Between Two Fires
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Added: 04/27/2007 |
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Synopsis: | A second-person-viewpoint narration of a Pagan journey through a year-and-a-day of the familiar, to find the mystery behind the mysteries. Yes, this is a magical gendershift story. Happy Beltane. |
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Magical Transformations
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A second-person-viewpoint narration of a Pagan journey
through a year-and-a-day of the familiar, to find the
mystery behind the mysteries. Yes, this is a magical
gendershift story.
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Between Two Fires
--Kiai 24sep03/29jul06/05mar07
Perhaps it is being brought up Pagan that has brought you
to this. Where other religions segregate the sexes with
walls of guilt and shame, never to meet except for brief
distraught skirmishes in darkened rooms, no such isolation
was ever taught you. You have grown up, instead, with a
casual knowledge of how girls are shaped, even how they
look when they proudly leak blood... but it leaves you to
wonder: is this all there is? Partnership based on shape
alone? Side by side, complacent and calm, except when the
differences are tucked away in each other? All because of
the one accidental chromosome issued when that happens, a
role assigned by a pedestrian collision?
Perhaps the mystery of women's mysteries is the lack of
mystery, the simple fact that they're just like you except
for what shape their bodies take, what part they play in
breeding. Why, then, this diffidence? Why this mysterious
dissociation from your part in the dance as dictated by
what you wear between your legs when you are skyclad?
As Beltane approaches, it slowly comes to you: there is
something here, something deep, and it is closed to you
because you only know the one shape. The mystery is not
absent, then, instead it is at a deeper level. Now it
taunts: how should this be solved?
Alone, you take the problem to bed with you, communing
first with the gods and then the power and then sleep, and
awaken with a desperate solution in your mind: to
understand the mystery, and why it is a mystery, you need
to see both sides. You need to know what the other side
experiences, by experiencing it.
Can it be done? Can it be willed? It is one thing to feel
the power rise like a prickly tide within a circle, driven
by the thrumming of deep resonances, deeper than sound,
when all the adult voices in the gathering are humming the
power awake. The magic it does, though, is all unseen in
its working, all subtle, designed to pass as happenstance
and coincidence. The power hides from those who seek to
misuse it, or to misuse those who touch it. This magic will
be blatant, impossible to hide. Dare you ask something so
overt of the gods? Dare you not?
As you make your way through the trees towards the
gathering-point of day and night, where the firepits are
being cleaned and filled in preparation for the ritual at
dusk, you privately take your intent into prayer, then with
you to the circle ritual, communing with the gods even as
you join the dance at the Maypole. Your own need is plaited
into the Maypole weave as, unbound and incomplete, you meet
each woman's face and form as she raises or lowers her
ribbon to pass you by, silently asking, who are you? What
are you? How can you be?
The questions go unanswered. You feel the necessity
hardening your resolve. Not only can you dare, you must
dare. You will ask but once, and, if it is possible, it
must be done; so mote it be. That one thought fills you as
you jump between two fires, carrying across with you a wish
to somehow leap across the vast space between skins, that
lifelong gap between chromosomes in the shadows of each
cell.
As the ritual drums falter into silence, you wander out
into the darkness and find a place in the forest to sit
down. Not alone: you are partnered with the gods in this.
You sit crosslegged against a sturdy tree and smooth your
robe about your legs, noticing the tingle in your member,
the periodic tightness in your scrotum. It is Beltane,
after all, but your need is about more than mere ritual
coupling.
You rise above that distracting sensation as the the magic
calls, feeling your aura touching the tree behind you, the
leaf-strewn grassy earth beneath you, the dark and dewy
night sky above you. You feel yourself expand into all of
this, and give yourself to the process, whatever it will
be, if it will be. Time seems to dissolve as you commit
yourself to the embrace of those powers, expecting to rouse
with at least an inspiration, a insight into the mystery.
You wake up in the morning on the dewy grass, wearing a
robe such as you never put on, one that's cut low to show a
little of your cleavage. It's got familiar markings and
stains, such as the wax clinging to the cuff from where you
got too close to the working candle last year. It's yours,
not someone else's, but it's changed now... like you. The
gods have chosen how to answer your prayer; now you must
deal with the gift they left.
You get up and amble homeward across the dewy grass,
exploring your changed balance as you go, feeling the
jiggling that wasn't there before. The breasts are obvious,
and they're distracting, but it seems like there's even a
little bit of jiggle to your rump. It's padded now, of
course, but... that much? Oh, yes, you're quite a healthy
girl.
How will you explain it to everyone? They will know it is
you, of course; there can be no secret there. But, how will
you explain why? Can you? Or must you withdraw from all who
expect you in the other form? Perhaps you can go to another
school now.
You can envision yourself staying home in the afternoons
because you don't fit in with the boys anymore but none of
the girls are quite sure how to handle it yet. Must that
be?
They're from Pagan families, mostly. They know that magic
is all around, and sometimes it swoops in close and touches
someone. Will they accept that it has reached in for
someone they know?
It is commonplace for those your age to be bored of the
stability, but that's because it's familiar, not because
it's unwanted. Now you have made that stability seem
illusory to them, leaving them with nothing to react
against except you. In changing, in growing, you and they
need that structure, that order, that fixity of form; and
now you've changed all that, emerging from between two
fires with your triangles and spirals as inverted as your
groin. Can they accept the familiar person within the
unfamiliar form? Or must they turn you out for taking them
at their word?
You need have no fears of being forced. You're touched by
the Goddess now; in their eyes you're special. They will
know better than to arouse the anger of whoever it was
whose finger reached down from the infinite skies to touch
and rearrange you into Her shape.
Your family seems tight-lipped, but they're just giving you
your space; they know that you need it.
Your mother seems to accept it the most easily. In the
quiet of your bedroom she takes you through the steps,
showing you how to dress, how to make it more than just
putting on clothing. Nature mostly favors the males for
bright plumage, after all; the females must arrange for
their own. A little of this, a touch of that, just a hint
of a blush, and then it's time to survey the result. Yes,
you're quite an attractive young lady. Now everyone else
can see it too.
Then she must return to her own activities. "If you need to
talk..."
At loose ends, you wander down, following her into the
kitchen to watch her prepare dinner. She seems complete in
her practiced movements, and you silently sit, a companion
in that shared space, while you're trying to feel how the
role must feel to her.
And perhaps that in itself is sufficient. Some things have
changed, but some things cannot. You are her child, no
matter what shape you wear, and the closeness that comes
>from that elemental relationship helps in some fundamental
way to bind back the connections that have slipped because
of your change.
Your father is another matter. There's an added feeling of
isolation now. You two never got along too well; there was
just too much of the male challenge, the bluff facade that
repels curiosity and affection before it can find weakness.
There was always an edge to everything, as if you
threatened his primacy by beginning the journey to manhood.
Now that that implicit confrontation is gone, rather than a
renewed closeness, it's as if you see each other through a
window, an all-too-visible glass wall, an extra isolation
formed of questions held, unasked but obvious, in his
uncomprehending gaze. Why would you do such a thing? Did
you want to be a girl all along? Was that it? Did we do you
an injustice by birthing you in a male body?
By now the silence has become thicker, too solid to pierce
with words, because the first word will be judged even
before the next is spoken.
By expression alone, you try to answer, conveying in your
mute response that, no, it was just something you had to
do: a part of your life that needed exploring, Something
that wouldn't wait.
You had already surmised that the end of school days was
not the desperate break for freedom that it was made out to
be; why else would it be desperate? Already, in your
observations of those around you, you could see all the
trappings of the working world: commitments, schedules, all
the clutter that ties up one's calendar and pins down one's
life so that it cannot move.
Now all that trapping is held in abeyance. Nobody knows
what you're going to do, not even yourself. All you have so
far is a quiet wondering, as you mutely take in all that
must adjust to such a simple change, just one little
chromosome.
All the costuming and the markings, the roles in the
banter, the positions that are open in the community, all
of those, for you, have changed overnight, on Beltane
night, the consummation of the great marriage between sky
and earth, between the Lady and the Lord who hunts her,
when the Lady takes the Lord into herself.
Somehow the lance and the grail have exchanged places in
your life, and you need to work out why, in that moment of
transcendent awareness and hyperclarity, this was the
inevitable choice.
None of this really communicates, and you know it. There's
a gulf of comprehension, and all of the meanings fall into
the void between along with the questions.
Finally, still in silence, he extends a hand, and you take
it, letting his large hand envelop your own for long
moments. At least there is peace.
*Litha, Summer Solstice*
Sunbright, and the whole town gathers, dancing in the
wooded grove, rejoicing in the sun even as it begins to
fade, leaving its heat behind. Here the oak king and holly
king meet in ritual combat.
Perhaps that might have been you, testing your horns
against your father in joust. Now, though, you are the lady
that watches, the ritual prize, affected by but unable to
influence the inevitable outcome.
By now, old friends start to eye you in a new way. They are
getting over the strangeness and seeing your beauty now.
The girls are more casual in accepting your presence among
them. The boys court them in their artless way under the
summer sun, looking for a spark amid the midday heat.
Perhaps they tease you, too, a little.
Are you chased yet? Are you yet chaste?
Next year, perhaps.
*Lammas*
First harvest, the harvest of the grain, and the ripened
stalks in fields, standing so proudly erect, are mown down
like soldiers. In the high heat of summer, war is at its
worst, flaring up in hot tempers and hotter lead, here
presented in ritual form: John Barleycorn must die.
So it's not just about the Goddess, is it. This is a
sacrifice just for the men.
You're no longer threatened by that, in fact you're
ineligible now. You already gave at the orifice, bleeding
with the moon.
Instead, you join with the other girls in helping the women
at their bread-making. It's simple work, simple fun, and an
excuse to socialize and to share. Maid, Mother and Crone
can together accept the offering of the slain, and work it
into something to give back.
Two of your new friends have something in the oven. They
giggle to each other, with rueful grins and lustier
complaints for their shared experience, surrounded by the
well-meant advice of all those who have gone before, Mother
and Crone both. Listening to them all, you find an
unnoticed corner in which to press your belly tight as you
try to think how it would be for it to no longer softly
depress. There would be no give left, instead there would
be a swelling, a rounded erection that would take months to
come, and show itself as a different kind of bulge in your
pants.
Not yet, though, not for you: this is the Maid's mowing,
and you are still the Maiden. With clever hands, you work
the dough into manniquins and breadsticks to pass through
the oven and then offer back to the men, a token payment
for all of their seed which is safely stored away.
*Mabon, Autumnal Equinox*
Second harvest, the harvest of the fruit, and your group
goes apple-picking. You lift your apron to carry the load
>from the tree to the waiting baskets, then return for more.
The expectant ones carry smaller loads in their aprons, but
they do put in their turn; it is the Mother's mowing, after
all.
They make a bawdy comment about how these are sexual organs
here, or their leftovers. These were once flowers, now
swelled and hard. You grin and call back, "Just like you!"
You offer to paint their bellies red and glue on stems. One
lifts her apron and proudly points to her bellybutton,
already sticking out a little, and laughs, "See, I've
already got a stem!"
There is shared laughter at that, an easy acceptance of
your implicit part in all of this. Maybe they don't know
why you changed, but they know that you're one of them now.
You've paid the blood price, once every moon, preparing to
ripen as they have.
*Samhain*
Third harvest, harvest of the kine, when the weak are sent
on to wait, their bodies blessed with the salt of the earth
so that they will keep, to feed those still here. This has
always been the time of the choosing of the slain, the
Crone's mowing. In their passage, perhaps the veils between
worlds are disturbed, enough for glimpses beyond. This is a
time for scrying, for seeing what you will see in the
mirror of mists.
Perhaps you see yourself in a simple maternity gown,
radiant in expectation. It is a simple task if one ignores
the labor before the labor, all the work of carrying that
messenger around before the message is delivered. Farther
still, you might see yourself in gray, labors done, tithing
now in knowing.
You work your way deeper into the mists, to find next the
man you might have grown up to be. Might he have become a
father? A king? He might yet. A year and a day is not
forever, it's only made to feel that way. But is that the
right course?
It is summer's end, and choices must be made. Preoccupied,
still you join in the celebration, bobbing for apples,
mouthing these organs, as you ponder, knowing full well
what else is shaped like that. You have one within you,
bleeding apple-red with each turn of the moon, but is it
your rightful burden? Is this what you were meant to bear?
This is the Season of the Witch.
You're touched: of course they come to you. Perhaps you can
pierce the veils and see what is ahead or behind, or all
around. In the still of the occulted light, you lose track
of time: what day is it? There is no time, because there is
no time, so see and comprehend everything in an instant if
you can. It is overwhelming, that tide of brilliance,
washing over your awareness in a wave of everything that
might possibly be.
It's like rising above the clouds to measure your progress
by the sun, and finding that you've risen into the sun by
so doing. Every direction is valid for its own purposes,
its own logic. Below is wildness, filled with unruly
shadows and storms, all the turbulence of wild forces that
sums into the Wild Hunt.
You spy out their course, see what they hunt, see whose
spoor they've caught, hastening to fasten the details
within your mind. You know that, as you advance into the
dark quarter with everyone else, descending inevitably back
into time's relentless rush, whatever you don't clutch
closely to you will be washed away, forgotten.
"Well? What did you see?"
Now you are trying to parse the unfathomable. All courses
run so deep in a sea of change, you are lucky to sift out a
few observations which might prove useful in a moment of
clarity, for the others and thus for yourself:
This must be done thus, to avoid that. Make this change
here to point straight through the coming year. Don't stop,
don't look back. Darkness advances, but only because it's
natural. It is wild, nevertheless, and precautions must be
taken.
Even as you settle back into the dim closeness of this one
evening, there is the feeling of wind inside you. You never
felt less like a person, not sure if you're a girl or a
woman, even driven forward by the tides of blood.
Perhaps, later, musing on your visions, you think of
yourself as alone and wish to be otherwise. You are
dreaming of a slain lover who is yourself, coupling with
him in your fantasies, imagining him taking you to his
barrow lair; but his cold seed cannot quicken, and there is
starlight behind his eyes. It's as if he has already joined
the Hunt and gone beyond. Was this wrong, this change of
horse mid-course?
As the dark time advances and the pools freeze, wrapped and
curtained by chill rains soon to become snow, there is no
bright conviction, and you find yourself crying yourself to
sleep sometimes, and wondering why; it is so hard to be so
unsure.
*Yule, Winter Solstice*
It is the relighting of the light, the rebirth of the sun,
and, for once equipped for this subtle midwifery, you dress
warmly to attend. While the men sleep undisturbed beneath
the blankets, the women are up before dawn, preparing for
the arrival.
In a halo of candles, now you join them, all dressed like
angels, poignant reminders of things resolved and
resolving. The role is special for you: angels are
travelers between earth and sky, openers of the way for the
overt touch of magic. Were there others like you? There
must have been; this kenning is too important to have been
granted only once.
Never mind that now. There is a feast to prepare, and gifts
to be brought from hiding. With gentle touch and gentler
embrace, mother and daughter share the work, and in that
sharing the discrepancies between parent's wish and child's
will can be accepted and perhaps forgiven, and both can
take comfort in each other and this time of shelter. There
was a time when she was your shelter, after all.
"How do you bless a house?"
"I'll show you how I do it."
The two of you go softly through all the chambers of the
house, holding candles and carrying oils. You can see the
glow around her finger as, like the frost, she does her
writing in light upon the glass. It gleams faintly on every
door, every window, as she renews the bindings to keep out
the dark but let in the sun.
There is a new Yule log burning, started with the last of
the last, in a ritual unwillingness to forget: it is
reminding the sun, or the son, to eventually return.
Later, after gifts have been exchanged and the feast has
been shared, it is time to venture out over the snow. With
crisp breath strengthened into song, you go a-caroling and
a-wassailing, cheered by every bright doorway and heartened
by each dipperful of warmth given for a song.
Your party encounters and joins with others also
adventuring this night, another party with one that has
caught your eye within it. As bundled up as you all are,
there is less visible difference, boy or girl, but you
notice him for his voice, and recognize him by his smile,
and offer him yours back. Arm in arm you continue,
sheltering in each other's warmth, harmonizing in each
other's song.
*Imbolc*
In the belly of the Mother and of the earth and of the sky,
there is a knowing: it is the time for seeking new wisdom
of the fire in the cauldron, the blessing in the well. It
is Bride's time, the bride's time.
Will you be one? Will you marry a man? Be his wife? Bear
his children? Tend his house and make it your own by making
your mark all through it, covering it all with the binding
of your attentions?
The blessing is maiden's milk. Afterwards, in solitude, you
squeeze experimentally, wondering what it would be like to
give milk to make nourishment within your body. It is a
secret art, so secret that only women can ever know it.
There are ways for men to do it, but only by much coaxing,
or by wounding them with needles so that they bleed white,
and then it's inflicted from outside.
Only women know how it erupts from within, that milky
emission a woman makes, with gain higher than unity: at
input he has but one, while at output she has two, with
clear secretions below, milky above.
Alone at last, you indulge in fantasies about a few of the
boys, and then one in particular. He is still too shy, too
unsure, but perhaps the mounting fire in your well can warm
his affections.
*Hieros Gamos, Vernal Equinox*
It is the time of the heavenly marriage of earth and sky.
There is a quickening in the wind, a warming breeze,
powerful in its mildness, and it occurs to you to wonder:
how can mildness have force? But the breeze is like water:
neutral and yet onrushing, slipping past every challenge
without answer, ignoring all such questions.
You remember being male, and imagine what it would be like
to have one now, to feel it now stir and rouse, to harden
instead of soften -- the hardness that provokes the
softness.
Is that what brings the warm breeze? You see the green
shoots, the erections of life all around. All the plants
are flowering, flaunting their organs. They are teasing the
air and sky. The earth herself is erect and ready... and
the air is warm and moist...
And there is the inversion of role. If earth is the body
and sky is the spirit, here is how there can be both men
and women in the dance. Here is how you have danced between
two fires.
Now satisfied in your mind, you stand hand in hand, and
shyly look over at him, seeing his confused look: he is not
sure how to take your approach.
You know that feeling well. You lean and kiss him, and
smile, telling him without words that his caution is
accepted and appreciated but that you are ready to take a
step forward. He smiles back, understanding at least the
feeling if not the intent, and that's enough for now: it's
time for ritual.
While the wise woman shows you how to hold the knife, he
patiently waits with the chalice held out. He has no idea
what he holds, but then, you've never seen it yourself,
you've only felt its lip and its power. Now you're reminded
of how intimate and yet unfamiliar it was to the touch,
buried deep and waiting, and marked by a spring gushing
forth.
You feel yourself redden at the thought. Even now, dry-eyed
and flushed, you can feel yourself start to weep with
happiness and hope.
He is offering yourself to yourself for violation, and you
plunge the blade into the water. Completing the circuit,
you engage yourself to yourself, at once inviolate and
veteran.
"Let the Lance ensoul the Grail --
"Let the magic come to Light!"
...and the commitment is made. His gaze catches yours, and you
wonder. He is your working partner; will he be your
partner when the working is complete?
You go home alone, wondering how it would be with him in
another turn of seasons... or sooner. There is Beltane,
after all. Will his wand be willing? Filling? Do you so
will?
These thoughts tease you as you help with the various
birthings, helping to bring out the tiny new forms. You
observe them one by one as, once their stems are cut, their
simplest, most desperate needs are met. They watch silently
with unfocused eyes, still stunned with the immensity of
the possibilities, just in from the infinite.
*Beltane*
As it was a year ago, twin fires are prepared, and now you
know what those fires are, for you carry one of them
inside. It's a familiar feeling by now, that longing, and
you look forward to its fulfilment with equal anticipation
and dread. Aside from him, there is the Goddess whose form
you wear to be faced, after all.
What if this is how you will always be? What if you want to
always be this way, but wander back across the line by
mistake? Could you? Should you?
The young mothers are at the feast, heathen-proud as they
put their newborns to breast. You shyly watch, trying to
imagine yourself as the banquet for someone from within
yourself. Could you content yourself with being the mother?
You turn away in thought, only to catch him gazing at you.
Your eyes meet. Perhaps that will be reason enough.
After sunset, the bonfires are lit, replacing the sun's hot
light with their own. The Maypole is erected with its
streamers splayed like errant broomstraws. Then the call
comes, and all take their places, alternating, male-female,
male-female.
The drums begin, and then the sound of drumming feet, as,
ducking and arching by turns, all make passage within for
all. Again and again you face him as, one with the women,
you wind your own spiral against that of the men. It's hard
to concentrate as the binding of the spell draws the two of
you inevitably together. With dancing eyes and artless
stumbling footwork, you two meet and draw apart again,
again and again, in the dance of the dual helix,
interweaving your energies and your paths, breathlessly
grinning at each other with every approach.
There's something uniquely personal about the feeling of
this dance, even as you are surrounded by others equally
engaged in it. There seems to be no end to the dancing
couples in the ruddy darkness, as if they are spiraling out
of and back into other circle dances in other rites
elsewhere around the globe this night.
'We are all between two fires', you think to yourself, and
you wonder if it was like this for your parents on the
night they made you. You wonder if you will come away with
child, your womanhood confirmed and dedicated to the cause
of new life.
If so, his fire will be as much a part of it as your own.
There is the smoldering, now, in every shared glance, and a
heat that rises to flushed cheeks, hot enough to make palms
sweat. The bonfires laid in the firepits are not the only
twin fires burning. There are, no doubt, other fires
blazing all around you two, but yours and his are all you
have room to notice.
When the drums fall suddenly silent, the pounding in the
blood continues, echoed in every tight breath. Hand in hand
with him, now, you leap through the space between the
fires, across the crossed brooms that are laid there, and
then hand in hand you walk into the darkness and settle in
the shadows to climax this rite.
He folds you protectively in his arms even as he begins to
strip you bare, and you adjust to allow him to pull your
robe entirely away, then help him with his own. Now there
is nothing between you two but the difference of a
chromosome expressed in flesh, and you two begin working on
merging that.
Then he surprises you between kisses: "What's it like?"
You are left dumb with the impossibility of describing all
the differences, the inadequacy of comparisons where there
is no experience that can compare because the angles are
all wrong. There are no words to describe it; but then you
see in his expression that none are needed.
All of this occurs to you as you stare into his eyes,
seeing the immensity of his quiet bravery, his
determination to dare the dark of the unknown; and not only
for his affinity with you, but for his own soul's
completion. You realize that the fire in his eyes is
familiar: you shone the same, a year ago. This changes
things; but not all of them.
"You are thinking of..."
"I thought I might..."
"Then let us do this right."
"Will I remember you?"
"You will remember everything."
Your words feel like a benediction, and then you feel an
extra radiance around you, rising, brightening in feeling
if not in seeing, the approach of the goddess within. The
Bride-fire is rising within you even as your well is
overflowing.
Now the dance resumes, of flesh on flesh and fire on fire,
celebrating life by living it. Eventually his lance is
pressing in beween your legs, seeking your grail, and then
it is nestling within, put here for safekeeping again and
again, finishing the weaving that began at sunset as two
fires spread into one greater one, so hot that you cannot
draw breath.
Now at last you see how it will be: the magic is more than
within you, it is you, and you are the magic, now, taking
control and choosing the pathways between you. You won't
stop because of that, you wouldn't think of stopping. It is
enough to choose the course between two fires, to
annihilate the difference and the distance, as two fires
blaze bright enough to become one, burning away everything
impure, even thought.
Eventually you rouse, feeling the night breezes across your
flesh. He sleeps at your side, his arm still protectively
across you.
You watch the change begin, feel the capability rise within
you to feel the change spell from the outside, to know its
lines, its courses, how it is runed in blood and fire.
You see him reduced to simpler form, hewing to the first
shape she had within the womb, soft and delicate. She is
becoming such a lovely maiden. You watch the blossoming of
her breasts and you look upon her fondly even as you
absently cup your own breast, measuring her rise against
your smoothing.
Is this all? A sharing and a passing?
No. Here is the difference: now that the spell is run, its
paths are available for you to change yourself. When at
last her changes are complete, yours can begin, and then
you feel an old friend rise to greet you.
You nod: yes, this is as it should be, for now.
You rise up onto one elbow to watch her breathe, rubbing
the soft hairs on your chin where there might someday soon
be enough for a beard. You consider tickling her with them,
but then you decide to let her sleep. She needs it: she
needs time to dream. Now responsible for the man's role in
the dance, you embrace her protectively, pull her to your
hard chest, and shelter her in your hard arms.
Eventually, she rouses, and glances first at you and then
at herself.
"Oh. I changed."
She looks up sleepily, then, and sees you clearly, and
smiles. "So did you." She sits up and reaches to pull you
close. "But you didn't leave me; it is you."
She leans back once more, and her eyes take a shy survey of
you.
"Will you stay this way now?"
You shake your head at that. "Not always. I have more to
learn from the wise women. I can be this way when we're
together, though. I can do that now."
"I'd like that... but I don't think I'm ready for..." She
falls silent, hesitant to offend.
You lean forward, gently taking her into a kiss, then,
smiling, whisper, "I know. Maybe next Beltane."
She thinks about that, and then her smile grows to a little
grin and her eyes sparkle. "If not before then..." There is
that soft, trusting smile again, as she yawns and says,
"I'm not done, am I."
"No. Dream now; talk to the Lady."
You kiss her eyes shut, gently easing her down against you
and down to sleep. Your gaze caresses her naked form
awhile, memorizing its landscape, planning eventual
journeys of discovery.
Then you reach within, travel along the paths again, and
then her cheek is nestled against your breasts, dimpling
their softness.
Both of you are hardening against the late night's chill,
so you pull up the robes and look them over before draping
them across the two of you. Hers has changed, while yours
is still as it should be.
You still owe the Lady one more day, after all. The Lady is
trusting you; perfect love and perfect trust.
The power is already there, though, for you to decide. It
crackles into the night air as you rub your slender palms
together and then spread them.
The sky is starting to lighten. It is May Day, one more day
to be given to the Lady whose gender you wear.
After that one day, which shape will you wear? What skin
will feel the light of tomorrow's dawn? When you may-be
either, which, witch?
You are trying to remember the feeling of being above and
throughout everything, that feeling that you first found on
the other side of the year.
Enlightenment comes from seeing every color at once. Wisdom
comes from knowing how they combine, and which shades are
right for when. Now you are remembering that height of
awareness, and seeking the difference in perspective from
that height for your having two perspectives, a parallax
which illuminates by discrepancies.
Carefully choosing a path while within that viewpoint,
knowing all and choosing for more than the moment: that's
the difference between a whim and a chosen destiny, between
a want and a Will.
If it harm none, do what thou Wilt.
What is your Will?