Meant for Someone Else

Do you believe?

The voice spoke, murmuring theology in the tones of trance, with cadences of sensuous eroticism; the voice spoke, talking about souls and connections and the flow of the universe, self and other, serpent and avian, union, transformation.

Do you believe?

I have never believed.

I just do. That which works, that which is, the flow and shape of things, the symbols that are used to frame it. This experience: what is it? I have no belief. I take it as it is.

The voice speaks, teasing, drawing out response; even in the heat of the day, it raises goosebumps. I can feel the knot of responsiveness, letting the shape of the visualisation flow in my mind, knowing my reactions, a thin thread of pining for company to share these effects with.

Do you believe?

Is it real?

The slick of sweat is real. The fluid tension knotted up beneath my belly is real. These are sensations, tangible, physical.

Another time, two voices, his and hers, calling to each other across the throng, over the chant, over the sound of drums and the singing bowl an armspan across, teasing, pleading, taunting, loving, as they circle.

Do you believe?

Is it real?

Is it all in your mind?

I have never believed. Belief is a foreign country to me, perhaps too much science, perhaps too much mysticism, perhaps simply the acceptance of the scope and span of the unknowable, the limitation acknowledged of the intrinsic subjectivity of my own senses.

Do you believe?

I feel sometimes, a little, around the edges, that I almost might be able to imagine what belief is.

Gnosis, I can do. Trust, I can do.

Belief?

No.

And yet, when the gods touched, the heavens opened.