Eve dream. Chapter two. Halved – part one

Picture by Beth Hokhmah, found here

Eve dream first episode (Lilith part one)

Previous episode (Lilith part four)

2 Halved – part one

Everything came back to her memory with such vivid colour and such meticulous detail that the hypothesis of having been prey to a dream – or a terrifying nightmare – was not likely.

Nevertheless, it seemed paradoxical and impossible that it really happened as she remembered.

Did what she kept in such a richly detailed memory, therefore, really happen or was it carried out within the limits of a delirium, when heat and sleep and tiredness made her unconscious?

She analysed again what appeared to be the facts.

As much as she found herself alone now and how what happened appeared to be far-fetched and absurd, her Shadow had detached from her or, rather, had gone out of her. Coming from a remote and unknown recess of her deep self, for some incomprehensible and unknown reason, her Shadow had emerged into the light of day, had taken on its own shape and flesh and movements, rising to a life of its own, and had enjoyed her.

Eve now saw clearly that the dream had such real features that it really could not be merely relegated to the dream range; she ran her red tongue over her lips and she felt that they were still impregnated with the aroma of the fruit and that they retained – or seemed to retain – even traces of another aroma, the aroma of the other one.

She looked down at her chest and thought she saw some small yellow or black scales on it, but they quickly dissolved and dripped to the ground.

A phrase, still whispered by that voice which had however become low and hoarse, persistently overflowed in her mind, as though it wanted to trap her: “Why are you thinking about a nightmare? At night we do not have our own self, or, better: it is as if we did not own it. During the night, when we lose any control, we are not only one woman, but many women… during the night we are lost in our bright and inner splendour, which the light and the normality of the day reject. At night we are what we really are, free from any constriction and pleonastic components. The night we can really be what we are, which is not only light but also darkness. At night we can pretend to be and to dare everything. At night we have the true knowledge of good and evil, because we can look at them both, without trembling. The Shadow is part of you and there is nothing wrong with knowing it, admitting it, allowing it to be. To truly be yourself and not just a part of who you are meant to be, you need to welcome your dark side. You have to let her out, giving her your body. She must emerge from you so that you can truly express yourself and express your gifts, your beauty, your desire for love, your ability to give love.”

She was bewitched and at the same time terrified by that phrase, which seemed to be injected into her mind by others and certainly not by the Creator. She thought back to the Serpent, she saw him again. She almost seemed to touch him and she felt him cold, slimy, deadly. She shivered. She knew that in that sentence and in that presumed better awareness there was something out of tune, something wrong. Something perverse and hopelessly bad.

Finally, she recognized in those words the spell and the evil power of the Enemy and then her self-awareness became more strong-willed: she raised her arms to the blue sky, screaming desperately: No!

She had been duped.

She had certainly been duped.

Once again, the Enemy had imposed on sentient creatures, on herself, his own will and his own vision of the universe, weaving a plot of falsehood so captivating as to deceive, convince and pervert the Woman, dragging her into another life, into a second life, that is into a different and weird yet possible life; however, doing thus, he contradicted the reality or, better, he defined a new reality where he promised to the Woman emancipation from all obligations and laws. By designing, building and proposing an alternative reality made solely by right to pleasure, to powerful self-realization, to absolute freedom.

Yes: he promised the knowledge of good and evil.

The possibility to choose always and in any case, in spite of every possible link.

In spite of Love.

In spite of the truth.

She thought she heard that recommendation, that one recommendation with which the Creator placed the Woman and the Man in the garden, in the magnificent core of Eden: “Do not delude yourselves that you know Good and Evil according to yourselves, because otherwise your weakness it will lose you and you will become slaves of yourselves and your desires, losing your peace and hastening your death. In fact, you are not at the centre of the Uni-verse, whose everything points to Me and only to Me, the One who did it. Therefore, do not feed on the fruits of that tree, which also exists, because you would not be able to bear the consequences. That tree and its fruits are necessary to allow your freedom. But trust in Me, entrust Me, trust in My Love. In any case, whatever you do, I will respect your choice and your freedom, because I wanted you and I love you”.

.

 

(to be continued)

 

Eve dream. Chapter one. Lilith – part four

The beast, by Janus Fall

First episode (Lilith part one)

Previous episode (Lilith part three)

1 Lilith – part four

The Woman knelt on the shore and bent over the water, now again smooth and motionless after the start she had a few moments before, and she looked at herself as she used to do every morning.

She was beautiful.

She was really beautiful.

She was herself.

She was her, and who else?

Why was she checking herself?

She was still herself, the same woman, the same usual one.

No!

She gazed better and very carefully at herself. Her hair. Perhaps her hair was less smoothed than usual, wavy, a little curly, with more volume: was this an effect of the long stay in the water? And behold! In a sort of lightning flash she saw, for a very brief instant, two penetrating green eyes looking at her from her own sockets; her mouth twisted into an almost malignant smile.

Above Eve the sun was shining, but behind her reflection everything was black.

Her Shadow moved her arms, extending her hands towards Eve as if to grab her and drag Eve together with her into the darkness, or to cling to her and emerge from the darkness of her dark side. From her unconscious.

The Woman had a new, violent start.

Someone else was observing her from within her deepest soul and claimed life!

A true, own life.

The Shadow was inside her.

The Shadow wanted to definitively take possession of her body.

She wanted to replace her in the real world, in the physical world.

The Shadow was therefore hidden, encysted in her deep beings, but she showed herself.

She made herself known.

She took her body.

This new awareness shocked her. She felt strange and almost fainted. Though crouched, she swayed swinging on her knees and nearly fell unconscious into the pool.

 

(to be continued)

 

Eve dream. Chapter one. Lilith – part three

The beast, by Janus Fall

First episode (Lilith part one)

Previous episode (Lilith part two)

1 Lilith – part three

In the sky, a dense veil of clouds suddenly obliterated the sun and a very fine, warm, very pleasant drizzle fell on the garden. The butterflies stopped their multicoloured dance and sought shelter; even the birds hushed up and the cubs gave up their games.

Something dark, perhaps even gloomy yet not so far scary, at least apparently not evil, fell down to the garden and its inhabitants, suspending all their drives.

The Woman closed her eyes and surrendered to the Shadow.

After an indefinable lapse of time, exhausted and sated, Eve opened her eyes and drowned in the sweetness of her companion’s newfound smile. She was completely lost in the dark, dizzying, deep well of those green eyes, with nothing to hold on to.

Without any desire about resistance.

With a light thud, muffled by the soft blanket of grass, a magnificent and fragrant red apple, fell from a nearby tree, rolled up to the two intertwined figures. The Shadow picked it up with her left hand, lazily extending an ivory-painted arm, and brought it to the Eve’s mouth. They both bit it simultaneously, again, again and again, until their lips, impregnated with that sweet taste, found each other and joined together for a long time.

The day passed, the evening came and then the silent stillness of the night came. At dawn, Eve was still lying limply on the edge of the pond, exhausted, her eyes closed, her breathing calm and regular, her head thrown back, the nape resting on a soft flowery rush cushion; her left hand laid on her belly, still immersed in the water, while her right arm rested on the sedges of the shore, her hand with the palm facing up towards the sky, as if to request or wait something.

The weight of her legs was supported by that of the water, so that her toes and the top of her knees emerged in the air.

When the Woman woke up from the intoxication of that recently passed delirium and opened her eyes, it was no longer raining and the clouds had disappeared.
The sun was splendid, as always.
The sky was clear again, deep as a sapphire, but at the same time there was something distant in it.
The butterflies had returned to their light and graceful dances.
The birds had resumed their songs.
Hinds, foxes and wolves suckled their cubs.
The cuckoo insisted even more strongly on its cry.

At first Eve, although still pervaded and lulled by an indefinite pleasant sensation, did not remember anything, but almost immediately she shook herself violently and jumped to her feet, disturbing the stillness of the pool.

She wasn’t there.
She was gone.
Where was she?

The other had vanished, seemed to have vanished or, rather, the Shadow had returned to being only the shadow of the Woman, yet something was wrong and something did not balance. That did not make sense.

Then, after a while …
… Eve remembered everything.

Eve remembered everything now.

The snake.
The Shadow.
The Shadow of her.
She had been devoured by the Shadow made a snake.
She had been preyed upon.
She gave herself up to that being.
Her flesh was satisfied.

So, a new awareness came: the Shadow had returned to the intimate of the Woman and now it…she… that being was hidden deeply into Eve’s innermost and more secret self.

She was confused: nothing seemed to have really happened. It was only an absurd dream.

Yet …
… Yet, now, Eve seemed like someone else.

(to be continued)

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope – Eve Tempted by the Serpent (detail)

Eve dream. Chapter one. Lilith – part two

The beast, by Janus Fall

Previous episode (Lilith part one)

1 Lilith – part two

That day it happened that while Eve slowly plunged into the pool, she noticed a strange phenomenon, which she thought was due to the heat. The air above the pond flickered and refracted messily in the sun light, bending and altering any outlines of the images that seemed almost to be mixed. Her shadow was strange and seemed almost to move, or rather to wriggle on the ground without following slavishly and mechanically all the movements of her body.

Finally, the Shadow broke away from her, as if it had reached its true own life, completely ceasing to replicate the movements of Eve.

The Woman, now very intrigued by that very strange phenomenon, lay down on the soft clay bottom, plunging up to her navel in a pleasant coolness, her shoulders resting on the bank. The Shadow had now reached the diametrically opposite end of the pool, had stood upright, and was taking on a consistency of its own, as if it were physically concrete, as if something other than Eve was, so to speak, filling it from inside; at the same time, it was tinged with a fleshy colour, until it was covered with a pale but rosy, clear complexion. It was beautiful.

The face of that second Eve was very similar to that of the first one, with the same long, soft and flowing hair; however, the new face was not exactly the same, like a mirror reflexion: the eyes were green, not brown, set under very dark eyebrows and surrounded by black and long eyelashes. Eve had a very lively and naive gaze, but it was replaced by another, which showed independence and self-awareness, mixed with a note of malice and lasciviousness.

The Shadow’s chest was magnificent, more tense and swollen than hers, with straight, almost sharp ends.

Nothing, in the aspect of the Shadow now made person, indicated submission or docility.

Two black horns, knotted like those of an Ibex but gracefully twisted as if they were a complicated hairstyle, branched off her head just above her ears.

Inside the Woman’s mind a voice began to whisper “Lilith”, whatever that meant.

The Shadow sat right in front of Eve, on the dry side, on the opposite side of the pool. She was staring at Eve straight into her eyes with a piercing gaze and expressing something imperative. She was sitting on the bank, her hands resting on the ground, her legs immersed up to the middle of her calves in the water, under the round leaves of the water lilies. She seemed to moved her legs alternately back and forth, jaunty, as in the distracted game of a child. She seemed lost in thought, as if she really wasn’t looking at the Woman.

Then, the Shadow slipped with a dart into the pond; while her head resurfaced among the flowers, about a meter away from Eve, the latter saw for an instant a long sinuous tail swimming at the water’s edge: now the Shadow had no legs and just below the groin her body was that of a lithe and muscular snake; her back and flanks were coloured like those of a leopard-like beast, pale yellow with thick black spots, small and round. Her belly was creamy white and, except for the length, resembled that of a slender greyhound.

The Shadow was now smiling, with a strange light into her eyes, and she slowly approached close to the Woman, almost touching her.

The slight ripples produced by the sinuous movement of the Shadow on the surface of the pond had preceded her; they reached and caressed Eve’s body with determined impulses. When this happened, an irrepressible wave of desire never felt before filled the Woman deeply into herself, reverberating in her bowels; her skin quivered and her lips barely parted, quivering. She was almost hypnotized by the gaze of the other, now so close that she, Eve, could feel her breathing.

Something warm, below, started to move even closer to the Woman’s body and with an almost unbearable, maddening slowness, it clung to her legs, upsetting her, wrapping her, squeezing her and climbing her whole body up to her pelvis. While Eve’s mind was agitated, almost sensing that she was lost, her flesh was filled with ever more intense shivers, when finally her partner encircled her in a shocking but at the same time very sweet embrace. The Shadow voice spoke again: “Let yourself go, abandon yourself.”

Eve had not yet known the pleasure of her flesh. Her predominant feelings were fear of the unknown and desire to totally immerse herself in it.

As in a dream, in a dark corner of her mind the scene of a great python swallowing a defenceless prey: a prey that wanted to be taken.

Everything became silence, but not peace.

(to be continued)

John Collier – Lilith

Eve dream. Chapter one. Lilith – part one

The beast, by Janus Fall

Last year I wrote a novel, titled “Eden“. Some months ago Janus Fall, a friend, showed me her pictures expo, where she worked about some Jung’s ideas. She made me very curious and so, after having read something about Jung’s works and, above all, about his concept about Shadows, I wrote my “Eve dream” and inserted it into “Eden“. As you can easily see, the Joung’s shadow is related with my previous post about me as a demon.

Well, now, with the help of other friends (above all Shyla and Zaty Kodaly: I thank them so much) I’m trying to translate my Eve into English. This is the introduction and the incipit of the first chapter, titled Lilith.

A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps…living below his own level.

Jung, C.G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Introduction

Therefore, some of the First chose to inhabit Eden and some of them wanted to clothe themselves in flesh, to know the senses and to change along their time.
Thus, in particular, it happened that two of us went to live in the garden of Eden, a place of peace, delight and Beauty.
They were the first Men.
They were the Man and the Woman.
Man and Woman: the most ancient of the Seconds, the first of you, those who generated the lineage of Men.
The Man and the Woman, that later you knew as Adam and Eve. Clay and Life.

1 Lilith

On that day, when it happened, Eve was alone in the garden. The unbridled imagination of the Enemy, his skill, his capacity for evil, his perverse will generated for the second time an incredible and unequalled enormity of lies. On closer inspection, the lie was the same as the one that caused the rebellion against the Creator, but now it was addressed not to the Firsts, to the Angels, but to the Seconds.
Furthermore, this time, corruption was sown in the very roots of humanity before its becoming, so as to affect those primordial beings and their lineage — so as to be substantial and decisive from that day forward.

The warmth was dry and pleasant, as everything was in Eden. The Woman was alone, shortly after noon on a regular day, in a luxuriant garden, near a plumtree’s ripened fruit, small, purplish-blue, juicy, and very sweet. It was more or less noon on a perfect day, in an unbelievably beautiful garden: none had ever existed like it, and none would ever in later millennia, but really it was the only garden she knew.
In the perennial spring-summer time, each plant species constantly produced flowers and fruits. The intense and spicy scent of lilies overlapped with the sweet smell of ripe fruit of every variety. A mild warm breeze brought to her attention the note, pleasantly bitter and almost melancholy, of the silvery tufts of absinthe that vegetated, sated with light and heat, on a nearby more arid, sunny hill, fully exposed to the south.
Red Brown Peacocks, orange Silver-washed Fritillaries, Yellow Scarce Swallowtails and Swallowtail Birds, blue Adonis and many other butterflies filled the space with multicolour squiggles, often exhibiting splendid blue, red and black eyes on the hind wings; they were delicate and charming like beautiful dreams.
Tits, Sparrows, Leaf Warblers and other birds filled the space with chirps and whistles, while higher the larks trilled and further still Swallows, Swifts and House Martins, swarming and darting free and fast.
At the edge of the wood, the ticking of the funny and chubby Long-tailed Tit and of the minute Wrens joined the elegant warbling of the Nightingales, not yet relegated to the darkest hours.
A doe with her fawn grazed the grass in the clearing, while fox and wolf cubs playfully tangled under the sleepy and happy gazes of their mothers.

A distant Cuckoo brought a dark and dyscrasic note to the harmony of the picture, reiterating its song with particular vehemence, almost intoning a violent, imperative call, and foreshadowing an imminent usurpation.

The sky was clear and painted with an intense blue, in magnificent contrast to the bright green of the trees. The sunlight caressed her brown, tanned, silky skin of a beautiful uniform colour and without blemishes or imperfections. Her long black hair encircled her forehead and cheeks and then brushed her neck going down, smooth and magnificent, along her shoulders, to her straight back and, in front, up to her round and so proud chest, just in bloom. Her eyes were the dark, shy, naive ones of a young doe.
She was standing, satisfied with fruit, alone.
Alone.

Her hands were resting on her hips and her right foot was just ahead of the left one, her fingers were gracefully nestled in the soft cool of the short, green grass, dotted with minute red and ripe strawberries.
She was perfect. The garden was perfect. The day was perfect.
Everything was perfect.
While she contemplated that intact and so harmonious wonder, that wonder which filled every sense with itself, while she herself contemplated herself, touching and caressing her hips with her hands, gently, in a sort of pleased ecstasy, she slowly walked across a stretch of the garden, up to reach a pool of crystalline water, barely and mildly shaded by old willows with wrinkled trunks and pale, grey-green leaves.
A few steps from the bank, while she slowly walked over the soft peaty ground, with her eyes almost turned elsewhere, to a point far beyond the sky that almost kidnapped her mind, she felt a sudden movement near her feet. A movement of something dark. After recovering from her sweet dream, she saw the tail of a snake, probably a Water Snake, which fondled her ankles and preceded her towards the water. She went on, calm and untroubled: nothing bad could happen to her in the garden.
The pond was also splendid, filled with the yellow and white luxuriance of the water lilies. By the shores, the white fluffy flowers of the cotton grass shone in the sun and pleasantly tickled her calves as she approached the fresh, inviting spring pool. In the shallow water, many minnows darted, minute, tapered and elegant, with bright red bellies.

(to be continued)

Demons

Me. JB.

Some days ago a friend showed me her new work, about which I think I’ll must say something later, because in my opinion it’s her best art installation. However, I cannot agree with the specific meaning of her work, that she comes up positive, outlining a freedom as absence of ties, that is a freedom that does not exist. I am exactly sure of the opposite: love is relationship, link and tie with another and, above all, with Another. Withouth love any freedom cannot exist.
So, thinking of me, thinking about why this current world is so strange and inhumane and confused, remembering the Dostoevskji Demons, I wrote this stuff.

(…) There’s no road in sight, so help me;
What to do?… We’ve lost our way.
It’s the demon that has got us
And is leading us astray. (…)

from Aleksandr Puskin’s poem Demons

I see Demons in this my old world,
looking for Beauty and Good to destroy,
hunting faiths to corrupt into schemes
useful to justify wars and rapes

I see Demons in people I meet
on the roads, in the parks, where I go
to find peace or to work or to be
alone to free my mind toward skies

I see Demons into my odd mind.
My thoughts fly as black bats in the night
hidden, dark and they twist my weak soul
leading me where I don’t want to be

I’m a Demon when watch at myself
without memory of what really I’m:
need of each thing, unable to love,
bad and sinful. Oh God take me soon

October, 23th 2022

Using other words, other images and another language, here i shared samething really similar.

Black milk

Elizabeth Fraser; pic from here

Some days ago, I was chatting with my friends River and Eucie about that poem by Patrizia Cavalli posted on Nemesys’ blog. It is interesting to note, in our chatting, the connection between Patrizia Cavalli poetry and my previous post theme.

Judy: This morning in a blog I read a poem by Patrizia Cavalli

Eucie: Oh?

Judy: She talks about her feeling to be alone, yet not free… alone. That poem ends so:

“This is what the body is for:
you touch me or you don’t touch me,
you hug me or walk away.
The rest is for the insane.”

Eucie: Yes

River: A truth.

Judy: I commented it in that blog (sorry: it’s in Italian language), saying I know it is true and I know that situation so much.

River: I always find such clarity and solidarity. When I read the words of another in poetry or prose and I relate I feel validated and not alone in my struggle and that is substantial.

Judy: That’s why we read

River: Yes.

Eucie: It is!

Judy: Well… to read is similar to make love; it is as to touch another skin, another soul. That’s what I need: to see another one to be myself

Eucie: You know you are not alone or crazy

Judy: Yes. And I in that way know I am my need. To be human is to be needy and that’s much more evident for a woman.

Then, River shared that song by Massive Attack, Black milk. I did not know it and, to be honest, I do not like its music, but the lyric is beautiful and moving in its paradox (nevertheless, the title itself of the song is clearly a paradox):

You’re not my eater
(…) Eat me
(…) Love you for God

As to say: do not bother me, do not get me only because we are together. Do it because there’s Another, because there’s a sense out from us in doing it.

Black Milk
Liz Fraser

You’re not my eater
I’m not your food
Love you for God
Love you for the Mother

Eat me
In the space
Within my heart
Love you for God
Love you for the Mother

Mother fountain
Or live or not at all

The most level
Sunken chapel
Love you for God
Love you for the Mother

All’s there to love
Only love

Today we fight

 

 

(…) my brothers, I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.

A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.

An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day!

This day we fight!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth (…)

Aragorn’s speech at the Black Gate,
from the movie “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King“

 

Well: last evening I watched again this beautiful movie.

I’m sorry: I must say that these words are not by J.R.R.Tolkien and we cannot find them into his book, but we can read in them some interesting expressions: brother, friend, fellowship, dear, good. And fight, of course.

Anyway these words describe our actual situation.
Each day we must fight against any evil power: first of all against our evil attitude. By all that we hold dear on this good Earth.

For our Love and for each we love.

And Aragorn uses “we”, not only “I”. We, brothers. We, friends. Our fellowship. Because “I” is simply nothing. Because “I” is without love.

In the same movie, in a similar situation, before a hopeless battle, King Theoden says:

(…) Ride now, ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world’s ending!
Death! Death! Death!

It’s really desperate and, in my opinion, without any sense. I cannot fight for death and ruin. I can and I must fight for Love and Good and Beauty. But not “I”: “we”. Toghether.

OK, I must admit it: I’m thinking of the Church.

 

Osmanthus

 

That one. JB.

 

I enjoy
both the lake and the scent that osmanthus
spreads around in the old garden’s evening
I enjoy gentle reds near the sunset
or when sky burns entirely in autumn

I enjoy
you at night, lying awake
when I feel lips and hands and your hair
touching me, shivering me, when I long
for you satisfy that love I feel

I enjoy.
There is beauty and good too in this world
that hides them between ugliness, profit
freezing them with so cold egotism

May Your lordship, my God, wake up us

 

October, 6th 2022

 

Italian version

 

Do and cannot

 

Castiglioncello, Tuscany, JB. July 2022. It’s that Athel tamarisk broken and reborn

 

Tamarisk grows back again; I turn
often off useless days trying to making
Now fatigue melts away and now peace

 

takes more space from the torment of maybe,
always shadow of “I do” and “I can’t”.

Nothing is enough when there’s no substance

 

July, 5th 2022

 

Italian version