“This Woman,

That Man,
And the Moon…”

My Body’s Story
by Tani Garden
2001
She remembers….

A time, sitting on the floor of a little tiny flat that belongs to the man who is her lover
right now.

She remembers….

Knees bent up against her chest with arms wrapped tightly ‘round them – ‘Don’t you
come too close to me..’ was her bodys’ wary voice.

She remembers….

The man sitting opposite her…on his knees with his arms by his side and his eyes in her
soul.

She remembers….

He spoke – ‘I want to be your lover.’

She remembers…

She spoke – ‘No. I don’t need a man.’

And he smiled ‘cos she knew that she was just scared and that what’s meant to be can’t
be stopped…can’t be blocked.

She remembers…

His hand softly touching her knee.

She remembers…

Getting up and leaving – ‘I don’t want a lover.’ And he just letting her go.
When I walk in the bush with no path or direction, just me and the earth as my guide, I
really remember where I’ve come from - my East European Past. I remember my
grandma, ‘Babicka’, we call her, born in what’s now called the Czeck Republic. I
remember walking with her in a small bit of bushland near a town down south called
Bailingup. I remember what she said to me…

‘A broom to sweep it up, it needs. The bush here’s messy, dirty…it needs neatening,
someone to clean it.’

I also remember where I’ve come from, my East European Past, when I’ve got the fire of
desire deep down inside my belly and my man is there but I can’t touch him - my hands
just will not work. I remember at my grandmas house when I was about ten years old…
her husband’s in the other room and she whispers into my ear…

‘Men..they bad. Sex..tch tch..’

and I remember her very separate sleeping arrangement.

One more thing that reminds me of where I am from is when I look in the mirror and
think that I’m fat, or I eat something ‘bad’ and feel guilty for it. I remember the pinch on
my cheek when I was 12…

‘you’re getting fat…tch, tch..’

and the constant update of how much she weighs and how she must keep on exercising to
lose extra kilos. She’s 75 now and still trying to lose it.

All these things remind me of where I am from . All these things give me something to do
in life.
Dear my man

I am in the process of healing hundreds and hundreds of years and many many
generations of supressed sexual feelings. I hope you don’t mind the funny way these
feelings get expressed. They need some tears and a bit of awkwardness and mixed up
stuff so that the realness can get through…eventually…from me to you…

Love this woman

I used to have this dream about getting fat. In it I would expand ….my body would just
keep on growing…huger and huger and huger until all the space in my dream space was
filled with rolls of fat.
I would wake up feeling so, so scared.
Visiting my grandma…I do it ‘cos I love her,’cos I want to ‘cos I care.
Wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want…there’s no point if hearts not there….

Thank god it is..my heart..beat, beat…go pump that blood around…mixed blood with bits
of grandmas blood…which means that when I visit her, I’m visiting part of me….

Her story, my story… tied together with some string…a piece of string that stretches
long,long,long ago into the past of pains and pleasures…
Her story, my story ….the
past of hopes and fears….
Her story, my story
….the past of wishes unfulfilled.
And here the string stops.

My story, different story…dreams come wide awake…no more crying, waiting. No more
constant frustrating..wanting, wishing,…no more cooking or washing…wishing,
swishing…..

‘water,water everywhere,’cos forgot the plug was in..sorry,sorry what a mess..I’ll clean it
up..no don’t get mad, I didn’t mean it, just got distracted…watching soapies on the
screen..beautiful women , mad in love, handsome strangers…long, long, long ago…my
dreams now stuck..pretty pictures on a screen…’

knock knock

come on grandma, open up, it’s only me…the screen doors locked, I can’t get in…

‘just hold on, I’ll get the key..it’s somewhere here in all this mess… god damn this water
everywhere…just haven’t had the chance to clean it up…something important on T.V’

splish splash

but grandma can’t you see? Water’s seeping through the door..there’s a puddle forming
round my feet…like I’m at the sea shore…

‘the shore?…yes I remember….that’s the place you go to play..lots of fun when I was
little..never go there anymore…’cos I’m stuck..I’m in a muddle..can’t find the key..it’s all
a mess..’

sob sob
Don’t worry grandma I can come in through the window…

And I go in side my grandmas house..thank god the windows open..and I find her and I
fix the tap she thought was broken….
… just turned it the other way
then pulled the plug out…..
and sat there with my grandma watching the water drain away.

Together watching, sitting close. Together huddled in her muddle…

It’s o.k grandma..can’t you see? The water’s nearly gone..and look I found the key for the
front door on the floor…you go get it and together we’ll find a place to keep
it….somewhere special, somewhere safe…a secret spot where no one knows but you and
me…

And I swear I’ll keep it silent..locked up tightly in my heart…

that beats..
pump,pump
..my blood that’s mixed with bits of hers….

We sit and weep together for a while…bits of water dropping down onto the ground…her
tears mixing up with mine….together on the floor…makes big mess but that’s O.K… the
mess is needed…. the mess is fine…..our hearts beat in this mess together….

beat,beat

… pumping blood… my blood inside my body…mixed blood with bits of grandmas

blood…her heart is pumping weaker…

pump,pump

mine getting stronger so can carry all her half lived hopes when her heart pumps no
more…
The other day I made a chocolate cake for all the women in the world who think that they
are fat but aren’t… me, of course included. In it were mixed all the ingredients these
women are most scared of….love, creativity, men, life, fun, spontenaeity, uncertainty,
beauty and lots and lots of chocolate!

Then I ate it.

Not the whole lot, of course…but a very large portion of it. And I ate it with confidence
and passion and delight, knowing that I wouldn’t get fat…..
only free.
All she wanted was to love someone.
But then when he came along she realised that she didn’t know how to do it.
She could feel the feelings deep inside her belly for this person, but when it came to
getting them out it was so hard…so unfamiliar.
She didn’t have the words. She didn’t have the movements….and most of the time she’d
end up a frustrated little mess.
All she wanted was to love him.
All she wanted was to show it.
And then one day it happened. Just like that .
She said she loved him and she felt it all throughout her being.
Just like that the words came out and she was so very happy.
She was sick of all the tension in her belly. It didn’t need to be there anymore…

She didn’t want to be like her grandmother…constant digestive problems, constant self-
made stress…a hard bulging belly – not fat, but protuding just enough to know that inside
there was lots of tension…

No

She needed to be her woman…with a flowing, soft delicious belly..taking all food in,
taking all her man in, and loving every single inch of who she was and how she felt.
Her belly would be so much different..flat and smooth and beautiful soft…

Yes

She would flow her own woman…..flowing with her man.

She didn’t want to touch him there.
She didn’t know it. She couldn’t feel it. It wasn’t the same as her body.

‘But it’s yours…I give it to you.’ he’d say…. over and over again.
But she didn’t care…she was so, so scared…her grandmothers story inside …

(‘Men, they are stupid…men they are bad.’ Poor woman, love left her so young …
broken heart’s all that’s left…so much anger…so much pain ..passed on to the women
below.)

So she lies there beside him…not touching, not licking, though hands, mouth and body
on fire…. she’ll wait…he’ll wait…they’ll both have to wait ‘til the fear that is there is no
more.

And then a day comes when she visits she her grandma, who pinches her cheek, calls her
fat and tells her to watch out for men …

And then from somewhere a voice comes up and whispers into her grandmothers ear…

‘Hey grandma..guess what…my man loves me beautifully and I love the feeling of his
body inside me….and do you know what else? Even if I was fat, which I’m not, my man
would still love me beautifully… ‘cos he loves me for more than the size of my body.’

And with that a spell is broken, a burden returned and a woman released from the past.

That night she seeks out her man, takes his pants off, licks, sucks and loves his penis in
honour of her grandmothers story. Then after, she bakes a great big chocolate cake to
celebrate the story’s end.
....and the beautiful thing was that he absolutely loved her belly…
She knew when she met him there was something she was going to lose….and something
she was going to gain… that’s life.
Something new comes in, something old goes out.
But she didn’t know it would hurt so much…waving goodbye to the old and welcoming
in the new..but it did.

Often she’d grieve for what was before, when she was a woman by herself. She’d cry for
her rhythm, her freedom, her flow…wail for the time and the space she once had.

But she knew that that was before and that this here is now and that it was her choice all
along.
 First there was the moon
Then there was the woman and the moon
Then there was the man and the woman and the moon….

*********

‘all you have to do is love my body when it’s time’

‘is that all?’ he asks, quite amused by her straight forwardness.

‘yep, that’s all.it’s really very simple.’

And she walks out the door, down the steps and away into the wind.

******

The next time he sees her is at her place. She is lying on the floor. He reaches out to touch
her tummy..she shys away…
‘no don’t…not now’
He wonders why…
then stops
and says goodbye.

********

That night she wakes. All on her own, but something else is there….heat, hot…surging
through her….it’s for him….he’s not there…only moonlight is…creeping in through her
window…she saves it all in her belly………
 ******

They meet the next day in the middle of town, not knowing eachothers footsteps.
She wears baggy clothes…her belly’s near bursting…he looks at her, but does not
touch….
Her time, not mine…he remembers…
And asks how she is instead.

I’m burning…I’m burning…your fire’s inside me…

Moons nearly full…we must meet…she thinks
But only says, ‘i’m fine’

Then they leave and wait for the next.

*****

At the ocean together…. they dive into the waves…water cools down her body..it’s
waiting…he’s waiting..moon’s full tonight..they go home to their houses and wait…

****

Sun goes down.

She wakes up.
Moon has risen
Body’s burning
Where is that man?
…..he is waiting…just waiting…

*******

She flies…fire fuelling her over the land to his home, up the stairs, through the door to
the floor where he’s sitting….

She says nothing…but looks…

Now the timing is his…she waits.

He says nothing ..but feels

From afar..doesn’t touch…
There’s no rush..she’s not flying away..
Not this time….
it is his..it is hers…
it’s the moons

*****
He takes her outside…there’s a balcony high
She stares up at the sky…moon shines over her face

And he loves her right there at that place in that time

And she loves him right back and that’s all.

The sexual act is the most sacred act of life

It is the binding of two bodies to make one….

A single entity
Dancing on its own
I and you becoming us
We are whole
Male and female
Not a part anymore
Fighting arguing frustrating away
Now together
Bound as one
By ties not seen
By any other
Secret, sacred ties
That only we know how to untangle
Together

That’s the act

The most sacred act of life.
Her body needed the earth, the bush, the sky, the stars..
She thrived on this
Without it she died and cried and stayed inside.
Her body also needed her man…
Moving, loving, touching man
Could she have both?
I don’t know if I can live with a man once again. I did it before and it killed me. I felt
trapped and uncertain. I spent so much time waiting and completely forgot who I was…I
am scared…
*************

Inside the three boxes were her three most precious parts..

her creativity

her woman

and

her earth

Each box she carried seperately, so carefully to the new house…

She was worried what was going to happen…she didn’t know the place…would she find
her space?… and what about the others living there?…would they care?

She didn’t know

This was just what was happening and she had to go along…

As she walked from old to new, she’d tell each box of her fears…

To her creative box she would say…

‘i’m scared you might not have enough space…
…I might lose my dedication…too much distraction…
the inspiration might die….’
To her woman box she’d say…
‘’i’m scared that you will have to become…
out of the box…into the world.
What if this man makes you real?’

To her earth box she’d say this

‘i’m scared that I’ll no longer love you,
use you, walk you, be you, feel you..
I’m afraid that all I’ve learnt will go..’

And she’d cry and cry and cry about this.

When she arrived at her new house..most of what she feared came true…as is often the
case….
Her creative juices ebbed
Her woman was made to become
And the earth she’d loved began to fade away…

For a while she felt quite lost..and yearned and cried for what was before…
And so she flew into the blueness…

She didn’t know it was the colour of the man.

She didn’t know it would embrace her…constantly caress her…

She didn’t know it was the blueness she’d been needing.

She’d thought it was the redness…

Colour of the woman

Strong and bold and powerful..

Completely on her own……

All Alone….
See, she had this Very Serious Problem.

Whenever she chose to be with a man, she lost her creative flow. She would fight for a
while, trying to keep it, but then she’d give up and let, instead, the madness of not
creating slowly consume her soul. Eventually she would go so insane that the man would
leave her or she would leave him to go find her flow once again.

She wished she knew why this would happen, so that it wouldn’t happen…but it just
happened and there seemed nothing she could do.

Until, one day, there came along a man who she chose not to ‘be with’, but to ‘just love.’

She remembers when she met him she didn’t know she would ‘just love’ him. In fact she
didn’t really know what it was all about. She just went up to his flat one day to get some
aloe vera plants, then he asked her to be his lover…and she freaked out for a while.

See, this girl had been on her own for nearly three years now and had just reached a state
of self-contained, blissful joy. She ate what she wanted, slept when she needed went out
when she felt like it, stayed in solitude at times. She drew pictures, wrote stories, walked
to places, watched sunsets, and rarely did any thing that didn’t ‘feel right.’ There was no
one to answer to, explain to, or talk to except for those she very carefully chose.

She was generally just very, very happy being by herself.

So, when this man asked her to be his lover, of course she freaked right out…’cos she
knew what this meant, or so she thought.

Losing herself, her lifestyle, her freedom, her space, her creative flow…
And sharing her feelings, her body, her soul with someone so different from her.

Did she want to do this?

A big voice inside her said ‘No! NO! NO! NO! I love feeling me…I love feeling free…I
don’t need to feel anything else!!”

But a little tiny voice, deep in the center of her belly said, ‘ Yes! Please ! let me share..let
me free. I need to feel a man…I need some one to love me!”

It was a tricky situation, and she, for the first time in a while felt uncertain and a litle bit
afraid.

Which voice was the truth?

Which voice should she follow?

Neither, she decided

She’d listen to neither and let her feet decide.

If they took her to his flat again, then that is where she would be…and she left it at that.

Well, they took her to his little flat…several times, in fact..day and night, without even
knowing sometimes that that was where she was going.

And in that mans little flat this woman learnt about having a lover.

Then things happen as they often do, and she ended up living with him and his two
children in a house near the river and she, as she thought would happen lost most of her
creative flow….

How? Why?

Was it the man?

Was it herself in relation to the man?

Was it a bit of both?

Or the children?

She just didn’t know and spent quite a long time lamenting about it.

Until one day, she came across a letter she wrote to this man when they first met but she
never sent.

It was a letter full of fears and tears and joys about what was happening.
It had words like this in it….
‘in the past….’and ‘my last boyfriend..’and ‘my father was
like this….’and ‘i’m scared it’s gonna be the same..’ and ‘what if…?’ etc. etc.

It also had…’so much feeling….’and ‘body on fire..’ and ‘bubbles in my tummy…’,

‘excited…’, ‘aaaaaaahhhh!!’ etc.etc.

And then at the bottom there was the question… “can this be ‘just love’ nothing
else…’just love?’”….. and then her name.

She didn’t send it ‘cos she thought the end was way too idealistic. But as she read it
again, she thought, no this is real. It has to be true…I need it to be so.

And then , from that day on she decided not to ‘be with’ her man but to ‘just love’ him.

And as she did that, her creative flow came back, her lamenting quickly disappeared and
she felt free again.

And then she realised ,as she dived into the blueness, plunging her whole body in…that
without the blueness, so many other beautiful colours wouldn’t exist for her…

The redness of her woman merging with the blueness to make purples, violets, magentas
indigos - the richest colours in her sunsets…

Then the yellowness of the fire in the center of her belly blending with the blueness to
make the most amazing greens of the forests that she loves and the seas that she swims
in…

And then the oranges that come when the blueness isn’t there, are so much richer ‘cos the
red’s become more vibrant and the yellows that much brighter, inspired by the magic felt
when merging with the blue.

She’s so happy that she dived…and let the blueness caress her
She’s so happy to have all these beautiful colours in her life.

She’s so happy now that she no longer has to be alone

That she can have a lover, be inspired and keep on living her flow.
I would experience it as an orange ball deep inside my belly. It would burn and burn and
turn and turn until I let it out.

The orange fire of desire…

I gave it to my man and he helped it turn yellow and then green , then blue, then violet
then indigo….then white…bright , pure, bliss, light….

And then he’d hand it back to me and I would turn it red… which would slowly
transform into orange which I’d give to my man and we’d start all again…
Two people in one space…that need not be so bad.
‘I know where my journey lies now…it’s with you.’

And she stares at him, straight in the eyes…

‘And I love you,’ she says..not a quiver, not a lie.. ‘ and I want you to squwirl me right
up to the sky…’

And he looks at her lovingly..no more is she shy…no more is she struggling…no more
must she cry…’cos she has become…the woman inside…he has loved her and held
her…no more must she hide.
The other day, I went to the ocean with the Man That I Love in his car. It was early in the
morning…an east wind was blowing…starting to verge to the north. I was feeling
grumpy and tense as is often the case when such a wind blows. I call it a dirty wind, with
no freshness in it…bringing only the desert, the dryness, the heat. It’s an old, stale wind
and I don’t like to be in it…but I do like the ocean ‘cos it helps me cool down.

So I went in the car with my man to the beach and fussed about the wind as we walked to
the water.
He said, ‘Why don’t you just sit still and try to transcend it..learn to use your will to
overcome it’s blow..’
And then he went off for a run up the beach against the wind, towards the rocks, where he
stops, does his push ups and sit ups, then runs back and swims…

Use my will to overcome the wind? Go against it? Toughen up, so I’m not affected by its
blow…?

His words had gone inside me and for the briefest moment I felt confused. Was that really
what I needed to do? Just transcend the wind and my frustrated feelings?

Only a moment of doubt then a flash of understanding. What crazy advice that was.

I took my clothes off and jumped into the ocean, grateful for the cool, clear water.

Then, after drying myself, started walking along the beach… the other way, with the
wind blowing behind me.

It wasn’t ‘rational’ to be walking this way. How would I get myself home? I didn’t have
any money with me or a phone to contact my man ( who was still off running against the
north east wind…how would he know where I’d gone?)

None of this I really cared about. Inside, I knew I’d be o. k ‘cos I was going with the
wind, flowing with it’s blow . It felt like the wind would push me to wherever I needed to
be…which, for me was definitely not sitting on the beach trying to transcend its direction.

Not rational, but sensible…my body, my feelings going with the wind. Where would this
wind take me?
I walk ..along the beach, down a road across a bridge, up a hill and all the way to the
house of my mother..

And here I tell her my story…and she understands it, of course. Maybe cos she’s my
mother…maybe cos she’s a woman…who knows…who cares…she just understands.

And I feel so much better to be where I am and not conquering winds..or mountains..or
moments……….

‘I like the journeys,’ she’d whisper softly, nibbling on his ear, ‘The way in between…do
you know what I mean?’

And then they’d make love in the way that love’s made….however and whichever way it
happens at the time.

And then she’d get up and go…

‘Where are you going?,’ he’d ask

And she’d say, ‘I don’t know, I’m just going.’

And off she would go

And then she’d come back at some time later on and he’d ask her, ‘where’d you go?’

‘Nowhere,’ she’d reply with a shine in her eyes

And he’d nod his head and just love her.

This woman’s madness came from her body… not mental… not mind made up stuff…
but body.

Her body…so lucsious, so soft…and so full of fire sometimes.

Certain times ..this woman..her body’s on heat…when the moons coming up and her
belly’s near full of the blood that so soon will be shed….

There is fire…and it starts from the base of her spine and it rises so slowly, seducing her
soul so that all she can think of is man….

Her own man…where is he right now when she needs him?

The heat getting hotter…it slides like a snake once coiled up in her spine…at the base,
sleeping, dreaming…now awake and so wanting her man.

Body writhing..the power..it’s rippling all through her…great surges of something so

strong and so sacred but so long forgot and denied and condemned and put out…

NO!! FUCK OFF

Woman’s fiery …her heat is now real and if man is not there she goes crazy…it’s for
him…it’s her body..it’s her feeling…her soul..her desire…her lust and her love.

Seek him out, call him home…and then give him the time…his body is different from
hers…

His fire needs hers…her fire needs no one.

Just body, the earth and the moon….

Woman’s madness gets wild with the moon… as it rises her snake is awoken…uncoiling
and slithering…sliding up through her spine…towards the white light in the sky…that’s
it’s home.
Oh, where is her man?

Quick!…she must share this with him…this beautiful, writhing, full bellied body…

His woman so wanting her man but so mad ‘cos he is not around…she can’t find him and
is scared she will do something crazy….must get this snake out…let it slither and slide…
let it share, or this woman goes mad…gets all angry …she howls, screams and cries..’cos
the snake that’s inside must stay stuck in her body…trapped and writhing…hissing and
cursing…waiting, frustrating…so wanting her man.

Woman’s madness is simple…it comes from her body…her beautiful, bloated,

moonlight- filled belly…

And it’s all for her man…where is he right now?

She calls him…his spirit..she screams out his name..

And from afar, where he is, he can hear and comes home to her waiting, her wanting, her
madness…and helps her transform into power.

Her Self…the snake…..slides out from her soul ..at last it is free in the world…at last it is
inside her man…who then carries her with him.

That’s all she was wanting..to pass on her power to him…so that he can be man in the
world with his woman …and she can be woman with man.

That’s all she was wanting and writhing about..waiting and hissing and cursing about…so
that man would take notice and come feel her fire…and let the snake into his soul….
Her man was not in the mood.
Often he was, but not this time…..
So…she took all her creative energy… equivilent to 20,000 orgasms and put it
somewhere else.

She painted .
She wrote.
She walked and ran and swam.
She smiled and laughed and
spoke with others…gave all
she had away…
so that when she came back…he would be ready to put it inside her again.
‘I am going to make a pie.’

She saw it. She smelt it. Tasted it. Felt it

All she needed now was to make it.

She went to tell the Man She Loved.

‘I am going to make a pie,’ she said, ‘With potatoes, and mushrooms and spinach and
onions..it’s going to be delicious!’

She knew it. She felt it. She loved it so much.

He looked up from the work he was doing.

‘You could make it with fetta and egg ….or ricotta. Is it going to have pastry on top? If
not, you could do it like this…’

And he told her …and most that he said went right over her head.

She was going to make a pie, so she thought , but now she wasn’t sure anymore….

So she went for a walk and tried to see the pie that she saw before.

But it had gone

The taste had disappeared.

The beautiful smell now no more.

Instead what was there was a strange mushed up mess of ricotta and spinach and fetta and
egg with no top but a bottom she never recalled making.
Sometimes she would turn into this gorgeous goddess creature….
Other times she’d just be woman as she is.
Both were there for him to feel
Both were just as real
And she moved in and out…
From this to that…
And he learnt to love them both.
There was a voice that said
‘Woman be on top of your man.’
She tried to ignore it…
But the voice just got louder
and stronger
and wilder.
Until it was driving her crazy.

Mad, crying, loony woman

Fussing and cussing
And hissing and cursing
Until she can stand it no more.

Where is that man?

The one who she loves
The one who she needs in her life
Where’s he now?

She goes seeks him out.

Tells him –
‘Man I need you.
I need you to feel me…..
I need me to feel you ……..
Right now
In this way.’
And in that instant he died…she let him…she had to…just to know what it felt like.

Dressed all in black…bright colours thrown away..

Withdrawn……no food for me please
Then in a ball…curled up with no clothes on …
Naked mess in the corner…wailing…

‘you have to eat one day …..come on, dear..come out..’

‘no leave me be…I am mourning.’

It was an unfortunate state of affairs for the girl…

She would burn on moon-filled nights …full of fire…full of desire….

Whilst he would retire in front of the telly…exhausted from what they’ve called ‘work.’

What was she to do? Oh, what was she to do?

Educate ‘them’ so they wouldn’t make him work?

Educate him so he understood her body?

Or just curl up in a heap herself and watch the telly with him….
Paranoid, neurotic, deluded….

She would scream and fuss on moon filled nights ‘cos her man wouldn’t come and be
with her.
As she wanted.
Right then. Right now.

‘Come on’, he would say, ‘get with reality…’

But this was her reality…the moon, her body, the winds, the rains and the man who she
wanted to share it all with.

He started to see her as crazy…which she knew quite well she was not.
In his eyes, maybe, but not in her own.

No. she was totally sane.

‘I need you NOW to be awake!’

‘But I’m tired and wanting to sleep…’

Oh well then…you miss out…

And she’d take her feeling that could not wait, with the moon and the stillness of the
night, and bring it to her bedroom.

Her man didn’t want it right NOW…so she’d take it herself.

On the candle she would light.

On the black dress she would put.

Her feeling… her being.

The moon… its fullness.
Her man in her head not her bed.

She would love her body…its magic this night.

Her hands being his..being hers…being all.

While he slept.

He would wake…later maybe.

But then he would have to wait for her to wake up.
She wished he would just hear her…without her needing to speak.
She wished he would just feel her….without her needing to ask.

But she realised sometimes, that he just couldn’t.

So she’d just need to learn to speak

And ask for what she was needing.
Sometimes words are just not needed. In fact, often they get in the way…disrupt the
silence, spoil the space…that sacred space that is created when words are kept inside and
touch is used instead…or expression in the eyes…is used to tell another what is needed
or how they feel ..if the other listens carefully..with heart and soul and not just
head..messages can be conveyed beyond any word that’s said.
She loved making him cups of tea and taking his work shoes off. It went against so much
of what she’d been taught…but she didn’t care…it felt really nice…so she did it despite
what they’d said.
And ‘oh my god’ as she sat there she suddenly realised what she was having to do….

Just be beautiful.

And ‘oh my god’ from that sudden realisation she grew into the woman she’d seen in her
dreams and wished that she was.

And what did he do?

He just loved her more and more.

 It was in a truck at Tin Can Bay….a tiny place mid-coast of queensland. A woman slept
inside the truck…a man slept close beside her. They were camping…they’d been
travelling…right around Australia. The truck was ther home….the land was their guide…
each day was whatever it was…

This night she lay sleeping was meant just for her. There was dreaming that needed some
doing and she was the one that needed to do it. The place they were camped at demanded
this of her. There was ‘stuff’ all around..you know, spirits and things. She could feel it
before the truck even arrived. she knew what this night was about. She knew what this
place was about. She knew why she felt so unwell.

He didn’t…the man who was travelling with her. He just knew that they needed to find
somewhere to sleep and make dinner before the sun went down.

When the sun had gone, they climbed into the bed … a mattress in the back of the truck.
She kissed him goodnight and he kissed her back, then they slept and she dreamed what
was needed to dream…

In the morning she wrote it…..

‘ I can only write it briefly…the details aren’t important. It was the feeling, the fear…. I
gotta put that down..’cos that’s what the whole things about.

It was in a kitchen in a cave..there were modern conveniences ( fridges, sinks..etc.) mixed

with ancient stone walls. My mum was there, my oldest sister and my dad’s new wife.
There was cooking going on in preparation for something. There was conversation …
about a book called Women Who Run With The Wolves. There was talk of
cycles..initiations…feelings very feminine.

Mum handed me a jar…a jar with white powder in it. She gave it to me with regret, but
also with relief. My sister and my step mum saw what happened, but said nothing.

I placed the jar on the floor and watched it for a while. The granules in the jar kept
moving towards me, pushing up against the lid as if trying to get out. They wanbted to get
at me and the more I watched them, the stronger they would seem to move in the jar
towards me.
They felt evil…terrible… aforce that wanted to hurt me, iwas sure and I desperately
wanted to get away from it somehow. But I knew I couldn’t. all the other women told me
that it was my ‘task’ to understand it and be with it. They said its name was ‘mon’.

I tried smashing it, only to see it gather itself up again in an even larger, stronger form.
I’d stare at it and scream, ‘NO!’, but that would do nothing. It was only when I screamed
out ‘YES!’ that it would become weaker. I found it hard to breathe, walk or do anything in
its presence.

The last image I have of it was in a fire place up on a wall….light over it, but darkness
all around it….granules still trying so hard to get out and me still feeling so shit scared.
It felt very evil and I felt very tested….and that’s all I can remember….

Waking up I got out of the truck and went to the toilet. There was a big moon lighting up
the grove of paperbarks where we’d camped. I didn’t feel safe…felt like something was
going to grab me..and quickly jumped back into the truck…’

She put her pen down and closed her writing book.

The man who’d slept next to her came up beside her, ‘tell me what happened last night,’
he asked gently. ‘ You cried in your sleep …as if really scared…and I had a dream that
freaked me right out.’

‘What was your dream?’ she asked…and he told her.

‘There was a hand coming in through the window on your side of the bed. It tried to grab
you..tried to get you and I could do nothing about it. That’s all I remember..it wasn’t very
nice. Can you remember why you were crying?’

But she couldn’t remember..not for him anyway. The dream of this place was for her

The next night they camped high on a dune near the beach. The moonlight was beautiful
shining…she was full. He took the woman who would not dream that night into his arms.
She wouldn’t say a word. She would just let things be…

He loved her that night…powerfully..against the truck, under the moon…

But she didn’t love him back… and realised on that night that he was not her man.

Another night. Another place. Another man.

She tells this man of the dream she’d had that night at Tin Can Bay. She tells him of the
jar called Mon and asks him what he thinks. He smiles, as he does with a lot of things she
tells him, and says, ‘ it’s just the word ‘man’ without the stick on the ‘o’ to make an ‘a’.’
She loves this man on this night… on his balcony in the moonlight. And as she explodes,
in the way that she does, on moon filled nights with her man…that jar of mon she felt so
afraid of shatters into millions of pieces, scattering white powder all through her
being….making her giggle and tingle and shiver, just like a woman’s supposed to.

That night she sleeps in the arms of her man ..at ease, no dreams, just peace.

And all he would do was love her

And all she would do was let him.
More and more she let him love her
And more and more she loved him back.
Copyright Tani Garden 2001