Kissing me tenderly are memories tonight,
Dripping lazily off my flesh and oh so powerful through my eyes...
Forgotten for a moment..
Then for an eternity.
Breathing slowly the chaos of our whole,
Reminders that there is so much beyond this human experience...
Lick the remnants of the energy that has passed...
Before your seeking eyes.
Falling so sweetly into tomorrow....
Of days still yet to come,
The salt will not remain..cannot...
In a dreamer's soul.
Lovers in Paphos -- Miki De Goodaboom
Paphos is a coastal city in southwestern Cyprus, near the place of Venus' birth. According to some accounts, it was founded by the Amazons, and was a cult center for various pre-Hellenic fertility deities; the Myceneans erected a temple to Aphrodite there in the 12th century BCE. The daughters of Propoetus failed to worship her properly; according to Ovid, "the immoral Propoetides dared to deny that Venus was the goddess. For this, because of her divine anger, they are said to have been the first to prostitute their bodies and their reputations in public, and, losing all sense of shame, they lost the power to blush, as the blood hardened in their cheeks, and only a small change turned them into hard flints." The sculptor Pygmalion was so turned off by their behavior and appearance that he carved himself a female figure out of ivory and fell in love with its beauty. Aphrodite brought the statue to life as Galatea ("she who is milk-white," in Greek). Their son Paphos, or perhaps Paphos' son Cinyras (Kinyras), founded the city of Paphos (or maybe it was the suitor of Pygmalion's daughter Metharme?). Cinyras, the creator of art and of musical instruments such as the lyre, was noted for his physical beauty; his daughter Myrrha lusted after him and, after they had sex, she prayed to lose her human form; the gods made her into the tree whose bark is the source of myrrh. Nine months later their son Adonis (the Hellenized form of the Canaanite "adōn," meaning "lord") emerged from the tree. Venus immediately fell in love with him and entrusted him to Persephone for safe keeping, but Persephone refused to give him back. The dispute was settled by by Calliope, on Zeus' behalf: Adonis was to spend 1/3 of each year with each goddess, but he was free to spend the remaining 1/3 as he liked. Because he spent 2/3 of the year with Venus, a jealous Mars sent a boar to kill Adonis, who died in Venus' arms. She sprinkled his blood with nectar, thus creating the anemone plant, and each spring his blood turns red the torrential Nahr River (the Adonis River) in Lebanon. According to Homer, Cinryas had promised Agamemnon to send 50 ships against the Trojans, but he only sent one, captained by his on Mygdalion; the other 49 ships were sculpted from earth and manned by similarly created figures. In retaliation, Apollo killed him (or, in some accounts, he committed suicide in a fit of incestuous guilt), and his 50 daughters were changed into sea birds when they threw themselves into the sea.
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