The Love Which Rules Me

This love is more exotic, more erotic, yes,

than all the lore can contain;

more sumptuous and more voluptuous,

and simpler it is, plainer as well, I'll explain:

Rich in color and in tones, this love,

humble as a mendicant, majestic as his staff;

natural as a baby's breathing life,

aged as a crone who can rage and can laugh.

Enfolding you within its wings, as it embraces me,

the lion and the lamb in one;

it moves – and moves within, this form as free

as it commands, and guides, and calls me son.

At sixty I remain in debt to all who brought me here,

the love that was in me invested shall not have been in vain;

still as a pond, roaring like cascading river:

life-giving force, of never-ceasing inspiration.

Gopi Crones Awakened

I have been

from time to time

Govinda

to women of advanced years,

or hardly advanced but feeling so;

reminding them with a glance,

a tone, a touch, a kiss –

that they are ever young

and beautiful, brimming

with the fullness of love.

Seeing themselves as homely

I see they’re merely lonely –

looking at their own reflections

using the eyes of this world as a mirror.

I tell them gently, and with conviction,

with the fragrance of that Garden

on my breath:

use me for a mirror, take my eyes

and look again.

I counter “ugly” with snugly, I counter

“Look at my face, it’s old, worn, used-up,”

with

“Not a trace, it’s mature and experienced,

and what’s more,

light is there, and power, and grace –

how erotic is this face!”

The Gopi is awakened in so many forms.

When A Man Makes Love

(July 1987, Monterey)

My lips parted   and I asked the Woman:  Woman,
       how does a man make love?  And she replied
       with such direct simplicity:  O - and
               are you a man?
My ears blushed and my breast flushed full
         I said Yes. I am.         Listen, she said,

For a man first makes love with his ears.
   He listens intently for the silent rustle
      of love's whisper, of skin wishing to yield itself
            to the hand's good touch.
From the fingertips to the soles of his feet
does a man make love   his tongue
    quivers at the mere thought of his beloved's form
                                     his ears
   carry the beloved's name whether it is known or not.
 

The lover is always erect,   never asleep,
                                     his attention steady.
His body is clean but washed with abandon,
     not primped as some self-adulator.  Every hair
       on his body responds to the scent of his beloved
         and his nostrils are always flexed for it.
   What of her absence, I asked, How
           does a man stand the loneliness?
                   She drew so close

 
I lost my breath in the sweetness of her kiss
   and therein was imparted - as the vital sap of my loins
      rose from root to trunk to branch - that
             Woman is never absent.
A man can never love enough.  To love as a man makes love
   is to come out his top    because
   while he loves the Woman he worships the Goddess that she is.

Woman is a body   and so she is every body
  and all that is beautiful in the eye
    of the Man who beholds her
             is Woman.
And in recognizing her she must be touched
   and kissed and carressed and looked at
     and fondled,    every inch of  her
    must be loved and dearly cherished first
       for her to be enabled to enter
         the body  where she belongs.

My eyes hazed in sweat      I asked How
     is a Woman's body never absent?  And her form
    burst over me and I was bathed in her
as though she were liquid air, and I saw with all my heart:
Woman is an aura, and even as you would stimulate
  all those areas of her flesh with your gentle fingers
     and tongue   so must you skillfully and generously
                                     speak to her.

A man makes love
   when he is direct and kind   firm and assuring.
  A man without sincerity never makes love  there is
       no interest there   and no balls.
A man makes love
    when his gifts are frequent and thoughtful -
    their spontaneity is what makes them original.
    Timing is everything  for the man.
Never an abusive word   never an abusive gesture,
  never even in jest hurting the Feeling of the Woman -
      That is how a man makes love.

For him she is ageless, a man does not make love
   by judging looks or counting rings on a tree.
       His eyes are fixed on the Woman timelessly.
I have wondered, I began - and she quietly
     inclined her face to hear -
           Can a Woman love too much?
She smiled and brushed my forehead
    and my temples with such affection I held her
        hand there with mine and breathed
            its touch into my pores.  She answered,

She might change her mind as to the choice of men -
   but she cannot love too much.  No one can love enough.
  When a man makes love he is knowing all the time
    that everything beautiful that he could ever set eyes on
          or give ear to   or touch and hold,
            every expression of beauty,
              every affectionate gesture    is Woman.
        That is Whom he loves.

And Woman?  She is herself the bottom line
        and the last word
           on the very Beauty of God.

 

On Silence and Two Sonnets

Holding my speech I'll let the Silence be my speaking,
holding my tongue, my pen aloft, I'll let the Silence compose;
surrendering to patient Silence what we've been seeking,
I'll cherish every thought of you which e'er arose.
And there not stopping, nor for one moment freaking –
but hold you e'er fast 'in me, while this Love grows.

 
I.
Will Tina have me be kind?
Then I’ll be that and more for her sake, as she’d have it;
Considerate and gentle, for indeed she
‘s God, in form of my desir’d Beloved.

There West, in San Anselmo in Silence
Dress’d, tho’ wearing nought but jewels of light;
There she frolics and lives, waits in patience
For the hour, for the day, that very night

When our faces meet, lips part to press,
Seal the advent of Love’s consummation;
Bodies yielding to ev’ry touch, caress,
Giving o’er to this Communication.

And should these lines my Darling so please, sure
Shall’t go better when I serve her pleasure.

II.
In your Body deep am I, you in mine,
Ev’ry breath I draw is of your fragrance;
Muttering your name, Dear, within God’s Name –
Radiating before my eyes you dance.

Lover non-separate from Beloved,
Tho’ t geographic, circumstantial seem;
Two breaths as one shall keep one sacred bed,
And this, Love’s light – from our like faces beam.

Autumn’s wind tells me of your warm embrace,
December’s winter draws me toward your lap;
There to rest and bury my yearning face,
And upon your breasts too, this burning chap!

For if Spring’s a sign of our Fullfilment,
Summer’s star-cast heaven’s our Firmament.

Kiss

(ca. 1986/7) 

Feel the rhythm of a kiss: tongues in one another's cheek.

Learn the rhythm of this bliss: lips enmeshed – the thing you seek

is in the rhythm of this probing twisting meshing biting working

succulating pulsing ritual we call: the kiss.

Meanwhile

Speaking His Name – I speak yours.
Addressing Him in Song – I address you singing.
Losing myself in the vision of my Lord and Cherisher,
in the vision of the Self, of the Beloved – I am lost in you.
Now as I devote myself to this Friday evening's praise and melody:
should I but part my lips, my breath is fixed on our kiss,
my tongue is married to yours, and only honey may clothe
the words which issue from my mouth
whether sacred or common, to anyone or whomever;
the sweet red wine I drink – is your saliva,
the bread I partake of – is our Fucking.
My body sways with you, it can hardly keep still!  Emotion overtakes me,
I want to weep for yearning after you – then I'm good, I'll be alright.
The sense of separation passes; the determined, indeed pre-determined,
Union is cherished, assured, vouchsafed.
Like water through an aquaduct, blood through my vessels,
you are consciously inseparable from me, feeding me, keeping me alive
for that day when our bodies will join all dimensions in one
never-ending Act of our Lovemaking.   Meanwhile 
I perform this Shabbos-Kiddush, meanwhile
I perform this Puja, meanwhile
I sing. 

Those Eyelashes

So delicate are a woman's feelings,
as when I consider just those eyelashes,
so tenderly should the lover regard the heart of her -
yet when but one of those eyelashes enters my heart,
robbing me of speech, churning me to butter,
then I know what a power is in that very woman!
Verily, she is in all her beauty -
and all the wisdom of that:  the grace of God.

Milk and Honey

Our Lovemaking is like the mixing of honey with milk,
bodies of satin, whispers of silk:
I fall trembling into your receiving embrace,
my head in your lap, then you sit on my face -
my arms receive you, and tremors in your loins equal those in mine,
we are like sovereign lions rolling in the grasses of the Serengetti...
the rhythm of our fucking is constant and steady.
There is nothing forced, artificial, redundant, or missing -
but listening, feeling, gazing, in that depth of our kissing.

They Are From Me

Those tears on your cheek you needn't wipe -
they are from me, for I just wept
while pressing my lips there in a prolongued kiss,
my brow resting against your temple.

And I, longing to return to you and enter your Temple,

now enfolded in your arms, my face burrowing
into your neck, nestling there, as you stroke my hair -
I kiss and kiss that neck, leaving more tears
of joy for loving you and gratitude for making love with you.

The Goddess' Armpit

(to that Goddess in every Woman)

One speaks of her auspicious gaze,
the many facets of her all-embracing,
and in the same moment, penetrating glance.

In every aspect I agree, all parts of her form
are addressed in one hymn or another,
whether carved in marble, in wood or in sandstone,

whether painted, or in paean sung,
or embodied in dance, or costumed staging,
and be it Grecian or Roman or Tantra with bindu:

in all these depictions I hear
of her eyes, her lips, her arms and her thighs,
I see in the art how robust and alive

those breasts can be, and those sweeping hips,
a turn of the neck just so,
the feet with the anklets . . .

and yet . . .
And yet and yet and yet:
what is missing, but that I sometimes

may catch it – no, rather
be caught by it, yes, caught up!
Such that every fibre of my all-too male being

can barely bring my tongue to sing
to that which it longs rather to touch,
to meet most intimately there, and lose itself

in that place where hair
may also grow, and the form and the shape
of this, that Goddess' armpit, unsung, unsung!

It is not unfair, it is alone intended
for me to discover, as I had with such yearning
from earliest of memory beholding her form.

The erotic statement of it cannot be spoken,
there is nothing in the literature giving mention,
it is for me most privately, intimately, erotically winning

her approval so, for me alone to go there and to know it.
It is a world and an opener of worlds, as there are
many gates to her erotic majesty, this is only for the seeing,

bestowing its aroma – ah, yes, laugh you world,
and remain bereft of this particular blessing few of us
can appreciate, and appreciating thus

with finger strokes and tongue and eyes
full of desire and homecoming
there in the cleft of it,

spread for me, inviting, open and sovereign,
sharing, laughing, cooing, surrendering
as with no other door, there

beloved, beloved nectar of scented
perspiration, completely natural,
intoxicating beyond any words, please, no words!

This tongue is not for words here, but for surrendering,
as every male part of me is ordered to this attention
now.

The smile of her mouth is enticing indeed,
but still more so, is
the Goddess' armpit.

Body, Psyche, Sexuality

(you must be 16 or older to read this, please show ID)

I've massaged for some 40 years now. It developed ad hoc without schooling, over time, on inspiration and inner movement. I developed a style which made limbs and backs and psyches feel great, I removed headaches in a few minutes, I began with feet and stuck primarily with that for two years, washing and massaging feet of every kind of person, friend or detractor, acquaintance or stranger (and some were pretty strange), in rooms or on the street or in parks, as an act of private discipline and devotion toward my ideal. Foot-reflexological developed of its own and became a specialty – the reflex book or two I much later consulted or owned mostly served to confirm what I had already intuitively learned through doing. And I'm still at it.

 Massage is body work – nothing and no age-process or ill-health either disturbs or disgusts me. I love the body as I love my own. I found through massage that this was always effortless for me, it could not tire me out, as I felt coordinated with the other body (my back is your back is my back, so I automatically know what to do) - I always received energy in the giving, and the person felt great and I felt wonderful. And I'm still at it.

I have massaged men and women, children and adults, of all ages, body types and conditions – gorgeous and hot, ugly and plain, all are beautiful to me, all. In nursing school here in Berlin I did a 6 or 7 week practical stint on maternity – as a bonus I gave pressure-relaxation treatments (Beruhigungsbehandlung) particularly designed for women on maternity but good for anyone, and it was a huge hit, non-stop; this little number I did pick up from someone, an alternative fellow-traveler among my nursing faculty. And I'm still at it.

I have massaged men, gay and hetero, and with the gays all went well (sometimes amusing because of their expectations or because of my own residue of clichés) and even if they had wishes I could not fulfill as a hetero I certainly had no qualms about massaging them, as comfortably as with any other person on earth. And nothing has changed.

Now when I massage – anyone, but let's take women as I am going in this direction in this writing anyway – I see through the massaging itself, only a woman's beauty. There was a grade school teacher, 40ish, unattached with no sexlife (or none currently) and with horrible lifelong acne on her face, she was a client of mine for awhile many years ago. Nice bod, but that acne! When I massaged her she became beautiful. First was my imagination, then the transfer of this recognition into her – not visualisation because I was just recognising her as she was – through the touch, and she'd relax in herself, knowing through my hands that she was loved and even possibly desirable as a woman. No words about, no talk, all conveyed through the massage. She asked me once after many sessions, how I would view her from the standpoint of looks. First what went through my head was, “shit now what – think fast and be authentic but accurate!“ Then I spoke from the heart and knew the higher mind was speaking: I heard myself telling her, when I look at her face I see the beauty behind the exterior. She got it and was moved, soothed, relieved, satisfied. And it was true: hearing my own words I got it: that you don't lie about the acne, you don't give it center place either – you move beyond that and talk real. People will know it, they're not stupid.

So I see the beauty, massage the beauty, the beauty is awakened through this, and in the relaxation of self-loathing, the beauty takes place and is there, it wells up from within and rounds the body again or it descends from its banishment back into the body like spirit and finds it place there where it belongs. No shit. I really really do love bodies and I really really do love women. And no bodily function or happening or excretion scares me or inhibits me or disgusts me. That said, I have no fetish-perversions nor entertain any, so I won't even go there.

Beauty is not in the barbie-look, an exterior, culture-dictated babe-look isn't beauty, it's an empty shoe box. Can't dance. Beauty has so many dimensions, and one dimension which itself is multi-dimensional is the erotic component. I have known this intimately in women who never would have turned a head by ordinary standards – I have my own and stick to that - but I sensed it with a nose for the erotic I could only wish every other guy.

Over the years the massage has also developed its erotic component, I gave this full expression after many years not having done so. And the results have far more often been far more rewarding for both, than the occasional hit-and-miss. I have had many lovers from many walks of life, and many ages, older and younger than I. Some in their eighties. Very rewarding, and I do mean mutually. Each a Sam-Story of its own.

There are - or have been, over my 25 years in this town, bordellos where I was a most welcome semi-regular, where I arrived to massage and we took it all out in trade, where I gave instruction in the “Tibetan 5 Rites of Rejuvination,“ where I was the only male I ever saw being granted the neighbor-status as I call it, of being welcome to hang out at the kitchen table of certain said bordellos and yack with the ladies, proprietess included, whether there was necessarily bed-business or not sometimes.

My eye for erotic is a wide-lens camera: I never compare two women ever, and I never judge – I not only accept “flaws,“ I cherish them, that's sometimes where the erotic component even is, which is why so many guys miss it – it requires a mature eye which most altogether lack because they've bought into the bland dick-tates of cultural status quo and commercial marketing. I rejoice in bodily hair wherever it is, au naturelle, and if a woman is herself more cmofortable without, that's alright. There is not a bodily orifice on a woman I avoid, either in massage or in tongue-play or cock-ulation, not a single one. Firmly but gently, with timing everything is possible – and passionately in-joyed. Nature has given us so and so many digits and so and so many orifices, who needs toys – or to borrow from Monty Python, acoutrements. I love mouths, lips, breasts, nipples, vaginas, butts, anuses, thighs, I absolutely relish armpits, I tend away from too-slender twd. a robuster fleshy, a healthy amount of it, I don't consider any woman “overweight“ until she acutally is. I'm not telling this to be vulgar, it's just a matter of fact and openness, I don't intend to get graphic here. To recall from an earlier passage:

…The wild erotic energy radiating from its female form is full-fleshed, generously-haired, musky and mature, and not without subtlety.
By full-fleshed is merely meant, that the entire span of her corporeal body communicates a hearty welcome to life-radiance at the erotic level.
By generously-haired is meant, she is not bound to male dictates of artificial beauty.
By musky and mature are meant, her own-scented fragrance and earthy experience are her jewels and likewise independent of controlling-male notions toward hygienically sterile bodies robbed of their history and wild heritage.
By subtle is meant, even if the personality were somewhat crude or asleep, the energy is certainly awake, and for those who will encounter and acknowledge it with an attitude of respect and meet it with the proper degree of energy, it is as benevolent as it is wild. …

 

And now I'll finally cut to the chase. An American woman looked me up while here on business, end of summer '94 Berlin, she got a full, good massage. She was by all accounts, in her sweats and bike and glasses, “not a looker,“ yet when she'd disrobed and received the massage, not only was I storngly aroused by her splendid erotic beauty, I felt it in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife. Still I exercised caution. She was leaving town that day to do a 6-week stint in the new-East Europe as she was with a major news network based in Atlanta, I won't name names though. We hugged and agreed on a massage when she swings back through. I left a message on her recorder explaining my impressions, offering the full monty if she should so wish, and if not then the best massage and we'd leave it at that. On returning she told me she'd played my message back six times, so she got a massage and we spent one long splendifulous night together, followed by a very very hot correspondence until gentle and loving closure – remember, there was no internet back then, you licked stamps with that same tongue you...never mind.

Now here's the kicker: As good as my hunches are, this one went right under my radar. We went up to her borrowed flat that second encounter, and we kissed. I noticed she was a bit unhandy and it didn't matter, it was endearing. When she told me she'd been out of practice for a long time, I only figured she meant at all, but she meant with men – then she explained she's lesbian and in a relationship with her partner back home going on 15 years. I laughed so hard from the belly, I had to explain that the laugh was on me, one because that had not even occurred to me although it ought to have, and two because I could now really be the proverbial “lesbian in a male body.“ She had been harboring a growing need for the whole past year to feel a man in her again. We not only loved and in-joyed one another deeply, erotically, passionately. She said this had healed a wound in her she'd carried since age 16 – I understood immediately without any elaborations. A lot of women could relate. I later encouraged her to remain as lesbian as she wants, whatever came of her partnership, but that she also could know herself now as bi-sexual, and that this was also wonderful. What matters is only to know and to cop to it. I've met lots of lesbians in dail life and the ones I've always really appreciated are the butch-cut ladies who are so fucking cool and mature (usually over a certain age) and self-confident and male-friendly-while-needing-none.

So there it is. By the way, before I clothes – sorry, close – anybody know the one about the old wrangler sitting in a bar having his beer, and an attractive woman takes the stool next to him, has her drink in hand and asks him sort of off the cuff, “So, are you a real cowboy?“ To which he replies, wrangler-like, “Well, I get up mornings early, go out to the horses, tend to them, drive cattle out, brand calves, repair fences, pick up feed and supplies from town,“ etc. etc. - “...yeah, I guess you could say I'm a real cowboy.“ She replies, “Well I'm a lesbian. When I get up mornings I think about women, when I shower and have breakfast I think about women, when I go to work and go through my day I think about women, when I come home and watch TV or read or have dinner I think about women, right up until I go to sleep, I just think about women women women.“ Then she sets down her drink and they part witha mutual nod. He sits there and stares forward, until a nice frinedly middle-aged couple from out of town join him at the bar. “Saayy, are you a real cowboy?“ the husband inquires. The cowboy takes another swallow and considers for a moment, replying reflectively, “Well, up to now I thought I was, but now I reckon I'm a lesbian.“

Much of my poetry reflects what I've written here:

You there, with that nose of yours,
that longish, elegantly erotic nose you hate;
you with your 'not quite symmetrical' face, don't you know:
that very jawline which shames you delights me?
Quit feeling 'fat' - define your standard, who told you that?
Stop chasing warts, leave them;
if your body-tatoos can be so alluring, why can't a mole?
Are your breasts still 'inadequate' - or overmuch . . . but
look at your thighs, what form they give you!
Think of Aphrodite, not Claudia or Naomi!  Erotic, not neurotic!
Go neither obese, nor half-starved to please; shave nothing, smell enticing!
Stop cursing your buttocks, think classic, not anorexic!
Breathe in your own inner aroma, let it wend its way in and out unimpeded,
brightening your woman-face, your sensual sensuous body, restoring health -
or haven't you suffered enough sickness over false self-image?
When you speak against your own beauty, when you deny it,
you speak against me, you deny me - for I,
I am full of your beauty, and cannot get enough of it.

Come-Union, or: On Be-Coming

(not for minors, please show a current ID at the door)

Tongue and lingam should work together,

tongue must lead and lingam follow, always in tandem,

attaining a rhythm most naturally arrived at and held

through wakeful concentration and passion of interest.

And age is no matter, let us

dispense with that right now;

where erotic knowledge is concerned

youth and advanced experience meet well.

And a wizard or crone might bring

more energy and maturity to bear,

having long struck down the conditioned inhibition,

and unlocked beauty overlooked by puerile dictates.

Tongue and lingam should work together;

tongue and lips, stroking and caressing,

flattering, fluttering, probing, preparing,

arousing moisture and goose bumps, bringing flavor.

Entering all the same places, received with wild care,

creative passion always considering you, beloved,

where timing and spontaneity are taken to an art

through intuition or matured instinct.

Tongue tip on tongue, on lips, on neck and throat,

tongue washing armpits, over bitten shoulders,

teasing raised nipples with crazy circling,

tongue over belly, navel, thighs and clit.

Yoni and mouth yielding to swooning but untiring kiss

as tongue sweeps and caresses without care,

the taste of you and your luxurient hair,

your perspiration mingled with rose oil and juices.

Small of back massaged with hand and with tongue,

so the buttocks, kneaded; so also between, where cleft and anus

are stimulated in a manner known since ages

and still indescribable.

Coming in your mouth, lingam gliding over your tongue,

I feel myself entering your very bloodstream,

charging every cell in your entire body.

That is just one variation of course.

Gliding lingam on your neck, over your armpits,

between your breasts, against your nipples, across your belly,

along your thighs – and coming anywhere there,

is well spent . . . but spent.

Coming in your yoni via whichever of so many positions,

your gratification is central to my interest,

for by abandoning the central interest in mine,

my own climax is assured merely by being in you, serving yours.

But for all that, I find coming in your ass to be

the gratification par excellence for both,

bringing forth unimagined fruit, once discovered

never to be forgotten nor forsaken.

I will tell you why I know this.

Deep as the yoni well is, there is something

primally deeper still, in a different and healing way,

about entering that ass gradually with lingam.

The ass is charged with a negative and a postitive

association both, a crossing of pleasure and pain,

reward and punishment, expectation and relief,

tension and gratification, erotic and banal.

Negatively seen, the brutality of a sadist finds

in this the very place to ravage and humiliate,

to abuse and fuck to death your very soul

in that place of your most basic security.

Positively seen, lovingly and consentually entered,

there is deeply erotic, healing, validating union

in a place so deep in the psyche as to defy words.

And to come there in love, respect, appreciation, is ecstasy.

http://titsandsass.com/the-erasure-of-maya-angelou/

Reflections On Woman

When a woman smiles

              if she can smile the genuine smile   that is a woman's,

                                              she is relaxed;     relaxed she is opened.

Open as she is,

             her grace as a woman comes through

                                             and she is a blessing on this planet.

I salute her,

            I wash my face in that grace and drink it

                                             bellyfull

                                                                 intently.

I've come to restore that smile.

(Monterey, 1986)

--------------------------

 (The following are exerpts from an entry in an extensive notebook I’d kept over a two year period (1998-9) here in Berlin, with occasional additions made into the 2000s:)

…The wild erotic energy radiating from its female form is full-fleshed, generously-haired, musky and mature, and not without subtlety.
By full-fleshed is merely meant, that the entire span of her corporeal body communicates a hearty welcome to life-radiance at the erotic level.
By generously-haired is meant, she is not bound to male dictates of artificial beauty.
By musky and mature are meant, her own-scented fragrance and earthy experience are her jewels and likewise independent of controlling-male notions toward hygienically sterile bodies robbed of their history and wild heritage.
By subtle is meant, even if the personality were somewhat crude or asleep, the energy is certainly awake, and for those who will encounter and acknowledge it with an attitude of respect and meet it with the proper degree of energy, it is as benevolent as it is wild. …

You there, with that nose of yours,
that longish, elegantly erotic nose you hate;
you with your 'not quite symmetrical' face, don't you know:
that very jawline which shames you delights me?
Quit feeling 'fat' - define your standard, who told you that?
Stop chasing warts, leave them;
if your body-tatoos can be so alluring, why can't a mole?
Are your breasts still 'inadequate' - or overmuch . . . but
look at your thighs, what form they give you!
Think of Aphrodite, not Claudia or Naomi!  Erotic, not neurotic!
Go neither obese, nor half-starved to please; shave nothing, smell enticing!
Stop cursing your buttocks, think classic, not anorexic!
Breathe in your own inner aroma, let it wend its way in and out unimpeded,
brightening your woman-face, your sensual sensuous body, restoring health -
or haven't you suffered enough sickness over false self-image?
When you speak against your own beauty, when you deny it,
you speak against me, you deny me - for I,
I am full of your beauty, and cannot get enough of it.

Dakinis in the Cellar

(first written down, Berlin 1998)

A familiar feature from my childhood was my parents' "unfinished basement". We played down there, my mother hung wash there in bad weather, we sometimes slept there, we stored boxes of merchandise, my father kept his desk there, my brother instructed me in oil paint and led his two younger siblings in some very creative scenario building for play there. It was (for a child) a large area, divided not by walls but by two-by-four beams, structures through which you could easily slip from one "room" to the other.

These became the basis for the "trees" in the following dream. The Basement was also for me very spooky, and I feared it as an Abode of My Unconscious in childhood as much as I used it regardless of this.

The dream may have recurred twice or three times, or else the one time I dreamt it just made that strong an impression; in any event, I was no older than 12 by my reckoning.

I was familiar then with two story-settings and their brutal endings which no doubt influenced the set-up of the dream: Grieg's “Peer Gynt“ and the Greek classic of Artemis/Diana being inadvertantly caught bathing by a young man out hunting with his hounds. In both cases the male intruder meets with a rather nasty end.

So – I'm dreaming of being in The Basement which is now a woods, I'm watching through the 2x4 "trees" onto what really is an open concrete floor but in the dream is a wooded clearing, a bit surreal: green, dank, earthy, breathing with nature's primal heat, quiet, serene, yet full of anticipation.

At first empty, there quietly enters an auspicious assembly of, at most a dozen maidens. They are dressed, but etherically/erotically lovely – their entire color is blue, soft and glowing, and they are, it appears, ghosts or spirits as it were, not corporeal – yet no less desirable.

I watch and I sense that for all my je-jumping hormones, I should keep a respectful distance, exercise some restraint, and keep still. Good call, as it turns out. For just a few feet away from me to my right I notice a young fella (older than I however) suggesting Peer Gynt or the Greek hunter. He's dressed a little haphazardly, bloused sleeves and open shirt and all, hair unkempt, his eyes innocent yet rolling out of control, his face breaking into a sweat: He Can't Handle This. He watches too, as the maidens form a circle and dance like fairies or like Isadora Duncan, as surreal as they are sensual. But nothing happens – yet. (I gasp.)

Well, the kid finally breaks down and dashes into their midst, throwing himself into the dance – did he also make a grab at one of the ghostly maidens? I think so – and of course, could not. The female Master standing in the middle of the circle was none too pleased and gave a thought-command. With a fury the poor guy was pounced on by all, and rent asunder.

As this occurred, or perhaps immediately after – the female Master gave me a very direct and auspicious glance, and with a sober and compassionate face of lovingkindness communicated wordlessly to me: "OK, Joe, this was a test and you just passed – so don't make the same mistake he did with your erotic gifts; you're fortunate to see what you got to see and make it out of here; now here's a gift from me to you: you will grow to understand and appreciate deeply the finer Being of Woman and what she really Is, and this itself will bless you." I'm paraphrasing here, but that was it.

Considering this twenty years later I thought of what our Murshida back in our Boulder group used to call the "Invincible Woman" and I thought of the Dakini-energy which accompanied our training. And I saw this adolescent dream sequence in a better light.

Two deades still later as of this first writing, I think I got that right.

That Master-woman in my dream was the Invincible Woman, the assembly may well have been the Dancin' Dakinis. And it doesn't take Carl Jung to figure out that I'm both "me" and the "other guy" in the story. My life bears out the truth of this dream.

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/08/invincible-woman-internalized-from.html