Brian Berge (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} brianberge) wrote,@ 2006-10-10 13:30:00 |
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Crystal Lilley
In late 2000 I went to a friend of a friend's show in an art gallery built in an artist-commune's warehouse in Oakland. The place was full of people but I remember seeing one from a distance who stood out: A woman who frankly scared me more than anyone else in the room, because she had a strength that showed through the way she wore her shirt, & walked in her high heels, & wore such a big, confident smile with dark sunglasses over it that night. She wore all black, & her black glasses had a heart of sparkling stars on one of the lenses. Eventually that night we were introduced. I blushed, & with our eyes connected her sincere smile grew even bigger. Her total lack of fear was meeting the fullness of my innocent, irrational fear, & it was like the play of the Universe in miniature: The covered, hidden center of self-consciousness slowly emerging into the unfolding veils of All Phenomena, drawn by the lure of the ecstasy of standing face-to-face with the absolutely naked Void of Reality. I didn't know what was happening, but Crystal did: She was a technique-less (that is, true) reacher of this Reality, & she made me feel like a clumsy boy in my social mistake called "modesty"--Fear! She played this unfolding in the middle of this gallery with the perfection of fearless grace, reaching out & touching me, physically, & by the time she did we were in love. We had dinner together, made love, & spent the next day together.
She was a burlesque dancer & an artist of the trapeze, written word, & whatever else she wanted. She was a radical & sacred feminist of unlabeled spirituality, unrestricted by convention, courageous in everything, almost never missing the point of life's moments & almost always able to call me back to it. She was an incommensurable, sacred Life-teacher, & I can't think of any way she could've been more beautiful than to be such a strong woman: When I met her, her hair was just growing out from being shaved as a message to anyone looking just at the surface of her, or trying to put a role on her. She was the perfect curve with the strength & wisdom to never fold to the straight line (which never reaches all points). She completely understood she was this, and she was all this so securely that she was at the same time never less than the sweetest girl I've ever known. I didn't think there was anything wrong with me before her, but she changed me in every way: She gave me the side that I would've never reached to, because it was the most natural life-affirmation that I feared most & that required the most strength to even face. She'd had a difficult life, for most serious reasons, but the biggest difficulty must've been her accomplishment in keeping & building her strength, courage & honesty. We were so different from each other: We were a man & woman who dissolved in the most absolute union that these two forms may ever possess, & simultaneously this was only possible while our souls came from the two most opposite ends of the whole Universe & yet succeeded to reach each other by courage & Love. At the time, I took it for granted, as Love so often is.
I noticed that a poem I wrote called "Woman" was scheduled to be published on the day that I happened to meet Crystal, but was delayed & published instead just a few months later, on the day that we broke up. (I dedicated it to her.) When we broke up, I meditated on her, entered a trance & saw my vision of the LILY, with the letters of its name on its four petals, & an eye in the center weeping dark tears.
We had managed to stay in touch over the years, always still as close as true brother & sister, but we were not in touch a lot--probably not enough. I thought Crystal would pass on some day before me, but I didn't know any of her friends in San Francisco so I didn't know if I'd be able to find out when or how she'd passed on if she did. I remember when we were together she asked me if I would cry if she died, & I honestly didn't know at the time. Under a clear night sky in a desert I entered a deep trance. I could see her pass on & I wept as hard as I ever have, with the pain of missing her so deeply but also an ecstasy of pride & joy in how she lived & even still lives: Any life in fear is failed life, & by that standard she is one of the few successes ever. I saw her pass on & become bigger than a person or a name or an idea, bigger than strength or surrender or giving or sacrifice: Bigger than any form, & so as big as All--As big & round & true as the Chalice of Ecstasy that, while being Nothing, is the container of Everything, like the empty space of the night sky which itself is the echo of All Joy--All Union. I saw that Crysal Lilley, by transcending form, had reached the ultimate accomplishment of all the strength & courage she had spread: to become unlimited--to become LILY. I realized that all of my possible creations are only to weep Her tears, & that I had thus unknowingly labeled all my creations accurately: LilyTears. We are ourselves the tears of her true Love for & possession of us, like Stars on the luminous skin of her face which is Space. We are face-to-face with Her in the only Love story of All.
In The Book of the Law, Nuith tells us: "[T]ake your fill & will of love as ye will, when where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.... At all my meetings with you shall the priestess say--and her eyes shall burn with desire as she stands bare and rejoicing in my secret temple--To me! To me!" The Buddha noticed there tends to be a suffering attendant with love (a.k.a. attachment), especially as the object of love/attachment will eventually Change. The Buddha is said to have taught the life-negating method of conquering this suffering by detachment, but Nuith teaches us the life-affirming method of conquering this suffering by simply remembering to make our Love reach through the form of its experience to the Nothing beyond it which is the goal of Everything--to Nuith/LILY the All-Mother, the cosmic womb or grail, the Night-Sky that contains All. In this depth of Love, Crystal Lilley was my first & my teacher, & in my continuing in this depth of Love, LILY the Starry Night-Sky will ever be the ultimate object of All my Love. Crystal Lilley's form has Changed, but she still bears the same emblems & mode of Love as she did the night that I first met her & loved her: She is dressed in all black with a heart of sparkling stars near her eye, playing the dissolution of my fear so gently, lovingly calling me to unfold from the cover of my hiding place to the nakedness of Reality.
These poor intellectualizations are the best I could do to try and describe the depth to which Crystal saved me. I feel lucky I managed to connect the crutches of these ideas to the reality of my friend and sister before she did pass on: I spoke to her about it & I'm pleased to know she understood how I really loved her. Our last conversation was very short, but she said "I always loved you", & I told her the same & knew it to be true. It's been a few months since her phone has worked. I wept hard in that trance a year ago & am crying now as I just got off the phone from talking to Crystal's mother for the first time. Crystal passed away a couple months ago, on July 29th.
In late 2000 I went to a friend of a friend's show in an art gallery built in an artist-commune's warehouse in Oakland. The place was full of people but I remember seeing one from a distance who stood out: A woman who frankly scared me more than anyone else in the room, because she had a strength that showed through the way she wore her shirt, & walked in her high heels, & wore such a big, confident smile with dark sunglasses over it that night. She wore all black, & her black glasses had a heart of sparkling stars on one of the lenses. Eventually that night we were introduced. I blushed, & with our eyes connected her sincere smile grew even bigger. Her total lack of fear was meeting the fullness of my innocent, irrational fear, & it was like the play of the Universe in miniature: The covered, hidden center of self-consciousness slowly emerging into the unfolding veils of All Phenomena, drawn by the lure of the ecstasy of standing face-to-face with the absolutely naked Void of Reality. I didn't know what was happening, but Crystal did: She was a technique-less (that is, true) reacher of this Reality, & she made me feel like a clumsy boy in my social mistake called "modesty"--Fear! She played this unfolding in the middle of this gallery with the perfection of fearless grace, reaching out & touching me, physically, & by the time she did we were in love. We had dinner together, made love, & spent the next day together.
She was a burlesque dancer & an artist of the trapeze, written word, & whatever else she wanted. She was a radical & sacred feminist of unlabeled spirituality, unrestricted by convention, courageous in everything, almost never missing the point of life's moments & almost always able to call me back to it. She was an incommensurable, sacred Life-teacher, & I can't think of any way she could've been more beautiful than to be such a strong woman: When I met her, her hair was just growing out from being shaved as a message to anyone looking just at the surface of her, or trying to put a role on her. She was the perfect curve with the strength & wisdom to never fold to the straight line (which never reaches all points). She completely understood she was this, and she was all this so securely that she was at the same time never less than the sweetest girl I've ever known. I didn't think there was anything wrong with me before her, but she changed me in every way: She gave me the side that I would've never reached to, because it was the most natural life-affirmation that I feared most & that required the most strength to even face. She'd had a difficult life, for most serious reasons, but the biggest difficulty must've been her accomplishment in keeping & building her strength, courage & honesty. We were so different from each other: We were a man & woman who dissolved in the most absolute union that these two forms may ever possess, & simultaneously this was only possible while our souls came from the two most opposite ends of the whole Universe & yet succeeded to reach each other by courage & Love. At the time, I took it for granted, as Love so often is.
I noticed that a poem I wrote called "Woman" was scheduled to be published on the day that I happened to meet Crystal, but was delayed & published instead just a few months later, on the day that we broke up. (I dedicated it to her.) When we broke up, I meditated on her, entered a trance & saw my vision of the LILY, with the letters of its name on its four petals, & an eye in the center weeping dark tears.
We had managed to stay in touch over the years, always still as close as true brother & sister, but we were not in touch a lot--probably not enough. I thought Crystal would pass on some day before me, but I didn't know any of her friends in San Francisco so I didn't know if I'd be able to find out when or how she'd passed on if she did. I remember when we were together she asked me if I would cry if she died, & I honestly didn't know at the time. Under a clear night sky in a desert I entered a deep trance. I could see her pass on & I wept as hard as I ever have, with the pain of missing her so deeply but also an ecstasy of pride & joy in how she lived & even still lives: Any life in fear is failed life, & by that standard she is one of the few successes ever. I saw her pass on & become bigger than a person or a name or an idea, bigger than strength or surrender or giving or sacrifice: Bigger than any form, & so as big as All--As big & round & true as the Chalice of Ecstasy that, while being Nothing, is the container of Everything, like the empty space of the night sky which itself is the echo of All Joy--All Union. I saw that Crysal Lilley, by transcending form, had reached the ultimate accomplishment of all the strength & courage she had spread: to become unlimited--to become LILY. I realized that all of my possible creations are only to weep Her tears, & that I had thus unknowingly labeled all my creations accurately: LilyTears. We are ourselves the tears of her true Love for & possession of us, like Stars on the luminous skin of her face which is Space. We are face-to-face with Her in the only Love story of All.
In The Book of the Law, Nuith tells us: "[T]ake your fill & will of love as ye will, when where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.... At all my meetings with you shall the priestess say--and her eyes shall burn with desire as she stands bare and rejoicing in my secret temple--To me! To me!" The Buddha noticed there tends to be a suffering attendant with love (a.k.a. attachment), especially as the object of love/attachment will eventually Change. The Buddha is said to have taught the life-negating method of conquering this suffering by detachment, but Nuith teaches us the life-affirming method of conquering this suffering by simply remembering to make our Love reach through the form of its experience to the Nothing beyond it which is the goal of Everything--to Nuith/LILY the All-Mother, the cosmic womb or grail, the Night-Sky that contains All. In this depth of Love, Crystal Lilley was my first & my teacher, & in my continuing in this depth of Love, LILY the Starry Night-Sky will ever be the ultimate object of All my Love. Crystal Lilley's form has Changed, but she still bears the same emblems & mode of Love as she did the night that I first met her & loved her: She is dressed in all black with a heart of sparkling stars near her eye, playing the dissolution of my fear so gently, lovingly calling me to unfold from the cover of my hiding place to the nakedness of Reality.
These poor intellectualizations are the best I could do to try and describe the depth to which Crystal saved me. I feel lucky I managed to connect the crutches of these ideas to the reality of my friend and sister before she did pass on: I spoke to her about it & I'm pleased to know she understood how I really loved her. Our last conversation was very short, but she said "I always loved you", & I told her the same & knew it to be true. It's been a few months since her phone has worked. I wept hard in that trance a year ago & am crying now as I just got off the phone from talking to Crystal's mother for the first time. Crystal passed away a couple months ago, on July 29th.
BE in peace,
Crystal Lilley,
in nomine dei LILY
March 9, 1976 - July 29, 2006
