A note from Bright Crow: This continues the revision of a serialized adventure Walhydra first published on The Crone Thread in 1996.Part 4: A Virgo haranguePart 1: Dr. Bob
Part 2: Matchmaking
Part 3: Jim
Part 4: A Virgo harangue
Part 5: Introductions
Part 6: The “brownie”
Part 7: The concert
Part 8: The seduction
Part 9: The crisis
Part 10: The conclusion
Walhydra insists that she will not come back again as a Virgo.
It's not just the remarkably unfair bad press Virgos usually get: all that second-fiddle stuff about chastity, service, efficiency, fussiness and anal retentive obsession with hygiene and order. Pah!Walhydra could write a textbook on Virgos, but probably only other Virgos would believe it.
Her epigram for Virgo would be: "Abnormally conventional."
The problem, she says, is that Virgos have high powered x-ray vision. They see through every form of social convention—whether they want to or not. No religious or cultural or political system, no popular expectations about morality or etiquette or gender role, etc., can claim absolute value under such scrutiny."If only we didn't have to have these sensitive egos in the way," she laments.
That's the catch. The same person who has this penetratingly critical and transpersonal view of human life also wants to belong, to be liked, to be admired and loved.
"Waaa!"
It's a highly emotional, almost entirely private struggle for balance between personal integrity and the longing for what seems available only by conforming to social expectations.
To cope, Walhydra laughs at herself as much as she can—the only real remedy for life, as most of you dear readers know.
One of her favorite laughs is that bit about Virgos being neat, organized and efficient:
"The truth is Virgos are expertly lazy," she explains. "Efficiency is about finding the most practical way to get something done with the least amount of work."
Maynard G. Krebs is Walhydra's life long hero."My desk is always clean? Of course, dear. All my unfinished work is neatly filed away! Coded according to how long I can possibly put it off before I have to do it!
"Granted, I'm great at triage. That just means that what other people really need—whether they know it or not—gets done first.
"I hate tedium. I hate having to redo anything. I really hate incompetent or unprofessional behavior that sets back or undoes the work.
"I hate wasting time and energy, when I could be sitting on a hill in the sun, fantasizing. If only I could leave my job every day when my work is actually done...."
But what about service?
Walhydra doesn't joke about that—well, not much. This is where that x-ray vision really comes into play. And, in ways that are sometimes very painful, she is obliged to turn it on herself as well.
"The greatest service I can give anyone is to help her see past the conventions and expectations she lets keep her from her own Original Self. There's little more sublime to me than seeing sparks of that light beginning to glow.
"But, whooeee, do people fight against it! Me included."
This brings us back full circle to the reason for Walhydra's declaration at the start of this chapter. It has to do with the most misunderstood aspect of the conventional portrayal of Virgo.
"Who the hell decided that being a Virgin had anything to do with not having sex?!"
Walhydra is adamant about this.
"Being a Virgin is about being an utterly independent woman, beholden to no man—for anything!
"Why do they think the Virgin Mary refused to tell who the father was? Who did all the work of bringing the Holy Kid into the world—and, for that matter, of seeing him out again?!"
Since Walhydra is a man in this incarnation—granted, a queer one—she's the first to admit this isn't about male bashing. It's about sex having nothing to do with ownership—of any sort.
As she says:
"The most absurd part of that warped Virgo caricature is the bit about being chaste, sexually circumspect, etc. Balls!...um...or whatever.... Virgos are gourmets of the sensual. We would love to try anything—and anyone—we haven't tried before."
[At this point JimJim, Hubby #4, is getting a little nervous. But, Walhydra hastens to remind him, Virgos can be ruthlessly faithful, once they decide to be.]
Walhydra's most favorite ever portrait of Virgo is a greeting card someone once gave her. It shows a gleeful little piglet, running through a meadow on its hind legs with only a carefully draped ribbon to conceal its "rude bits."
Hubby Jim, who knows Virgo's secret nature, loves this card too. He is careful not to say teasingly to Walhydra, "Take off your clothes," when they are in public, because Walhydra always starts to unzip at once.Virgos are confirmed exhibitionists. Even if no one at all notices because they are being so discreet.
"But," Walhydra continues, "there are always those damned conventions and expectations to bollocks things up! I'd love to just walk up to that gorgeous young man at the next table—the one who could be my son—and say, 'I'd like to....'."
[Due to moralistic conventions beyond our control, we are unable to continue the audio portion of this broadcast. Please substitute an illicit fantasy of your choice.]
"If Virgos ruled the world, that boy could accept or reject the compliment without offense, without it meaning anything about his 'orientation' or mine, without any expectations other than mutually agreed upon pleasure.
"Doing 'it' would still be a sacred act, of course. But it would be up to the Goddess and the God—not to convention—to give it its meaning. For us it might just be heavy breathing and a happy exchange of...um...fluids."
*ahem*
As you see, the Virgo dilemma, according to Walhydra, is that compassion for her own ego and those of others demands that she be circumspect. Where there might be any doubt about intentions or expectations, she does without.
Of course, the gentle reader may be remembering the paean to Hubby Jim back in Part 3. All of that is true.
It's not her own monogamy Walhydra objects to. Before she "got it right" this time around, Walhydra had no idea how blessèd are the mundane and spiritual gifts of a monogamous commitment. Provided, that is, the two parties have their eyes open, keep their hearts free from all false expectation—and know how to fight fair.
Walhydra has no regrets.
It's just that she some times longs to experience that other evolved Virgo choice: being polymorphously perverse.
*sigh*
"Probably," Walhydra concludes, "I'll end up as a Virgo over and over again."
She shrugs. "At least it's not boring."
Now, about this party....
[To be continued]
