Of Merdia 43 - 45

Cloa Denum closes Of Merdia, a piece that effected her recent elevation to sainthood by the Toilet God Consortium, presently led by Šulak, the Babylonian Lurker of the bathroom and demon of the privy.

43.         My jealousy of Merdia’s democratic graces has led me to open closets in the psyche best left shut.  I have been known to break laws which should not be broken and dine with people who should only eat alone.  I have no happy memory of these moments.  Shame is unleashed from its attic storehouse, runs down my soul’s corridors and wipes all joy away.  In those moments of unmitigated darkness, I seek ceramic, kneel, and leak feeble prayers onto the floor.  To love a goddess is always to love unrequitedly.  I have known this since my first diaper.  Yet, human as a turd, I fail, and fail again.  Merdia, forgive me.

44.        When I am old and about to lose Her grace, when the mastery I have devoted my life to begins to fade, when a dump is just a dump and not the Heavenly Chorus, when I am unable to fashion my creation into giants of mercy and nobility¾my hands as my stools will be liquid, I will have become lesser than my mother once again¾then I will relinquish my control.  I will have to satisfy myself with the pretty sound of the ice cream truck and the laughing farting children running toward it, imagining the tall swirls of pride they run for and how they adumbrate hours of similarly shaped happiness when they sit above their easeful kingdoms and Merdia deigns to point them to the way.

45.        Merdia's blessings are not for those who delude themselves that humanity is anything but merde, who prefer to think we are obelisks and satellites.  They will continue on their fluorescent mint-fresh metallic path, lacking the light of waste and the sewer’s joyous inspiration.  We lovers of Merdia know we exist by accident, we sit in heaps of ourselves and swirl down dark tunnels of unknowing to the sea.  We know the transience of Merdia's graces is our transience, the fleeting glimpse of her creations the glimpse of ours.  She reminds us daily that we toil to turn merde to merde, for no reward but the joy of turning.  Merdia, our pleasure, goddess, love.

Of Merdia 42

42.        A commonplace among Merdians is that their goddess is ascendant during waking hours, but sleeps alongside our sleeping.  I have found this not to be true.  Not only am I occasionally blessed with a serendipitous pearl when night raises high and I cruise that other land, a surprise pearl that imitates the dawn, not only do I have the knowledge that such occurrences can only increase as I advance in years and wisdom, but I often find that Merdia joins me in the shadow kingdom.  I dream of course, like others, of impossible copulations and labyrinths made of cheese.  I dream of the War of Ants and Sunflowers, of cabals of microscopic dogs.  Of demonic three-headed nuns and girly presidents.  But not just this.  When night's buttocks hang low and the sewers of Hell back up to meet them, I see headless scats on headless beasts with merde for eyes, merde-eyes floating in place of heads.  Scat rivers overflow and drink our cities dry.  I am a scat on the pinnacle of ruin, composing commandments for a legion of Spanish rats.  Diappo scats are served.  Scat lattes, shakes.  Scat cordon bleu.  Napoleon Scataparte approaches; we converse easily in Scatese.  He displays a scatograph to scry the catastrophes of man.  I reveal a door in my buttocks.  It opens, we descend.  A surging liquid sea of chunky scats rages to the tune of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, and in the middle my mother sunbathes naked on a float.  "Mudder, Mōdor," I cry.  But the sea consumes me and I wake.  I know then that Morpheus and Merdia are lovers.

Of Merdia 39 - 41

39.        Dead orators have given words to democracy’s nobility.  As have a mayhem of thinkers, a motley of confused poets.  Tomes of praise have been erected to its necessity and worth.  Olympian pools of blood have been filled to achieve it.  But I say to you a smaller pool achieves the same ends with much less effort.

Fellow citizens of Merdia’s kind kingdom, ideals aren’t actualized in words, philosophies, blood, books or bile, but only in the bowl of perfect excrement, in which we are all accepted, we all are made one.  The bowl of grace and unity, the golden bowl of proffered love.  We do not need to wait for an impossible time; rather, it is here with us, glorious, now.  We have entered the kingdom of Heaven; here it is, just below our voiding mounds.

40.        Consistency is a constant concern of any of Merdia’s children worthy of their ancestry.  Consistency of timing (who does not want her offerings to be regular and full?); consistency of texture (neither obstinate or stony or too similar to that other lesser yellow stream); consistency of spirit (given freely, in the sweet knowledge of donation).  These three consistencies:  these our desired attitude and product.  Merdia, be near; ah, fruity Merdia, be near.

41.        What peace our goddess gives us.  I think particularly of the moment upon entering her temple, when the preponderance of electronic and communicative noise ceases and I am left alone with Her pure natural sounds.  This peace is an increasingly rare gift:  music is pumped into almost every public space, indeed, even invading our homes; talk occurs everywhere in hallways and offices, bedrooms and boardrooms.  But.  No speakers yet in Merdia’s graceful domain.  No discourse there but the chocolate dumps of dreamy derrieres, the Dasein of our charm and timber.

Of Merdia 38

Cloan Denum gets around.

38.        Surely one of the most superlative joys of cosmopolitan travel is the cross-cultural mingling of the diverse jewels of our souls.  This is why I make it a requirement, when I travel and am blessed to inhabit our days’ great shared transience commonly called the hotel, to stay in guest rooms that lack their own privy, forcing me—although, as you, dearly beloved reader, might know, at least the intelligent and beautiful among you, the verb force might misrepresent the truth—to share the Noble Seat with other bifurcated charms.  I know—the knowledge even now generates vast shudders—that Our Lady’s shrine has been kissed by anxious asses, so willing to please, so fearful of an inability to perform, so ripe with blossoms of Merdia’s precious fruit; not only this, but these hot cracks of egress have originated from every nation, every great metropolis, are connected through immeasurable hidden passages to tongues that are bespoken in every language; every race, belief, color, complexion, texture, have worshipped here.  What wonder! What communion!

This latria exceeds excess when I enter and, there, greeting me so joyously, is a remnant turd, perhaps undigested due to technological complexities inherent in the Flushing System; perhaps, more mystically, left there for me, just for me.  My imagination accelerates.  Is it Romanian?  From New South Wales?  Did it speak, when encapsulated within a human form, a smattering of Gaelic?  Broken Portuguese?  Did it once belong to someone who had failed at football?

Ah, no matter.

Here, the festive fecalities of the swirling world swirl and sing.  Here, they glow and participate in the one and true great discourse.  Great duodenums of our day—this the converse of our true being.  This the reason for our travel.  This global communication and delight.

Of Merdia 37

Ms. Denum, in an extraordinary burst of worship, sings a song to Merdia.  The Committee for Such Things recommends to the appropriately minded to pray this prayer at the right times, in the right ways.

37.        Dear Merdia,

I have not loved Thee as I ought.

I have hoarded my steaming jewels, which are not truly mine, but Thine.

I have not been aesthetic in release, but sentimental, gushing, against all principles of adoration.

I have not sung while dumping, but been distracted; I have thought of mundane things and not concentrated on Your Glory.

I have been quick to perform Your Worship, in and out of Your Fine Temple, with only thoughts of lesser things, and those before me, after.

I have not seen my offering as the Highest Form of human love, but the lowest, shaming me before Your Throne.  Even so, you have not denied me, Graceful Lady of the Void.

I have disdained the offerings of others, whether by sight, sound, smell or texture, sitting in judgment I am not qualified to have.  Forgive me, dear Merdia.  Thine is the beginning and the end, the splash and gurgle, hot hierarchies of heat.

May I rise to your perfection, Sweet Steaming Sibyl.  May I give you my all, in earthy lumps of lower love.

Amen.

Of Merdia 34 - 36

34.        The Merdiawards are what we live for.  That annual event in Toilet City, when Merdia herself ascends the plumbing of dreams and through the latest fashions distributes the Golden Plops.  I have always secretly coveted, Most Distinctive Shape, but seem destined to be only a nominee for Most Odiferous, in 1971.  Yet, even so, the joy, the rank anticipation¾yea, nearly akin to the most remembered moments on the golden bowl¾before the package is ripped and the roll read.  The shivery thrill to see Her Herself, even at the great distance I was.  To be invited.

Yet still I dream.  Still I plan what I will wear when I will finally mount the stage and be within a kiss of my goddess’ beneficence.  I plan, I scheme, I diet … one day, I shall win.

35.       The multiplicity of techniques Merdia’s subjects use to contribute to Her exuberant chorus is astounding.  My favourite location for observing these is the end chorus booth, which in the vulgar tongue is called a cubicle.  I sometimes spend days in this privileged position (if I bring food, it is easy to do well and it provides me the tangential benefit of uniting input and output in a distinctly contained way).  I ask:  who are of such composition as to try the door of my chorus booth without first discreetly checking whether it’s inhabited with a singer; who enters a booth situated at the greatest possible distance; who sits next to me despite the availability of more private booths; among those so bold, how many sit themselves in this manner from ignorance, from pride of their particularly bold and raucous song, from aesthetic proclivities of a subtle nature?  Are they a collector of choruses, an afficionado of song?  Are they recording our composition for future research or pleasure?  These questions abound in the chorus booth of my delight; I enter into each moment of exploration and mutuality fully, contributing my humble notes to my anonymous partner's need in the service of art, cooperation and love.

36.        I lie on technological tufts of urban refuse and gaze through thick swabs of atmospheric grease at merde-clouds as delicate as death.  Such moments often move me to reflect on Merdia’s distant transcendence, her aloof glory¾and isn’t all glory aloof!  But then, in the eternal bowels of this reflection, I feel a lack as potent as this glory, which, as I swirl into it, becomes apparent¾Merdia’s immanence is my equal longing.  Oh no¾I am no shameful devotee of my grand goddess, I am no dilettante who only worships Her remotely.  Unhesitatingly, I shed the fashion of my flesh and deposit in that wired jungled circumstance long artifacts of praise.  Turd and cloud.

Of Merdia 33

Ms. Denum, obviously here of haute cuisine tastes and functioning as an uncannily vatic sommelier, whets the palate whettily.

33.        Merdia, sweet goddess of the other side, holds life in gilded mirror and reveals the golden bowl.  An example of such magic reversal is the rare grand feast¾when thousands of dollars are spent on a culinary extravaganza of nine courses¾succotash of grilled vegtables with polenta gnocchi, duck “ham” and basil in a corn cream; truffled potato perogies with fried cauliflower mushrooms in truffle jus with cabbage sprouts; “margarita” oyster shooters, bison tartare with argon oil and fennel slaw, blue fin tuna tartare with amaranth salad and cilantro pesto, duck proscuitto wrapping grilled cavaillion melon, smoked red river salmon on spun heirloom carrot, onion and fried caper salad, bay of fundy scallop ceviche, served with:  tortilla crisps, pompadom, gyoza and wontons; roast breast of squab with gratinéed bundles of white asparagus that have been wrapped with syrrano ham and topped with béchamel sauce and served with sesame crusted wild mushrooms; sage butter fried chestnuts and lobster mushrooms with chestnut gnocchi in crab apple sauce topped with shaved monarque cheese; roast fillet of carolina black bass on carrot and ginger soup with zucchini salad, cumin vinaigrette, chive cream and sweet onion rings; braised veal cheeks with roast testina on fig vicchy, corn bread croutons and warm frissée salad; langres washed rind cow’s milk cheese from france with arugula purée, fried chick pea and fennel salad verdi di fabrosa goat’s milk blue cheese from italy with penko crusted poached quail egg, marinated zuchinni salad and yuccateecan sauce, bouq’ emmisaire goat’s milk cheese from france on testina with corn soup and mint pesto, idiazabel sheep’s milk cheese from spain with meringue cookie, cassis sorbet, port soaked raisin and diced pomegranate; pear assiette with pear donut on anise chantilly cream and bitter chocolate sauce, caramalized pear atoms on coconut lime sauce, pear mousse with seshwan pepper on apple soup¾with paired wines (Terzetto, Tocai Friulano, Central Coast, California, U.S.A. 2000; Rolly Gassmann, Pinot Auxerrois, Alsace, France 1999; Tawse, Carly’s Block, Semi – Dry Riesling, Vineland, Canada 2002; Te Mata Estate, “Woodthorpe”, Sauvignon Blanc, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand 2004; Whale Haven, Pinot Noir, Eglin, South Africa 1999; Mount Langi Ghiran, Shiraz, Victoria, Australia 2000; Aranzo, Monastrell Reserva, Jumilla, Spain 1996; Chateau Megyer, 3 Puttonyos Tokaji Azsu, Hungary 2000; Pierre Peters, Blanc De Blancs, Brut, Le Mesnil-Sur-Oger, Champagne, France N.V.), consumed over hours, divesting one’s purse and accounts of all available monies and increasing debt to atmospheric turbulence.

Now the average person, those followers of Commonia, Dullic, Tedius, the standard and the like, focuses in past, present and future (time’s halitosis) on the delights of input:  the experience of the upper mouth is all.  But not so for Merdia’s minions; she reserves for them true ends’ delight.  When the finest cuisine, the world’s top grape, the incineration of all fiscal knowledge, are not diffused across confusing hours but compressed into two minutes, a quarter pound of brown, time and space flash perfect purity, the true prince of holes, the lower mouth, sings, Joy, and the world for something like a nano gasps in peace.  What delicate composition.  What streaks of exquisite craftsmanship.

Ah, holy merde.  Oh high haut turd.  How I live and save and debt for thee.

Of Merdia 31 - 32

A little known fact of Cloa Denum's life is that, while travelling with her parents when she was 6 in what is now Algeria, she met the great African scatomancer, Mujbo, an obviously formative influence.

31.        Curious among Merdia's ways are the various degrees with which she instills her love in her subjects.  I have often observed how she configures a particular method of relating to Her in a family.  Not only does blood flow similarly through parents, siblings, cousins, but also merde.  I know that a great deal of attention has been given recently to the industry of psychology and its astounding ability to probe the relations of an individual to its context.  But I say that a more fruitful means of exploration is to ask the patient how its family speaks of Merdia¾and even if they speak of Her.  In what manner?  How frequently?  Is there a household shrine?  Are the best creations spoken of during dinner, and praised?  Is the case displaying them prominent and a suitable amount of expense, proportional of course to family income, engaged, both in terms of capital and operating expenditures?  Do members share stories of successes, struggles and, yes, even moments of humiliation, when Merdia Herself seemed silent and the universe as dark as empty bowels?  Are little prayers offered spontaneously and according to long established rites?  Are there parades and parties?  How many members have a form of Merdia as a given name?  (I know, for example, of a large Spanish family whose 17th son was named Merdo Moses Merdu Jesu Merdi Mohammed Merdai Gonzales.  When the child got older, he instituted the Basque University of Merdia, offering the world's first degrees in Merdia studies.  The Gonzales are to be commended.)  Are members gently encouraged to improve the diligence and frequency of their acts of worship?  Are photos of the most heroic moments kept in family wallets?  Are members fluent in Merde as well as their native tongue?   By pursuing this line of inquiry, the one interested in releasing the other's full humanity will gain far deeper insight than by using traditional methods, and both analyst and analysand will feel relieved, as if a void has taken place in the spiritual realm and a vast unseen turd swirls down a cosmic toilet, mingling with the produce of the gods.

32.         A little tremor goes through my soul when Merdia first knocks and I know I have about five exquisite minutes to find one of Her temples and release fireworks to my subtle Goddess.  At first, Her knocking is deep, silent, loving, gradually building to a nuclear insistence.  Surely a sign of maturity is the knowledge of, response and adaptation to Her standing at the door.  Will you let Her enter?  Ah, you must, you must.

Of Merdia 30

Ms. Denum shows herself to be a citizen of the world.

30.        An understated thrill of traveling in foreign lands is the diversity of receptacles for Merdia's elegant fruit.  Once the traveler has negotiated the many cultural, linguistic, economic and ontological barriers between his portal to Merdia's goodness and the portal to the great conductivity of merde we call in the vulgar tongue, sewers, he finds a plethora of artifacts so vast his only response can be wonder and gratitude for the infinitely grand architecture Merdia has inspired.  One of my particular favorites is la toilette de profondeur, where the distance between the supplicant’s golden yawning cheeks and the sea's eager sheen is a meter or more, and the area of the water's surface so small that the devotee has only the most minuscule margin of error if he wishes to avoid that most gauche of offenses against the Goddess¾a ceramic skid.  In such circumstances, I am given the opportunity to prove my worth to She Who Purifies by depositing my offering in the center of the water's watchful eye.  There is a pause between the exit of my brown perfection and the explosion far below, a pause in which I have always found a mystic significance, for in that delicious moment between exiting and entrance, an eternity of moments sing and all Merdia's children join hands across the ages.

If Merdia is pleased, she rewards me with volcanic splashes¾the water leaps in ecstasy and I leave the establishment, no matter how humble and confined, sharing a secret smile with my Goddess.  I forget about the battles I have had to wage to approach this peculiar altar¾the rudeness of the attendant, the costly entry, the frequent shame of my ignorance with regard to technical operations, the occasional exposure of my aging body to passersby¾and view these only as glory on Merdia's path, petite bricks of tribulation and enlightenment on her brown and squishy way.  I know in those great moments of international travel that my Goddess lives, and she too is cosmopolitan.

Of Merdia 26 - 29

Ms. Denum continues, scatoblabbing--

26.        When I sit on my throne and the small urban sea admires the vanity between my cheeks, I am king of all creation¾Merdia's sweet gift in a brief and brutal life.

27.        Thoughts float upward as Merdia's laughter gurgles down.  This dual movement is my goddess' contrapuntal glory.  How many times have I sat in decision, scepter cast aside, weights of the universe hanging hot and light over the anticipative sea.  My mind surges to the rhythms of my bowels; in peculiar synchronicity, they heave as one.  That which has been withheld in darkness sees the tunnel's end; the blessing drops, and precisely at the moment of the first delicious splash, the tight sphincter of my mind opens wide and a solution to a great bafflement soars to Heaven and splashes in a cloud.  At such moments I often offer a little prayer to Merdia, for her double goodness.

28.        As human consciousness began with Merdia's first movement, so it will end with her last.  She will raise her ripened buttocks high above the mediocre earth and extend her cheeks to the corners of the cosmos.  Her perfect rump, full of adumbrations, will open as wide as Sheol and the four winds of the apocalypse will race down to scatter the sons of men.  Merde upon merde will descend from her holy sphincter, covering cow and ass and city, and the dying gasps of millions will be, Merdia, Merdia, why hast thou forsaken us?

29.        What light do we see at the dusk of time?

What song is the sum of all we've heard?

What is the source and abolition of man's crimes?

These and more are contained in our daily merde.

I sit on my throne and know my transience

While the waters hover calmly below my rump.

I rejoice in the heaving of my noble dalliance¾

a smooth, ripe, miraculous, perfect dump.

Who climbs to Heaven, falls to Hell, with equal ease?

Who causes a billion global glorias?

Who hints at herself in a gentle breeze?

Our redemption and creation, our love, our Merdia.

Of Merdia 21 - 25

Ms. Denum continues ...

21.        Rarely, I approach the seat of high humility and awaiting me is the sweet creation of another member of our race.  I often don't know whose, and this ignorance is the source of many hours of imaginative pleasure.  Unlike many others, whose practice it is to rapidly render the foreign creation absent, I revel in this uncommon democratic opportunity, of two strange children mingling, and retain the old creation to receive the new.  I do not see the other’s delight as anything particularly odd¾no more than mine, which is new and wondrous with each passing¾but familiar; cousins in the arms of Merdia.  This rare event¾a family reunion in Merdia’s diverse and royal kingdom.  Merdia, great goddess of democracy.

22.        My love for Merdia enables me to love all things, whereas my love for other members of the pantheon enable me to love one thing.

23.        Merdia gently brings me to reject the world¾for I must daily reject the world's foundation¾and accept it, for I am brought to accept this rejection as a portion of the world's foundation.  Merdia brings forth, her bringing forth disappears.  I bring forth from her bringing forth, my bringing forth disappears.  For this space of rejection and acceptance she gently leads me to, this space known by the sages as the height of spirituality, I am most grateful.

24.        Merdia, soft brown goddess of the little seas, proud, ever naked, full of gentle curves.  If I were so formed, so flexible and ripe, would I not be the proudest of men?  But I am not … this is why I need her.

25.        Merdia brings dignity to our vicious race.  She brings grace and hope.  Because of this, she is the greatest of goddesses.  I imagine her at the end of time, when all human achievements are ripe with desinence and have lost their smell.  She will be vigorous, waiting for another better race to replace us and bestow her verdant blessings.  Then the world will know its pantheon was inverted, due not to Her deficiencies but ours.  Our cowardice.  Our mediocrity.  Our indolence.

Of Merdia 16 - 20

Cloa Denum, of Of Merdia fame, was sighted recently by a hysterical Catholic near the rear buttresses of Notre Dame.  Paris City Council and The Vatican are deep in session, discussing the possibility of erecting a shrine in honor of the sighting.

16.         The future, as everyone knows, is in waste management.  Only those who love Merdia will enter the future singing.

17.        The collegial attributes of our race are most fortuitously shown when two members are placed by fate beside each other to sing Merdia’s praise in chorus.  Whether barriers mute the singing or the voices are free to blend in the thankful air, a spontaneous duet erupts from Merdia's generous lungs.  In such circumstances, it is not unusual to hear the participating humans trying to imitate the melody with their lesser, upper mouths, gently envying the purer sound of the symphony below.  Nevertheless, despite their humbling, the two orchestrants arise in gratitude for their small part in Merdia's eternal magic and it is my hope that one day soon it will be common practice for the two, upon exiting their joint impromptu bliss, to embrace and thus physically consummate what was begun by Merdia in spirit and in song.

18.        Some among us have been given the rare gift of reading scats.  We are not rewarded by society, which degrades such divination, but by Merdia, whom we love because she first loved us.  This gift, so common among the ancients, so common there were competing schools, has declined in these constipated times.  Yet some remain who read Merdia's jewels.  They are skilled in the arts of selection, drying, penetration and discernment.  They generally do not share their knowledge.  They are prized in private.  But there will come a day when these scatomancers will be raised so high they will glimpse though darkly Merdia's resplendent buttocks on Heaven’s shining throne.

19.        Particularly ennobling is the dump's pinnacle, when a significant mass sustains it and it rises triumphantly out of the water like Neptune's hair above a gratified Pacific.  Then I know anything is possible and the heights achieved by man thus far will be superseded by even greater heights, that the umbilical waters will continue to be hovered over by the divine forces that run through man long after I and my little graces have been flushed into Sheol.

20.         In a contest involving Hera, Aphrodite, Athena and Merdia, my goddess would win “most beautiful.”  She turns nothing to something and something to nothing; she fertilizes everything and is never far from our thoughts.  All lovely things are built on her magnificent rump; the more beautiful, the more her urgent passions form the beauty's blueprint.  She is fine, my love, the glory of goddesses, the Hole of Ages, omnipresent and fertile.

Of Merdia 12 - 15

Cloa Denum continues with her scatomystical obsessions.

12.         Jesus, Aeneas, Blake, Lear--they descended into Hell, that brilliant sewer of creation.  These men, whom our society now so easily adores, knew they had to drink the most putrid waste of our kind to know how to transcend our kind.  They fell in love with God¾or his equivalent¾only through God's waste.  I'm more efficient:  I fall in love with the God of waste.  I make everything my toilet, I therefore never have to leave my love.

13.         As I age, the act of voiding does not become less novel.  (And I am not one to void infrequently, I am blessed among women.)  If anything, the experience heightens.  Each new act contains not just itself but every previous void--the unique discoveries, the manifold personalities.  I wish I had a gallery containing a photograph of each dump I’ve ever bequeathed to the world.  But this would be inadequate; so much of the joy is not captured in a cold image:  the sensuous ambience, the communion with nature and creation, the deeply visceral pushing, the sound and the blurring, the distinctive focus in which all of one's faculties are brought to bear on this singular act of grand and primal expulsion.  Such historical weight makes me tremble with anticipation as I contemplate even my third dump of the day, and this before lunch.  Past and present fuse, the future trembles with me.  All is light and glory.  All creation sings.  I am brought face to face with my responsibilities to transcend my mother¾these daily, hourly, reminders of who I am and what I can still become.  I climb the stairs to the only throne in the universe, my fingers fumbling at my fly like a teenager’s attending her first sexual experience, dropping my pants and undergarment to the floor with the vast knowledge of what is about to take place.  Memory and hope join, become incarnate, take wing and soar like eagles far above the thoughts of men.  They will fly and not be weary, they soar and do not faint.

14.         I am made new with each passing dump.  The busy factory of my body is cleansed through Merdia's magic.  Not only do I see the handwriting of the gods below my reeking heaving ass, but I myself leave this room of wonder and decisions lighter than the dump I left behind.  It is as if all the weight I have carried within me since the last transfiguration has been borne by my creation.  This is cause for dancing, for believing in the gods.

15.         Merdia, goddess of cleansing and purification, goddess of strength and overcoming, goddess of holiness and creation, goddess of light and pushing, of withholding and revealing, of anticipation and sweetness, the transcendence of Hell, time's redemption, history's urgency, God's envy; goddess of binding and releasing, goddess of pleasure’s emptiness and fullness, goddess of mystics and saints, of legions and visions, of profits and prophets, of shame and innocence; goddess of singing, art, religion and love, bless us today and for evermore.  Amen.