Bright Dark Madonna. Elizabeth Cunningham

      Well, you know I loved that man,

      loved him all my life.

      You know I loved that man,

      all his life and death and life.

      But don’t call me no disciple

      cuz I’m a priestess, whore, and wife.

      Well, I raised him in the tomb

      and I rocked him all night long.

      Yes, I raised him in that cold, dark tomb

      and I rocked him all night long.

      till I found him standing

      by the tree of life at dawn.

      You don’t have to be a virgin

      to get knocked up by a god.

      Don’t have to be no virgin

      to get knocked up by a god.

      That’s why I’m in the alley

      where no angel feet have trod.

      Well, the preacher men are preaching

      they’re starting up a church.

      Yes, the preacher men are preaching

      they’re starting up a church.

      But I’m here in this alley

      with my lunch still in the lurch.

      IF BLUES HAD BEEN INVENTED in the first century, you know I would have been singing them, maybe not at that precise moment, because I really was being sick in the alley. But I thought the song might be a succinct way to catch you up with my story, alert you to my present predicament, and to warn you that this story begins with a failure on my part, if you want to see it that way. And some people do see my failure to wrest the mantle of Jesus’s authority from Peter’s shoulders as the beginning of problems that still haven’t ended. But they tend to blame my defeat (for they assume I fought) on Peter, then Paul, then the Church Fathers, and then all the Popes. Don’t forget the Protestants, still splintering into uncountable (and unaccountable) sects, just as bad in some ways, even if most do allow the ordination of women these days. (Do you notice the succession of Ps? You could just file them all under P is for Patriarchy.)

      But not everyone is—or was—so willing to exonerate me, starting with my dear friend and enemy Mary B, short for Mary of Bethany—the sister of Lazarus and Martha. Many people still think we are the same person, but you know we can’t be. I was born on an island in the Celtic Otherworld, the only child of eight warrior witches. As for how I came to be connected with the good-time town called Magdala, ask my mother-in-law, Miriam aka Ma aka The Blessed Virgin Mary aka The Mother of God. She’s the one who holds a running conversation with the angels. Mary of Bethany, daughter of an old priestly family, brilliant and learned as any rabbi, is the woman my beloved was supposed to marry but didn’t. By mutual consent, the pair ran away to an Essene monastery on the eve of their wedding day. But I am not going to tell you all the stories I’ve already told. My beloved once said, “There is enough trouble for each day.” This day was to be no exception.

      So back to this present moment in the alley, a particular alley in a rather seamy section of Jerusalem. Some of you may recognize it as the alley I fled to after I threw figs at Jesus in the Temple porticoes. (I had my reasons.) Up a flight of stairs is the room where I hid out for a time, which we later transformed into a makeshift temple, the site of what I call The Last Party. Since Pentecost the upper room has been HQ for the companions of Jesus, as I prefer to think of us. For those of you who remember the dove I painted over the door and the murals inside of Isis and Osiris (and/or Maeve and Jesus) well, Peter and the others whitewashed all the walls (as white as any whited sepulcher) immediately. You can’t blame them; painted images of pagan gods are not exactly acceptable décor for Jews. Pretty high up on the list of The Ten Things the Lord says Not To Do. Peter didn’t mean to be unkind or repressive; he was even apologetic about it.

      “We just can’t afford to draw attention to our whereabouts,” he said in that gruff embarrassed manner he’s had with me ever since we met in a moment of misunderstanding at the gate of Temple Magdalen (yes, a whorehouse, albeit a holy one dedicated to Isis). “Things are still pretty tense in Jerusalem.”

      “It’s all right, Peter,” I patted him absently, not bothering to take offense as he yanked away his arm as if from a flame or a snake.

      Maybe that is the beginning of my offenses, that I couldn’t summon the energy to be offended, didn’t have the oomph to get on my high horse. Death and resurrection tend to put things in perspective. Or anyway leave you really worn out. Not to mention what people call the ascension. You will hear in the Nicene Creed that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Me, I don’t pretend to know what really happened that day, even though I was there, flying with him in my dove form as far as I could go until he walked through the Beautiful Gates of the Temple of Jerusalem and disappeared.

      Yes, disappeared—because he is not apparent. Not to me. He is no longer here in the flesh, resurrection or no resurrection. And I miss him. Terribly. In my flesh. And it is all so confusing. Am I a widow? I don’t even know. Never mind how terrified and grief-stricken the men were at first, now they have decided it is bad form to mourn when there’s been a miracle and all the prophecies have been fulfilled. Still, no one has found a way to stop me from throwing up on a daily basis. There, that’s better. I think I’ll just lean back for a few minutes and rest.

      “Mary!” Mary B called me Mary, as do most Jews. Ma started it; the angels got my name wrong. It’s not my fault that no one can keep all the Marys straight.

      “Mary, just leave me alone for a minute,” I murmured. “I’ll be all right.”

      “You are obviously not all right.” Her bony knees cracked as she squatted next to me and tucked a loose strand of my bright hair back under my head scarf, her touch more tender than her tone. “You’ve missed another meeting.”

      “Why do we have to have so many meetings, Mary?” I complained. “We never used to have meetings. We had parties.”

      “Come on, get up, Mary,” she ordered me, and she put her hands—very large for a woman’s—under my arms and helped me to my feet. “You can’t sit here in the alley next to your vomit, like some drunken….” She stopped herself before she could say whore. “It’s not seemly. If you don’t care about yourself, think about him.” I won’t bother to capitalize; we all know what him she meant. “He would hate to see you like this.”

      “Well, he’s not here.” I snapped.

      Mary B grabbed both my shoulders and turned me towards her, her eyes black and fierce as when I first met her one moonlit night in Bethany.

      “How can you say that?” she demanded. “How can you of all people, say that!”

      I didn’t answer; I know a rhetorical question when I hear one. It always means there’s more coming. I was too tired to resist.

      “Don’t you remember what you said the morning he went on before us?” Notice her careful phrasing. “Peter asked where the Master went. What did you say to him?”

      Mary B knew as well as I did, but that was not the point. This austere woman who knew the Torah by heart, who had patiently and impatiently explained to me all the fine points of the Law whenever my beloved held a debate, she was as vulnerable as a child. She needed me to tell her the story again—and not change one word.

      “I said: ‘He’s here.’” And I gestured as widely as I could in the narrow alley, a gesture more dramatic in the Kedron Valley where we had been at the time. “And here.” I touched Mary’s heart. “And here.” My hands came to rest on my own.

      Her eyes were shining now, the way eyes do when tears stand in them.

      “And what did he say?” she prompted.

      “When?”

      “You know.