Fasting

Olivia stopped by my blog today to comment on this post. Her comment was heartfelt. It touched me and I responded in kind. I went to my Reader and found her post. I’m also mindful of pixie and her deep grief over changes with her Richard. *sighs…* It is hard to watch others pain. Nearly as hard as its been to watch my own. Because I’m not totally tied up in it. The thing about meditation practice is that it puts you in touch with this Higher Self that exists in us all. This is a Self that’s detached from this every day life. Its a sort of Observer; involved guidance, but not involved participant in life, if that makes any sense. So whatever I experience, there’s this part of me that is separate and able, even as I ball up inside and shatter.

Olivia’s post was intensely descriptive for me. A part of me shrieked about that case being closed over her small ~self. And then I felt the the essence of my fast wash over me and I felt comforted by my viewpoint of this setting aside of the small ~self… You see, my spirituality sustains me in a very special way. I have archetypal experiences that are both real and useful in creating and inner landscape for my emotional reality.

I hope what is still to come in this post might provide a perspective to consider in when others are facing this letting go…and I might point out that this post is a unique insight to how spirituality, bdsm, sexuality, life on life’s terms…all flow together into one perspective for living.

And let me start by explaining a perspective that I carry inside like a living breathing, tangible wisdom. To shatter is to begin to Live….Our hearts are a consciousness through which we view and interact with the world…not just with those special ones we love. We can only be truly open when we’ve suffered the ache of loss. It is a paradox…but it is true. We Become through our losses. They temper and strengthen us if we let them and we don’t shrink from them.

And there are many traditions that provide ritual experiences of the opening that is left in the wake of loss. Vision Quest is one such as this. I’m sure there’s lots of other rituals that people can talk about. This is the one that holds meaning to me…because it is so beautiful, so harsh and yet one of the most nourishing forms of submission I know. Yes. Submission. To go on Vision Quest is to submit.

In preparing, we do a number of things. We gather allies who will keep watch over us while we go aside for this holy time. Those allies will do things to help us during the ceremony. They will make sure we are safe, for one thing. They will help us to have a safe space in which to be shattered and open. For me, these allies are people like Paul and other friends I have whom I can share my journey on many levels…a person who understands me and enjoys me for who I am, with whom I can laugh and exchange wisdom.

We also make what we call prayer ties. These ties are just little bits of cloth with a little bit of a plant used to make offerings when praying. We tie up the offerings in the cloth and string them together. When we go aside, we’re given this holy space that we can sit, dance, pray and sing…do the things that gathers inner power and strength. The string surrounds us with the power of our prayers. It is safe space…another layer of it that is just for me.

In my tradition, anything holy is set on sage, be that a pipe or a feather or a person on Vision Quest. So I am made holy. I sit on a bed of sage while I am fasting. I carry a pipe into that place because its the thing that I can cry with. I hold this holy thing that represents the powers of creation in my arms and I can cry and weep and snot my guts out over the thing and I am heard…because it is like a megaphone to some Great Mystery that I just don’t understand but which I can sense in all the live that’s around me. I am heard. I am safe.

I am left to the elements while I’m there. I’m left to be a part of the natural world…open to rain, sun, darkness…for any little or small creature to view and interact with. I am left alone there…yet I am not alone with all that live all around me. I have no food. No water. I have almost nothing with me. Only something to keep warm and dry with. Not even any paper to wipe myself if I pee or poop. Because that’s what leaves are for…or I can carry a bit of sage leaves with me to wipe…but I am totally left unfettered by the things that distract in life. I am free. In the most essential way. I don’t have to worry about anything. Just be. I can open fully and not have anything between me and the Truth of Me. I am safe. I am being watched over.

And there is pain there. It hurts to not eat and drink. It hurts alot. It hurt so bad, you think you’ll die. And you might. In this tradition, it is believed that when you go out like this, you are dead to the people who put you there…your loved ones. Because they really don’t know if you are coming back. The Spirits could take you…and science says that you can’t live more than three days without water. But you can. I’ve seen many people do this.

So I know that I can live without the substance of dominance…because I must submit to do this fast. I am gettin dominance of the soul…I am giving it to myself. It is only my own will that’s holding me in that small circle of prayer ties after all. No one is forcing me to stay there. I can step out and leave, just as easily as I can step out to pee. In this place, one learns that submission is a choice and and an action. It is my will which chooses…not the dominant’s. I give the energy of that decision to him…if he earns it….and if he keeps earning it. But that energy is generated from within me. It is my will which creates the submission.

And there is no deeper form of submission than to go aside to fast for a Vision.

So…I’ve not shut myself away in a box or anything. She’s there…holy. Sitting with the elements on a bed of sage and any holy spirit can visit and interact with her. She can get what she needs this way. She is getting domination. Mine. She’s submitting to the fast, I’ve set her…and she will be stronger and wiser for it.

She will not be ignored. She will not be utterly neglected. She will have her soul friends and her pipe to pray and cry with. She will have nourishment that’s not the touch of a Man…not food. She will have nourishment that is not water…not the pain of a spanking. She will have the touch of the soul, full of unspeakable bliss and also more pain than you can imagine. A nourishing balm of a different sort. It is nourishment that feeds the soul and trickles down to the body, keeping it alive and vital when it should be dying.

These are the lessons of my spirituality. They are hard to apply. There is no doubt of that. I am struggling. It is a hard, very painful thing to fast after all.

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