LITERATURE
Feminine Divine and Divinity
A woman, translated through time and language
This piece is a special contribution to Marcus aka Gregory Maidman and the wonderful spirits and energies at ChannSpirations and Coincidences. My love to all, in this realm and beyond.
In the incredibly aromatic kingdom of Thailand, there are many beautiful men. Smooth skin, sultry and sensual. They walk among us. They are as captivating as they are high-maintenance. With their long pair of scissors legs, gait that could easily ensnare the unknowing, I walk proudly admiring the creation that they are.
When I am there, the land of my ancestral enchantment, as I brush among them, sometimes they to me, I touch them and say, You are beautiful, sister.
They smile. Lowering their heads they exclaim, “Ah, thank you! But I am a ladyboy.”
I know what she is. She knows that I know.
Here in Southeast Asia, for centuries, there has been a code of honor and respect for those who choose to live in what we call the “land of in-between.” There is a respectful language spoken among us as we walk on this shared earth.
However, roam as far and travel as wide, each of our beauty is acknowledged. Yet there is still a positioning of sisterhood. She tells me she is a ladyboy, not to state the obvious. She tells me she is a ladyboy because she knows which lane she belongs to.
We walk the earth as how the Universe has arranged it for us. Like the planets that orbit the sun, we know our distance from each other. Wander too close to the sun, and the curse of Icarus will befall you.
Icarus forgot his manners and turned arrogant. He thought he could be better than others. He urged so close to the sun against his father’s warnings. Higher and higher he flew, until his mighty wings that were made of wax melted, and Icarus fell to his death at crushing speed.
Icarus is a perfect allegory of pride, youth, and the dangers of going to extremes.
I love being a woman. It is an honor, a privilege and a responsibility. But my thoughts of being a woman may differ from those of the women beside and around me. We are different, yet we are the same.
We’ve inspired poetry, launched battleships, affected the strengths of even the mightiest of warriors, incited victory, and shaped civilization beside men. That too, is an honor.
Despite the challenges and changes of society and the gift of freedom and independence bestowed to modern women, it remains an uninterrupted honor for me to love, to soothe, to balm, and to heal a man as an equal and willing companion.
We are each other’s muse. As a full-blooded woman, I inspire him with art and poetry; he inspires me with courage and science. Together we are as irrational as we are logical. Ridiculous to a fault, passionate to the hilt. Such is life, as nature intended.
When I wrote ‘A Two-Minute Pleasure’, the idea came after watching several videos of trans activist Dylan Mulvaney (of the Bud Light campaign debate) describing “how it feels to be a woman.” It was when Mulvaney kept repeating about “speaking for women” that I thought, Hang on darling. Allow me to speak for myself as a woman. And Lord knows I’ve more years under my belt doing that.
But it’s a representation that’s been bothering me in recent times.
Yes, I believe that everyone deserves a place at the table, but let us speak too, for our own self.
I am an Asian woman. Born, bred and being. I carry the ancestral generations of my mother, my grandmothers, and all the women before them. I carry the feminine energy of my female ancestors from India, and Thailand and my father’s royal ancestry from Sumatra. I am a woman today represented by those incredible women and their respective gifts of feminine powers. I am their spirit. I am their daughter. Since I have no daughter of my own — and never will — this enriched bloodline will end with me.
I am the last. And that too, is a responsibility and acknowledgement I’ve declared. Even more so, I speak for myself and will not allow anyone else to represent me as a woman.
I will bring with me to my grave my regalia of knowledge, ornamentations of love, and my accoutrements of memories.
With all that in mind, I was floored when Matthew Clapham wrote ‘Lorca’s ‘La Monja Gitana’ Retranslated’ a free adaptation from ‘Gypsy Balladry’. A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece.
It is rare that a piece of eloquence by someone I’ve never met rises from the ghostly halls of Medium, and reveals itself like the conjuration of spirits. Necromancy!¹
It was no easy attempt to take a beauty cultivated in a different language, then massaged, kneaded and felt to rise in another. But if Matthew had not persevered and taken an old assignment to task, it would have been an opportunity lost. It is a gem to be polished by Matthew, discovered by me. And now I must share it with the world! I hope Matthew will forgive and permit me to share his words here in reduced form. For a full experience, you must visit his piece:
The Gypsy Nun
For José Moreno Villa
Silence of whitewash and myrtle.
Mallow in the meadows.
A nun embroiders wallflowers
On a backcloth of yellowed straw.
Seven prismatic starlings
Swoop through greying cobwebs.
The church growls in the distance,
A bear stretched on its back.
How beautifully, how artfully
She plies her crewel needle!
What joyous flowers she yearns
To sow in the yellowed straw.
Sunflowers! Magnolias!
Besequinned and beribboned!
Resplendent crocuses and moons
To drape the altar’s edge!
Alongside in the kitchen,
Five blood oranges sweeten.
The five deep wounds of martyred Christ
Cut deep in Almeria.
Two riders canter wildly
Across her novice pupils.
A final, stifled murmur
Billows out her blouse.
She gazes at the clouds and hills,
The parched and distant landscape,
And feels her sweet, verbena heart
Shiver into fragments.
The steeply sloping plains
Lie bright with twenty suns.
The rivers rear up, racing,
Before her dreamy eyes.
She turns back to her flowers though,
And in the breeze, light climbs up high,
Playing chess on the window bars.
Free translation by Matthew Clapham of the original poem La Monja Gitana, by Federico García Lorca.
Read it as you will. Translate at your best. Like the fibrous tissue uniting muscle and bone, these words thoughtfully translated, sinews my reading head and my lyrical heart. Thank you, Michael.
If I had written ‘A Two-Minute Pleasure’ for women to celebrate and rejoice ourselves, allow me to add one more as fruit for thought, shared from the voice of a man; translated through time, from one love language to another.
¹ Necromancy is communication with those who have passed away.