Kissing the Moon
Audre Lorde has taught me that we don't need to be afraid of our own power. And the other thing that she taught me is that we don't need to be afraid of our lovE.
Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins
Forehead kisses are planted on those who are comfortable with this act, on those who have given me more than words can express, or on those whose sorrows call for a stamp of sacredness.
Those who may have unintentionally stung my heart and I wish to either forgive them or let go, may, too, be given a tender kiss on the face. Then there are those I only dream of kissing with a fiery passion, those who have somehow made their way into the deeper aspects of my cosmic soul, but due to our lives, boundaries, circumstances, or priorities, a forehead kiss will have to suffice.
(I can only hope the kisses are planted in such a way where the receiver never knows the difference.)
In my younger years, I thought sensual kisses were exclusively for foreplay, for eager lips and tongues getting to know each other, or for seals of commitment. One of my first kisses was with a boy I dated for three long teen days. The night after the one and only time my lips touched his, a powerful energy surged through me for many hours.
I knew then that there's something very spiritual in a kiss.
How could anyone take something this sacred and diminish it simply for romance and fantasy?
I've kissed those I hold dearly on the forehead or cheek, and some of those kisses were more intimate than kisses shared with assigned lovers. Often, the blessing of the friendly kiss has left me feeling fulfilled and deeply connected and I've hoped the experience was similar for the receiver. The battle has been in learning not to fear the power of platonic love, even when the complexity of that love is deeper and more complicated than what appears on the surface, for what is relating if it exists apart from complexity.
Even the wind and trees love with a complex love.
I've felt it from the wind stinging my cheeks during a walk I took to soothe myself following a crying jag,
or from the tree that peers in through the kitchen window, witnessing my doings of morning chores, day after day, year after year...
(Trees love with a matriarchal wisdom: they fall in love with what is rather than with their projections of what should be.)
You owe it to the earth to kiss and love just a little more freely today. To sing along with Frank Ocean and kneel down to the dry land / kiss the Earth that birthed you.
And when distance or circumstance doesn’t allow a kiss to be delivered straight to source, you can kiss your own skin and blow love into the wind.
You owe it to the misfits, to the brokenhearted, and to the suffering. You owe it to the trees that spend their time nourishing; yet, their only request of you is to breathe and be gentle.
You owe it to the desirous, aching earth and luscious moon.
You owe them
the power of your love,
the power of your kiss.
You owe it to yourself.
