by Victoria Redbard

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Danny bounced into my new place, scoping the space out to help me move some furniture in, making himself at home. Pulls me onto his lap for a cuddle, ‘so how’d did it go last night?’

He’s giggling at me, I arrived in my new house the night before after picking up Miroslav from the airport. Miroslav had been a friend to both of us for some time now, and Danny has enjoyed the joke for years ‘When’s Miroslav going to stop cock teasing my girlfriend?’

We laugh, unpack the house and head to the beach together with a little pug in tow.

Being with Danny opened me up to a love beyond format. A love that exceeded the limits of any container. Still to this day we refuse to label whatever we’re doing, aware that this love wants to be shared with many. In fact the ‘Red – bard’ name we’ve adopted is probably the most accurate channel for our continued commitment to love. The word Bard literally means story teller, song sharer or poet in Celtic culture, and the colour red represents, love, passion, courage and s-exuality. Seems fitting don’t you think?

Opening to love in the way we did, really blew open any ideas of how I was to relate going forward. Choosing to open to partnership with Miroslav was never a question because of this. When he arrived that weekend I expected he’d be staying a few days and we’d part ways. But once we’d made love, it was clear to me things would never be the same. There was no doubt in my mind when I asked him not to leave.

He had ‘stuff’ to get back into in Melbourne but the second lockdown came at a timely moment and supported this notion to fall into place.

Then came the alchemy, two fiery, will-filled humans, driving their lives with independency at the heart for 30 something years. Brought to our knees by the divinity that continued to emerge between us, rapidly becoming our guiding compass as we navigated through the minds noise.

I was clear this love wanted to lead me, but something I’d learnt in my years with Danny was to hone the channel I desired love to move through. Once Danny and I had freed up any co-dependency, manipulation and control from our societal conditioning I could see that this relationship could take any form from friendship, to lovership, to partnership. Both of us found we were unattached to what form it took.

In this stage of my life I felt the relationship I shared with another was a solid foundation like a stage that was just there to support the humans involved.

Yet now I’m seeing a reciprocity with the entity that is the relationship. A listening, a trust, a surrendering into, less like a stage and more like a garden. When I prayer to the divinity and the miracles gifted from the magic of the earth, I’m able to be even more present to the nourishment of the relationship.

I am not in any debt to it, free to do as I please and grow what I choose, yet there are boons in the weeding and devotion offered when I lean into letting the relationship guide me as much as I let love guide me.

My gratitude to these two men and their ability to feel truth and drop any societal ideas of how things ‘should’ be, moves me to tears.

My heart is a piñata in their presence.

P.S. If you missed the first part of this story go read it here.