“Angelsea”

“‘Angelsea’ captured the essence of woman, as the cosmic love force, moving with an angel’s grace, with the universe as her home, as a divine mermaid, her life-breath the heat of love itself, the paramour of magic, the speller of the gods themselves, clad in rainbows and teardrops. Cat Stevens sang it with the earthy passion of a lover, using the heavenly words of a poet. I could never make out the words of the chorus, but it was perfect in its place, an incantatory, swaying, otherworldly sequence of sounds. This song was important to me because it gave fine form to the archetypal feminine beauty that I internally appreciated, but for which I could never find external structure. Woman represented the deep and rich, the beautiful, tender, compassionate, loving, and sensuous nature of life. In her lay life’s mystery and wisdom, its ability to perpetuate itself, its rhythms and flows, its deepest pains and most glorious joys. The face of a beautiful woman held me in unwearying fascination. I constantly strove to understand how the curve of bone or the texture of skin or the shape of eye or the fall of hair could, like sections of an orchestra, play together so perfectly as to create an image of great beauty. I wanted to know where the physical aspect ended and how the enlivening qualities of the mind and soul seeped into the outer layers to lend them depth, grace, and wonder.”