THE OPENING

It is a chilly night and I have wrapped myself in cashmere for the blend of softness and warmth that it offers to the delicate boundary which connects the world to the spaces deep within; the now permeable border that is my skin. I step into the gorgeous and revered Soho art gallery, which is made more so because the Artist of the night is also a muse to me. It is opening night for the exhibit titled Book of Blue. I see friends whom I met yrs ago at a sexuality workshop, of all places, and a swelling of joy radiates out from the center of my being as I linger for a moment to take in their faces. A spiritual connection continues to bind us to one another and each is the Self of his or her own Lover.

I taste desire in the air, which in turn sends a sensation of red wine pulsating through my veins, and warmth returns to me. Removing my cashmere I am aware of the lessening need for a boundary. I experience the world, suddenly, as a sea. A sea of photographs and souls and friends and lovers. I wish to merge completely.

“Eris,” my partner calls my name, “I found you.” After 17 years of togetherness, he discovers me again and again, as I also do for myself. This time he meets me in a photograph.

The soul that collaborated with the lens once upon a time when the photo was taken appears to me as the perspective of my naval as center. My torso fills the frame and my signature very-small-breasts identify me as the soul of that navel. A rosy ipod, the wire of a white ear piece, and a set of sea-green fishes tattooed just above where the ipod peaks out of nude-colored panties add color to the photo, all viewed from within the mirror. I was listening to Lennon’s Imagine and now long for gazers to see the passionate peace that existed on the inside of the boundary that day. I long for the boundary to dissolve.

A time of more peace; we acknowledge the absurdity of war.
When oil is needed less
Because the juices of life are more,
Wars we fight now are against a culture of oppression
Claiming freedoms that for too long have been deeply hidden in our depression

reads the description below the photo.

An old man in a bow-tie, his arm clutched by an impeccably dressed white-haired woman of about the age of 70, enters the gallery. They are beautiful to me. They greet the gallery’s owner, accept an offer of wine, and take-in the first few photos gathered on the left-hand side of the gracious, elegant, yet urban space. He stops—unexpectedly—in front of one in particular. It has caught his eye, from which a tear now falls. She places her palm ever so lightly on the small of his back and the tear almost cries itself in response, in comfort, in knowing. Salty water begins falling from the outside corners of my eyes, pulled by forces of gravity unrelated to anything within me, except that I am in that moment one with the forces of the world, no space between me and him, or her, or another me. No space and spaciousness. No boundary, yet centered. Peaceful and calm and very alive. Water and energy and skin.

The Artist is there. A light ignited by the fire within washes over me and the warmth of a smile graces my lips which, like my breasts, are too slender for the fullness of the kiss I wish to give. I am grateful that they swell in response to the touch of his breath and I once again feel the electricity that rearranged my cells much time ago. The energy that melted away the too rigid boundary now dissolves me completely. I don’t know if it’s joy for me or for him or for the world. Somehow, it does not matter. In this new world ushered in by him, by them, it does not matter. This is the world I wish to live in. And on this night, the sky cracked opened and great rays of creation shone brighter than the Sun*. On this night, I did not doubt, but rather I dreamt—and believed—that I was whole.

* From 2008 Annual Planetwaves horoscope: www.planetwaves.net. Exact quote: “But Chiron does much more, teaching us how to heal; cracking open the sky and allowing the great rays of creation to shine brighter than the Sun. You might doubt these; but please, acknowledge them when you see them.”