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I hope you'll forgive me waxing poetic for a moment; in light of the occasion, it feels necessary. Are there, I wonder, enough words in the cumulative languages of the universe, to describe love in its entirety? I'd have to think not, for just about the time that I think I've said all that I wish to say, I discover that there's something more. Any and all words could be used to describe love, especially love as powerful as what Neville and I shared, and all without a speck of jealousy. I shouldn't wonder that Neville might find yet more words to describe what he and Valentín share. The three of us share "never-ending," and gladly so. The cliché is true: From the moment that we met, I knew that I would never not love Neville. A week later, when I learned that Valentín had all but given Neville to me as a gift, I knew that I would never not love him either.

Jealous? Why? What purpose does that emotion serve? Don Miguel Ruiz tells us, in his book_The Four Agreements,_ that we are trained, like any domesticated animal, to accept society's ways. Like religion, jealousy was invented to constrict and stigmatize the ways in which we are allowed to experience - and, more importantly, share - love. More accurately, and again like religion, jealousy exists as a form of self-destruction that insists upon the doctrine of mutually assured destruction: "Not only am I not worthy of love, neither is anyone else, and I will destroy myself and that which I love so that no one else can have it." As the yowens say these days: Srsly? What purpose is served by any emotion that relies so completely on destruction of the soul? Like externally-enforced monogamy or socially-accepted normative social structure (e.g., "straight-only marriage"), it's an artificial, caustic, purposeless waste of our best natures. No infant is born with mistrust, judgment, prejudice, or fear; all of it is learned behavior. It's time for us to wake up and unlearn these things.

But now is not the time for soapbox speeches. Today is not about those things. Today is for celebration of all these wonderful years we've shared. And like all good celebrations of a relationship, I should tell you of our marriage, along with a few good anecdotes of the honeymoon. Those of you looking for naughty bits may leave now; you'll be disappointed.

Our wedding was actually a very simple affair. I had no family beyond a few sets of foster parents who, one way and another, had become estranged from me. Neville had family, but they too were, one way and another, estranged. Many of my friends were convinced this was a lousy match, for reasons I've stated before; many of Neville's friends were likewise doubtful of the match. Happily enough, a lavish wedding wasn't in either of our personal wish lists, so we found an Episcopal priest who, with his husband, helped us through the gauntlet of the law and, with joyous informality, gave us some of the best couples pre-marital counseling you could believe. The good Reverend Quincy and his husband Stephen are marvels of generosity and wisdom, with or without the trappings of their religion. I had to wonder how much of their banter was rehearsed, as they quite cleverly maneuvered us into "counseling" them a few times, allowing me and Neville to learn the best techniques for resolving conflicts by coming up with them ourselves. They're still together, and still counseling; I have their number, if you want it.

I had teased Neville by asking if he or I should wear a bridal gown; he teased me right back by suggesting we be naked for the ceremony. Even the classic tuxedo idea seemed foolish, as we'd only be renting them, and we'd no need to show off for one another nor for some large crowd of onlookers. (By the way, the priest and his husband seemed quite to like the idea of us being naked; they even volunteered to perform the service stripped to the fur, all quite Bacchanalian. No wonder they call it "Catholic Light" - all the ceremony and half the guilt.) Ultimately, we chose very simple cotton pants with drawstring belts and open-necked shirts that we commissioned of a local cloth-maker and seamstress. In contrast to his beautiful black and white fur, Neville's clothes were a deep rose quartz, like a lighter cabernet with a hint of gray muting the garishness of the red. My own clothes were amethyst, deeper than lavender, setting off my gray fur and not clashing with the pale brown of my ruff and my legs and hindpaws. Between us, we were a study in contrasts all the way round.

The ceremony took place in the chapel rather than the main sanctuary, simply because it was easier and more cozy for the small number of attendees. I joked privately with Neville that my few friends showed up more for the reception than the ceremony, and he confided that he thought the same of his own. I can tell you this now, because we have all reconciled quite well. It's one more thing that I remember to be grateful for.

Appearing as if an omen, so far as our various disapproving friends might have said, it stormed a bugger that hot, late-August day. We honestly wondered if we'd missed a hurricane warning somewhere along the line. Our guests were half-soaked by the time they arrived, despite canopies and overhanging rooves; at the worst of it, it was quite literally raining sideways. The church had a small gymnasium in a building next door, for use by various youth groups and anyone who wanted a safe space to shoot hoops or otherwise work out. Through generous donations from the parish, the building had been fully equipped, including towels for showers (and the laundry equipment to deal with them). While Quincy was still preparing for the ceremony, Stephen very kindly dashed over to bring a stack of towels to the chapel entrance for our guests to dry off with and a hamper to toss them in once done. Neville and I had arrived some time earlier and had changed in the church, in a room off the sacristy.

I'll tell you a secret that has never been told until today. After I'd gotten out of the clothes I'd worn to the church, I turned to find Neville staring at me with that soft, half-lidded sort of gaze that he would get when he was telling me how much he loved me without saying a word. He, too, was stripped to the fur, and with a sharp twinkle in his eye, he grabbed me by the forepaw and dragged me out into the sanctuary itself. The Saturday morning service (the one that Quincy had described as the "get it out of the way service," for those who suspected that they might not be able to make it to early mass on a Sunday morning) had long since been finished. The church wasn't huge, by any stretch, but a good 150 furs could fit themselves comfortably in the pews - all of which, I was happy to note, were empty.

Neville took us right up onto the altar, turned me to face him, as we held forepaws. "Do you know the myth of the first male and female?"

"The temptation of evil. To eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. To know right from wrong. At least, that's the legend."

My sweet badger smiled at me. "If you study the so-called scholars on the subject, this original pair from which all sentient life sprang knew of right and wrong, good and evil, already; the 'knowledge' from the fruit of the tree was supposed to be the_desire_ to commit evil acts. The two were fur-clad yet knew no shame, the legend says, until they 'knew their nakedness' and felt shame. That emotion - shame - is recognition of the righteous spirit's desire to do evil." He looked up at the clean cross above the altar. "And then, the god of this myth had to resort to the evil of filicide in order to rescue others from whatever evil they might commit. It's a damned idiotic system."

I looked at him a little stupidly. I certainly didn't disagree, but why had he brought us here?

He cast his eyes skyward, or perhaps heavenward, depending on your definition. He gripped my forepaws and shook them gently."This_is the result of eating the fruit of knowledge. Not shame, not fear, not the desire to do evil. Look upon us, you mighty being, and see us for what we are. We are naked, and we know it. We are_good,_and we know it. We are _love, just like you are." He looked back to me, exultant, triumphant, certain. "Our spirits are always naked, Raymond. We are spiritual beings, borrowing physical form sometimes in order to experience, to learn, to grow in love."

He pulled me into his arms, there on the altar, and pressed himself against me. We held each other tightly, and I could hear the tears in his voice. "You have found me in this world, in this form, to remind me of all that love is. I love you forever, my beautiful coyote. Before all that is Love, I swear it."

I buried my face into the crook of his neck and wept. We stayed there for a long time, the only sounds being the pounding rain and the hitching of our breaths, before we slowly realized that we needed to dress for the ceremony. In my heart, I'd always felt that those moments were our true wedding. The State required documents, signatures, witnesses, all the trappings of the physical. There upon the altar, in the vast space filled with the love of something greater than ourselves, with Valentín as our witness, our spirits stepped inside one another and were bonded in a way that would transcend anything that the physical world would throw at us.

It was some years later that Quincy told us that he had seen us, heard us, and let us be. He said it was the most beautiful sermon he'd ever heard delivered from that altar, and that he had done all he could ever since to live up to it. He, like Neville and I, never told anyone; now, however, it seems fitting.

We went back to the room by the vestry well in time, donned our clothes, gave each other a little brushing and tidying-up, then went to our places at the back of the chapel. There is a lot of symbolism in the traditional wedding ceremony. The groom waits at the front, while the bride is escorted down the aisle, usually to a solemn march, accompanied by someone who "gives her away" to the groom. They arrive separately, are joined, and leave together. There's also that whole Best Male and Female of Honor thing, both of whom (originally) were supposed to be unwed, and the purpose of which is about catching bouquets and garters, as omens of who was next to be wed. Quite apart from the fact that neither of us wanted to stretch our gender identity to include the idea of "bride," I had no family to "give me away," and the only being in the universe who could "give away" Neville was unseen by the rest of our guests. So we decided we'd both walk down the center aisle, arm in arm, accompanied by a sweetly languid rendition of George Gershwin's Piano Prelude No. 2 (also known as "Blue Lullaby"), as performed by our friend Sanford Knowlton.

Gershwin himself recorded this prelude played in what feels like triple-time; no offense to the composer, but the real way to play this piece is Sandy's way - as if it were carried on the faint, humid breeze of a summer night in the deep south. The tender counterpoint and bluesy individuality of the music were a perfect description of our joining, and if there's one thing that sleek black panther knows, it's how to coax the soul out of any keyboard he touches. Even the persistent, heavy rain outside couldn't chill the sultry warmth of the music. His long, expressive tail swayed hypnotically as he played, and Neville and I flowed smoothly to our place before the good reverend, who stood a single step above us on the chapel altar. We turned to face each other, forepaws joined, eyes gazing into one another with the deepest love. Sandy brought the piece to a close, with the final B-natural up top and the C-sharp down below, and Quincy began.

"Beloved friends, welcome one and all. We have gathered, through wind and rain, to see these two loving males joined, now and always. We certainly needn't add my wuthering to the service."

Neville and I grinned as our friends beyond us chuckled softly.

"It is traditional to ask if anyone can show cause why these two should not be bound in holy matrimony, but be advised that if anyone does speak up, I'll have to thump him. You've been warned."

The laughter was slightly more nervous, but genuine. The ones who actually had made it to the service might still have had their doubts, but at the very least, they were willing to set them aside and give us a shot. No one objected - a good plan, as Quincy is a princely lion of no small proportion, and Stephen is a highland bull whose sheer bulk is solid enough to mow down any opposition.

"Another tradition is, 'Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.' With my thanks to Sandy," he nodded to our panther pianist, "we've had something sweetly blue. I wouldn't make the obvious jokes about old and new, regarding these wonderful furs; I've come to know them over the past several months, and I hope sincerely that they will be my and Stephen's friends for all their lives. So let me say instead that these are two old souls who, in the beauty of this new lifetime, have come together to share themselves fully." He looked out to our small cadre of friends and, spreading his arms wide, he said, "They have borrowed from each of you just a bit of your strength, your support of their joining, in the face of doubt, worry, even outright disapproval of those who they have known for so long. You who are here today have lent them your most precious gift - your love - that they may share their own love with each other and with all of you."

He slowly lowered his arms, placing a forepaw onto each of our heads. "Raymond... Neville... you have chosen, in the sight of your friends and of the Great Spirit that is Love, to be bound together always. Do you take each other, for all that you have become, for all that you will grow to be, through the glorious and the devastating, through the setbacks and the successes, through all the transcendent realities of this strange and wonderful thing we call Life, for now, for your lives, forever?"

At that moment, before we could speak, a huge flash of lightning and a tumult of thunder seemed to shake the building. After the rolling tympani subsided, Quincy added solemnly, "That's to make you think before you answer."

The onlookers broke into guffaws, as Neville and I grinned our fool heads off, trying to maintain some decorum. After the laughter, we gripped each other's forepaws once, twice, thrice, and said in unison, "We do."

Quincy raised his forepaws from our heads and placed them together, pads to pads, and intoned, "By the power vested in me by the State and the church, I declare you to be husband and husband."

Neville and I started to move our muzzles to one another, when Quincy, in true Monty Python fashion, intoned, "Wait for it!"

Our friends laughed again, and my badger and I tried to stifle our own laughter as we held tableau, like racers revving their engines at the starting line. Finally, with great solemnity, Quincy smiled softly and said, "You may kiss to seal your vows."

"You're sure this time?" Neville piped up.

"Just kiss already!" the lion roared, grinning.

And we did. Oh gods, we did. Our lips met as our eyes closed for the first time in the whole of the brief service, and we could tell by the noise that our friends had all leapt to their hindpaws to cheer and applaud fit to silence the slowly diminishing rain outside and to bring down the rafters of the chapel. It was a kiss more slow and more chaste than many we had shared, but it held so much meaning, so much passion, I would swear to this day that we positively glowed. Even after we separated, so slowly, our friends were still applauding raucously, now joined by Quincy, Stephen, and Sandy. In theory, the panther was to play our recessional music, but by this time, none of us cared. The rest of the service had held so many moments of improvisation that all formality was officially cast aside, and our friends came pouring out of the pews, swelling like a wave up the aisle to hug us, kiss us, twirl us around in circles, pound our backs, and cry joyous tears with us. Quincy and Stephen were treated likewise as the bunch of us reveled in the unbridled emotions of the moment.

Someone must have whispered a word to Sandy, or he had the inspiration strike on his own, because after a few minutes of this raucous celebration, the panther padded quickly back to his keyboard and started up a song that we hadn't discussed at all. As the familiar melody became recognized, some of the assemblage started to laugh, and others started to say "No, no!" while still others - not the least, Quincy - started to scream "YES, YES!" I grabbed Neville's forepaw and ran down the center aisle, the reverend at our heels, vestments billowing, and several more following. Those of us who knew the lyrics were already singing at the tops of our lungs as we barreled outside into the downpour:

"I'm singin' in the rain, just singin' in the rain...!"

We danced and jumped, sang and whooped, soaked to the fur in seconds and not caring a damn about any of it. What some had seen as a foreboding omen of tumult and turmoil had become the warm, nurturing, life-giving, life-affirming baptism of glorious love. Those who didn't quite dare to come out and be drenched stood just inside the doors to the chapel, hooting and hollering with the rest of us. After reaching an appropriate moment in his playing, even Sandy ran into the thinning shower to celebrate with us. Of those inside, someone had the good sense to call up the location of our reception to request a large number of towels and the use of as many wall dryers as they could arrange. We knew it was time to stop when the early evening sun began to break through the clouds, and the most beautiful rainbow I'd ever seen formed on the horizon.

"Either your marriage has been truly blessed," Quincy bellowed happily, "or you two are gonna build a really big boat!"

We'd booked the reception hall of our favorite Mexican restaurant, and to our astonishment and great delight, the owner (our friend Miguelito Velasquez) had booked a mariachi group for us. Far from being the somewhat embarrassingly cliché amateurs sometimes depicted in films and sit-coms, these furs were terrific. Migeulito had spent the day cooking for a crowd far above our expectations. With our permission and encouragement, he invited everyone who came into the restaurant for dinner to join us in celebration of our wedding. Some few stuffed shirts declined, perhaps because they saw me and Neville dancing to the music, along with Quincy and Stephen, who made quite the imposing couple on the dance floor. The rest joined in, some known to us by this time, others who had seen us together, all enjoying the entertainment and free food. Though no one asked them to, many generously tipped their servers and their host. Good manners will out. Most of the furs in our relatively small town are like that, and the few who aren't usually don't kick up much of a fuss.

We stayed the full evening on Saturday, enjoying and seeing to our guests, then retiring home afterward to enjoy a long and leisurely snuggle, allowing us to sleep in as long as we wished on Sunday morning. For those of you with prurient interests, I will say only two things. Yes, the marriage was consummated, and quite enthusiastically on both our parts. Also, there is something astonishing about the first lovemaking where we called each other "husband." It's not an emotion that can be described. I can only say that more precious, joyous tears were shed, and there truly is nothing quite like it.

Most of Sunday passed with a combination of languor and smugness. I'm sure there's plenty of excitement at the idea of taking off on some wonderful honeymoon trip almost right from the ceremony. We had a particular trip in mind, however, and it depended upon the season being right. We spent the intervening time dealing with various legal necessities of joining our small estates, working out our finances, updating wills, all of those mechanical and legal necessities that new couples have to deal with. It wasn't difficult for us, as we had the help of another good friend, an attorney who whispered a few secrets of law into our receptive ears, and we had everything squared away in good time. We had Neville's van looked over for an oil change, wheel alignment, and other preventive maintenance, and before long, "Ghost Dancing" was declared fit for the road trip of a lifetime: A virtually improvised tour of northern New England during the magical season of autumnal change.

Our only confirmed destinations were certain bed-and-breakfast inns that we knew we would have to book in advance; other locations, we could take a chance on as we drove. We started at the Phineas Swann Bed and Breakfast Inn and Antiques Gallery in Montgomery Center, Vermont. We arrived in good time on the autumnal equinox, enjoyed early dinner at a nearby pub, and returned to take pleasure in meeting some of the other guests who were gathered about the outdoor fire pit. The weather had cooperated perfectly, and the air was just chill enough to make the fire a perfect indulgence. Neville cuddled up with me in one of the large wooden Adirondack chairs, and it took only moments for one of the guests to figure out that we were honeymooners. We received only smiles and goodwill, although one older fellow, a rugged-looking Boston terrier, pleaded with us not to knock down the supports of the four-poster bed. We explained that the wedding was nearly a month ago, and I'd promised the management that, despite my coyote heritage, I'd not howl too loudly. The assembled company guffawed and wished us a long and happy life together, toasted not with alcohol but marshmallows. (Travel Tip: New Englanders make the best s'mores.)

When we retired to our room later, we did consider the obvious uses of a four-poster bed, but alas, we'd not packed for such a contingency. Our lovemaking was slow, gentle, and save for the panting and soft, mutual whining of pleasure, quiet. And that's all you'll get out of me for that.

We stayed there for a few nights, spending the intervening days looking through antique shops and "purveyors of curious goods," as one of the signs called them, and walking paw in paw through some of the most magnificent parks, paths, and foliage either of us had ever seen. I'm not sure of my singing voice, but Neville had told me that he loved it, so when we were alone together one afternoon, I sang to him lines from the song "Forever Autumn":Through autumn's golden gown, we used to kick our way; you always loved this time of year... We did that often during our two weeks in the magnificence of the changing leaves. You can't come up with enough names for all the colors - yellow, gold, tawny, orange, tangerine, lavender, plum, purple, frosted green, faded green, red, brick, crimson... there's no end to such a rainbow as we saw for those few weeks.

Taking Ghost Dancing was a calculated risk. The gas mileage was lower than in my smaller car, but not only did it give us a greater sense of room while traveling, it also provided the space for our few acquisitions of antiques. We were far less concerned with provenance than with how good they looked. We chose matching handcrafted bedside tables, deciding that we'd retire the ones in our bedroom to our somewhat neglected guest room. We found a few examples of what is known as McCoy pottery, something that Neville had learned about from an old high school friend of his; some was overpriced, but in a smaller store in northern New Hampshire, he found a piece that was terribly underpriced. True to his nature, my badger guided the store owner to a website that discussed the relative conditions and values of McCoy pottery, including ways to help determine that pieces were genuine. Neville insisted on paying the median value for the piece (nearly a third again higher than what the piece was marked), and the shop owner likewise insisted that we take, as his gift, a beautifully crafted humidor. Neither of us smoked, but it would have been churlish to turn it down, so we accepted it with good grace. We later lined it with ruby-red velvet, to keep special trinkets in. You may have seen it on the mantle in our house. Pride of place.

In some ways, our honeymoon was our "vacations last hurrah." We had begun pooling our finances for it almost from the day we moved in together. I was hardly rich, and neither was Neville. I was frugal by choice, he by necessity. As James Michener told us, "A writer can make a fortune in America, but he can't make a living." My badger had parlayed his home (paid for), his legacy from his parents (largely gone), and his occasional bits of freelance process writing or editing into a means to keep himself from starving, but many extravagances were out of the question. At the beginning of our relationship, he insisted that we keep all our finances separate, and even after marrying, each of us kept certain funds from being (as the lawyer chappies would say) commingled. There were tax advantages to filing a single return as a married couple... bah, you don't need to get bored with all that. All I meant to say was that we both kept our vacations very simple after our honeymoon. We'd get away from time to time, enjoy a change of scenery, but we kept our motels simple and inexpensive, opting instead for the pleasures of the location and being happy with a clean room to sleep in. No more four-poster beds, but I'll titillate your brains by saying that, where there's a will, there's a way.

Money was never an issue between us, though. We'd sigh over it sometimes, as most married couples will, but I still had my own abilities to barter with (not those, you filthy-minded git; I'm talking about my abilities in website design and traffic-driving). We never starved, never wanted for clothing when we needed it, and we learned how to cook for each other. When I was on a deadline for a website, he kept us fed; when he was on deadline for his writing, it was my shift. We took care of each other. That's what couples do, married or otherwise. There was never a day we didn't love each other. Oh, there were times when we would feel fed up with something the other did, but we both handled it the same way: A walk outside (when practical), some time spent feeling the anger and working through it, seeing what was really at the root of it, then returning and talking - slowly, carefully, and with the focus not on blame but on a solution. It was like a formula for us: Feel the anger fully to bleed out the poison, cry the pain to cleanse the eyes and soul, then remember just enough of the love to want to fix it. When we talked, when we fixed it, then we could feel fully the love again, and that's when we remembered the point of it all. As our vows said:Through all the transcendent realities of this strange and wonderful thing we call Life.

It never failed us. Neville once told me that he would go down to the nearby park at night, to sit at an empty picnic table and talk to Valentín, to vent, to weep, and to feel the great bull's love sending him back to me. I remember going to that same park one summer's evening, frustrated by something that was getting between us. I think I was hoping to hear Valentín talk to me. Instead, after I'd sat in sullen silence for a good half hour or so, I found some young Husky who asked me if I could "help him out with gas money." There wasn't a car in sight, and I could remember using that line myself, back in the Interesting Years. The Husky was in his late teens at best, solid, well-formed, wearing very little on that hot summer night, and I looked him up and down, looked into his eyes, wondering if I had once cast off that same hungry, calculating, desperate vibe. He told me how cute I was, and how he "doesn't really do this stuff," but then outlined what he'd do for me in a dark corner behind the now-locked building where the toilet stalls were. I felt acid at the back of my throat, wondering what I was seeing, wondering if I had ever been that openly stupid.

I told him to sit down, and I'd give him forty bucks to listen to me for ten minutes. I gave him the short form of what I went through - the shortest form, actually - and he stared at me glassy-eyed, waiting for me to shut up. He took the money, said "Thanks," and walked off. I sat for a long time, not angry, not sad, not bleeding poison nor crying cleansing tears. It was the one time that the usual formula for solving disagreements or troubles with didn't work. It was also the one time in all my time with Neville that I ever heard Valentín for myself.

That is not you, I heard, just as if he stood behind me, his large paws on my shoulders.And no, little coyote, it never was. I know who you are. Neville knows who you are. You need each other, and I would wish no other for him. Know this truth: I love you, too.

I ran back to the house, dragged Neville back to the bedroom, and we made love like it was our honeymoon again. I called him "husband" as if I'd never called him that before. And yes, we had other arguments, other "time-outs," other reconciliations over the years. I never heard Valentín's voice again, but I didn't have to. That was the night that Neville knew, beyond doubt, that I had heard the voice of the great love of his next life. Perhaps it was that, perhaps it was something else, but from that night, our lives had one more great and powerful change. From that night, Neville began being all of himself, setting aside all that had held him back. My badger fulfilled every dream he'd ever had, and more. I knew, once and for all time, that I was part of those dreams, that I was in fact one of those dreams. I knew Valentín's truth, Neville's truth, and I've been certain of it from that day to this.

This day...

...to be continued