And no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth…

It hurts to be here. It hurts to be from here. I want to go home to my new home, where the full moon is probably burning a hole in my roof, lighting up the jasmine blooms, working the giant death moths into orgy. Instead, I am here. Buried under a canopy of tall hemlock, under a thick mat of clouds, one nation under fear. Full moon in a very different sky: a culture that feels more alien every day as it marches towards nationalism, racism, fundamentalism, fear. This is how Rome fell. This is how Germany went blind. This is the implosion.

This moon. Waatebagaa-giizis, Mandaamini giizis, Moozo giizis, Wade Nuti, dulisdini, Ukiuqsraq, Poneʔna-wueepukw Neepaʔuk, Yey^thokwas, Tahch’aruwina Tehekuma, Hayë́:neah. People had names for her, that honored her, that made her the center of their lives. She is somewhere in this darkness. She turns me into a ware-wolf and him into a pumpkin. So I’m alone outside, burning the past, in the dark, listening to the friendly frogs and the ominous crack of breaking twigs in the forest, wishing I was even remotely tired so I could go crawl in-between his arm and his body and fall asleep like I have every night for almost two weeks.

Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.

Pablo Neruda.

“Be careful what you say,” she said. “Words are powerful. If you say you don’t want something, you’re implying you have it.” And then, poof, I did. If the universe had to send me an American, at least it picked him. Have you ever met an empath who doesn’t know they are, and felt them answer you with silent bolts of lightning, subtle waves, warmth like sunlight when it touches your skin, heard them tell you everything, when they tell you nothing? A download to the core of your mind.

It is not so much light that falls over the world extended by your body its suffocating snow, as brightness, pouring itself out of you, as if you were burning inside. Under your skin the moon is alive.

Pablo Neruda.

Like some timeless, ancient zen master hidden behind a 50’s football quarterback face. He climbs to the top of the earth simply because he loves it, and not because he’s running, or proving. His own energy out there is as clear as a song. One month, two months. He comes down to earth to make love, to dip his toe in the chaos, to let his mother know he’s ok. And then vanishes to climb another mountain. And I’m in awe. I can’t help but wonder if he is some ancient spirit come back in an age and time when this is his only option to connect with that spirituality… an inexplicable pull upward that divides him from everyone else. What would be for many the curse of Sisyphus, forever rolling a boulder up a hill, becomes his only freedom. And in the process, setting others free. He pulls them through the layers of heaven until they too can see.

These heights are sacred. We forget because we can stand on them, that they are full of spirits. Everest’s Tibetan name, Chomolungma, means “Goddess Mother of the World” or “Goddess of the Valley.” The Sanskrit name Sagarmatha means literally “Peak of Heaven.” The Sherpas, without whose help so many ascents of Himalayan mountains would be impossible, view the Himalayas as both the embodiment and the realm of gods. Some feel that disrespect for their sacred mountain has led to both bad karma and to restless spirits. In May 2004, Pemba Dorji Sherpa was climbing Everest, a trip during which he earned a disputed claim to the world’s fastest ascent, when he encountered what he described as black shapes near the summit. Pemba says that the shapes were the ghosts of climbers who died on the mountain, and that as the shapes approached him they held out their hands, begging for something to eat. Pemba and other Sherpas believe the ghosts will continue to haunt the mountain until a proper funeral rite can be performed for their souls. … British climber Frank Smythe, who attempted Everest several times in the 1930s, may have the most colorful story, however. He describes encountering two presences, the first being a benign one that seemed so real he offered it some of his mint cake. Later, he encountered strange hovering objects, one of which had “what looked like squat, underdeveloped wings, whilst the other had a beak-like protuberance like the spout of a teakettle. They distinctly pulsated … as though they possessed some horrible quality of life.”

The Greek gods lived on Mt Olympus. Moses went to Mt Sinai, Jabal Musa, to talk to god. Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world. The summit is considered sacred by the people of Sikkim and expeditions often stop a few feet short of the summit to honor this. Mount Kailash is sacred in four religions. In Hindu, it is believed to be the abode of Shiva. Meru is home to the god Brahma, who is believed to be the father of the human race and all the demigods produced afterward. Kilimanjaro’s three volcanos — Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira —are wrapped in the stories of angry gods and vengeful neighbors. Chaaga local tribesmen still believe that mountain dwarfs they call Wakonyingo live in caves beneath Kili’s slopes, preying on those who bring negative spirits to the mountain.

There simply is no end to the references. The mountains have always been gates to the divine. The ascetics of the ages have sought the thin air and ice for clarity, revelation, spiritual purification. Kaihōgyō — a Japanese term that might be translated “to go round the mountain” — is a ritual in the Buddhist tradition. It consists in the overcoming of obstacles encountered in walking for one thousand days on routes around Mount Hiei, home base for the Tendai branch of Buddhism. An unlikely pilgrimage, it’s believed to have been performed for the first time in the 10th-century by the monk Sōō Oshō. As an apprentice monk (a gyōja), he spent seven years making offerings and praying in the temples and sacred places of the mountain and following a careful and constant practice of calligraphy. During the trip, monks travel a distance equivalent to a walk around the Earth. In fact, since 1885 only 46 pilgrims have managed to finish the pilgrimage. By tradition, those who fail to complete it must take their own lives.

Almost out of the sky, half of the moon
anchors between two mountains.
Turning, wandering night, the digger of eyes.
Let’s see how many stars are smashed in the pool.

It makes a cross of mourning between my eyes, and runs away.
Forge of blue metals, nights of stilled combats,
my heart revolves like a crazy wheel.
Girl who have come from so far, been brought from so far,
sometimes your glance flashes out under the sky.
Rumbling, storm, cyclone of fury,
you cross above my heart without stopping.

Pablo Neruda

His solid positivity, the clarity of his purpose, the certainty of his calling gives me space to be someone I haven’t had the freedom to be. A plant can only flower, a tree can only fruit, when all of life is abundant enough, safe enough, authentic enough to support it completely. Real femininity is the soft glory of nature in her fullness. It is a privilege, an honor. Is it possible that he is the first man in my life stable and calm and strong enough to let me be feminine, from my father on, assuaging a lifetime of stressors and stressed out masculine figures, so I no longer have to be my own man? Ubuntu (Zulu): we are different people in relation to who we are with. ‘A person is a person through other people,’ or Unhu (Shona): Munhu munhu nekuda kwevanhu. Often translated as “I am because we are,” or “humanity towards others,” or in Xhosa, “umntu ngumntu ngabantu.”

And like nomads do, we’ll go our separate ways. Home is not a place. It’s a state of mind. Right now it’s a state of mind I find with my ear up against his ribcage, the rhythm of heartbeat and blood from two bodies, syncing. And I’ll be here again for the next full moon. I can feel it.

As if you were on fire from within.
The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

Pablo Neruda