One night about ten years ago, while lying next to a lover and dear friend, I felt a shimmering in the air over my head, and as I looked at it, the shimmering condensed into a tangle of golden cords, as thick as fingers, arched above the two of us like a rainbow only moving and pulsating, as if a coil of strange, exotic snakes had found its way into our bedroom.
At first I was taken aback, almost frightened, but the cords were so radiant, so obviously benevolent that my fear dissolved. Listening I heard that they were making sounds, high and clear, producing a sweet strange music that filled me with energy.
When I looked down at my own body, I saw that half the cords were coming out of me, part from my chest more or less in the region of my heart and part from my abdomen around the area of my navel. Crossing the space between me and my lover, they had rooted in his heart and abdomen, attaching us together in a long, pulsating tangle. The other half of the cords was coming from my lover, rooting in me, grafting to my flesh, growing through my skin to my womb and stomach, until I could feel myself filled inside by hundreds of thin tendrils.
I saw all of this for a minute, maybe more, and then the cords disappeared, and our bed became merely a bed again in an ordinary room, in a perfectly ordinary town. The next morning I was sure I had only been dreaming-certainly the most reasonable explanation-but something had changed in me, something odd and slightly disturbing. Now, whenever we made love or were especially close, I felt new cords growing into my flesh; other times, when we were angry or separated,I felt an uncomfortable sensation as if someone were tugging at me. From time to time, I had a quick glimpse of the cords again, full of light when things were going well, dull and listless when there was tension and misunderstanding.
When my lover and I finally broke up for reasons beyond our control, I was in pain for a long time, unable to eat or sleep, full of nostalgia and regrets so intense that they verged on nausea. Everything reminded me of him: a red blouse I had worn on one particularly happy day we spent hiking, music we had listened to together, stir-fried vegetables with seaweed (one of his favourite dishes ),even the stars because we had once picked out the constellations together. The whole situation was both tragic and profoundly ridiculous. My friends shook their heads and offered calcium tablets and herb tea. I was advised to get on with my life, but from my point of view I had no life worth getting on with.
Then one evening crying over a plate of stir-fried vegetables in a Niagara of self-pity, I saw the cords again-or rather a set of cords and a set of scars. The scars were where my lover’s cords had entered my body; they were wounds, the size of pennies, half-healed but very painful. The remaining cords were mine. Suddenly I realized what was wrong: I was still attached to him, even though he was no longer attached to me. All my energy was running out of my body, and nothing was coming in. I was being dragged around as he moved into his new life, no longer considering me, the hundreds of miles between us stretching and pulling until they had very nearly pulled me apart.
I decided that whether these cords were imaginary or real, I had to cut them somehow simply to survive. After thinking the situation over, I decided that I would try fighting the vision with a vision; that is to say, I would try imagining a great pair of scissors slicing through every attachment I still had to my lover; I would pretend to see the cords snap, and then I would imagine them pulling back into me, rerooting myself in my own flesh and healing the scars.
Now that I knew that I had suffered not just a separation but a physical injury,I was more gentle with myself, more willing to give myself time to heal and recover, but day by day it seemed to work and I began to feel the relief of growing whole and self-contained.
The day finally came, of course, when all the cords were cut, but the experience taught me several things that I still do my best to remember. First, I became aware that sex is the major cause of cording-especially when sex comes in the form of a full-blown erotic attachment combined with love. Not all sex, of course, casts cords from one lover to another, but the potential is there and that knowledge makes me reluctant to be involved in casual relationships. I'm more humble now in a way, more aware that things may be happening on another level in some other dimension that I am only occasionally aware of. If the cords are real, who knows what unknown factors are produced by intimacy. Perhaps we dream each other's dreams at night; perhaps we have non-physical bodies; perhaps the electrical energies of our brains mingle; perhaps we are capable of tearing open each other's auras.
And perhaps, of course, all of the forgoing is nonsense. Perhaps my so-called vision is merely imagination heightened by sentimentality. I only know that cording is a useful way of explaining to myself both the pleasure of intimacy and the pain of separation. To tell the truth, I still see the cords occasionally, and the knowledge that I could become so physically entangled with another human being has made me very, very selective.
From "Golden Cords:Erotic Attachment and the Pain of Separation" by Mary Mackey in Deep Down: New Sensual Writing by Women. ed. Laura Chester.London: Faber and Faber.114-115.
At first I was taken aback, almost frightened, but the cords were so radiant, so obviously benevolent that my fear dissolved. Listening I heard that they were making sounds, high and clear, producing a sweet strange music that filled me with energy.
When I looked down at my own body, I saw that half the cords were coming out of me, part from my chest more or less in the region of my heart and part from my abdomen around the area of my navel. Crossing the space between me and my lover, they had rooted in his heart and abdomen, attaching us together in a long, pulsating tangle. The other half of the cords was coming from my lover, rooting in me, grafting to my flesh, growing through my skin to my womb and stomach, until I could feel myself filled inside by hundreds of thin tendrils.
I saw all of this for a minute, maybe more, and then the cords disappeared, and our bed became merely a bed again in an ordinary room, in a perfectly ordinary town. The next morning I was sure I had only been dreaming-certainly the most reasonable explanation-but something had changed in me, something odd and slightly disturbing. Now, whenever we made love or were especially close, I felt new cords growing into my flesh; other times, when we were angry or separated,I felt an uncomfortable sensation as if someone were tugging at me. From time to time, I had a quick glimpse of the cords again, full of light when things were going well, dull and listless when there was tension and misunderstanding.
When my lover and I finally broke up for reasons beyond our control, I was in pain for a long time, unable to eat or sleep, full of nostalgia and regrets so intense that they verged on nausea. Everything reminded me of him: a red blouse I had worn on one particularly happy day we spent hiking, music we had listened to together, stir-fried vegetables with seaweed (one of his favourite dishes ),even the stars because we had once picked out the constellations together. The whole situation was both tragic and profoundly ridiculous. My friends shook their heads and offered calcium tablets and herb tea. I was advised to get on with my life, but from my point of view I had no life worth getting on with.
Then one evening crying over a plate of stir-fried vegetables in a Niagara of self-pity, I saw the cords again-or rather a set of cords and a set of scars. The scars were where my lover’s cords had entered my body; they were wounds, the size of pennies, half-healed but very painful. The remaining cords were mine. Suddenly I realized what was wrong: I was still attached to him, even though he was no longer attached to me. All my energy was running out of my body, and nothing was coming in. I was being dragged around as he moved into his new life, no longer considering me, the hundreds of miles between us stretching and pulling until they had very nearly pulled me apart.
I decided that whether these cords were imaginary or real, I had to cut them somehow simply to survive. After thinking the situation over, I decided that I would try fighting the vision with a vision; that is to say, I would try imagining a great pair of scissors slicing through every attachment I still had to my lover; I would pretend to see the cords snap, and then I would imagine them pulling back into me, rerooting myself in my own flesh and healing the scars.
Now that I knew that I had suffered not just a separation but a physical injury,I was more gentle with myself, more willing to give myself time to heal and recover, but day by day it seemed to work and I began to feel the relief of growing whole and self-contained.
The day finally came, of course, when all the cords were cut, but the experience taught me several things that I still do my best to remember. First, I became aware that sex is the major cause of cording-especially when sex comes in the form of a full-blown erotic attachment combined with love. Not all sex, of course, casts cords from one lover to another, but the potential is there and that knowledge makes me reluctant to be involved in casual relationships. I'm more humble now in a way, more aware that things may be happening on another level in some other dimension that I am only occasionally aware of. If the cords are real, who knows what unknown factors are produced by intimacy. Perhaps we dream each other's dreams at night; perhaps we have non-physical bodies; perhaps the electrical energies of our brains mingle; perhaps we are capable of tearing open each other's auras.
And perhaps, of course, all of the forgoing is nonsense. Perhaps my so-called vision is merely imagination heightened by sentimentality. I only know that cording is a useful way of explaining to myself both the pleasure of intimacy and the pain of separation. To tell the truth, I still see the cords occasionally, and the knowledge that I could become so physically entangled with another human being has made me very, very selective.
From "Golden Cords:Erotic Attachment and the Pain of Separation" by Mary Mackey in Deep Down: New Sensual Writing by Women. ed. Laura Chester.London: Faber and Faber.114-115.
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