[a website for the Editor and Narrator of the Circo del Herrero series]
But there is no rush in reading, nor in walking. In fact, it is better not to rush. When my body finally settled and my mind quieted, I felt attuned to the lowest of frequencies, from within and without. I burrowed deeper into the reading, into myself, and for a moment, I felt like a loch, “withdrawn and tranquil.”
[Via]
‘Of all the goddesses of Olympos only Aphrodite did no work. She was good for one thing and for one thing only: love. And for that she was very, very good. Hers was the magic girdle [Cestus] that could inspire uncontrollable passion in the most solid and respectable. Zeus was ever at its mercy. It could provoke, some claim, lustful fantasies in even the mutilated Ouranos himself. There was no need for the girdle, however, when she wished to be the object of passion herself. No goddess was more enchantingly lovely, more perfectly made.
Her marriage to the smith-god Hephaistos took place in heaven but grave doubts soon arose as to whether it was made there; for before long she made war-loving Ares her lover. Afternoons when Hephaistos labored over his forge, Aphrodite would furtively unlatch their doors to Hephaistos’s palatial bedroom and the wondrously wrought four-poster he had fashioned with his own hands. There they would sport themselves in sensual diversions unknown to husband, reserved for lover alone.
The afternoon trysts did not, however, go unobserved. Helios, God of the Sun, looked down from high above Mount Olympos at the shameless comings and goings; and when unable to contain his indignation for Hephaistos’s sake any longer, he went to the Smith God and revealed all.
Angry, spirits crushed, Hephaistos shuffled back to his smithy and set his great anvil on the anvil block. Nor did he leave the anvil until he had hammered chains unbreakable and finely wrought and had joined the chains together into a most subtle mesh. Still bristling with anger, he went to his own bedroom and spread the mesh over the posts of his magnificent bed just under the canopy. It hung there, like a thinly spun spider’s web, invisible to the naked eye.
Then to shapely Aphrodite he went. “I must betake myself to Lemnos, of all islands to me most precious,” he told her. “Can you manage a few days without me?”
Sweetly she bid him good-bye, and off he hobbled as if to his beloved island.
…Throwing wide the bedroom doors, the simple Smith God roared in his anger. Neither Ares nor Aphrodite could move from the bed; prisoners they were in a showcase cell. Hephaistos went to the balcony and, in loud voice both pained and triumphant, called out to Zeus and the other gods to witness his wife’s disgrace.
…Out of modesty the goddesses all declined the lame god’s invitation, but earth-shaking Poseidon came with quickened pace and so also did Hermes, bringer of luck., and the glorious Apollo. As the stood in the doorway, the two younger gods broke forth with inextinguishable laughter. “I thought Ares was the fastest god on Olympos,” said Hermes. “He must not be. A cripple caught up with him.”
“Oh, to be in bed with her! Who would worry about the chains,” the Far-shooter remarked, pressing his face against the transparent mesh to get a better look.
…All this time Poseidon, whose eyes had not left the shapely Aphrodite since the moment he entered the room, bore a serious aspect. He did not mask his irritation over the lightheartedness of the other gods. “This is truly outrageous,” he said to Hephaistos. “Let him go. He’ll pay you for this. I’ll see to it myself.”
“No,” said the Smith God. “Form a villain I expect only more villainy. If I free him, what surety do I have? He’ll leave his debts behind with his chains.”
“If he does that, I’ll take his place,” promised Poseidon, his eyes still fixed on the lovely goddess.
Hephaistos pondered the proposition while Apollo and Hermes doubled up with new laughter. At length, however, the lame smith relented and loosed the mesh from his violated marriage bed and its prisoners. Off fled Ares immediately to Thrace, one of the few places he was welcome.
Laughter-loving Aphrodite betook herself to Cypros, her favorite island, where the Graces bathed her in her virginity-restoring bath and rubbed oil of ambrosia into her unflawed skin. When she returned to her husband, she radiated the innocence and sweetness of an untouched bride. Zeus did not return the dowry, nor did war-loving Ares or the earthshaker Poseidon come up with so much as a bronze ring in compensation for Hephaistos’s humiliation. Aphrodite simply charmed her way back again into her husband’s good graces, no great feat for her; and then, when all was returned to normal, again she played him false and again and again and again.’ –Great Zeus and All His Children by Donald Richardson
“In the study of lesbian history, the desire for proof is generally one the researcher doesn’t expect or even want to have satisfied. Queer research can feel like a secret club, where evidence is stored only within the blood that rushes from our bellies to our cheeks and is exchanged via intuition and rumor. When Shapland finds her proof, several years into researching McCullers, she’s overwhelmed by the verification of that which she’d known all along. Her girlfriend doesn’t share in her sense of shock. “‘Isn’t this what you were looking for?’” she asks. “‘Well,’” responds Shapland, “‘I didn’t think I’d actually find it.’”
…Which is to say, proof might be relevant, but it’s not the point. Often, the act of writing a biography is one on hand an attempt to uncover some previously unseen truth about a person, and on the other an effort to establish narrative or analytical meaning to the messiness of life. For Shapland, it’s more about finding a way to accept the mess in all its absences and utterances and to be honest with herself and her readers about what it is she wants from the archive. Ultimately, Shapland’s book aims to behold a woman she’ll never meet and to love her without laying claim.
…
The act of piecing ourselves together through each other shows up again and again in lesbian literature. Sure, it can fringe on enmeshment when done possessively and without regard for one’s own motivations, and that’s a stereotype that makes for a handful of easy punchlines. But all jokes aside (cue joke about humorless lesbians), what so often gets overlooked is the great possibility in considering self-creation as a collaborative work of love in which we carry the bodies of others within our own….The woman that the narrator loves is dead, but not. The narrator is the woman that she loves, but not. When we continually re-make ourselves and each other through intimacy, we’re never done becoming.”
[Via]