Earth

The “Sechelt Image,” height 20”, photo: Hilary Stewart. Wilson Duff comments, “His head is powerfully masculine, and he clasps a huge phallus. . . . Below the phallus is a vulva. The phallus has arms, which clasp the man. His ambiguity is absolute: ‘male strength’ is also ‘mother and child’.” ^[i]

We are earth. Earth is the lover. Earth is the body of us. 

            Earth germinates seed and nourishes the roots of plants. It receives all and gives even more bounteously, taking nothing but our mortal bodies for itself. Inside the darkness of the earth lies all that is dead and gone, and all that will become.

            Earth is the image of the whole planet, Gaia, the complex entity that is our world. Origin, original goddess, nurturing womb and home: earth is the woman we love, when we are lesbians. The man-spirit of earth is also gay, mortal tree-god, androgynous son of the virgin mother.

            Earth is soil, dark mystery. Being gay, we can admit the darkest corners of our hearts. Earth is the complexity and energy of wildness. We are the wild ones. Wild is who we are and where we are at home.

            Earth is unconscious knowing: the energy of roots snaking through the dirt and mouth seeking clit to suck. Hand pushes into us; child pushes out; green shoots push through the soil in spring. Intuitive knowing, born in dreams and yearning, connects us magically with our lovers and our world. ▼