A More Glorious And Private Mystery

 

     This video is important.

      In the first weeks when I first got to know You in 2007, I had imagined us as engaged in the dynamic of Kip and Hanna from The English Patient.  You know this.  What you may not know is the depth and extent of this dynamic and the effect upon my perception of the events that followed.  Master of me, the harness never felt strange to me -- I had already seen it at work for the great joy and benefit of its passenger; and the ropes and pulleys never felt constricting to me -- I had already watched Kip's manipulation of these tools in the service of a more glorious and private mystery than the familiar, quotidian war-scape each endures in her own life.

     Do You remember the scene  -- I have shown it here, in this video -- where Kip lights the candle-path for Hanna to discover; where he takes her in the dark to a place he had already scouted and determined to be safe (for, the world they inhabited was filled with land-mines and sabotage, and it was his job to sweep them all away for the safety of others); where he had already rigged the rope-and-pulley system that would lift her high into the air -- candle in hand -- so as to view from a perspective none other but the artist had enjoyed, all the centuries-old art contained therein.  The human likeness whose eyes she gazes into while suspended in the air might as well be a mirror image of her own countenance.  The placid, peaceful eyes and genuine smile of her face looking into the face from a whole other time and place, and yet the recognition of each, signals a timeless understanding. Joy is an act of defiance in a world filled with landmines. To fly is a defiance of gravity's resolute, oppressive, natural law.  

     Do You remember, too, conversations we had about the ethics and morality of bondage; ethics and morality of dominating another who surrenders her power in the service of a more glorious and private mystery than the familiar, quotidian war-scape each endures in her own life.  The question of whether it were any good; of whether there were a Good to be served in the practice of this power exchange.  The question of whether it revealed a damaged motive by a damaged practitioner; or whether this kink were possibly beyond reproach, were impeachable, were innocent and worthy of exploration.  Do You remember in all the years we have danced around the Source of it, sometimes hand in hand, and sometimes from a great distance, discovering in those moments different nuggets of perfect language -- language that thrilled, that captured, that preserved a moment of real connection and true intimacy, a vulnerability and a command not ordinarily experienced. Beyond the orbit of the ordinary.  Existing in a circular orbit all its own, including the normal and extending beyond it; a richer, more full experience, seen from a greater height, a candle moved closer to the source of the artwork.

     When Hana's candle ignites, there is the flash; everything from that instant exists either before it or after it.  The moment of experience illuminating the dark innocence. Your command is that flash of light: to document, to create a more perfect record, impeccable and eternal, of the new discipline.  "You and I are reading a book," You said to me, "about a woman who asks three things of her husband." And You asked if I had a third wish in my heart, beyond Your mastery and Your partnership.  "Can I fetch you the moon?" You asked me. And my reply:  "To stretch me into something more.  To make me more than I am."  The flash of a candle light changes everything:  there is the before times, and there is the now, the future of us.  You made sense of me and of my ineffable needs; and You directed this chaotic energy into a focused light piercing one long direction through time.  You and I talk sometimes in the language of the divine; invoking a pantheon, different iterations of emotion and accomplishment and need and urge and power and limitation.  One of many languages of love, part of our toolkit in explicating meaningful moments of our experience -- as though each moment were adamantine, a statue carved with precision out of otherwise-impenetrable rock.  And today I see us as the avatars of the gods whose destination is unknowable -- a beautiful, magical mystery -- but the journey (and I hope it is a long one)  will be filled with punctuating moments and observations, the gods who wait to delight in us smiling upon us with permission and encouragement.

     Hana's candle ignites and the flash puts me squarely into the future: we have art to discover and create through the medium of power exchange.