This was the thought I had just a few moments ago.
I don't know about you all, but I certainly felt like March snuck in on silent feet. I met my deadlines in February, but now come more deadlines! I'm not sure why I had a grand vision that all deadlines stopped after February...
I've begun the long and hard task of truly working on my queer mythology project. Like, I am working on it from now until completion. This has led to me spending any spare time I have between classes, work, improv rehearsals, and homework studying anything I can get my little hands on about the queer Gods of South America. And, regrettably, there are not that many sources about queer deities like Chin, the God who showed members of the Mayan upper-class that homosexual sex acts are fun and trendy. It turns out that Spanish Missionaries didn't feel "those types of Gods" were worthy of being remembered.
As a result, one of the only reliable pieces of evidence left that Chin even existed is an image of two men engaging in sex on a cave wall in Naj Tunich. On top of this, Chin is regularly referred to as a "demon," but I believe Spanish Missionaries started this trend in an attempt to literally demonize homosexuality. Some other sources I have found refer to Chin as a goddess, and patron of the moon, so I doubt Chin was a demon from the start. If anything, Chin was just another hedonistic figure unbound by the laws of gender.
This "dead end" led me to choose another South American story that isn't Chin's to include in my project. Regardless, I was still very intrigued by the information I was able to dig up, and pulled together a short passage for a writing prompt. Maybe one day it'll be something more. Maybe, one day, we'll be able to remember Chin, again.
Before light, there was darkness.
Isn’t that what you all think?
In reality there has always been light, just as there has always been darkness. The two are one and the same. It’s just a matter of when we took the time to give them to you.
And, just to clarify, there has never been nothing. Nothing is not a concept. Even you were never nothing. You were apes, once. And before that you were bacteria. And before that you were carbon and oxygen, and even before that you were matter.
You have always existed.
I have always existed.
Yet now, the only pieces of me left are sketched onto the wall of a cave and written onto weeping parchment. My name still circulates, just as I do in the reflection of the moon on the river. Yet, I am little more than a name now.
In the beginning, in that “darkness” you so often refer to, there was me.
The others were there too, but we were less connected then, less aware of each other. I had the moon, and the others had their own tasks. In many ways, we were the same.
And it was in this sameness that I found…something. It manifested as passion, it manifested as sweat and touch and pleasure, but it was always something more than that.
I think your kind know that too, that it has always been more than the physical action. The “carnality,” as you like to call it.
It was in this sameness I found interest. Curiosity. Purpose and, yes, pleasure.
I spread it amongst the others first.
“Look,” I said, “Look what I have found. It is for no purpose besides your own, besides control.”
Some of them thought it was pleasant. Some were displeased.
Ixchel was very displeased.
So displeased, that I was forbidden from telling you.
“If such an action has no purpose, they are not to know.”
I nodded. Acted naive.
But then I came for you, beneath the light of the moon, and told you of my ways.
I started with a Prince. He was beautiful, with dark skin and plush lips, and I showed him how. I breathed against his neck, felt his ribs move under my touch, and in the moonlight heard his soul speak.
Good, it said, I feel good.
I went next to a girl outside of the temple, perhaps a priestess, and I whispered in her ear. She led me to the altar, let me lay her upon it, and feasted on her like I would any sacrifice. Her long, black hair spread on the limestone reminded me of a spiderweb. I heard her soul speak, too.
Good, it whispered, so good.
© Lesley Porterfield, 2023
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