A Winding Ribbon Ripples

More and more of late, I pause in the middle of doing one of the myriad tasks in my day and feel a magic carpet of rippling tingles vibrating deep within me. Eckhart Tolle, in his book, A New Earth, would say I am sensing my inner space. Mind-boggling and delicious, this sensing of my inner space is akin to a feeling of utter well being, of knowing that everything is as it is and all is as it should be. I am literally being animated from the inside out, an invisible energy flooding me with unadulterated joy.


Each time I feel it, I realize all over again the bliss of knowing that I am eternally connected to the Divine with a visceral realization far deeper than mere concepts can convey. Far deeper than what it might mean to recall a Biblical verse in a time of perceived peril or a line from a favorite poem when I need to be poetically galvanized or a delectable scene from a treasured novel during those times I want to be plunged sensually into another time and place.


Sometimes I close my eyes to more clearly feel the ripples, which reminds me of hanging on to the crossbar of a roller coaster car, the wind slicking back my locs, eyelashes bunched on my cheeks, a frozen smile plastered across my face. To someone on the ground, I might appear to be praying for the ride's end. But, inside, I'm basking in wondrous waves of exultation, fingers clutching steel to fully feel the flow of pure energy.


At other times, my eyes are saucers, round and watchful, alert, like my body, quietly waiting to give itself to the quivering. I am patient, but it comes, it seems, faster, when I inhale deep, luxurious breaths and exhale them in slow, calming exhalations. I air myself in the same way Sabelah, my Bosnian neighbor, tirelessly flaps throw rugs in front of the family's condo every morning. No matter what drama shifts and changes incessantly at the forefront of my life, as long as I remember to honor Presence, the energy that is Consciousness remains consistently unchanging. Some spiritual teachers refer to it as Awareness or Love. Whatever you term it, it is the Universal intelligence behind all that is, behind the seen and the unseen.


I am waking to Consciousness and its power to lift me on a winding, rippling ribbon that holds me in comfort and security and ecstasy, in the ever present now. For me, it's been a process. Not a single epiphany of insight, as it may be for others. My experience has been bursts of extended awareness, of Consciousness opening itself and allowing me to perch on an invisible windowsill, taking everything in as a Silent Observer, awed at the Divine opening me to Presence.


Now that I think about it, I am not only gently riding that winding ribbon rippling. In a very real sense, I am that winding ribbon. Yes, I am opening to an indelible truth. Simply put, I AM. Same as I posted on my Facebook wall a few days back. It was my spiritual experience. Nothing followed the words, for the nouns that might have followed would have been mere form. Concepts. Thoughts of how I envisioned myself in my mind, where my Ego sits high and looks low, poised to jet from its throne to right any affront something or someone may have brought against it. And if affronts aren't bountiful in the present moment, the ego will help itself to re-lived ones, of course, in the past and ever fertile ones that may occur in the future.


One day I'll write in more detail regarding this journey of my unique awakening to Consciousness. Right now, my right eye is complaining. Again, my body rails against staying up all night. It knows I will be cranky in the morning, when I rise earlier than usual to prepare for traffic court. Aaah! Another adventure in this golden life. But, hilariously, Thursday is right now, as the clock on this computer says 2:13 AM. While I was lost in doing the small things, (passionately crafting mental concepts into language and going downstairs to pour myself remaining sips of my orange tea), Thursday morning crept into my space.


Her Valentine's basket serenaded me with assorted teas and chocolates, a beautiful lavender candle (my favorite), a cute chocolate fuzzy bear and a red, leather-bound JOURNAL. If I reach for the dictionary on the carpet behind me and locate the word "thoughtful," I'll meet her before Friday, when we go for green tea and plum wine.....


It's strange. My intent with this posting was to write about the lovely anticipation of meeting a woman, whom I have never physically met, although she informed me in aurally vibrant narration, that we exchanged a "Good evening" nod at a Charis reading for an anthology in which my work was published. Could she be a winding ribbon rippling into my now? The anticipation of our first hello is frothy with champagne bubbles. I talk. She talks. We share. Laugh. Watch our roads diverge and converge. In lyrical Friday evening conversations. Perceptive, a few times piercingly so though never painfully, she is aware of my presence and falling away, in the briefest of moments. Do I like that? Hmmm. Gingerly bringing my attention to the disconnect, she takes my hand and guides me back to myself, to our talk. So, yes. Claro que si. A mi me gusta.




TheGoldenGoddess
February 25, 2010

Sensuality...

I am a sensual creature. I make no apologies for this truth, as I am not in the business of refuting the Divine's handiwork, which made me this way, including it in my DNA. In truth, I warmly accept the multiplicity of this personality, this tour de force, this art that I find to be...ME.



Sensuality floods me when I dance. And it doesn't matter, perchance, if the music, the beat, is fast or slow. I just let go. Fall back. Am subsumed in a cocoon of intoxicating waves, of vibes alive with liquid fire so searing...it incinerates me, and I am as tropical as these orange letters, as vibrant as tangerine leggings, as fluid as a russet sunset above Hawaiian waters.



The words that flow from my pen or gloss my lips drip in sensuality, I've noticed, even if what I write or speak isn't particularly sensual in subject. You see, I accept it's simply the way I move in the world. My feet seek, naturally, sensual shoes, be they plastic with clear heels or penciled toes or pink bows. I'm real. Strip me of these shoes and, if I'm feeling draped in moonlight and ermine, I rise to my toes and fathomed stilettos are the way I go, swaying to runway reels in my locs. Now, some may allow this sensuality could possibly be replaced with terms that earn the connotation of conceit or narcissism. To that, I grin, allowing others their verbal frivolity, since I adore tossing words up and running under them to feel their eloquence on my skin, my tongue, my sensibilities, much like, on a scorching day, children engaged in watery play under Centennial Park sprinklers.



Instead of posing a question to a mirror, I asked the Universe, one sweltering summer night: "What is the epitome of sensuality in the myriad stretches of your galaxies?" The response drifted as soft as sapphires in my earlobes and about my neck, and I could not defy its gentle reply while the silent stars stared. "Woman." I blinked, I think, in the inky eve, and wondered if it erred. Yet the repeat of the nocturnal treat came again, so eternally sweet to my soul. "Woman. I would know, for I made her so. Consider the effervescence of her smile when beguiled. With one look, she annotates your deepest core, gives you back to yourself if you walk with her along the shore of trust. Her strength, her agility, and her generosity scatter the dust in your heart, even kiss away the cobwebs if, from your life, you've banished everyday art. A woman's loving nature is not easily effaced, although she will erase what persists on battering her inner space. The world's painters have pined to capture her face, the power of her mind, the paradise in the slope of her belly, the electric blue expanse of her soul, the guitar in her silhouette, the passion of her lips, her hips, the nurturing grace in her embrace, and the depths of her desire to create on an easel of erotic intent if intrigued. So, go and swim in the sea of sensuality. It is your birthright. From it, never flee like a gazelle in flight, my Queen of the Night."


So if you care to dance, Amor, I will unveil my smile, and we can light the midnight skies while awaiting sunrise. Entiendes?


TheGoldenGoddess
Monday, February 22, 2010

A MERCY: Toni Morrison's Treat to Literary Peeps

No other author does it for me quite like Toni Morrison. When I sit to imbibe one of her thirst-quenching masterpieces, I vanish within a world that is so exquisitely honed, so well detailed that I am left to the power of her almighty pen to walk through haunted houses, weep alongside friends who have known love and loss, stand up through the heaviness of longing for blue eyes and shake the acidic bite of a nickname like Milkman Dead.

I loved Paradise to a tender distraction: the cast of women in the book stealing my heart and from my schedule exacting hours of blazing bliss. Tar Baby yet sings its haunting refrains after our separation, one from the other, and I promise myself tonight: I shall find it and fall in love anew. Perhaps this is my Toni Morrison Year. Jazz sits on my shelf, either in my office or in a basket under my boudoir windows or on my overage shelves in my garage (I just hope I haven't loaned it to someone who has yet to return it...as I must confess, I've yet to read it. So, too, Love, which is opened before me now, like a lover in lace and maroon cotton, demurely present, patiently awaiting my touch, my kiss. And I shall comply with both, eventually.

Right now I've chosen to answer the call of Morrison's latest novel, which is two years old now. Received it as a precious birthday gift from my beloved sisterfriend, Anita Lynn Contreras. We have been reading buddies since we saucily strolled Tuskegee Institute's campus centuries ago. Why, you might ask, have I just come to this novel? After all this time? Who knows? Time spent engrossed in other things? Writing? Exercising? Living? Loving? Dreaming? Breaking up? Could be any number of things. The reality is, though, we get to what we get to in Divine time.

I shall relish A MERCY for Black History Month. Will devour and digest it before Sunday, February 28, 2010, so that my beloved friends and I can pay homage to it and Toni Morrison on Facebook. If you'd care to join us, please befriend me at www.Facebook.com/ClaudiaMoss.

Already, the opening woos me. "Don't be afraid. My telling can't hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark--weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more---but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth."

With that, I am plunged into the 1680s, the Americas experiencing the beginning of the slave trade, the land rife with hatred, religious pangs, class conflicts, and instantly, excitedly, my mind conjures a quarry of questions. Who is speaking? Who or what is responsible of the person's fear in the telling? What has this unknown narrator done? What stranger things happen all the time everywhere? A confession? Has someone been killed? Can someone read? A slave? Hmmmm. And the curtains are lifted on the magic and majesty of Toni Morrison, writing with a definite assurance of a Nobel Prize writer, who brings us into the heartland of America and the people who land, are brought and are born there. In 167 pages, Toni Morrison will carry me on a journey, I'm certain, I shall long remember.

A master stylist, Morrison will teach me, mold me, beguile me, serenade me with the skills of her talent. And I will be, all over again, her willing student.

Lord, I love the way Morrison does what she does: the artistry, the poetic prowess in prose, the scanty dialogue, the workings of the characters' mind and the mind of the times that carry the story. Our first narrator confirms, "Let me start with what I know for certain." Mind you, before that is a discussion of signs and the countless meanings of those signs. But she comes for me, takes me by the hand and, beside Morrison, in sync, I am with her when she writes: "The beginning begins with the shoes." Afterwards, our narrator comes into a clearer focus. She is a girl, with "prettify ways" and the "hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady" and has "a minha mae" mama.

And that does it for me...I'm good to ride! Take me away, My Mind-blowing Scribe.

TheGoldenGoddess

2/1/2010