At Christmas our family always came together. I’m talking about Boxing Day in about 1959 when I was thirteen. Between the turkey dinner and teatime, we kids would play games in the front room. A favourite was Postman’s Knock. You may not be familiar with how it goes. One of us, a girl say, would go out of the room and the boys in the room would each be given a number. The girl then knocked on the door and was told to choose a number. The boy with the chosen number left the room, the door was securely closed, and they’d, presumably, kiss each other before the girl returned and the boy had his go.
Marion was my second cousin. She came from Morden in Surrey. She was a couple of years older than me, physically mature, and wise in worldly ways. Marion chose me – well she didn’t really choose me – she got me.
Once in the hallway, at the bottom of the stairs, with the front room door securely closed, she allowed me to hold her close. So close, that I felt, for the first time, the softness of well developed breasts against my chest. I think she knew she was playing with an innocent. She kissed me on the lips. Her lips parted taking mine with them and our tongues touched a little. I relaxed more than I’d ever done in my life. I melted into her lips and then into her body. I’d never dissolved into another person before. My legs felt like the proverbial jelly. Something very strange and new had happened. I was deliciously happy until the next day, when Marion left for home and I was left alone, yearning for that feeling of dissolution into another. I was depressed for three months.
This is surely a common experience – the bliss and pain of a first kiss – so why link it to the divine image of the dakini. The point is that the energy evoked is the energy of the dakini even though she is hidden in darkness, unknown and unrecognised.
Many years later I dreamed of a massive American locomotive throbbing with life in the confined space of the Morden Underground Station.