Her oafish feet trample plants. Her square hands hold out for all to see her prisoner — a squirming, squealing, foul-mouthed bat-winged imp.
“Stop, stop, stop, you stupid girl!” yells the Virgin.
But St. Ursula is not at all a stupid girl. She simply is oblivious. She’s a child. Solid as an anvil, yes, but still a child. She died age twelve when the Huns chopped off her head along with the heads of her 11,000 virgins. That’s a lot of heads. They are preserved, lined up like spare parts in a warehouse, stored on eleven hundred free standing shelves — ten heads to a shelf — in a Heavenly basilica that’s seen better days but still attracts tourists. The disembodied girls offer advice to the lovelorn for a modest donation. Mostly, they chatter among themselves, teasing and tale-telling as youngsters do, surrounded by their maidenly bones* all sorted and displayed, mounted up the walls in clever tessellations. That’s a lot of bones.
Poor, zealous Ursula — so sure, so certain. She knows deep in those chaste bones that she is right, forever in the right. What she doesn’t seem to know is that Omnipotent Fury is about to squash her flatter than the daffodils.
Poor, maddened Virgin — She who burns with Omnipotent Fury. She is Almighty Queen of Heaven, Mother of Gods, Holy Wisdom. Yet, here She stands, helpless to keep an idiot out of Her garden.
Tara sees all. The Virgin is going to tip over into one of Her unfortunate rages. Tara, being both a savior deity and a personal friend, is moved to Save-the-Day. It’s simple really in Tara’s view, to apply the Virtue of Equanimity. All that’s needed is for the Virgin to count ten breaths or ten Om’s or ten somethings, but the Madonna of Magnificent Mercies is not one to interrupt a grand passion. Tara will just have to do it for Her. Once and for all Time.
Tara will stop the world, and that will stop the Virgin’s nonsense.
The Girl-Buddha color-shifts into the ruddy red of action and leaps into Her Heroic manifestation. Tara leaps onto the the lotus throne that always floats conveniently near a traveling Buddha. Her mighty arms reach up into the aether of Heaven’s atmosphere where Tara delves among the spirits there, visible and invisible. What a busy place is Heaven’s sky! Her blood-red hands snatch from out of thin air those trouble-making triplets: Past, Present, Future.
See Her juggle the trio until their eyes rattle, their joints clatter, until from out of their corners and hidden places there tumbles the greatest grifter of all, Master Time. He falls onto the handy sun disc Tara whips out of her pocket. It’s an excellent dance surface for when Her Wrathful Body feels the need to trample something.
Bejeweled, be-skulled, Red Tara flourishes weapons of deadly flowers, flexes brawny legs, stomps supple feet, and Master Time crunches like a beetle beneath Her. Crushed Time stops, and the world stops. No revolution. No rotation. Stillness. Silence.
In all creation one movement, one sound — Heroic Tara dances to the beat of Her chanting voice as it drones 108 recitations of the Heart Sutra cry:
गते गते पार गते पार संगते बोधि स्वाहा
GAH TAY GAH TAY PAH RAH GAH TAY PAH RAH SAHM GAH TAY BO DHI SWAH HA
Gentle Reader, we zoom out now for the big picture. Planet Earth — that stony she-beast of a turning wheel — no longer turns.
She stalls, suspended in the ropy dark matter* of space.
Quickly! Zoom back to Heaven. What’s happening? What’s going on? Heaven’s paralysis ends as celestial choirs bellow with song. Spiraling voices raise a joyful noise …
all shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well
Why? … Because — Holy of Holys! — Our Lady of Perpetual Grace is now smiling! Her royal tantrum is ended. The Madonna of Magnificent Mercies, calm as a summer afternoon, is raising up Her Hallowed Hands in blessing.
The firmament vibrates with song*.
O HOLY Womb! O sacred Breast!
Pure couch, where Jesu loves to rest!
The Virgin Most Prudent & Cause of Our Joy issues a proclamation in honor of Tara, Her dear companion:
“Greater Love hath no Lady, than that She Stop the World for Her Friend.”
The mundane world is indeed arrested. Master Time, laid out on the sun disk, appears squashed for good, but he’s known to be a resilient fellow. As long as anyone can remember, celestials have debated whether or not Master Time might, in fact, be an Immortal. Even as Tara’s toenails shred his bones, he abides patiently — a fish who understands catch-and-release.
The Awe-Full Virgin Mother adds to Her official statement:
“Your Buddha-heart tames My unruly passions.”
Angelic scribes are already scribbling Her words in Sacred Books.
Heaven’s a cappella choir tears it up:
Virgin of Virgins!
Terror of treacherous!
Treasure of faithful!
Eye of prophets!
Stone of martyrs!
The Virgin gestures to lower the volume. She clears her throat. “Now, girlfriend, let’s release Master Time. My peripheral vision is picking up reports of earthquakes and tidal waves. Physics insists the world resume its cyclical routine. My Boys are all into the physics of things.” She waves dismissively toward Ursula. “As for that worthless Saint? I promise, Tara, cross my heart, not to eviscerate her.”
Tara bows. She lifts one red foot.
Master Time, badly bent, scuttles away. The world shudders. It lurches. It recommences. The planet is back to spinning. Oceans lie down in their beds and winds rise up to their courses. Angel choristers bloom like lilies in Heaven’s sky, fill Heaven’s air with gauzy gowns, milky wings.
Sarconsson farts and grins.