The Song of songs is very much linked, liturgically, to the feast of Tabernacles. The palanquin is described as made of cedar wood, its panels symbolizing love. In fact cedar wood was used extensively in the temple that Solomon constructed, probably because the cedars of Lebanon were considered to be holy groves.
The seasons play a very important part in the imagery of the Song of Songs. After death there is new life and spring. From the enclosed egg or seed there emerges a new creation. The bride comes out of the darkness of the earth to search for the light of her lover. From their meeting, symbolized by the two birds, comes the radiance and beauty of spring.

The Palanquin

The Theme of the Royal Bed, can be extended to the idea of the Palanquin. The root of this is “appiryon”, Persian “aparyan (upari-yana)”, Sanskrit “Payanka, Palki” From this image of the moveable palanquin, comes also the notion of the Pavilion, and even Palace. The early “Tabernacle” or place where God was present, among his nomadic people, was also transportable.
A symbol for the Holy of Holies is the Ark of the Covenant. We think of David dancing before the Ark. The act of marriage is a sign of the covenant, which is the faithful love shown by the Creator for the whole of creation. Here we perceived a Mandala or icon symbolizing the wholeness of creation.

The City of the heart.

Searching and meeting are like two sides of the coin. In fact in Indian Bhakti there are two forms of devotion---the devotion of one who feels separated from the Beloved, and is always searching, and the devotion of union.
The beloved seeks for her lover in the city. In a sense the image of the Bride is associated with the city. She is compared to a tower. Like Durga, she is an enclosed fortress. The search for the lost lover, is a search within herself. She is helped by various citizens, who are watchmen. Also she appeals to her companion sisters, who like the “saki” of Indian love poetry, are the maids who accompany the bride. These maids, as we are told in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, represent in a way the different emotions that attend on the soul.

Searching the City

The Song of Songs is very much the expression of longing, and of feeling separated from the Beloved. Part of the symbolism related to this theme comes from a growing tension between what is perceived as the simple pastoral life of wandering nomadic tribes, and the emergence of the city, symbolized by Jerusalem. The shepherd lover has died, and in his place a new figure in the form of a king, who is Solomon, claims Wisdom as his bride.

A similar tension is found in Indian legends concerning the tribal hero Krishna, who is described as living in the gardens of Brindavan, and sporting with the milk maids of a pastoral community, and a later tradition of the King who is Krishna, involved in the great battle of the Mahabharata, and connected with the emerging principality of Mathura. The fact that both these figures are given the same name, and linked by an over arching myth that spans the folk tradition of tribal communities living in the wild, and an emerging civilization based on city centres, and kingly lineage, shows that there is a basic pattern that the epic tries to connect. One way of doing this is to create a narrative that spans Kingdom and exile, seeing the two in a dynamic relationship which has a deeper meaning in complementary centres of power.

While I was working on this series of the Song of Songs, I was also becoming very much aware of the tribal cultures of India, and thinking about the story known as the Karam Kahani, in the tribal belt known as Jharkhand (the land of trees) between Orissa and Bihar. In this story we also find this tension between a life based on a forest economy, and the emerging city centre which is characterized by the City of Light, or Kasi (also known as Varanasi) on the holy river Ganges, west of the Tribal region.

The narrative of the search is the interplay between city and rural economies, in which the human community is drawn in what seems opposite poles—towards increasing urbanization on the one hand, and a sense of the vital forces that inhabit the forest groves. The Karam Tree, and Karam Festival reminds the people that the true wealth of wisdom is not to be found ultimately in the man made structures of the market town, but rather in the God-given natural symbols that lie embedded in the countryside.

Mother Earth receiving the sun.

It is in this context that we are reminded repeatedly of the Mother, who is also Mother earth. It is she who is the custodian of a primal wisdom, related to nature. She holds the mystery of the cycle of the seasons, and the eternal rhythmic movement of the sun, which is both the Heavenly King Dharma Raja, but also mysterious Lord of the underworld, Yama, god of Death.

The heart of the Song of Songs

We now come to the mysterious heart of the Song of Songs, which seems to represent a mystical dimension. It is night, and the Bride, who is also the Soul or Anima, encounters the Other, who appears in one form like a wild animal. The image seems to be dream like. The bride is on her bed, sleeping. But her heart is awake. The passage reflects Isa. 26. 9:
“My Soul yearns for the in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks thee”
Can we undestand here the psyche’s love for two realities: on the one hand a cosmic world, (symbolized by the Shepherd, and all that he stands for in mythic thought) and on the other hand a metacosmic call (symbolized by the King and his city). The psyche is torn between these two, and experiences a deep sense of guilt. The love for the shepherd here is almost pushed down into the unconscious, for the love of the king is the prime duty of the realized soul. But there is a psychic danger: if the shepherd is forgotten, and sent into the underworld, the whole of creation will suffer, and the fields, vines etc will be destroyed. So, it is vital that the Bride remembers her past love (of her childhood, before her breasts were properly formed) and tries to integrate into her love for the king, this deeper more instinctual love of the wilderness. Hence the repeated warning: “do not awaken my love”…that is do not force the process by cutting off the unconscious world. Be patient, and allow the natural processes of awakening slowly, and in due season, to take place. This is the “wisdom” of the song.