Garden World Mandala

This one is larger than usual because it needs to be seen in some detail. It started as a photo of gloriosas overlaid transparently, and merged repeatedly; but by the time I got done messing with filters in Photoshop it turned into a little world of formal gardens, with trimmed hedges, greenswards, and tiny lakes.

He's right; I am inspired. Now if I could just get a little more focused...

The Tree

He and I are in the oak grove by the treehouse, and the warm summer day is mellowing into a long twilight; and in the half-light which filters through the leaves his dark eyes look almost green. He smiles at me, then, and says, "Would you like me to read your cards?"

Oooooo, I love that question. He has here and there in the past read Tarot for me, and it has always been an interesting experience, to say the least. So I say, "Oh, yes!"

So we climb up into the treehouse and sit down inside it at the little table in the back by the window which overlooks the lake; and the paper lanterns cast a cozy glow. And from a shelf he pulls a deck of cards, wrapped in blue silk, and hands them to me. "Shuffle," he says.

"Should I think of a question?" I say.

"No," he says, confused and a little offended, "I'm the one doing the reading."

Now in a reading with a regular person, that would be an odd, quite possible rude, thing to say, but given that this is him, it's just that right now he probably knows my questions better than I do; true enough, since he is closer to the source of things.

And so I unwrap them and start to mix them up, and it seems to me there are rather more cards than the typical seventy-eight card Tarot deck. The design on the back is a blue and silver swirl of stars, quite beautifully rendered; and as I shuffle them he watches me, smiling.

"You have such beautiful hands," he says.

I hand him the deck, but he says, "You forgot to cut them."

So I do, this time watching him, and I think, Damn, I hate sitting across from him, where I can't touch him. I should be sitting with him, next to him, on him.

"Better?" he says, as he puts his foot up on my seat, leaning his ankle against my leg.

"Yes," I say, as I squirrel my hand up under the hem of his jeans, to rest my hand on the skin of his lower leg.

"Okay," he says, laughing, "This is a spread called The Tree." And he lays out seven cards, face down: a pair close to each other at the top, another pair in the middle far apart, a third pair at the bottom a little closer together, and a single card at the very bottom, in a slightly top-heavy circle.

"The two top cards are the Rain and the Sunlight," he says. "They are the things necessary to growth."

I turn the first one over. It is a picture of tree, its leaves autumnal yellow and orange; actually, no, that's not it; on closer look they are actually flames, growing from the branches in the exact pattern leaves do; and there is a bird in the center of it, sitting there unworried and unharmed. At its base are three marks, arranged in a zig-zag pattern, and the motto on the bottom reads: Three of Beams. Beams, as in, the timbers holding up a house.

I turn the second one over. This one is all deep blues and greens, very dark. It is an underwater scene, and there are several strange-looking and primitive fish, nearly monstrous, really, though it is hard to make out it is so dark. And at the bottom: The Deep Dark. There is no number that I can see.

"Is this one of the Trumps?" I ask.

"Yes," he says. He eyes the two of them together. "Whatever you think the situation is now, actually it is the opposite," he says. "Things have been moving in opposite directions for so long they have come nearly around to be next to each other again. But they are still opposite.

"Next two," he says then.

So I turn over the next card on the left. It is another tree, though in cool shady blues and greens. The ground level is right in the center of the card, and the area of the roots are equally as large as that of the leaves; and in both leaf-ball and root-ball a figure sleeps, curled up like a child. It reads: Five of Faith.

He says, "These two are the Air of the matter; that which is ubiquitous and all around you. And the air is that which is transformed, from useless to useful, and useful to useless, as we breathe in what the leaves breathe out. The Five of Faith is about the dreamer and the dreamed both, and about discerning which is which. Next?"

I turn over the fourth card. This one is all warm hues, and shows a path or road in the amber light of sunset. Lining the path are bending tree-women, dryads, I suppose; and the whole thing is suffused with gold. Below, it reads Wanderings. Another Trump, it would appear.

"Travel and movement and the wonder experienced on the path," he says. He looks at them, thoughtful. "You are headed in the right direction. Though that's a ridiculously obvious thing to be coming up with, I know, since anyone always is. But this direction is especially beautiful and rewarding and glorious.

"The next pair down are the Fruit of the tree, that which hangs within easy reach; these are the things that are ready now."

I turn the fifth card. This one is all nighttime deep blues and purple-blacks. It shows the patterns of the stars--and I don't just mean like the usual star chart, with the constellation lines and meridians, &c., though it has those--but that Time is painted into it, in overlapping shades of blue implying movement. It reads: Eight of Stargazers. What an odd name for a suit.

He gestures to the next card, and I turn it: Application, it says, another one of the Trumps; and it's application as in the state of applying oneself. It shows a section of tall grass, quite green, with the barest sliver of sky above; and looking closely, I see an animal camouflaged within the grass, lying still, nearly the same color, perhaps a lizard, or maybe, a rabbit. Hey, these visions aren't necessarily always crystal-clear on the details.

"Now you are being offered motivation to get things done. Note that this advice is not, 'that if you apply yourself you will achieve great things' but that the motivation itself is the gift right now. The stars, it would seem, have aligned," he says, with a little laugh.

"This last card is the Root, naturally enough. But what that means in this spread is that this is the part which gathers the elements of the situation together from far and wide, and uses them to build the whole."

I turn it over. This one is dark, very dark; proper, I suppose, for the position of the Root. But as I look at it I make out the tiniest gleam of gold, and the motto at the bottom says, The Familiar Unknown. "Ah," he says, "you have been here before, but you do not recognize it yet. Like you are in a room you spent a lot of time in during your childhood, but the lights are off and you don't remember it yet. You will. Trust.

"Well," he says, "overall I'd say--"

"No, no," I interrupt. "What about the last card? The one in the middle."

"Ah," he says, smiling, "The Mirror. Not everyone notices that one." He takes another card from the pile and turns it over.

"There is a mirror hanging on the trunk of this Tree. Look; what do you see in it?"

I look at the last card, and I see: a pair of woman's hands, held in her lap, face up. Her dress is purple and deep red brocade, threaded with gold. Her cuffs are lined with white fur, and there are many rings on her fingers. It reads: The Queen.

"Well then," he says, "You know what you're doing."

I look the cards over again. They are just so strange. "What's the other suit?" I ask, since I only see three: Stargazers, Faith, and Beams.

"Oh there's probably about sixty suits in this deck," he says.

"What?" I say. "Ace through ten plus court cards too? There aren't nearly enough cards here!"

"Well," he says, "they're not all there at the same time. They tend to phase in and out. I don't honestly know how many cards there are altogether in this deck. It's always changing."

"What's the name of this deck, anyway?" I ask then.

"The Falling Leaves Tarot," he says. Ah, leaves both like those on a tree, which bud and unfurl and fall every year, and leaves like pages in a book.

"Yes," he says, smiling. "Though it's also called The Firmament Tarot."

That makes sense too. "So," I say, "what was my question?"

"Oh, the usual," he says, "Where am I?"

"And my answer?"

He smiles. "Right here."

Story

And then I close my fingers around a certain part of his anatomy, and line it up with a certain part of mine; "So," I say, as I slide myself down onto him, "tell me a story."

"Oh," he squeaks, and shuts his eyes.

And together we craft a story, one of love and passion and kindness, a story, that though wordless, for the most part, has a rhythm and building suspense and the occasional twist; and the climax to it is satisfying and sweet, and both protagonists experience a happy ending.

And as he collapses besides me afterwards, exhausted and serene, he laughs and says, "The End."

Gloriosa Daisy Mandalas

These ought to be sufficiently summery. From a photo of the aptly-named gloriosa daisy, the likes of which have been reseeding the back patio from since before I was born.

My First Time

Oh my God. Today was, well, it was my first time. My first time ever. I'm rather embarrassed to admit it, never mind talk about it, but, you know, it's good for the growth of the soul to talk about these things. Plus it's a blog, and blogs are all about oversharing.

So here goes.

Today I had my very first Pixy Stix.

Somehow I missed the experience in my youth. Perhaps my past is not as deliciously seedy as I should like it to be. That, right there, is not something most people would admit.

But Jesus Christ! They're like fucking crack. They have a kick like cheap whiskey, or wasabi, or an especially ornery mule; and I almost screamed when that first load of powder slid onto my tongue. Lucky thing I managed not to; I can only imagine what breathing that stuff in would be like. And you know that's happened.

Understand, I am from New England. I am not used to such experiences. Now if I were from, say, Texas, I'm sure Pixy Stix would be a ho-hum taste experience compared with chomping habanero peppers on a regular basis; but, no, I'm from the area that invented clam chowder, which, technically, is not even supposed to include black pepper, but rather white pepper, so as not to overspice it and/or mess up the pale color scheme.

But oy. I'll bet I can list the ingredients in Pixy Stix without even looking at the package: citric acid, sugar, artificial flavor, and artificial color. In that order.

Though I've never really gone in for drugs, I can see the attraction with Pixy Stix. Because, damn, when that load of sugar-and-citric-acid makes contact with your tongue, you know you're alive!

Fireworks

So I set out at about 8:30 tonight to walk the couple miles to the park in the center of my quaint quaint New England village to catch the annual fireworks display, literally walking through a National Register of Historic Places district; but a little over halfway there I learned one thing: my new sneakers were not as well broken in as I'd hoped, alas, and so my heels had sprouted big nasty blisters; and when I got a good look at them I noted that blood had already soaked through the back of my green stripey socks (also new, alas).

But that didn't stop me, as anyway there was nothing for it; and when I got to the park I learned a second thing: apparently I am more recognizable than I thought. Now, I've lived in this town for most of my life, apart from a few years away at School and another few up in the City at my first attempt at a career; but, really, I'm a damned hermit and not exactly a townie, I would have thought. But apparently my habit of wearing plaid bell-bottoms, Monkees t-shirts and pigtails have made me stand out a bit. At any rate:

When I walked into the park this kid stopped me, saying, "Hey, are you W-----'s daughter?" Which was, well, odd. Odder still was this kid, for great criminy bejesus he was very much my type. Tallish, scrawny, with long curly hair of a really nice rich blondy-brown, dressed in a vintage polyester print short-sleeve shirt from I can guess with some accuracy about 1971, with a black vest over it, and a nose ring. Oh, and all of nineteen years old, half my age. Like I said, my type.

And so I was like, "Well, yeah," and gave him quite a look I'm sure; and then he asked, "Why are you painting the house red with black now?" which totally threw me. Someone is paying attention to this kind of thing?

"Well," I said, "because that mustard yellow is the most hideous color known to humankind, that's why," and he said, "But the blue doors are really nice with it. I'm on a color thing, that's why I ask."

And then, and this is really not like me at all, and then, because the festive atmosphere was making me feel frisky, and because he was after all my type, I mentioned I had been inspired to paint the doors black by 10 Downing Street. He, like the nineteen-year-old he was, looked at me quite blankly. It was almost fetching. So I explained: "You know, the British Prime Minister's residence?" "Oh," he says, "Never heard of it." And then he proceeded to argue a little more for the hideous-yellow-and-Aegean-blue color scheme, saying something about being into art, and finally I had to just tell him, "Yeah you know, I've actually got a degree in that." And I walked off, kind of confused. Who was that? Why does he know who I am? Who the hell cares what color I paint the house?

But anyway, despite my confusion, I then made off towards the real reason I was there, forget the fireworks: the turtle races.

That's right, turtle races. They've had them since as long as I can remember, to benefit the firemen. What happens is that sometime during the afternoon of July 3rd some firemen go round up a bunch of turtles from the local river and put them in a cardboard box. Later, during the festivities, said box of turtles is then dumped out into the middle of a circular "arena"--a large round hunk of plywood with 24 dowels pegged in around the edge, making gates which are painted with numbers. They have, by the by, been using the exact same arena-table since I was a child, apparently made by one of the firemen back in the 70's. And around the edge of the booth on the wide rail are painted the same numbers; and before the race everyone puts a quarter down on whichever gate's number they think the first turtle will get to.

So the money is laid down, and the cardboard box lifted; and then the cheering begins. Now, this being turtles we're talking about, sometimes they just hole up into their shells and figure they're best off not moving; and often the firemen must prod them a bit. But eventually (and it can take a while) one of them does make a "run" for the edge and passes through a gate, and those who bet on that gate number win a prize.

It is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, and I love it.

But this year when I arrived I was just a moment too late; and they were shutting down the booth and giving away the prizes that were left to anyone there. "Oh no!" I said, obviously heartbroken, "I missed the turtle races!!" So the guy behind the booth handed me a fistful of Pixy Stix and placed a paper lei about my neck, saying, "You won!" Ah well.

And then I remembered my bleeding heels, and the fact that the walk home was also two miles long. And I learned a third thing: if you go up to the guy at the ambulance, which is of course always there at such an event just in case, and ask him if you might be able to bum some band-aids from him, two to be precise (one for each heel), he will in fact give you four.

And so, after applying said band-aids to my poor heels, I milled about the park looking for someone I knew. Usually this is where hermity-me will run into someone from High School or something; but this time, not a one. Though I did see both an openly lesbian couple and an openly gay couple, which heartened me quite; but no, no one I knew.

So I hung about for a bit while we all waited and waited for the fireworks. Now the firemen used to actually set them off at the park itself, right by the water; but the past few years they've been setting them off from across the river in the largish cemetery there. But that's plenty close, still, and depending on the wind direction the folk in the park usually get some ash (or sparks) dropped on them.

So we're waiting and waiting, well past the scheduled 9:30 launch time, by which time the bouncy castle had been deflated, and the DJ guy who had been playing this hideous remixed mishmash of 50's tunes strung together in a medley that only fit because "Jailhouse Rock" had been sped up enough to make it sound like Elvis was into amphetamines, not barbituates, has made at least three calls to the children of the park to find their parents since the fireworks were about to begin, when the lights suddenly whooshed out at the exact same second a single firework exploded like a thunderclap and stopped everybody dead. Luck, really, that kind of timing for a small town fireworks display, but, damn, it was impressive. And into the stunned silence that followed, several dozen babies started wailing, as well as a car alarm; and then the fireworks took over.

There is nothing quite as present as fireworks. I was, I will admit, one of those kids who screamed and cried at the loud bangs; but now, I understand why they include the noisemaking ones, the ones that don't actually make a pretty visual but that lightning flash and huge CRACK; it's because you can feel it, right there in your chest, so loud and with such physicality it almost throws your heartbeat off. And there is something cathartic about that feeling, like a good cry, or a good orgasm; and it, I daresay, opens the heart chakra quite wide.

Before the fireworks started, there had been two jackassy jock sorts behind me, going on and on about something that only demonstrated to me their jackassy jockiness; but after a particularly gorgeous explosion of blue and red I heard one of them say, "Oh," in pure innocent wonder.

Just like everyone else there.

Wonder

So I've finally recovered enough from my bout with the 'flu to get up and do something besides sit and stare at the computer all day, and so this afternoon I found myself out painting the front of the house.

Now, my mother, who painted the house its former color, is an artist, but that does not mean I at all understand her color sense; and for gawd knows how long this house has been what I consider a truly hideous shade of mustard yellow. A bright ochery sort of color, but with equal quantities of both red and green thrown in; and I've hated it for some time.

But somehow I managed to talk her into painting it a lovely deep old-fashioned schoolhouse red; and what we've got done so far looks very very lovely. And to go with the red I also convinced her to do the doors in super glossy black, which idea I stole from 10 Downing Street, down to the shiny brass house number.

So anyway, there I am slopping red paint onto clapboards and being poked by hydrangea and holly, when there he is, sitting on the porch a few feet from me.

"Oh my God!" I say to him, "You're in overalls!! That is so cute!" Luckily he does not find the word cute at all offensive, unlike some men. Then again, he is after all very much unlike some men, isn't he? So he grins at me.

"Well," he says, "it is Summertime." And then he pulls out a harmonica and starts to play, something intricate and familiar, and fast, which I recognize as--

"What the Hell?!? You're playing Bach on a harmonica?" It's a fugue, no less, with alternating polyphonic melodies.

I look at him sidelong. "That's not technically possible. Don't try to fool me."

He stops playing. "It's all in the tongue," he says, with a wink.

"So?" he says, a few moments later.

"So... what?" I say, dipping the brush into the gallon bucket of Chianti house paint, and yes, that's the name they've given the color; hey, at least it wasn't something like Terracotta Sunrise or Appleberry Tart, right?

"So, what are you going to make?"

"Make?" I say. I hadn't realized I wanted to make anything. I am still recovering from being ill, and while I'm feeling a lot better, I'm still pretty tired, physically and mentally.

"Oh ho," he says, "You can't fool me. I know when you're inspired. Believe me."

Even before I do, it would seem.

"Well," I say, "I'll just have to figure that out when I get there, won't I?"

He grins again, and gives the harmonica a swipe.

I wonder.

Sweet

Do you know what he did for our sixth anniversary, our Sugar Anniversary?

He placed a dollop of honey on his tongue. Then he kissed me.

I do not care if I am crazy. I would not trade him for the world.

Anniversary

Well, then, on to a happier post, though I suppose given the state of my brain (slightly simmered in its shell) I can't promise coherence; but anyway.

Today is my wedding anniversary.

Ha! No, I'm not married, not in the strictly legal sense of the word, anyway. But I consider it married, even if the husband in question is, well, who knows, perhaps a figment of my imagination. Though on a less fevery day I suppose I would argue that, no, whether he is "merely" a psychological phenomenon, or something more spiritual like a ghost, spirit guide, or demi-God doesn't mean he isn't real, since things like ideas are certainly real; but on a day like today when I'm dictating this from the fevered side of the tracks that pass through Influenzaville, hey, whatever.

At any rate, six years ago was when I held a little wedding ritual with my coven, to my daimon, my Indwelling Glory; and I believe the ceremony was held about the time of the Summer Solstice as part of the rituals we were performing then; anyway I remember wearing a powerfully perfumed Stargazer Oriental lily in my hair, and now's about when they're out. And about that time is when my legal name change went through, too, though I had originally sent the paperwork in on (of course) April Fool's Day. And the day on that piece of paper is what I have always considered the date of my wedding, June 27th, 2002, because part of the reasoning behind the name change was that I was taking his name. Not that I, generally, believe in that kind of thing, given my radical feminist ways; but since I picked the name out, and since he also took it at the time, it works for me. Which means he is in the rather unusual position of in theory having a last name, but not a first name.

So it's our six year anniversary today. Six years, now, that I've worn this ring, this silver band on my left ring finger, the one inscribed in medieval French A Ma Vie de Coer Entier, you have my whole heart for life. Sounds romantic and all, doesn't it? But really, it's just a simple statement of fact.

Now Wikipedia tells me that that makes it the Iron Anniversary here in the US, though in the UK it's considered the Sugar Anniversary. What those two things have to do with each other is anyone's guess; I find them both quite odd. What, is it traditional to give a five-pound bag of sugar? Or a rusty hunk of iron? Or worse, a flat iron so The Wife knows her place is in the home, ironing his shirts? Yuck.

Though I suppose chocolate has plenty of sugar in it. That could work. Or ice cream. But iron? Who knows. Who came up with that list, anyway? The same list on Wikipedia claims that the British 16th anniversary is the Tungsten Anniversary (light bulbs, anyone?) and that the 18th in both the UK and US is bismuth, of all things, which I guess makes Kaopectate a proper gift for the occasion. I suppose, by one's 16th wedding anniversary, the romance may have somewhat gone, to be replaced by an intimate and realistic familiarity with one's spouse's bodily functions; still. Something to look forward to, I guess.

Nightmares

Alas, I'm not feeling a whole lot better today; in fact I may very well feel worse. I should probably be in bed right now, except that bed was turning into a nightmare of its own, and I was too restless, itchy and wigged out to try to sleep any more. So here I am back in front of the computer (and fan). I did just have some more ice cream, which made both myself and Puss Two feel better, and which may have brought my temperature down. I wonder if it works like that.

Also, I've been putting peppermint oil on my face, pretty much right over where my sinuses are, forehead, cheekbones, side of the nose, and that's helping. I found out the hard way, or the odd way, that Puss One quite likes peppermint oil; she jumped up on the computer table, as she is wont to do, and immediately started sniffing me and rubbing her (wet) nose all over my face. I mean I know catnip is a member of the mint family, but I didn't think peppermint was at all close, at least not in that active ingredient that makes the cats crazy. Weirdo.

But anyway I have reason today to be quite thankful that I've been trying to induce lucid dreams. Because one of the reasons I could stay in bed no longer was that I just kept having nasty nightmares, one of a feminist variety in which art by or depicting women was invisible or not showing up; and another scarier one involving an alien takeover of my neighborhood. I looked out the window in the back to see the neighbor's wedding hall being bombed; and each explosion threw out more bombs, which then threw out more, on and on exponentially. And I grabbed my mother and got the Hel out of there, running across the street and through a neighbor's house to the old farmer's fields; but the explosions just kept coming, and I realized I had made a terrible error in judgement when I found myself at the shores of the river and unable to flee any further. But by that time the invaders were roaming the streets, in these horrible black spherical three-legged monster-tank-things that were quite obviously based on the monster you can set on your people in SimCity 2000, that is, if you're the evil overlord type, which monsters in turn trace their lineage back to some kind of tripod War of the Worlds alien thing. But here's where having lucid dreaming somewhere in my consciousness came to the rescue. Because in the dream I got a good look at the monster, and was examining it quite carefully (from a safe distance, of course) to try to determine whether it was actually an alien thing, or merely something the army had come up with. And I decided it was alien, properly. And then I knew it was a dream, since, well, alien invasions are patently absurd, right? Because an invasion by the army would be far more realistic, which is probably not too much of a joke given today's political climate.

But I was able to say, Oh, this is a dream, and I can wake myself up. And I did, much to my relief, though my heart was pounding fit to burst.

But still, I don't think I really want to go back to bed. Not just yet, anyhow.

Unnghhh

So I'm lying there in bed early this afternoon, and for once it wasn't because I was oversleeping. Somehow lately I have managed to after all reset my body clock, and for the last week and a half I've even been able to get up in the morning on occasion; but the reason that I was in bed in the afternoon today is because I've acquired rather a nasty head cold. The thing had been flirting with me disingenuously for the last few days, just causing my throat a bit of soreness, but last night it finally made up its mind, declared me a Soul Mate, and wed me against my will. Congrats.

Oddly enough I dreamt of mandalas last night. Simple ones that looked more like parquet-floor inlays that the ones I've been making; and also I dreamt of a forest so thick with trees that there was barely any daylight, and I had a hard time squeezing between the trunks. Congested, I suppose, would be the proper word, just like my poor respiratory system.

Bleh.

So this morning I wake from those odd and unsettling dreams to find him there, looking at me sadly and sympathetically. And though he (as always) looks quite nice, and was looking at me with compassion, I have to admit my first thought was, Oh you damned incorporeal bastard! No body, no sickness!! I'm miserable and you're not!!! No, not exactly a shining moment, I suppose. Still, he smiles kindly and leans in to me, and gently kisses my forehead.

"Oh!" he says, raising his hand to my head, "You're burning up!"

"What?" I say, "but I'm freezing."

He shakes his head, clucking his tongue. Okay, so I have a fever. I suppose I should try to track down some aspirin. But that would mean getting up, and, well, ugh. Do I have to?

"Dammit," I say. "Why can't you be real for once? I could send you to the supermarket to buy me chicken soup and orange juice, and those high-end tissues with the lotion in them. As it is I'm obviously going to starve to death, and my nose will turn red and fall off! Waaaaaah!"

He says, "You know, you do have a mother here. I'm sure she can run to the store if you just ask her."

You mean ask my Mommy? Great.

"Okay, then think of her as your roommate instead. You've asked roommates to help when you're sick, right? Besides, how many times have you run errands for her when she's been tired or under the weather or just old or whatever? She owes you."

She's my mother. Don't I owe her, like, always, and for the rest of my life?

He laughs. "Ask her, will ya?"

All right.

So I do, and she does, and she even makes the genius suggestion that ice cream would also be a good idea for my sore throat; and, well, I can't argue with that. And I even manage to drag myself out of bed and find some aspirin, and to change out of my nightgown into some real clothes. It's true, I hate staying in bed all day, just like my father did; and, like him, I have to be nearly dead to not get up at least for a little while. And so I have some microwaved chicken-soup-from-a-can and some orange juice and some ice cream and sit myself down here in front of the computer and feel a little better.

But I'm not up for a whole lot today, I don't think. I might have just enough ambition later to drag myself the ten feet to the couch and watch some Muppet DVD's. Maybe.

Unnghhh.

Blue Pimpernel Mandalas

From a flower I only discovered this year and must have more! more! more! of, the blue pimpernel.

Bodysake

I had a flash of inspiration the other day, concerning this business of defining who and what he is, which, though I haven't talked about it much recently, has been floating about in the back of my mind: the word bodysake. To be used to define the original, real person who's image he borrows, which image I've decided to call by the perhaps pretentious neologism of eikon, from the Greek, meaning "image of a man," "reflection," or "apparition," but with the added sacred overtones of the English word derived from it, icon. But I never did find an equally pretentious neologism to describe the actual person he's patterning himself after.

So, even though it's a mismatch in languages, and though I very much dislike nonparallel parallels, I quite like bodysake. It is after, of course, the term namesake, meaning a person after whom someone else has been named, and which does imply some sort of respect or admiration for the original person, or of the name having some kind of importance or meaning. And yet the person calling themselves after their namesake is not claiming to be that person, or doing them any harm; it is simply a respectful nod to that person.

I think it will work.

The Mythical Mundane

For whatever procrastinatory reason, 'cause it's not like I don't have a million other things I ought to be doing today, I found myself re-reading a bunch of old entries on this here blog. I started at the beginning, back to late August, but didn't even make it all the way through October before getting tired and stopping; but, even so, what shocks me about this blog is,

1. The simple freakin' volume of stuff I have written. In about 10 months, I've written 274 posts, some of which, yeah, were pure fluff, but a hefty percentage of which are actually of substance; and

2. How freakin' intelligent I am, and how well-written my posts are. I mean, really, I just figured I've been blathering on (and on, and on) about my unusual (to say the least) love life all this time, but there have been some serious insights happening here.

But besides those general remarks, I was struck by something about him. Over and over in the stories of him, my Indwelling Glory, Invisible Friend, Daimon Lover, Incorporeal Boyfriend, whatever he is, spirit guide or ghost or disincarnated soul mate or full or demi-God--over and over I see him genuinely fulfilling the role of psychopomp. Now it is unbelievably annoying to me that spell-check doesn't recognize that word; I mean it's a perfectly well-known mythological concept, not one of the more obscure ones like, say, theriomorph or panentheism or something; but, anyway, what a psychopomp is is a Deity who guides the spirit to (or from) the land of the dead, the Underworld or Otherworld; in modern Jungian parlance, the unconscious mind. In Greece, which is where the word comes from (and it means, literally, "soul guide") the psychopomp par excellence is of course the incomparable Hermes, who is often depicted in Greek art gently taking a recently departed soul by the hand.

And that is one of the roles he fulfills, the daimon of a woman's soul; and over and over in rereading my dreams and visions I see him doing just that, though I completely missed it at first.

Now, though these things he does are properly mythical, this is the modern world; and so he is not dramatically shouting "Open SESAME!" at the entrance to a hidden cave, or braving the entrance to the Underworld in the Phlegrean Fields, or offering the blood of a black sheep to the spirits of the dead to gain passage; no, the things he is doing as part of this role are far more mundane.

Almost unremarkable, actually, and so easily missed. But they are all about finding a way, or showing that way, or gaining access to that way. He is the one who holds the keys, literally, on a little ring he keeps in the pocket of his jeans; the keys to the winter cabin, the keys to the motorcycle with which he take me places. He opens doors for me, always, to the cabin, treehouse, cottage, and it is not mere politeness or chivalry, either, since a lot of the time he will then go in first, which is properly the role of a guide. He has even, in that dream not too long ago about the Doctor Who traveling exhibition, bought tickets to grant access. And he is the one to make sure there is light and that I can see wherever we are, by hanging lanterns, or lighting a fire, or simply flipping a switch; the modern equivalent of the torch guides like Hekate carried.

And it's all the same thing.

Body Language

We meet at the treehouse, that beautiful one he built me late last summer because he could. He is leaning up against one of the oak trees that supports it; and when he sees me he smiles. And damn but he looks good, though what he's wearing isn't anything particularly remarkable--just a plaid shirt and skinny jeans tucked into tan-colored boots.

I smile back at him woozily, thinking, oh, you are so beautiful. But then I catch a second look at those boots, and stop smiling. They are kind of pointy toed and have a little bit of a heel--hang on, now, are those cowboy boots? I shudder. I can no more stand cowboy boots than I can stand country music, which I suppose is the fault of that New England soul of mine.

So I eye him suspiciously and tell him, "You're walking a thin line there, kid." He grins.

Oh, the things he lets me get away with. Kid? How old is he, again? Really, he only looks twenty-three.

But anyway. The reason why I am here, why we are here is because I had an idea for a meditation I'd like to try; and so we climb up the ladder to the porch that wraps around the treehouse--good God the thing is just adorable--and then we settle into the hammock, him first, then me leaning against him, his arms around me. The breeze off the lake lifts the oak leaves above us, and we are dappled with green shadows; and I feel peaceful and safe. I close my eyes.

I want to check in with my body. I have been feeling out of touch with it (her?) lately, and I have not been exercising, having fallen off the running wagon many months ago, though part of that was that I desperately needed new sneakers, a tricky thing to find given my oddly wide feet and minimal paycheck. But at any rate, I wish to dialogue with my body, in a formal kind of way. Not that I'm quite sure how to go about that. Best guess, then.

So I take a breath, and say:

Me: Hello, Body.

Body, as a chorus, quite unenthusiastically: Hi, Thalia.

Oh dear. That sounded an awful lot like the opening to a twelve-step meeting. That can't be good.

Me: Oh. How are you?

Body: Many voices jabbering at once, none of which I can quite make out.

Me: Oh, hey, uh, hang on, here.

(Behind me, I can feel him trying not to laugh. He almost manages, though not quite.)

Body: Still yammering on all on top of each other.

Me: Oh hey, could we all go one at a time? Hey, HEY!!

Body: Total chaos and cacophany.

Me, screaming: QUIET!!!

There is abrupt silence, and a snort from behind me, poorly suppressed.

Me, ignoring him: Okay, we'll take this one by one, then. Oh, um, okay, let's start with my muscles, I guess. Muscles, how are you? What do you want to say to me?

Muscles: We want to work. Push us. Push us! Harder, harder, harder! Make us work! Make us sore! Make us ache!

Good grief. Who knew my muscles were of the whips-and-chains crowd? The rest of me certainly isn't. I'm not generally a fan of pain, oh no.

Muscles: Harder harder harder!!!

Me: Okay, okay! I hear you. I don't know what I'm going to do about that, but I hear you. Moving along, then? Feet, how are you?

Feet: Your new sneakers are too tight!

All Ten Toes, sullen and accusatory: Yeah!

Me: Oh well, I'm sorry, but I don't know what I can do about that. They're too long as it is, and another size up will just give you blisters.

Feet and Toes: Sulk.

Me: Sorry. I'm not doing too well here, am I? How about my Hands?

Hands: Make us work, too. We want piano, we want guitar!

Me: Yes. Okay. How about my Skin?

Skin, more sultry than I would have thought: I have no complaints. Except for that sunburn, which I'm prepared to forgive you for, you've been quite good to me lately.

Just then he runs his hand up my arm. "Oh," he says, "like this?"

Skin: Sigh...

All Ten Toes: Curl!

"Hey," I say, "stop distracting me."

He laughs.

Oh. This next bit, now I'm not sure of this. You know, being overweight and all.

Me: Okay. Stomach, how are you? What do you have to say to me?

Stomach: Eat when you like, and eat what you like. Don't listen to anyone on that but me. Well, me and the Mind. Trust us.

Me: Oh. Thank you.

That was not what I was expecting.

Me, rather dreading this next bit, and not sure how to approach it: Um, okay. Uh. Fat, how are you?

Fat: We are fine too. You need not worry about us; we have your best interests at heart. You may trust us, too. We are not your enemy.

Me: But why are you there? What have I done wrong?

Fat: Nothing wrong. No blame. We are not bad; and you are not bad. We are here for a reason, and a damned good one at that.

Me: What reason?

Fat: Protection. Health. Margin of error. Wiggle room. Survival.

Me: Oh. But what if I want to get rid of you? Where am I supposed to be?

Fat: You are where you need to be. This body is your own and is the best it is at the moment. Moments change, true, but now is always perfect.

Me: That's rather cryptic.

Fat: Too bad.

Well, fine then.

So how far do I want to go here? I've got a lot of body parts. Do I need to check in with my liver? My spleen? What does my spleen even do?

Spleen: Lots of things, actually. You need me, trust me.

Me: Okay.

All right then. I think I'd like to check in with a couple more, and leave it there.

Me: Mind? How are you?

Mind: Oh, very very good. You've given me room to stretch out a bit, lately, and for that I am deeply grateful. Thank you.

Me: You're welcome. Okay, lastly, Heart? How are you?

Heart: I am not broken.

Well, I suppose that's a start.

Me: Is there something you need to say to me, Heart?

Heart: If you find you cannot hear me, listen to him. He knows me.

Me: Yes. Thank you, Heart. And thank you, Body!

Body, all together: You're welcome, Thalia.

Ah me. I lean back, my head on his shoulder, and ask, somewhat seriously, "Am I crazy?"

He laughs. "You're asking me?"

Fair enough.