David Russell writes

Spatial Dimensions

part 1

Browsing the net for her Goddess images, Selene came across the following statement: “When the Divine Feminine asks a question, she does not go hunting for the answer. Instead, she invites the answer to find her.” She felt sure that the totality of experience was not as simple as that; there must be an element of hunting in allure.

She had become an avid reader – of mythology and poems relating to her dreams and aspirations. The connection had not been spelled out to her in an earlier life. In her browsing, she stumbled on Selene, the poem by Anna Hempstead Branch, described as America’s Robert Browning. At last a poem bearing her name, which totally grabbed her, gave her a sense of her true depth being, made her ache to be a personification and transcendence of a beautiful myth. Selene spent a lot of her time in a dream world, and fantasised about her beautiful lovers materialising and evaporating to enhance their tantalising allure, and her sublime consummations straddling the bounds of mortality, flesh made ethereal.

So many slender youths had she seen sunbathing in the park, prone, seeming dreamily submissive to her pleasure. Occasionally she reciprocated the revelation.

She tried to will herself into the mind and sensations of Endymion, seeing him as an image of herself which broke the barriers of gender. Yes; he sensed her pale, shadowy presence in the water. He knew her elusive loveliness spanned millennia. Ever since he had caught a glimpse of whom he thought she was, emanating from a cloud, he was in thrall to her shadow, thereafter ever in quest of his full view.

She felt a surge of power, stronger than all known Gods, ineffable and predatory. She must have her own sacred shrine to enact her cosmic rituals. She would order her lover to kindle a fire – not of sacrifice but of celebration. Even as she relished his fleshly totality, she saw him melting with each outward breath into the fire’s smoke and the clouds’ vapour; each inward breath was a tide which swept him back to flesh. Such power would she wield over him that he felt he had been swept off the earth to an alien planet – Selene’s planet.

Her lover was that special one – one supremely shy who overcame his fear, his shyness maybe due to his longing to hold himself in reserve for the ultimate challenge; he would face her! She would elicit eye contact. Her goddess robes would break the bounds of chemistry. But her garments were also the trappings of mortality. His undressing of her would create the supreme vision of the universe, his ministering hands a fusion of flesh and spirit:

“Strip from me
My mantle of the sun and moon and earth,
Seasons and earthquakes and fierce thunderbolts,
Heavy with deep mid ocean, soft with tears,
Sweet colored with rich buds and mellow fruit,
Aglow with mortal smiles and floating hair,
And flashing with innumerable eyes.
Rend it in twain. Lay hold on it, I say,
For what ye dream is solid and stout earth,
Is mine apparel, fluttering like smoke
About mine inner fire.”

Selene would cleanse him, purify him with her love. She ordered him to close his eyes, and be suffused with pure tactile sensation. Through the depths of her surrender her spirit ruled him totally. Their consummation made an explosion, seeming to ravage the earth – but only as a transient vision. A fresh world appeared, even with cities, as burgeoning flora after a forest fire. He returns to earth a God, blessed with eternal youth.

Suffused with the essence of a perfect union, she became the moon, going through the cycle of crescent and half-face, anointing the world with the silvery blessings, in parallel with her periods. At last she had swept aside the eclipse of inhibition (though it felt strangely akin to the eclipse of love). Her new-found mirror self took sway over the tides in which she so loved to be immersed, and she could rule the motions of her own reflection. Now she was mistress of the clouds, her veiling and revelation to humanity under her will. Distilled into a bodiless thought, she relished the abandon of a thoughtless body. The supreme astronaut, she had acquired all the knowledge intuitively, centuries before its ‘discovery’.

Robartes. All thought becomes an image and the soul  

Becomes a body: that body and that soul 
Too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle, 
Too lonely for the traffic of the world: 
Body and soul cast out and cast away 
Beyond the visible world.

Aherne. All dreams of the soul 
End in a beautiful man's or woman's body.

Now her disrobing would be proclaimed to heaven and earth:

Luna

Too soon the sunset comes; too soon 
Opens the night its curious eyes, 
Greedy to watch the maiden moon 
Unloose her silver draperies

And walk upon the star-flowered fields. 
Her cloudy garments one by one 
To waiting winds she slowly yields, 
And now, her last disrobing done,

Flashes lithe limbs across the sky    

And flaunts the cold and slender grace  

Of unconcerned virginity. 
 
O now before her smiling grace

A thousand rivers, lakes and seas 
Hold up their mirrors to her gaze: 
A thousand moonlets there she sees 
Float on a thousand starry ways.

Beneath her footfall light and free 
 
The peeping star follows shake and fall; 
 
Cold as her watery mirrors, she 
 
Drinks admiration from them all.

 

In them her nakedness she views, 
 
In love with her own limbs displayed, 
 
And through the wondering night pursues 
 
Her strange unreasonable parade.

-- Gerald Miller 

A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quite utterly. 
This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, 
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins 

Selene would become herself, attain the true essence of her name. To go further from her self-revelations in the mirror, she enacted her Goddess ritual. Her apartment was safe from human view, so she could open the curtains fully, and allow her full-moon reflection to suffuse her and her room. She stood resplendent in flowing white robes. At the ready, she had two slender white candles and a brass bell, a cup and a glass full of water – The water lit in reflection by the moonlight, the water translucently illuminated in the cup. She raised her arms and chanted:

“The earth is my body; it shall fuse with the beauty of my facing self. My breath is the atmosphere, stratosphere, ionosphere. Because my body is the earth, it will rise from the earth. The moon and I shall gel in the hinterland. She felt her own, and her other’s power, pulsing through her mind, spirit and emotions. Oh moon: the power of the sun has honed your purity!”

Her body wafted out of the breathy, chrysalis robes to proclaim her sensual splendour. She gave the bell a tinkle as a signal, and lit the candles. Their pale flames made a brief flicker. 

     

Selene mused, self satisfied: “I think I've established control over the earth's surface and the atmosphere; now is the time to go beyond it.” Some observatory visits had sharpened her curiosity. Looking at the sea, looking at the sky, sometimes for hours on end, gave her a sense of being in a parallel universe. How she ached to be one of those, her array of flowing robes embracing the rainbow, fluttering in the breezes and ripples of all the known elements. Her egotism embraced light years. 

In the course of a long browse of astrological and astronomical charts on the Internet, she came across an advert: Be true to yourself; expand into the cosmic dimension. Initially, it felt like a scam, but then she was hypnotised by the accompanying picture; he was so lithe, so toned – attired in a wetsuit-cum-spacesuit – he radiated Alpha splendour, in excess of her favourite film stars.

The actual meeting, in one of the trendiest of bars awash with translucent glass was in no way an anti-climax; indeed there was a sense of premonition and destiny about it. His name was Pertinax name of a Roman Emperor, not quite a God, but personable enough – and he certainly seemed to radiate tenacity. They met in a trendy bar, and then his Porsche took her to an equally friendly flat.  

“You’re a fashion buff, aren’t you? You saw my picture. I’ve got a matching suit. Shall we dress up and pose together?”

Wow: a bit of surrogate catwalk session for Selene. Seeing them together in the mirror was so sublime, made her think of an expedition to find sub-aquatic treasure. He looked at her knowingly again. 

“You have always been an inveterate stargazer. Just name your favourite galaxy, and my organisation will tailor things to your needs.”

Selene could not hesitate.

“It’s Andromeda, without reservation. I can see it with my naked eye; that spiral shape twists me into ecstasy, and part of me wants to re-enact Andromeda’s experience, provoking, facing peril, being rescued.” 

The galaxy was named after her. But could there have been two-way traffic? Could the galaxy have projected a concentrated beam onto an earthly woman, to make a total godhead?” Selene felt desperate to push herself back through time, take over and assume Andromeda’s being.

“We are the cosmic ambassadors and would love to welcome you to our midst. There is so much you can do to enrich our culture.”

“Firstly we will fulfil each other as geocentric God and Goddess, then we will be mirrored and aggrandised as cosmic deities. There are many galactic cultures needing the selfsame focus.”

To become on of us, you must go through our transformational flotation tank. You’ve probably read about them causing self-abnegation and self-fulfilment, annihilation and restoration. The customary ones can only travel a short distance in that direction; but ours can go the whole way.”

He sounded convincing. Now his claim had to be put to the test. The tank was located in an underground chamber, which had some of the feeling of a worked-out mine.

Selene’s sensations were totally delicious; the temperature ricocheted up and down the thermometer. The overhead light phased through the entire colour spectrum, echoed in the myriad bubbles that arose around her. Her health and fitness routines had made her eminently suitable for flotation. She felt that her quota of dross was minimal. But here was the supreme facility for exquisite fine-tuning.

The water tongue lapped over her, and receded. His silhouette appeared in the glass doorway, in his trunks. He joined her on the raft. It rocked, and threw them both overboard. They went to the bottom, and resurfaced. The two bathing suits, removed with deft hands bobbed and rocked beside them. The couple mounted each other, alternately, at the centre of the raft, and held it stable. They fused with each other, and then, melted into the water. So-called sensory deprivation was sensory satiation. Bodies were simultaneously diffused and purified, restored. She knew the flotation method was used to purify metallic ores. At the end of the process, she felt her body was a fusion of precious metal and resilient flesh, hard and durable but retaining its suppleness. 

“You have experienced the totality in microcosm. You will ultimately magnify it to fill the cosmic canvas. You will now be transformed into particles, to be reassembled many light years from here. We’ll go to our laboratory.”

They drove through the dark, until they came to a sunbed parlour front. He motioned her towards the bed. “This is where you will be totally transformed. But the process will only be initiated with your full knowledge and consent; you are free to leave now.”

Selene nodded in quivering agreement. With all this ecstasy, she could not pull out now.

“Instead of an anaesthetic, we will assemble for you the man of your dreams, with whom you will make transcendental love. As you drift off into your post-orgasmic serenity, the process will begin.”

“You can preconceptualise your perfect man. We've got a fully-equipped studio, with art materials and writing materials. There's also the computer, from which you can download any gorgeous photograph, any fabulous artwork reproductions you can think of. Then you can weld all their luscious components into your ideal composite. We will transmute him into vital flesh.”

What grace, what magnanimity, for such a ravishing man to make this offer; he had transcended vanity and egotism too!

Her ideal man simply had to be called Perseus, for an Emperor must usher her to a god. All of Selene’s most deep-seated desires now welled up to refine to an exquisite pitch her artistic struggles, sustained quietly over several years. There was an abundance of materials, so she could do sketches, water colours, oil paintings – and then go on to composite retouchings of all the most beautiful model photos she could download. She summoned Pertinax and made a dramatic wave of her mass of artwork: “I know who and what I want!” she cried, “and there is an art exhibition to prove it.”

“You have achieved immortality through anticipation. Perseus will be made for you, from areas just beyond your reach, but not too far. Through me you have completed your first stage, through Perseus you will complete your second, and there will be more.”

For their encounter, Selene decided to wear white robes, with chains hanging over her shoulders and round her waist. For the grand revelation, her underwear was the deepest Roman Imperial purple. In this attire she greeted Perseus. They beamed into each other’s eyes.

“There’s something I need to reconcile” said Selene. “I am a free, independent woman, and will not be subjugated. But I am hooked on the glamour of the ancient world. So I’ll loosely drape these chains around me because I find them sexy; the sensation of the metal turns me on, and I feel a sense of power as I rattle them. And they are something which can be taken gracefully off, half way between jewellery and other items of attire.” 

Selene had a costume designer friend, and often fantasized about dressing and undressing the various wearers. Perseus’ outfit was totally laundered, and he had the fragrance of the pines. She really relished the texture of the fabrics she removed. Purple and tan radiated rainbow splendour as a flurry of white graced the carpet.

Happiness drifted imperceptibly into sleep.