselessly, our protectors advanced, and not one hawk fell to its death on the floor. Weird, but I could not spot an injury to even one bird. And yet blood streaked the floor, surely one of the hawks had to be injured or killed.

Yet the screams from the birds—deafening. When I opened the door to my garden a whole army of birds flocked into the room. Still covered in my bedding, I half dragged, half helped Sarah into my garden, quickly pulling the door closed behind us.

* * *

When the sacred protectors had first arrived and entered my chamber there was not a trace of evidence that the attack had actually taken place. How weird was that? Of course it made fear course though me. Something weird was going on. Was I loosing my mind? It had happened, right? But once Sarah entered the room she had the same dumbfounded look on her face that I felt, so I knew it had truly happened. And yet the guards looked upset, almost mad, like we had pulled a prank on them. But . . . but it had happened. I swore on my life that it had.

As for Sarah’s condition, she showed no sign of wounds. Only her mind had been injured. Poor thing, she was already afraid of men from when she had been raped. Now I worried over what the latest attack was going to do to her. But I could find no trace to prove the tip of a sword had not punctured her neck, nor did she have blood on her collar. Nothing. How was that possible? I had seen it. Surely she would show some marking from the attack.

And every guard wanted to hear an account of what happened. I could tell by their pointed questions they all wanted to now if I had been violated. That would make big news.

But as more and more guards came to our aid it grew so confusing trying to recall the events that had happened in my chamber I started to get confused and contradicted my statement taken right after the attack. When I drew a blank over describing the incident, so it made it look as though I was hiding some, that I had invented a story to cover up something that I did not want to admit, like maybe I had been raped, and I knew I could take no more. And so I flexed my brows at Sarah, signaling for her to call these men off me.

With a loud clap, one that had to sting, she silenced the room. “Enough. I must ready my priestess to receive her father. Leave,” she ordered, with such certainty it left no room for discussion or reproach.

Once the men had left to search for our attackers I fell to my knees in silent prayer. I knew the attack would leave me vulnerable to the attack of those wanting to take my priestess title from me. Somehow I had to gather my wits and tell my father everything. He could make these priests listen to the truth. And so I did not need to entertain how to make the guards believe in my innocents any longer. Instead, I began to thank Yahweh for sending the hawks and saving Sarah and my life from the evil guards. .

And I prayed for clues to surface to help the sacred guards find our attackers and prove the truth to them, that there had been an attack. For when the guards had stormed into my chamber, not only were the men gone, but so were the hawks, and all evidence that they had been there. Nothing appeared any different than before the killers had entered my room. No feathers. No dirt. No traces that we had been attacked. Even my bed looked freshly made.

Surely it made it look like Sarah and I had dreamed up the attack. But hopefully once the men were caught and I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find them if they still had the wounds on their faces and bodies from the birds, and maybe if we were lucky the men would let it slip the name of the one who had hired them to do this to me—since most attacks like this were done by men who worked for gold, not out of their own beliefs.

God was the only one to have done this work. Or, I didn’t like to think of the alternative, but I had to face the truth, or . . .the darkness. Of course guards checked out the halls to see if they could find the men, and all around my apartment and those adjoining mine, but there was no trace of them. The guards looked at us like we had lost our minds completely. Or that we had made up a story to prevent me from claiming my priestess title tomorrow. Or, conversely, were covering up the rape so I would not loose my priestess title. But all the while, I studied Sarah, trying to see if she knew what was going on. If she did she sure did look like it. For she acted as concerned as I felt, and somewhere along the way, she had come out of her shock enough to talk and now she pleaded with the guards to believe us.

Of course, since I was the temple priestess and Godly in all accounts, they guards assured us that they did not doubt my word, and they left Sarah and I in my room alone, but now I had three guards posted at every door. And I was concerned before for our plans over leaving, but how were we to get out of this temple with all these guards protecting us. Now it seemed like an impossible feat, unless Yahweh stepped in and helped us.

But I worried over how Sarah had summoned those hawks to my room to defend us. Was she hiding the truth from me? I had to find out. And so, I stared her down. I had to find out if she had promised the dark side her soul for my freedom? Thinking of all horrible things that could happen to Sarah if she had in deed called on the underworld for help, I began to cry uncontrollably. Sarah comforted me, but I fell to my knees on the floor and begged Sarah for answers. I had to know the truth.

“Did you summon the hawks? The truth.” Sarah said not a word, just shook her incessantly. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ Did you summon some god of the underworld to make those birds attack like that?” Sarah’s eyes filled with tears and I could tell from our many long nights together that she was close to telling me the secrets she had hidden deep within her heart. “It’s okay Sari. Just tell me what you did. I can redeem us. Yahweh will forgive you. Honestly, you only have to confess to me exactly what you did.”

Then I thought she was going to tell me but she began moaning and acting strange. And after that behavoir waned, until she started panted like a wild animal and gasped for breath as she pointed at me. “You . . .you are the one,” she insisted, and broke into tears until they wet the front of her robe. I hurriedly wiped her face dry with my sleeve and consoled her. But she pulled away and her whole body took to shaking as though demons had entered her soul. Then she steepled her hands in the center of her chest and bowed her head respectfully. “It chills me to think of the night when you were born, your mother knew of the future like this. But my priestess,” she stood and pulled me into her as snug as my mother had when I was a small child. Her dark perfume made from the petals of an Angel plant that grew along the Nile stroked my senses. “She called you her special daughter.”

I buried my head into her chest. “Your words are sweet as frankincense, and honey gushes from under your tongue, but I am not special, Sarah.”

“You know that I speak the truth. For the skies have predicted your fate.” My eyes began to water for I truly did not see it, but . . . I wanted to. I would do anything to help my people. Save them from the war. “See,” she pulled away and wiped the tears off my face. “You truly are divine like the birds in the trees call out to you as you pass by. They know. They sing to you of their love. The crown of life you will wear one day.”

“Oh Sari, help me to believe.”

“Priestess, your mother was right,” she squeaked out. “The star . . . the hawks . . . you are . . . the . . . the ‘One.’”

This writer is looking for an agent.

Literary Fiction/Biblical Tale, The Star of Yahweh ; Suspense, G.R.I.T.S.; A short story, The Magdalene Laundress; Essay, A Writer's Prayer; Creative Nonfiction, Father Where Art Thou?; Children's Nonfiction Article, Fighting to Read; Short Story, Rabbit Hill; Children's Fiction, Weather Changels; I'm presently working on book one of my biblical women series, The Gospels of Mary Magdalene and I also busy writing a contemporary suspense thriller, Manna

A Writer’s Prayer
I constantly have to remind myself, it’s the journey not the destination that matters.
So, why do I write?
I write, because . . . well? Because I need to in order to keep my sanity.
I write because I love it and find great satisfaction in doing it.
I write because it gives me a voice when no one around me wants to listen.
I write when the ache of loneliness begins to feel like my best friend.
I write to make sense of this crazy life.
I write because someday, I hope to be a published writer.
I write as a form of prayer to God.
It helps me to release my anger and fears, and when I’m in the zone, sweet love stirs inside me
and diminishes the despair.
I must remember all these things when that monkey on my shoulder tries to tell me to be quit,
to grow up and become responsible, that I’m useless, a terrible writer.

CHOICES
A Writer’s Prayer

It’s dribble. There’s nothing good in all my writing. My manuscript . . . garbage. I almost like my original version better than the copy ready, twenty-times revised project. At least it held poetic prose. At least it shined of me. Now all I have is a well constructed, highly sellable “big book” that I can’t sell worth a damn.

I’ve lost it again, sweet God. I fear that is why you put me to work again in the office. Because when all is said and done, after years of trying to find my voice, I realize—my writing stinks—I have no special talent. I can’t write. What was I thinking? Did some strange insanity pluck me away from reality? Really, what was I thinking? To get published is like catching lightening in a bottle. I knew that, but I had mistakenly believed with all my heart that you were there in my writing. That the time spent pounding keys to grab hold of those mysterious words floating through my head was an intimate collaboration. That becoming an author was my calling. That I could help change the world, or be your channel to heal humanity somehow. And you were mightier than any person. If you wanted my book to sell, then by God, you would magically make it happen.

So I set off to write the "Great American Novel."

But after years of rejection letters bouncing back to me faster than an overdue library book notice, I think, perhaps, I was wrong. Thanks for opening my eyes. Or did you? I’m not so sure you exist anymore. I fear like my fantasy about being a published author, like my believing dreams come true if only I follow my heart, that I created you, as well. What in the world was I thinking? Maybe it might be best for me to stop the insanity and accept my lot in life. I must make money to pay the bills. Be someone important. Work in the family business. Be a caretaker to all. Go through life numb. Then whatever strength is left over, I must pour it into something constructive, something tangible. I’m not sure this whole writing thing is healthy anymore. Being stretched like taffy from one end of the world to the other, trying to balance writing and real life, hurts too badly. So much rejection. Where and what to do, I do not know.

Maybe meditation might help. I sit crossed legged on the wooden bridge leading to the fire pit in my backyard and close my eyes. I expand my chest with a hearty deep breath through my nose, and regurgitate stress with a powerful exhale. Then I suck in another. I call my spirit back from all the places where I’ve left pieces of me with others throughout the day.

Soon, I’m standing in a forest, chunky wood chips covering two dirt paths. Rich, verdant canopies of forest trees line the path in each direction. Large sun beams move across the wash of green and brown like stage lights. In my mind’s eye, I put my hands on my hips. Which way to go? I search for something, anything to give me direction, a marker telling me which choice is right. Nothing.

I gaze down the right path and see the bluest sky up ahead, dotted with pillowy white clouds. Will my life’s purpose find me here? Is God in there? No . . . I fear, it’s nothing special, just an ordinary trail in the woods with a beautiful spring sky.

Internally, I listen for a biblical voice, a voice of strength and perfect tone, giving me answers, but all I hear is the usual boring chatter that goes on inside my head all the time: fear, addiction, anger, optimistic laughter, and worst of all, my Ego—that old tricksters that tries to persuades me it’s the voice of truth, the special "me" that towers over mere mortals—and they all blend together and glide in and out with each breath.

A cardinal chirps, “Whatya cher cher cher,” to his mate. She returns the same calls back. Gray and black squirrels rustle the leaves overheard and they scamper down a branch and tear off the ends with scissor-sharp front teeth and carry them up, up to their nest that sits perched at a Y on the tippy-top branches overhead. A mild wind massages the skin on my face. The leaves on the trees surrounding me roars gently, methodically like a wave, as branches bend and bow in the slight discernable breeze like a slow dance. I breathe freely, enjoying the rudimentary rich smell of the leaves decomposing in the soil like the compost I add to my garden as fertilizer. But this is not my garden.

No, it’s the land of choices. The direction my feet will walk on this earth. I scrutinize one path, then the other. Both appear the same. Except, the one on my left, I notice letters floating through the air like musical notes, until they rest on a blank page of a book I’m holding in my hand. Oh, if only I could read the words. Maybe I could find my voice and it would lead me home. What is this strangeness about? Choices. What is it that I really want to do with the time I have left on this earth? I fear this silence. It’s a nothingness that gobbles up my thoughts. I have lost hope and faith right now. I fear it will never find me again. I fear I will never walk down either path, for to do so would be risky. I might lose all that I love, all that I have ever wanted so that I can please others and do the “right” thing in their eyes.

As I think back over my life, I cannot remember a time when I have been so sad. Inside me, right in the center of my chest, a quiet shadow sucks life from me one cell at a time. This is certainly not God. This place certainly was not created by my Teacher. So where is this strange land that I have awakened?

Why am I here?

Instantaneously, my mind is flooded with random words and I’m carried down that stream of consciousness. Somehow, I transform into a sun-baked gray-brown rock poking out of the water. The currents swish past me as I write and erase the same sentence, editing it over and over again, while the water grinding down my bent toward melodrama.

Within a blink of my eyes, sunlight begins to battle with darkness, but finallt surrenders. Now a dull gray veils the green and brown of the trees, resembling an old black-and-white photo.

Then a retractable pen mysteriously floats into my fingers. I use it like a stake and pierce the bank of the water and heave my body to dry land. Huffing and weary, I lay back, rest my head on a rock, and stretch long with my feet crossed at the ankles.

A rustle of leaves grabs my attention. I glance at the maple tree beside me. The first page of my book flips open. As I lay reading, embraced by the soil’s solar heat, visions of my past begin to unravel.
Rehashing the birth of my writing, I’m left spellbound and intoxicated by this moment. I feel free, complete—at the center of my universe. But then, something begins to jab into my leg and pulls me back. I lay my novel down and reach into the wet pocket of my jeans to find the source of my pain. Magically, my fingers pluck from its womb an old friend, a token of my journey to find this plac and myself. I know instinctually know what this item is: my little jewel-encrusted-treasure chest that enshrines my feathered pen, the one that I thought I’d lost.

Gently, as though it’s some ancient relic, possibly thousands and thousands of years old, I grasp the box ever so softly in my hand and unsheathe my beloved pen from its prtective tomb.

I can’t help but study the feather; it is exceptional, fine and soft beyond description. I touch it gently, as gentle as my mother’s lips when she’d kissed my ear to seal in good dreams as she tucked me into bed when I was but a mere child. There’s something curious and inexplicable about my special pen: no one has been able to determine its origin—the species of bird that once “owned” this feather!

There are other unusual items in the chest, too, including an opaque glass inkwell with sapphire stopper. I always set the inkwell near me when I’m writing, as a decoy of sorts; it distracts attention away from my feathered pen that doesn’t need ink and writes of its own accord. I know when it’s ready to use for it quivers ever so slightly, just as it’s doing now. Then its crystalline nib changes to an intense green—a signal, like the “ready” light on my computer printer!

All at once, a blue white flash streaks through the sky and the maple tree not ten feet from me splits in half. I bolt straight up, taking note of the event in journalistic awe. Then the smoke clears, and a pristine white sheet of paper drifts down, coming to rest in my opened hand. Then words, as gentle as the wind tickling my face, floats through my mind. The tip of my pen touches the paper like it knows the words I'm meant to write even before I'm given them.

“It’s time,” a small voice whispers to my heart. “Time to begin the task you’ve been thinking about for some time.”

Now my pen writes freely, effortlessly, as if angels from Heaven are my guides to help me write my story—a story about the phenomena and splendor that I found in my pursuit to find my own special voice. Now I glance back over time and try to remember why I’d given up writing. Maybe it had been fear that had robbed me of all joy. Maybe responsibilities had weighed too heavy on my mind and I’d forgotten why writing was important to me. Now I can see that all I ever needed was to reunite with the splendor and magic that had taken hold of me when I wrote my first sentence, then paragraph, then page and so on . . . . Here, in my special place, a place where miracles grow like trees in the forest that surrounds me, I’ve finally found the courage to choose the direction I must follow. It’s my turn to shine, now.

I rush to my computer, eager to write. My fingers tap my computer keys to the rhythm of my heart as I capture the passion that once drive me to write--that kernal of truth that is buried deep within the chambers of my heart that only I can see and share with the world though my novels. I guess on this jounrey to honor my soul, what I've found is . . . my destiny, the true importance of my life. Whether I publish or not, I must honor the voice within me--the voice of a writer, learning how to write.

A Writer’s Prayer
I constantly have to remind myself, it’s the journey not the destination that matters.

So, why do I write?

I write, because . . . well? Because I need to in order to keep my sanity.

I write because I love it and find great satisfaction in doing it.

I write because it gives me a voice when no one around me wants to listen.

I write when the ache of loneliness begins to feel like my best friend.

I write to make sense of this crazy life.

I write because someday, I hope to be a published writer.

I write as a form of prayer to God.

It helps me to release my anger and fears, and when I’m in the zone, sweet love stirs inside me
and diminishes the despair.

I must remember all these things when that monkey on my shoulder tries to tell me to be quit,
to grow up and become responsible, that I’m useless, a terrible writer.

I'm a entrepreneur. I have worked in advertising, produced commercials, written scripts, and bought media time. For the last ten years, I’ve applied my marketing background to my family-owned construction company.

Presently, I co-facilitate workshops on intuitiveness and self-trust. Our program (Whose Life Is It, Anyway?) explores the problems women face today. The course stresses the importance of balance and honoring “the self.” Through interactive prompts—written, meditative, and verbal—the small voice of “intuitiveness” becomes a trusted ally. I also host a writer’s getaway at my lake house in Akron, Ohio. For four fun-filled days, fifteen authors read aloud, share their expertise, learn craft and style, perform time-writing exercises, meditate, and commune with nature.

I have honed my fiction writing skills by participation in various writing seminars and conferences: The Writer’s Retreat Workshop, Writing the Breakout Novel, The Columbus Writer’s Conference, and Antioch Writer's Workshop to name a few. I also attend writing classes at Ohio State University. Regularly, I attend Novel in Progress, a professionally led critique group. I’m founder of Sisters of the Pen . Modeled after Natalie Goldberg’s Zen writing practices, we use timed-writing exercises.

The Star of Yahweh, A Biblical Tale; G.R.I.T.S.,
Contemporary Suspense Novel