Florida- the Rest of the Story

   If swamp lands be the digestive system of a continent, is it any wonder the people they possess are inclined to want to break you down, chew you up and spit you out?
   As I headed to my destination in Florida, where I intended to dwell, I had to pass through a swamp on a long raised road far between settlements. I could feel the swamps tapping into me and following me to my destination. Theirs was a sweet, endearing psychic 'smell'. As I dwelled there in "civilization", the middle of a housing development in a rather large city (comparatively, according to my experience), the swamp was right there with me in my quiet moments. The swamp lands surrounding the area let me know how delighted they were with my presence. They would do no real harm to me. They loved me for my strength of mind, my charector, my ability to see the beauty and appreciate things despite the tearing forces that came upon me.......to see myself in the vessels being used, the strength and charector in them while still not taking any shit as appropriate.
   I had learned from the spirit of the land in Maine to allow darkness come take it's quarry....the darkness in me that was resonating with the dark nature there. I had learned from a story shared with me by the land in a holler in Kentucky that just because it kills you, it does not mean it does not love you, it's love can be quite true, innocent, sincere. So, I had been prepared for the "dark" forces of the swamp, just performing a natural function of dismembering, dissolving, carrying away, creating something nourishing. I could allow it to have it's way with me. I processed much, I let go of much more. I was finally carried out of there nourished and able to nourish. I came out raw and naked and in many ways purified, closer to my natural state and thus nature....which is what had us howling at the mountains around us in Montana, drawing the attention of "Wolf Woman". I had been very much re-wilded, made feral in the swamps of Florida.
  My trust that the swamps would not allow me to come to any real harm was not misguided, as was proven to me via an experience one night while we stayed in a ramshackle shack made of scrap wood on the banks of a local creek which flowed through an area of swamp . I had gotten into the habit of leaving food scraps out for the "campground's" neighborhood cat, away from our site because it had been coming in to try to get some anyways. When I saw eyes reflecting light in the dark where I had left the scraps, I spoke out loud to what I thought was the cat. I heard deep growls, saw another set of eyes higher and behind the first set. It was some local dogs known to attack. They ran at and leaped straight at me, teeth bared and the idea of my face being torn off being projected at me. I stood perfectly still in a state of somewhat wonder and WTF! Holy Shit! Is this happening?! And they simply disappeared in mid-air right in front of me. I stood there in the dark in the silence of a swamp at peace and the trickling of the creek flowing behind me. Errr, that's one way to show me that I'm protected!
  On the banks of that creek, under the trees, amongst the snakes, gators and poisonous spiders, I cried, I sang, I danced, I sat still in perfect serenity just breathing, simply BEing in those moments, and I used my body more bravely than I had in many a year. As one with those swamps I let the land of parboiled toads under the rulership of the queen toad with a wig show me things, I learned to speak my truth, stand my ground and see so clearly I had to respect my own way of walking this world. As one with the swamp, I learned I didn't have to be clingy to a lover, I could hold to what I wanted and let go gracefully. I witnessed my love being seen through what would normally be expected to be ugly and enemy-making. As one with those swamps, I lived out a long time fantasy of being made love to by two men at once and it was delicious! When one wasn't doing it for me and I said enough, that was respected without the usual bad-mouthing and resentment. He simply didn't have "the touch", respected it and I got to enjoy further attention from the older one who did. I learned that yes, even after penetration, a woman's "No, this is not working for me" CAN be respected. When they say "Once you go black, you never go back", I suspect it has nothing to do with the size of the dick as is a common assertion. When asked "What is love?", I answered "Love is the bursting forth of the abundance of life in spring". In that answer he was impressed and I learned something about me. As one with those swamps I saw the fulfillment of a vision I had the previous winter....the raspberry kisses, sweetest I ever had experienced and as the vision had shown me, we were parted by his job which required traveling. I got in touch with my innocence and it's energetically/spiritually pure sexuality. I fell in love with my body. Those swamps saw me stripped and naked on so many levels in so many ways. Like the rich compost to come out of them, I was fertilized with the richest experiences a summer could ever offer. The "smell" of them is never very far away. As I had learned from the land in Maine, a land remembers you. It can connect with and look after you, gift you even when you're thousands of miles away.
    We ARE expressions of the Earth beneath our feet. It will birth us, nourish us and teach us just like any mother. The only "demons" out there are the spirits in us twisted by our own perceptions of them, their ways and their purpose.