Still in the Underworld, I am in a pain worse than the illness I was struck with two weeks ago. My 21-year-old college kid is in the emergency room on the other side of the world and there is nothing I can do but wait for a phone message that he’s okay. It’s been five hours since the last message.
I am like a corpse on a meat hook, waiting for salvation. No crown, no lapis lazuli necklace, no beads, no breastplate, no bracelets, no measuring rod, no robe.
Powerless. Vulnerable. Nude.
This is my birthday gift: a reminder of what is important. Love.
Libra Season has me at its mercy. On Autumn Equinox I was gathering the last of summer’s beans from our garden when I bent low and poked my right tear duct on the tip of an iris leaf. The irony is not lost on me. 👁️
Off balance, I spent the following days in the worst illness I have had in ten years, unbearable pain in my ear and throat, endless tears streaming down my face, constant struggle to swallow the white blood cells trying to drown me.
The night sky looked down upon me through the tall windows in my room. As I lay there trying not to die, I meditated on Inanna’s descent to the Underworld.
At the first gate the Queen of Heaven and Earth surrenders her crown. She is powerless. Down where Ereshkigal rules, she is no more than a carcass on a meat hook. Inanna is humbled and humiliated.
“Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death. She spoke against her the word of wrath. She uttered against her the cry of guilt. She struck her. Inanna was turned into a corpse, A piece of rotting meat, And was hung from a hook on the wall.”
Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth
maycam is my underworld. It is where I am humbled and humiliated, where my body and my sins are on exhibit for your judgement, where I wait for redemption. 🪬
Yours,
P.S. Join me in worshipping Inanna, ancient Sumerian Goddess of love, fertility, and power, in the Lilith Series. ⚸✨🌑
We are well and fine and all right and making it. I have become mesmerized by the stained glass windows on a daily basis as light changes throughout the day and night. Two years in and we are still discovering this place and how we move within it.
Like we finally got a love seat lounge. We just could not get comfortable fucking in those 150-year-old rocking chairs no matter how beautiful and creepily charged they are. So yeah, it’s a small couch with padded arms so I can bend over and get fucked on it or lay back and suck dick on it or get up reverse cowgirl on it which is exactly what we did as soon as we brought it home because that is how we bless our home and things.
I didn’t think I’d get to take a birthday nude this year. My husband has been very ill. All of my time is spent taking care of him, our household, and the business we own together. Besides, I had already done 25 birthday nudes. It’s a good number to hang it up on.
But the world is teeming with life. Spirit guardians and the cosmos seem to conspire toward giving me sensual gifts. Rays of sun through stained glass windows. A warm autumn day with a moment to spare. A rare lazy morning without pain.
The 26th birthday nude then: an homage to my iconic portrait set in my home, a tip of the hat to a title once given to me a long time ago. XXX Pornsaint.
Birthday gifts: new friends surrounding me. I don’t feel so isolated in our tower of glass. I find myself surrounded by people who need healing of the body and the spirit. I feel called to step into this role but sometimes feel woefully inadequate, humble, and grateful. I am open and willing to grapple with what I do not know. I am happy that I am still discovering new things about myself. Thank you! 🙏✨
Welcome to my new home in an old church, illuminated with sunlight filtered through vibrant stained glass windows casting an ethereal glow that breathes life into the stillness of this sacred space. These stained glass windows have been standing here for 131 years, still intact though cracked and sagging in some places, still radiating beauty, a reminder to embrace my flaws and celebrate the light that reflects through me.
I stand here naked, not just of the body but of the spirit. I was born not just to exist but to proclaim my truth. 25 years of birthday nudes has led to this most provocative image: the divine and the profane. Isn’t it the human experience to reach for divinity from our carnal form? Do we not spend our lives locked in a struggle between light and dark, courage and vulnerability, life and death?
At my age, each birthday brings a whisper of death. And as more of my loved ones cross over, that whisper gets louder. I hear their voices inside me now. I take on what was vital in them and keep it alive in me. Like stained glass windows, I am a mosaic of moments, pieces of my beloveds shining through me in every story I tell about them.
I am filled with a renewed sense of purpose: to shine! For the sake of those who are not anymore with us, and for the sake of those of us who remain and need a beacon to remind ourselves that it is okay to be brave and vulnerable and flawed and old and weird and scared. I love you.
