SEA SHELLS

– Oscar Wilde

stamps 🪷

went for a walk yesterday...

Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.

— Oscar Wilde

A Hymn to Aphrodite

Come, Lady Aphrodite of the golden tresses

Swan drawn and sailing on sunset clouds

She whose bed is the paradise of affection

Whose touch upon our lives ignites our hearts like flame

Universal goddess, source of all life

You who makes meeting and parting

Beloved are you by all who receive your blessings

Sea-foam born goddess of passion

At once heavenly, ineffable, and pure

But likewise in the mundane, intimate, and physical

Fragrant goddess, enthroned in all three realms

Even the gods are not immune to your charms

Bedecked in ocean spray and sweet oils

Your skin like gold and gemstones, glittering and radiant

You give shape to primordial desire, giving form to universal forces of attraction

Cyprian goddess, Syrian queen, with fluttering eyelids like petals

Look upon me with grace and favor, and fill my heart and soul.

With incense and libation I propitiate you

May I never be without your delicate touch

and warm, gentle breath upon my back.

O goddess, adorned in the jewels of the sea, I honor you

On the wings of doves send your blessings down through the heavens

And avert evil and loneliness from my path.

(Last night I had a dream that I was in a competition to write a hymn for Aphrodite, so when upon waking up I wrote this. I gave it to Her at my shrine this evening.)