The Harvest, 2018 Oil on Linen and 24k gold leaf, by Harmonia Rosales[/caption]

In my view, God is not  the Transcendent Being delineated in Scriptures, the one that intervenes in the workings of Man and the rest of Nature.

My God is not nullified by Evolution theory. She is the the Whole SheBang: not just the Big Bang of said theory, but the ongoing Carer that never deserts us. The nearest I can get to visual depiction is expressed in the paintings of Harmonia Rosales.

From Love she creates, preserves and destroys, like Shiva in Hindu mythology.Why has the artist depicted her Deity as a very black African woman? Like many of us these days, she is of mixed blood. Surely it's because homo erectus, our common ancestor, according to paleontologist Richard Leakey, evolved in East Africa.

I'm White myself but in recent years have come to see Black as Beautiful, a view which led very purposefully to meeting my beloved in Jamaica and her coming to join me here in Buckinghamshire, where we've been married for 17 years. So I'm biased. It's not all about looks, but of beautiful energetic happy children, brought up with clear boundaries and unconditional love. In this town we have all ethnic groups, and it's wonderful to see toddlers and bigger kids so happy to tag along with their parents.

 Sesali Bowen

The significance of the bling-encrusted dollar-grasping hand is revealed in her book, half-memoir and half polemic. She doesn't write about marriage, has no experience of it and has never wanted children. Her topic is sexual relationships from a "trap feminist" point of view, which is explained here:
Hot Girl Shit—Trap Feminism Is Sesali Bowen’s Vision for Black Women:

For example, even though I know I'm not necessarily the marrying kind, I definitely believe in sacred bonds between lovers who've chosen to build a life together. I think there is value in commitment, even if I've never felt strongly about the institution of marriage. However, I don't put every person I date on a track to be my life partner, because everything isn't for everyone.

In her book, Bowen delivers a timely analysis of trap feminism in pop culture following the resurgence and dominance of female rappers during “city girl summer” and “hot girl summer” in 2019. At the same time, the Chicago native offers a memoir, sharing her own experiences navigating poverty, body politics, her sexuality, the legal system, and sex work (which provided needed income for a couple of years in her life) —all of which contributed to her establishing a trap feminism framework. A journalist and co-host of the Purse First podcast on queer and female rappers, Bowen is a much-needed voice to contextualize the exciting direction where hip-hop is headed. Bitch spoke with the author about writing for Black women and ensuring trap culture no longer ignores or erases the stories of women and femmes.

She has no shame about her time as a "hoe" (prostitute). She delivered what was asked and accepted the fee. She is a woman who likes and needs sex. Her most stable relationships are with women, but one thing is constant in her life. Her partners are never her boss. Anyone who depends on her for money or wants to take more  than they can give, are sent away immediately. She had to learn this the hard way, after being fooled by "love". I've quoted her attitude in this post.

How does this relate to marriage?

For example, even though I know I'm not necessarily the marrying kind, I definitely believe in sacred bonds between lovers who've chosen to build a life together. I think there is value in commitment, even if I've never felt strongly about the institution of marriage. However, I don't put every person I date on a track to be my life partner, because everything isn't for everyone.

Inspired by these words, I reflect on my own long-standing marriage. It's a contract between two people, legally and in their everyday interactions. It can be love at first sight, or can grow over the remainder of their lives together.

These days I'm daily more aware that respect is more in our lives than love. What is human love anyway? It's in music. This has been known forever. It is in the human singing voice, the harmony and counterpoint equally in classical baroque and today's "sounds"—pop, rock, jazz and so forth. as known in every age and culture.

Speaking of ages and cultures, the notion of Love as the gateway to living happily ever after has always been questioned by those who care about the welfare of couples and their children. There have always been matchmakers. In many cultures, they supervise arranged marriages.

What then is Love? It comes from the single source, which can be called God, The Creator, Divine Spirit. A force which rules every event and every soul. We need to feel it and give thanks, whatever life throws at us. Especially the pain, suffering, and self-inflicted troubles which punctuate our lives. Those Fleurs du Mal, those flowers of evil.

Illustration to Les Fleurs Du Mal from Google Images[/caption]

The Call of Nature

I went along Rectory Avenue, remembering the “psychedelic tree” that stands on the corner. Once years ago I looked through it and saw each leaf move separately in the breeze and imaginatively merged with it, so that its limbs were my limbs and I felt it all at once. Now it’s strangled by ivy, but still the same tree, still standing to remind me of that momentary experience.

Just as vividly, I remember one Christmas when my younger children were little, and I thought it time to take them out from the warm house to breathe the frosty air. Rectory Avenue was a few minutes’ walk away. We made a game of looking in at Christmas lights in the big houses there. As they were mostly set far back from the road, it was no impertinence to gaze through their windows, their curtains not yet being drawn against the long dusk of these winter afternoons. In our new house we follow the Dutch custom and seldom close our curtains, though we’re only a yard from the narrow pavement, and show our Christmas tree gladly in this mainly Mahometan street.

The children were of an age for fairy tales and I wove one into our stroll: Hans Andersen’s The Little Match Girl. That urchin’s entertainment was to look into the windows of restaurants and rich people’s houses, imagining their warmth and feasts, whilst igniting her own matches one by one to try and keep frostbite at bay. We pretended to be ragged children envying the rich who lived in Rectory Avenue, with its neat gardens and fancy gates.

I passed a man yesterday on that same road, installing a new pair of very solid gates. The wood was pale, freshly planed and sanded, with the aroma of pine. It was yet to be painted with preservative, and looked good enough to eat. He was stretching over to nail up some final piece of trim, and I could see he found it hard with only two hands. I nearly offered to help, or he nearly asked for help, I am not sure which. But when our eyes made contact, the moment had passed already. He became a distant stranger like someone glimpsed from a train. Passing him again on the way back, I felt even more distant, as if he saw me as a ragged wayfarer, or an outsider like Hesse’s Steppenwolf.

Just after I’d passed by the man and his gate, I felt an urgent need to take a leak. Now I really was a miscreant wayfarer, eyeing the hedged or walled frontages for some neglected front garden, preferably of an empty house. No luck, but the end of the road faces a little park on the hillside, with children’s swings and winding paths, one of which takes you into a wood. I hastened my step, hoping to reach the desired spot undisturbed. Suddenly from nowhere a tall teenage girl appeared with a dog on a lead, going in the same direction. I overtook her in long strides, not daring to look behind me. If I got to the woodland path first, she might be dissuaded from going that way. On the other hand I didn’t want her to shun me as a possible pervert. We had made momentary eye-contact when she had first appeared and she did look attractive. Fortunately, she lagged behind, allowing me privacy to complete the mission.

Half a century earlier, I’d have slowed then, till she caught up, and addressed some friendly remarks to her dog, to see where things might lead.