visualization / conversation with the sea, written mainly for myself but erotic for you?? :P
Last night in the trance between waking and sleep, lost in my music and lost in time, I saw myself walking down dark stone stairs built by the Earth herself.
I again saw myself dressed as some sort of priestess or mystic. My eyes were exotically lined with the same intensity and cat-like pattern of an Egyptian priestess, but the colour of the kohl was a striking midnight blue. My gaze was so frighteningly intense that I observing myself was completely disarmed. I felt as though many hidden people were watching me, but I was not there for them.
I again wore white robes, but this time they were belted by strands of exquisitely delicate craftsmanship. They were no thicker than fine bead necklaces and strung with the same care, but in addition to clear glass beads they held irridescent stones, white feathers, and pale bits of shell. Many, many strands composed my loosely twisted belt, a belt that cascaded down the front and made soft muffled tinkling sounds as I descended.
I mention these strands not only because of their ethereal beauty but also because of their repetition. I saw them twined into sections of my hair and the salty breeze revealed several more encircling my wrists that had been hidden by the sleeves of my robe. I wore no necklace save a golden torc that I for some reason did not consistently see, perhaps because I associate it with Cernunnos and this visualization was meant to explore another realm. I was leaving the dark, dense forest, not forever or because it was no longer home, but because I was magnetically drawn toward an equally dark and wild sea.
I could feel the cool sea breeze teasing my face long before the trees flanking the stairs parted for the beach. I felt the sand soft around my feet and even had a little trouble walking, as anyone walking in deep dry sand does. The wind grew stronger and stronger, such that my robes and hair billowed around me, and such that I felt an increasing exhileration the closer I drew to the sea.
When I reached the water, I imagined that the water was pleasantly warm. I intended to swim, but when I let the waters lap over my feet I realized that they were cold. Something else told me that, delivering a gentle slap to the notion that this was my visualization alone. I realized that I was shivering, and that my thin white robes were no match for the briny wind, and that there was barely enough light to make out the waters of the ocean, black against the midnight sky. I was suddenly afraid of what monsters lay in the ocean. I knew I would soon jump in, but were there sharks and rays and tentacles waiting to hurt me?
And so I stepped back, and gazed into the distance, and abruptly said, "Guide me, mother." I then began to pray to the ocean as though she were a goddess. Nehelennia...? I wondered fleetingly. But it did not seem to matter.
I told her that I had felt fierce and beautiful but now I felt little and afraid. I told her that I loved her and wished to bring her honour but that I did not know what lay in her depths and that I was even more afraid. I told her that I remembered her gift when I saw her last but that I still did not understand it, and so she elaborated for me. Or tried.
Grace, she said. I have given you a grace that is stronger than all of the ocean's wild fury.
"Nothing is stronger than you, mother," I said. "That cannot be."
It is. It is an enduring grace, as deep and unfathomable as I.
"But mother, I have none of this. If you have given me this sacred gift then I have dropped it, for I am all crankiness and tears and bad moods and I always look so scrubby and feel so unkempt."
Child, this is more than physical grace.
"I know mother, and I lack it. I want it, believe me; I want a grace that is compassionate and beautiful and wise and understanding and talented and skillfull and limitless. A grace like you. I seek a grace that IS you."
Do not seek. Be.
But I am still confused, still finding this whole thing vain and impossible and elusive. I feel emotional -- tears are close to the surface -- and I remember the time I spoke to her in waking life last time on spring break. I remembered asking for peace and relief at last but being told that there WAS none here, and that I would simply have to continue onward, raw and stinging inside and wild like her. She had been cruel to me then, and yet beneath that cruelty there had been the gentle kindness of a mother's firm hand.
Unsure what to do, I jumped.
My robes immediately billowed around me, becoming transparent in the water and momentarily enchanting me with the ethereal image of MYSELF becoming clear and stretching into the water until I was made of water myself, an outline of me that abruptly pushed up to the surface and upon gasping free was the regular me. The kohl around my eyes was slightly smeared and my hair was sopping wet, and my robes around me were heavy. I lay back and floated, looking at the cold sky.
Suddenly I remembered my fear of writhing creatures with stingers and sharp claws, of ship wrecks and filthy, dying things full of disease hidden in the water. I could not see. The tides were wildly strong. And I was filled with terror.
Inexplicably, though, I then found myself focusing on myself instead of the water, noting the way my transparent robes clung to my body and revealed everything. I rose from the tide, the shortened front of my robe making it easier to walk but the tail of it picking up sand and crushed shells, and I stood there. In between the cold and the wildness in my eyes and the clinginess of my transparent robe the image was positively erotic, which startled me. I am not one prone to erotic visualizations, much less highly vain fantasies of myself being incredibly sexy. It was so detailed. My nipples were hard and I stood with my shoulders back and my head held high and proud. I was edged and feminine and feral and free, like a siren. Not like the rumpled girl snoozing back in West Chester in plaid boxers. I stripped my robe off and stood there naked.
The ocean looked on in approval and said, Behold the woman. You are drawn to me, as surely as we are both drawn to follow the moon.
I looked up and abruptly saw the full moon, and then again I was jumping into the ocean hoping to clear all the wet sand off me. My robe was on again, billowing around me, and I floated only slightly afraid with my face turned toward the moon.
The ocean gave me a necklace: a simple bit of broken whelk shell, curved in an almost spiral and coloured pale peachy-pink.
And then I feel asleep, my visualization fading into darkness.
I again saw myself dressed as some sort of priestess or mystic. My eyes were exotically lined with the same intensity and cat-like pattern of an Egyptian priestess, but the colour of the kohl was a striking midnight blue. My gaze was so frighteningly intense that I observing myself was completely disarmed. I felt as though many hidden people were watching me, but I was not there for them.
I again wore white robes, but this time they were belted by strands of exquisitely delicate craftsmanship. They were no thicker than fine bead necklaces and strung with the same care, but in addition to clear glass beads they held irridescent stones, white feathers, and pale bits of shell. Many, many strands composed my loosely twisted belt, a belt that cascaded down the front and made soft muffled tinkling sounds as I descended.
I mention these strands not only because of their ethereal beauty but also because of their repetition. I saw them twined into sections of my hair and the salty breeze revealed several more encircling my wrists that had been hidden by the sleeves of my robe. I wore no necklace save a golden torc that I for some reason did not consistently see, perhaps because I associate it with Cernunnos and this visualization was meant to explore another realm. I was leaving the dark, dense forest, not forever or because it was no longer home, but because I was magnetically drawn toward an equally dark and wild sea.
I could feel the cool sea breeze teasing my face long before the trees flanking the stairs parted for the beach. I felt the sand soft around my feet and even had a little trouble walking, as anyone walking in deep dry sand does. The wind grew stronger and stronger, such that my robes and hair billowed around me, and such that I felt an increasing exhileration the closer I drew to the sea.
When I reached the water, I imagined that the water was pleasantly warm. I intended to swim, but when I let the waters lap over my feet I realized that they were cold. Something else told me that, delivering a gentle slap to the notion that this was my visualization alone. I realized that I was shivering, and that my thin white robes were no match for the briny wind, and that there was barely enough light to make out the waters of the ocean, black against the midnight sky. I was suddenly afraid of what monsters lay in the ocean. I knew I would soon jump in, but were there sharks and rays and tentacles waiting to hurt me?
And so I stepped back, and gazed into the distance, and abruptly said, "Guide me, mother." I then began to pray to the ocean as though she were a goddess. Nehelennia...? I wondered fleetingly. But it did not seem to matter.
I told her that I had felt fierce and beautiful but now I felt little and afraid. I told her that I loved her and wished to bring her honour but that I did not know what lay in her depths and that I was even more afraid. I told her that I remembered her gift when I saw her last but that I still did not understand it, and so she elaborated for me. Or tried.
Grace, she said. I have given you a grace that is stronger than all of the ocean's wild fury.
"Nothing is stronger than you, mother," I said. "That cannot be."
It is. It is an enduring grace, as deep and unfathomable as I.
"But mother, I have none of this. If you have given me this sacred gift then I have dropped it, for I am all crankiness and tears and bad moods and I always look so scrubby and feel so unkempt."
Child, this is more than physical grace.
"I know mother, and I lack it. I want it, believe me; I want a grace that is compassionate and beautiful and wise and understanding and talented and skillfull and limitless. A grace like you. I seek a grace that IS you."
Do not seek. Be.
But I am still confused, still finding this whole thing vain and impossible and elusive. I feel emotional -- tears are close to the surface -- and I remember the time I spoke to her in waking life last time on spring break. I remembered asking for peace and relief at last but being told that there WAS none here, and that I would simply have to continue onward, raw and stinging inside and wild like her. She had been cruel to me then, and yet beneath that cruelty there had been the gentle kindness of a mother's firm hand.
Unsure what to do, I jumped.
My robes immediately billowed around me, becoming transparent in the water and momentarily enchanting me with the ethereal image of MYSELF becoming clear and stretching into the water until I was made of water myself, an outline of me that abruptly pushed up to the surface and upon gasping free was the regular me. The kohl around my eyes was slightly smeared and my hair was sopping wet, and my robes around me were heavy. I lay back and floated, looking at the cold sky.
Suddenly I remembered my fear of writhing creatures with stingers and sharp claws, of ship wrecks and filthy, dying things full of disease hidden in the water. I could not see. The tides were wildly strong. And I was filled with terror.
Inexplicably, though, I then found myself focusing on myself instead of the water, noting the way my transparent robes clung to my body and revealed everything. I rose from the tide, the shortened front of my robe making it easier to walk but the tail of it picking up sand and crushed shells, and I stood there. In between the cold and the wildness in my eyes and the clinginess of my transparent robe the image was positively erotic, which startled me. I am not one prone to erotic visualizations, much less highly vain fantasies of myself being incredibly sexy. It was so detailed. My nipples were hard and I stood with my shoulders back and my head held high and proud. I was edged and feminine and feral and free, like a siren. Not like the rumpled girl snoozing back in West Chester in plaid boxers. I stripped my robe off and stood there naked.
The ocean looked on in approval and said, Behold the woman. You are drawn to me, as surely as we are both drawn to follow the moon.
I looked up and abruptly saw the full moon, and then again I was jumping into the ocean hoping to clear all the wet sand off me. My robe was on again, billowing around me, and I floated only slightly afraid with my face turned toward the moon.
The ocean gave me a necklace: a simple bit of broken whelk shell, curved in an almost spiral and coloured pale peachy-pink.
And then I feel asleep, my visualization fading into darkness.