Rose of Venus

     I opened my eyes to an impossible image. A goddess was painting on volcanic sand the red emblem a sacred mandala. The sky was an impenetrable haze of sulfuric potion that vibrated her aura through the atmosphere. What she was tracing was unmistakable; the well-known path of her orbit as observed from earth. A five-petal rose over an eight-year cycle. The Rose of Venus.

      You were singing on a crescent beach with the moonlight combing your hair in wavy rivulets echoing the breakers. Dress silver like the sheen of milky cream dotting the night's cupola. Your patience endures like the pebbles intercepting waves strewn about your gliding feet. My soul, my resurrection, came the words, my dear creator, won't you love yourself as I love you?
    You are the Queen of Beauty in royal ardor, a Fairy of Magic in mosaic halls, a Mother of Abundance where emptiness thrived, a Scholar of Divine Intuition who climbed the highest mountain. D.S.K.B. The perfect woman in every form. 

    If we cannot imagine what is void, if nothing can be created or destroyed, then is reality eternal? If it is, you can find me in the farthest reaches, so near and yet so far.

    Envy, envy, it was all envy. I was a four the whole time. What I wanted from you was what I wanted in me. I wanted them to envy me, the way I envied you. My whole life I have overextended my reach. All is envy, shameless envy, where envy inspires actions of shame, a lesson drilled into my unconscious. My mother bought a house in Mexico to shame me, to keep those strong dysfunctional ties forever bound. This time I will not hate myself.

    A philosopher once said feelings are the product of uncertainty. That consciousness arises from the uncertainty fueling feelings. But it is not true. Love is truth, and truth is beauty. There is no greater feeling than being absolutely certain.

    You were there among the cannonball trees stroking your hair, inviting me to come. Ataraxia in the serenity of eternity. There I rested with you, laying my head in your lap. You massaged my head while I looked up at the palm fronds, bouncing in the breeze under a calm summer sky. 

    Your hands are like supple apple skin, your eyes an azure nebula, your hair a sunken halo. There is no point in possessing you, only in letting you love me. Only you are pure, Madonna of my dreams. Only by dreaming you can you become real. Only by praying with you can our love be strong.

    Transcending desire is not always about letting go of the material things you want. Desire and greed take many forms. It's also about control, in letting others be who they want.

    I float into your soul whenever I feel the emptiness, the suffocating shroud of an infant unloved. I imagine you seeing what I see and hearing what I hear; all my sensations are shared with you. I dream about you having a dream about me. That is the only way anyone will understand me. 
    The lack is strong in me, building an illusion of envy, and the illusion of not loving myself. Only your understanding love can refill me. There's a leak that can only be fixed by love.

    Be as steady and resilient as water. Though the flow can be blocked by a stronger object, water yields to its fate by going around it. It can never be destroyed, only altered in state. In the long run, it washes and erodes anything in its path. Water conquers everything without even fighting. 

    All judgments disturb the mind, some more than others. Be as steady and indifferent as the rock being thrashed by water. Except when you have children; then you let the water roll you away.

    She moves through the sky in open-hearted splendor, drawing each of her five petals. It takes eight years for her to return to the position she started in. As we watch her, she weaves a sacred symmetrical geometry straight from the mathematical pantheon. I'm convinced that she is the one who sent you to me. There's a spirit there that draws you to me, deep in the timeless folds of beauty. 
    They say that beauty is empty, but the flower she draws is as harmonic, happy, and full of life as you are. There can be no emptiness in these qualities. That is why you are preserved on my soul's texture. You are the fabric that makes me beautiful.
    I invoke you into my dreams, to explore the designs unknown. I want to see you not as the recurring shy young girl, but as the fully mature seraph offering me protection. My grief can only be consumed by this detachment from the reality I wanted. This will be a new reality for a new soul, completely reborn from the charred remains of unlearning, a phoenix rising from the ashes of uncertainty. At the zenith we will meet, in truth, love, beauty and unity.