If Thou Wilt Foil Thy Foes with Joy
RITA POWELL
Second Stave: The Meeting of Hodegetria and Hepzibah
In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. —Sun-Tzu, The Art of War, V.6
I love the early Christian desert tradition of the 3rd–5th centuries. When men and women left the churches and commerce of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and sought out caves in the deserts of Egypt. Their faith was a quest, war something to be fought inside of themselves. What was it that was powerful enough to draw them out there to spend their lives in unceasing labor of contemplation? They do not write about the land itself as teacher, but I am certain the land was teacher. That perhaps it was the land that drew them like a magnet, whispered and spoke to them of the knowledge of God.
I was in a Bible study recently reading Enoch. A strange book, outside the biblical canon and yet shadowing it. In it, Azazel, the captain of the angels is punished for all time by being hurled down to the desert where he is buried under rock. His crime was teaching humans, human women, celestial knowledge. Knowledge of the stars, of plants, and of “adornment of the eyelids.” If the captain of the angels lies buried in the desert, full of celestial knowledge, might not that be the very magnet that drew these holy men and women?
In this stave, we learn more about our characters, what magnet drew them to the point of nightly riding around town crying “Azazel is buried in the desert.” Our heroine, who was seen outside a bar in the Black Hills of South Dakota, blood running into the ground, makes her way East where she finds her companion. We learn their names, the horse Hodegetria, which means Our Lady of the Way, and Hepzibah her rider, who is the daughter of Isaiah. We follow their journey of discovery, how they find their calling.
In this stave, Egypt enters the story as helper and echo of memory. “Say the words.” Invocation from the pyramid texts: land and stars and temple are one. Our helpers and our guides.
In this stave, we confront the Enemy. The distorter of truth and meaning. The louse, as usual, is kind of doing his own thing, for the common good.
At the end, the mother of Hepzibah, the wife of Isaiah, the Prophetess, offers benedictions.
All characters are practicing the art of war, an endurance sport. The art of war is the indirect method. The art of war is story.