I’m on my knees, by this River.
This River that runs through the Land of my father and his father.
This Land I had once feared didn’t want me…
So, I rejected it, despised it, mocked it.
Shame, disguised as hate.
I’m on my knees, in a black dress.
Crouched on the branch of this Tree, as She extends her limbs out over the water.
I offer Tea leaves to the Earth slowly, deliberately.
Noticing the colour of the Tea that stains my fingers
As they permeate the dry soil below,
Colouring Her with the same pigments.
“Its okay… You can stay…”
This still rings through my body.
I’m on my knees, at 7.50 in the morning.
Beholding the land of Skye, and Faeries, and Rivers.
Kneeling to these cold waters that beckon me in.
I free myself of my layers,
Those of clothes and those of fear,
And submit to the waters that claim me as their daughter.
I’m still on my knees as I whisper out loud
“I wilfully hand my heart over to you. Do as you wish with it, please.
Have your way with me.”
The Selkie woman in me smiles in response to this surrender,
As I disrobe from the rest of my skins, then slide pure and bare into the waters black.
I’m on my knees, spontaneously…
Prowling through the Dales,
Crawling through bracken towards him
As we stalk these hikers.
How dare they cross our potential Quest site!
We play predator & prey,
As he David Attenburough’s the shit out of them.
I can barely look at him,
Afraid my eyes will give it away.
I’m on my knees, by the Fire that he made.
While he casually reads me poetry in this cottage.
He has no idea it’s my birthday.
He has no idea what a gift he is to me.
Fuck, if he only knew how many Fires he had really started…
I’m on my knees, on the sofa
I know exactly which one.
I’m straddling him between my thighs when I direct him to kiss me for the first time.
How’d we end up on the floor?
I’m on my knees, for him.
Taking all of him into the warmth of me.
I’m on my knees, for him, all of him.
His hard and soft edges, I behold them all.
I’m on my knees, begging him to let me love him slowly, sensually.
He moves and pushes my hips in a way that feels like a prayer,
Never has it felt like this,
Never has someone’s hands explored the landscape of my body, Or the ecology of my Heart, This land of the White Flowers,
With such tenderness, with such power.
I’m floored by how I can feel this free, while being bound so tightly in his arms.
I’m on my knees, while he slumbers
Out on the hill, I watch the embers of sunrise meet the glow of the setting Moon.
I experience myself as the sky in that moment
In the capacity to hold and witness it all,
The Love, pleasure, fear, agony.
Staying with the tension of these seeming polarities,
I become a vessel drawing in the divine opposites
Until a simple embodied truth emerges within me.
Pure Presence, trust & acceptance of it all.
I’m on my knees, with him this time
Crawling back up the nettle strewn Riverbank
Laying down blankets & towels to protect ourselves.
How futile it was, the effort we made to block ourselves from these experiences waiting to happen to us.
What if to be stung was the whole point?
What if, for once we got out of our own way.
And then I feel it, his opening.
Fuck, he’s beautiful.
Like witnessing a Wild animal in its natural habitat.
Such truth, such power, such magic.
His animal is aware of my gaze, and yet, it allows me to continue watching.
And I do,
So lovingly, so grateful I get even a brief glimpse.
I’m on me knees, by this Fire
Every night.
Swaying to this music that echoes all around us,
Sliding my hands across his body as I hold him from behind.
Memorising the way my fingers graze across his chest hair,
And the texture of that blue jumper he loves so much.
I don’t even realise I have pins & needles.
I’m on my knees, in the tent
Heaving songs to the Bear bones,
The Salmon skin drums,
The circle of Udegan Women.
Bowing in melody and gratitude to this mud & antlered priestess standing before us,
When for the first time, I hear my ancestors echo these very songs back to me.
I choke the words out through my tears,
I know they will still understand,
Even through these incomprehensible sounds that dribble out of my mouth.
I’m on my knees, we’re packing up in silence
He kneels opposite me, watching me roll and stuff his sisters tent back into its bag.
I receive his embrace.
I believe him when he tells me he cares about me.
And in that moment, I silence the part of me that can feel it is over for him.
I’m on my knees, down on all fours
While we listen for our Quest site
Pulled knee deep and held there by the soft, wet Earth.
If a game was being played,
I was tagged by the Land.
She’s got me!
And I am delighted to be caught in her playful embrace.
And if it wasn’t already clear enough
Soon after, she takes my other leg too.
I’m on my knees, on this lichen covered rock
Here in witness of the Sky playing in divine erotic Love with the Mountains.
I welcome in these waves of pleasure that I notice,
Mirroring the sensuous flowing strokes of the clouds on the ridgeline.
Those very clouds spill down the surfaces of my own Earth body.
Like water moving around a rock,
They pour
Over and around my nipples
Tending to every subtlety and softness of my skin
Following the gentle curves of my breasts,
Cascading their way down slowly, over my peaks, my ridges, and my valleys.
When I said…
“We’re just going to Breathe the Mountains, and let the Mountains to Breathe us in.”
I didn’t expect it could feel like this.
All I hear is:
“Pour… darling.
Pour”.
This, I know now, is what it is to be seduced, slowly, by Life and by Love.
This is the slow, long game.
I’m on my knees, at the feet of this Goddess
She gazes down the same valley I have yielded to for four days.
She cradles a mysterious bundle in her arms,
As I cradle my blood.
I offer this sacred part of me to the soil, to these waters,
Bowing my head and begging for forgiveness for my ignorance, my neglect of their songs & their stories.
I hear the voices of this Land announce with glee,
That my cackle comes from the bellows and the caves of their lungs.
“We’ve got you, child.”
I’m on my knees, in grief.
Trying to reconcile with the ghosts that walk among me now.
Trying to discern whether the memory of feeling his Breath on the landscape of my skin
Was him..
Or just the wind.
In this version of the telling,
I wonder if I am going mad.
If somehow, I imagined the level of intimacy I had felt in my head.
How could my Heart have grown in its wild ecology with him
If it wasn’t rooted in symbiosis?
I’m grasping, trying to understand,
I don’t understand.
But, I accept.
I do… I actually do.
I’ve lived a thousand Karmic lives with him already.
And he's freed me.
Though I wonder…
How his courage would have spoken as he revealed his truth to me…
Had I not have handed him these words on a platter
“I feel complete”.
And then… Had he not been holding me, I would have fallen to my knees again
When he walked back into the room saying he Loved me too.
This, I understand now
“Pour, Darling..
Pour.”
To pour, as the Clouds do, as the River does
To cascade with this limitless Love that resides in all the chambers of my Heart.
To wilfully, relentlessly, recklessly and with enthusiastic stubbornness
Choose in every moment to keep my Heart open
To blanket its tenderness with Moss
And just a sprinkle of Nettles to keep things spicy.
I know no other way than to Love like this.
And I am no longer apologetic of the ferocity in which my heart bursts, unabashed.
For the way it confronts & challenges everything you have constructed about how Love should feel or look like.
With him, I rooted and Rose in that Love
A Love that liberates, not binds.
But maybe, and if I’m being really honest..
That like the Waterfalls, there was a clumsy plummeting into that Love too.
This is the exquisite pain, and the exquisite beauty
Of trusting and being guided by this ridiculous Heart.
To walk now as this potion of
The caressing Wind, blowing through to distil our personal & planetary Truth,
Blended with the curse of the storm filled Clouds, daring us to hold on to what is truly important, and let go of the rest.
To be a concoction of the Wolf’s kiss that can hold you lovingly, unconditionally, while her howl calls you out on your bullshit. The safe space, and the adventure.
Stitched together with the Rocks, grounded & stable, who can also move and tumble with an unstoppable intensity.
To sing the spell and harmony of the Mountains who give of themselves to be moulded by the elements, who have abandoned all plans,
And connected intrinsically like the Spiders webs adorned in the morning mist, to trust that wherever I walk, the webs will be woven.
This Land has spoken, I have been seeded.
And as I return barefoot to my Grandfather Mountain in the East,
I hear a fierce & loving recognition.
“You’re ready, we know that. Go.”
So through these tears, I move towards trusting a vision that is felt
But so beyond my gaze.
You see… that’s what happens to a Woman.
When she returns from the abyss having been touched by the Divinity of Love.
When her ears have been tuned to hear the ancient oracle of the Earth that plays within her own Blood & Bones.
There is no “catching up” that will do your curiosity justice.
The most inquisitive questions incanted as spells will not evoke the answers you seek.
You can only behold in awe and wonder at the journey she must have been on
To be walking in the sweet and salty way that she does now.
May the Gods & Goddesses have mercy
On the ones who dare approach this wildfire Love of mine.
Can you summon the courage to receive its immensity, to be willing to be bathed in it,
Because yes… you might feel like you’re drowning.
Will you stand here with me,
Here in its flame, while it transforms the both of us.
I challenge you, I beckon you...
And I’ll see you on the other side.
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