Last night I saw my sweetheart priestess a ritual at his place for the first time. We say "priestess" instead of "priest" because that word has some patriarchal baggage and anyway it helps to shake up gender assumptions in general and especially when it comes to God. Dess.
The ritual was around the heroes journey, and started with a community round robin telling of the Odyssey, which was awesome, along the lines of...
"And then there were the sirens..."
"Oh yeah!! And didn't the men stuff their ears with wax?"
"Yes, but Odysseus had himself lashed to the mast so that they could see that they were past the danger when he calmed down..."
"Wait, was that before or after the cyclops?"
It was so mythic geeky cool.
I helped by saying a piece about the hero's journey, and offering some writing prompts. We had eight people in the room, and they bent their heads and dived in, searching for their own journeys as their pens travelled across pages.
And then my sweetheart led a trance which was watery and mythic and which folded my mind so that it reflected back on itself in a dancing with torches on the shore kind of a way.
Also I got to have a little tête-à-tête with the Green God... in the grove which was across the inlet from the headland which was up the stone stairs from the beach which was where my raft landed...
I love a good trance.
And I was sitting and telling Him my story, of wanting to be part of the change, and finding my way, and spending years in politics and He said "That's not real."
And it was like W00wawooowAAA. (Eerie sound of bending mirrors or playing saws.)
Right. That's why I keep leaving.
But then... wait...
"What is real, then?"
"This..." And he lifted a hand. He's got antlers and kind of long nails, and he is big, even sitting down and he reaches up and drops a spider on my head.
Actually it descended on a glowing gold thread. I just said he dropped it on my head because it sounds more dramatic and maybe a little scary, which always has good entertainment value.
But not scary to me, because, as you know, I love love love spiders.
And the web spread out, billowed into the beautiful spokes and spiral of an orb-weaver, all lit up just like the pic from the blog on May 21. (Who says a trance isn't real just because it borrows pics from the internet?)
And the web was the connections, not just between me and Him, or me and the spider, but the vast web of relationships of every living thing, by which I mean every everything.
(Which is what politics should be about. Real connection, real relationships. But mostly isn't.)
So that was good. I mean it seems sort of grand, but it helped a lot, actually.
Then we sang and people left and we had lovely sex.
And then I woke up two hours later with a urinary tract infection killing my buzz.
I had skipped a post ritual glass of wine because I thought that might happen. I had taken the cranberry capsules and the probiotics. This little gift was not in full swing, just threatening, so I got up and started downing water like a frat boy with a beer bong and taking like four cranberry pills and four propbiotics per, hour after hour, and it wasn't working.
So I woke up my lover and asked him to do something. "Um. Could you, like, do a little magic to my area? I need the predators amped up and the prey ramped down," I said. This is how fighting infection looks when you are thinking with a Green God, habitat type mind. I had already asked the Green God for help a couple hours before, because last time He was great! But this time, I needed more and my lover works with water and kayaks and had called in Poseidon for that night's ritual and so I thought I'd just be brave and ask.
And he did some magic, and I could feel it, sort of warmly moving down from his hands and it was pretty deep and awesome feeling and I drank some more water and ate some more cranberry pills and it seemed like it was getting better and its now like 3am and I drift off and I wake up and it's definitely not getting better. it's worse.
All of this was last night. Tonight, I was telling this story to my girls at dinner, and when I get to this point, Nash says "You needed a goddess down there! You don't need a god!"
"Yeah," Kimberly says. "He's like 'I'd be glad to help, but I don't really know what's going on down there.'" She's waving her hands helplessly in the air.
"How many holes are there?" says James. We are all laughing now.
"I have a trident. Will that work?" I say. We are practically crying.
"WTF?" says Nash. "You needed the Goddess." Kimberly and James nod.
"Yes!" I say. "That's what happened," I say. "Or, at least a female. Because, I'm lying there in bed and thinking, I don't know what else to do. I've used all my tools. But then I hear this woman's voice..." I look around the table. I am telling my friends that I hear voices, but they are still looking at me with interest, no raised eyebrows, no reaching for the panic button, so I go on. "She says 'Listen and do exactly what I tell you. Go downstairs and take the longest, hottest shower you can bear. then put on your coat and get the afghan with the tree on it and wrap it around you and get under the covers and go to sleep.'"
So I go downstairs, and I do. I turn on the hot, hot water. He has a shower with a hand held and I take it off and I spray scalding water down there, I just boil that shit. And also my torso, until I am red and sweating and I get out and dress and I have to wake him to ask where the tree blanket is... I kind of don't want to, cause I feel like a lot of trouble instead of entitled to care for some reason, but the voice gives me this diva push and when I say his name, he wakes right up and tells me it's downstairs and I get it and wrap up and go to sleep.
As I drift off I say to the voice "Thank you. How can I thank you?" and the voice says "Let him love you his way."
And then says her name is Inez.
Three hours later I wake up, hot and sweaty and better. Not cured, but better enough to say yes when my sweetheart takes me to breakfast and then I go and buy $78 worth of anti UTI tea, tincture and pills at the herb store.
And then we go to the beach and I try really hard to get what I need without telling him how to love me.
Nash pulls out her phone. "Look. Inez is a sea goddess!" she says.