House of hearts, p.21
House of Hearts, page 21
They went forth hand-in-hand to irrigate dry land, to plant wheat and corn, to weave fine linen and make barley beer and date wine. They were not wasteful. They burned the wick all night and wasted no light. Draped in white linen and gauze she knelt before him and offered him her breasts; she straddled him and offered his staff to the cleft between her thighs.
When you create, you sacrifice a little of yourself, a little of your seed, a small blue egg. When two bodies struggle against each other in the war of love, a child may be conceived. Children are gods and goddesses, slick with blood as they arrive in this world. When you paint a story on the temple wall you lose a little blood. But when you are done, you will walk the flower path dripping with hyacinth, fragrant with calamus, unfurling the blue lotus in the silver pool; you will walk forth into the flower fields of peace.
You were born to make beauty in the slaughterhouse of the world. You were born to toil. You were born to love. Offer yourself up to the light of the golden eye of the sun, to the silver mouth of the moon, to the gods and goddesses of love. The god and goddess reside within, but do not forget them in others. Gather your passions like precious gems, polish and refine them and give them to the world. Loss is inevitable, but do not fear it. It is the corpse without its stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver. But these organs wait in canopic jars to be reclaimed in the afterlife. Only the heart remains. It is the hope that allows light and love to flood and enter the void. Live with hope, with imagination and purpose.
When someone dies, it is said the dead are still with you. It is never enough. But it is true, too. And Aurora knew then that Cyrus, imperfect as he had been, was still all around her. They had come from the same womb, and later they had shared the womb-home they had made together. A part of him was in the dog that had run to her. In the music. In the betrayal of Nephy’s child. In Aurora and Ever’s child. In the sky now, full of clouds, with one smear of rainbow light—yellow, green, blue, purple, violet—a fire rainbow, just above her head.
She had not been able to attend Cyrus’s funeral, but she would honor him here and now.
I have been imperfect, Aurora thought. I have been lustful and full of fear. I have been ignorant. I have neglected the earth, I have neglected my beloved, and I have neglected myself. I have forgotten to kiss the dough and honey from my loved one’s fingers, kiss his lips and hair in the blue dawn. I have listened to death singing in the courtyard and longed to go to him, lusted for him like a lover.
I played the role of Isis, betrayed by my brothers. Betrayed by my sister. Gathering up the parts of my beloved and calling him back to me. But I am not Isis. I am far less sacred than the missing-and-the-dead found along the roadsides and in the mine shafts. The raped, the murdered, the mutilated and dismembered. The unclaimed Johns, the Janes, the Baby Does. I am less sacred, but like them, like everyone, I embody the sacred in me, too.
See me, I am imperfect, but trying, as we all must try, to bring light to the darkness, bring back water to the desert, carry the lotus of love in our hands.
I am Aurora now.
And everything lost someday returns.
The distant speck on the beach had become a man. His shoulders swaying, arms loose at his sides, legs long, head down. He wore a hoodie and aviator sunglasses that hid his eyes. The dog ran toward him, rose up light as air, and put his paws on the broad shoulders of the man in black—a kind of dance. Had she seen it right?—Dog walked like a horned god on his hind legs beside the man.
Nephy and Cyrus’s child murmured. Aurora cooed his name and put her hands around the other child strapped to her chest, holding him against her like a small blue egg from which a deity is born. Then she took a breath and looked back into nacreous light at the man on the beach.
He lifted his head to greet her.
Author’s Note: Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Normandi Ellis, Isis and Osiris: Exploring the Goddess Myth by Jonathan Cott, and Egyptian Magic by E. A. Wallis Budge, as well as the photography of Theresa Havens, provided inspiration for this book.
Acknowledgments
My deepest thanks to my wonderful friend and agent Christopher Schelling for sticking by me through everything, and to Tyson Cornell for publishing this book. Also, thanks to my professors Stephen Graham Jones, Joshua Malkin, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and Tod Goldberg, and to my cohort, especially Greg Tower, Billy Minshall, Stephanie Kotin, Felicity Landa, and Anjali Becker. Thanks for input and support: Laurel Ollstein, Reina Escobar, Mary Pauline Lowry, Denise Hamilton, Lauren Strasnick, Tracey Porter, Molly Bendall, Hillary Carlip, Sukha Gildart, Sera Gamble, Laura Lee Bahr, Jennifer Becherer, Lisa Locasio Nighthawk, Hope Rieser Farley, Vince Gerardis, Marjo Maisterra, Lexi Rosen, Liz Dubelman, Richard Nash, Lydia Wills, Howard Paar, Leza Cantoral and Lorinda Toledo. I am grateful to Hailie Johnson, Alexandra Watts, Kellie Kreiss, everyone at Rare Bird, my publicist Bruce Mason, and to Scout LaRue Willis for the vinyl recording.
My love, as always, to Jasmine, Sam, Chris, and Gregg.
Francesca Lia Block, House of Hearts
