It's a Sin

I've just watched the final episode of Russel T Davies' It's a Sin, a drama about the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's. I'm reduced to that place of our deepest humanity where we see the madness of our human condition: the struggles and anxieties, the joy and the sorrow on the canvas of our sacred nature. This is a special place for in it there is acceptance and forgiveness and we expand in a timeless peace. And yet it includes a tinge of the prospect of more pain. Pain which of course gives joy and love part of their meaning. There are tears and I wonder - what is being felt here? Accepting my homosexuality only in my mid twenties whilst compounding the shame and isolation society's homophobia had sewn into every fibre of my being, had protected me in the 1980's from HIV and AIDS. But it had also robbed me of the friendships and loves that the epidemic might have taken away from me and/or me from them... Life of course has thrown up other challenges and those struggles rise through layers of being to be felt in the space unfolding now. And there is a gentle holding of the shame, the fear and the confusion. Time is passing; I'm no longer in the timeless space. Sat at my desk I write this. A 5 Rhythms wave I assembled is playing; I'd been playing it earlier and knew the tracks would help with the writing. There is emotion, energy, joy and life in the music and the feelings produced are good - the dissolving of little lead jackets on each cell which in turn releases the knowledge of their forgotten existence producing both relief and pain fades and is replaced by a light playful gratitude for life and the need to dance. I move sympathetically to music, the emotion and the process of writing as Le Vent  Nous Portera by Noir Désir plays...

It is good to have combined this music, a 5 Rhythms wave, with the process of writing. I realise how valuable both practices (writing and dancing) are! The tracks flow on: Baby Elephant Walk by Henry Mancini, La Valse à Mille Temps by Jacques Brel, Waltz From Maskarade by Aram Khachaturian... and at this track I am back fully in the expressive vitality of life - the yearning and the swirling, the sheer joy of the madness - marvellous! I started putting these tracks together back in 2018 but couldn't fully get the whole wave finished to my satisfaction. The theme is mystery and the motif is a swirling motion but there is also a digeridoo track with a strong focused energy... I should finish this wave and play it with the dance collective. Oh how I miss dancing the Rhythms together with other people in a big space. The Covid pandemic has put a stop to all that just now. Across this planet we humans are faced with yet one more plague. And the thing about this one is that to control it we are forced to stay physically apart from each other. We cannot gather, hold each other even in sexless embrace, see and feel the light each of us radiates... In to My Arms by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds plays now. It's the last track of the wave... The lyrics are:

I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms
And I don't believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that's true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
To each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love
And guide you into my arms
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord
Into my…

This post is for all the ways of loving and all the losses our coming out of the garden facilitates and for the space in which see that garden.