Three years ago…
‘The sensation of stroking the landscape with the caress of a lover sent waves of delicious energy through my body. It was dusk. I was driving along undulating weaving roads over the curves and into the folds of the Dorset countryside. The tyres of the car were waking the landscape up and she was purring her enjoyment. The air was charged with electric tension. Each cats eye along the road intense and personal. The curvaceousness of the land hypnotic and deeply sensual. I found my heart speeding up as I felt I was also being stroked and woken up.
It was just hours on from a three day trip to Italy where I had spent a mesmerising afternoon communing with the tawny hills of Tuscany. One beautifully rounded hill topped with a dark green grove of trees surrounding an ancient monastery captured my attention. I imagined the land being formed by sound; a message, an emotion, encoded in music creating form out of the formless. And the land vibrating like a tuning fork, attracting resonant hearts. Some landscape harmonious and some landscape discordant.
There is a particular erotic harmony in the Dorset landscape. And when I travel across it at a certain speed, with a particular resonance in my heart and body, a new harmonic is created – a sort of sexual chemistry, making every cell in my body arouse and celebrate the extraordinary universe we are woven within. There was no need for a climax to this experience; it was more a growing momentum of sensation, a waking up in to this world, a deeper understanding and intimacy with nature around and within me. Once sensed, this union with the world around me, this intermingling of energy between land and air and me, and all the creations of nature in between, creates one glorious syncopation, and I smile knowingly at the land as a lover to herself.’
That was the blog I shared but I failed to mention the experience I had later that night, on staying at a friends house.
I was in a single bed in a small room tucked in the roof under the eaves. After all the travelling, and the luscious relaxation I felt in my limbs I drifted off to sleep effortlessly. When all of a sudden I was woken up with arms wrapped tightly around me, a powerful leg thrust between mine and a deep penetrating kiss which seemed to last forever. I was being ravished slowly, passionately, intoxicatingly. So why would I share this with you? Because I went to bed alone.
I tried to open my eyes. I wanted to see who this lover was, who was making me feel things I hadn’t felt for a long time. I wasn’t scared. I was unable to say no, but I had no desire to anyway. But I couldn’t imagine who this deeply masculine, totally solid, hot blooded man could possibly be. There was no one else staying in the house. My friends were sleeping in a cabin at the top of the garden. I tried to move. I couldn’t do that either.
One moment I was in a deep embrace. The next moment my eyes flew open to reveal my lover. And nothing. No one. Not a sausage – of any description! I was completely aware of where I was so it was nothing like a dream state. And yet ….?
Some people would say this was a version of sleep paralysis. But you know I never choose the orthodox answers. And it was a strange time to get sleep paralysis, after the erotic experience I’d had earlier with the landscape. I’ve had sleep paralysis before and it felt nothing like this. Others may believe it was an incubus – a male demon who has sex with sleeping women. But I’m sure I’d have been frightened if that was the case. This, although extremely strange and disconcerting, felt more like someone who had waited a very long time to be with me.
So what do I believe this was?
I think it was connected to the resurrection of the feminine – in me certainly. But I don’t really know. What I do know is that ever since that night almost three years ago I’ve had a distinctly sensual relationship with landscape. Maybe that’s why I never feel alone.
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