Further

thoughts on Girl Love…

“In the sweetness of friendship; let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

~Kahlil Gibran~

I got this quote off Rosa’s blog. There are opportunities for girl love to manifest in my life in the near future. In life there’s often responses to wishes that are false starts…but life generally hands us what we need as well as what we wish for. Perhaps girl love will be simpler and way more platonic cuddly than I think. Perhaps more erotic. Perhaps more challenging. Perhaps easier than I think or fear and wonder about.

“In the sweetness…”

Yes.

The sweetness.

Women are juicy sweet aren’t they?

I like the sound of my heart finding morning and refreshment.

May it be so.

Power Exchange

On Monday, I read a post by DiscerningDom. He does describe beautifully some of the erotic urges behind dominance.

I can certainly identify with it…especially when I feel like my rapacious hussy self *smirks at my beloved Brittish friends* is feeling frisky. There’s just no doubt that in a baser moment, this is the satisfaction I derive from a power exchange in which I am the dominant. Its just true that there’s a nether tickle to the whole idea of getting what I want, how I want, when I want it, for as long as I want it. Yummy!

Mostly though? Its just not my reasoning.

My reasoning is a desire to share love in a specific manner. Watching a man discover in himself the bent knee in his dignity is a beautiful thing. Its not about me. Its about him.

Men are taught to be invulnerable, to be prideful and stoic.

To see a man unfold from those societal teachings and be vulnerable physically and emotionally is a joy. It is a change in consciousness. Its a change he chose.

To let go of his pride for true dignity…that is to say, that he is not investing his pride in himself on silly things like his work or his macho-ness…He’s basing it on his ability to meet needs and on his ability to love unconditionally and on his ethical, kind behavior in his life in general. Watching that change in consciousness is a blessing. Its a change he chooses.

Sharing his emotions freely is a gift. Men do not do that lightly. No man does. And its a privilege to be trusted so much.

To be chosen. To be trusted. To have a strong masculine man choose freely to bend his knee to me and to do so with dignity is an affirmation of my own dignity as a woman. Its not about ego. Its not about power. Its about sharing an intimacy that’s nourishing.

There’s an incredible intimacy in a person choosing to be unconditionally responsive to your direction and to love you without conditions.

There’s a dignity in the responsibility of that too.

It is the same awe I feel when a student wishes for my attention as a spiritual guide. I take the same pleasure from it.

That there’s the erotic in it too is icing on the cake.

Image here.

Adding ?’s

OneMoreOption wrote a post called We Are Defined By The Loves We Show And The Loves We Hide.

I was thinking the whole time I read this post that, focused only on the topic of homosexuality and bisexuality though it is, could just as easily have been written from the perspective of polyamory or even from the perspective of a practitioner of BDSM. For that matter it could have been written from the perspective of a minority or someone who is differently abled or disfigured or outside the economic status of those s/he loves. Societal pressures come in many forms.

I think the basic question of whether you live in or out of the closet regarding some pressure in your life carries with it hardships. Its a question of what you need and can live with. And that’s got to be weighed along with what others in your life need.

Given my own devices? I live a relatively transparent life. I don’t advertise that I am polyamorous to most of my spiritual community since they have some tighter ideals about sexuality than I do. I don’t generally share that I practice BDSM with anyone outside this blog or someone I already know has identified as kinky also. If I’m asked by someone whom I’ve generally identified as someone I wouldn’t choose to disclose to; if someone I know well outside a context of sexuality finds this blog that I didn’t invite here personally, I don’t hang my head. I look them in the eyes and make a choice about how to answer based on what I see staring back at me. If I see only judgement and fear, I just smile and make a soothing remark. It confuses them back into silence. If I see curiosity, I might answer their question more directly. But I am not afraid of what I see in anyone’s eyes. I have made a choice to live with the consequences of being out to a significant degree.

I’m not always left to my own devices about being ‘out’ though. Others have some say in that quotient. At least, I feel its appropriate that they do.

So…I am adding a question that OMO didn’t broach…How does one be comfortably out in a forum like this, yet be comfortably in the closet enough in to suit others?

Holy cow, that feels like a balancing act to me. Some days it is just not something I have the creative energy to bother with, so I haven’t been writing consistently here lately. Other days, it feels an exciting creative challenge and so here I am today with something to say. I don’t need to do details to say what I wanna say this day, so out pours words in a nice little flow. Not much need to edit myself, which always feels good to me when I’m writing. I’m a stream of consciousness kind of writer.

So far, the scales are heavy on the not bothering part…but then I am frequently silent when I’m thinking and processing in a time lag behind how quickly life is unfolding and presenting me with material that challenge me.

Right now, I’m being challenged on so many fronts, I am only just keeping it sorted out in my mind, but not having enough leisure to get creative about it in some way. This is a fun time in my life. But its emotionally and mentally busy. I am finding myself dropping into bed and being asleep almost before my head hits the pillow more often than not. That can be a very good thing. Living more than writing is a very good thing.

And that reminds me, I’m going to get to see my son tomorrow. I cannot wait! It will be fun to show him around the area which I find quite beautiful.

Image by Sonnichsen

The Meaning of Devotion

If you read yesterday’s post, you will realize that I have been in deep contemplation about the experience of devotion to something precious outside myself.

I came across this post of Shambhavi’s.

This is the passage that’s relevant to my discussion here:

Devotion and humble service are like kneading a lump of heavy, cold dough until it becomes soft, pliable, and warm.

Inquiry — asking questions and freely using your mind and your senses to explore and discover your real condition — is like the yeast allowing the softened dough to rise above dogma and fixation.

Guru is the heat that cooks the bread.

We all know that without kneading and yeast, no amount of heat will make a loaf of bread cook properly. A lump will remain a lump.

So, when we are not softened by a feeling of devotion and relieved of our dogma by a spirit of free inquiry, we cannot fully receive transmission from Guru or from Reality at large. Our senses are too gross to receive more subtle communications.

Simultaneously, the Guru provides the shock of Self recognition, transmission of the natural state of awareness, and continually challenges us to let go of our limitations. This chemistry of cooking between student and teacher is the mechanism that our own enlightened Self has given to us.

We become more aware of our grossness, and our senses become more subtle just by being around Guru and doing our sadhana with that person’s guidance.

For a long time, we are convinced that without Guru, we would be unable to progress. This is true for most of us, but not because we are abject. It is true because Guru and student is one natural technology, a perfectly natural “recipe.”

But even in the company of Guru, we still must learn through our own senses, the mind being also a sense. No teacher can make us become more aware if we are not doing some “kneading and rising.”

As our senses become less clogged, we receive more and more understanding directly from our teacher, and from the world at large.

Eventually, perhaps after many lifetimes, we are in no need of oneteacher, because our senses are more fully alive. We discover that all knowledge is knowledge of our own Self, given by Self to Self in the magnificent play of form we call duality.

As you read this post, you could easily substitute any word for Guru which is used in relationship to Shamabhavi’s teaching about devotion…It could be venerable dominant, work, creative process…anything and I feel this lands the entire topic well outside the religious relevance that the linked post is referencing.

To me, spirituality is a seamless part of how we conduct our lives. Its about spanking, about eating with gratitude for our abundance, about dressing with appreciation for color and feeling good about ourselves, about hugging a friend, about fucking our lover with all the love we possess, about being generous to a stranger in need, about lending a hand up when someone falls down, about voting our conscience when we get the chance to direct our government and politics in our country, about giving service in our military…This is mindful living…living with devotion to the blessing that life is.

I have spent much of my life going back and forth between this devoted consciousness and rebeling which sprung from my fear and selfishness.

In this moment, I am doing all that I can to resist that impulse to rebel and so stop the flow of evolution in my own heart and mind…a ascending into something more graceful and generous than I’ve ever been.

I have found a reflection of my intentions in the man I’m living with at the moment. We’ve both found it an unexpected delight to look into the mirror of each other and find a kindred soul seeking the same things.

Devotion…a word that’s bandied a great deal in reference to a specific person in our D/s conversations…but I think that we fall short if we only apply it to our romantic relationship…I think that devotion is a way to live.

That’s what I’m learning as I do that in fact.

Just some thoughts…

Image author unknown.

Obedience

K…This is basically a remark on this post about obedience. I’ve had some evolution in my thinking since that was written…so ga’ head. Read it, so we’re on the same page. Oh! And there’s some good tunage on there if the links all still work, so enjoy while you are at it.

*grooving with you in my mind…* (well I was when I wrote this on July 4th anyway. I’m sure that in reality I’m really quite focused on something entirely different in just this moment.)

Oh! Yeah…my current thoughts?

Well…*looks a bit sheepish* I’ve discovered that obedience is more appealing than it used to be. Oddly enough, the more dominant I get mentally and emotionally, the more I’ll give as a submissive.

Don’t you think that’s odd?

I do.

In any case, I’m still not avid or very able with that ‘instant’ bit. I need some processing time with my emotions frequently, but I feel his expectations and I wish to respond to them. I feel my own just as acutely though. I’ve been thinking that I can’t expect anyone else to be obedient to me when I’m in charge if I will not give that myself without conditions when I choose to submit.

Hmmm…says I…*winks*

Beyond that, there is less fear of men like Richard than there once was…and alot more lust. It is really a matter of walking the edge between the panic of my history and trust in the man dominating me today…though I do think that I still need adoration and deep love to really give fully. I realize that I require a sense that he honestly cares about my well being and will direct things to keep me out of panic…and yet not let me off the hook.

‘Course, ‘require’ is a naughty word for submissive to use…nevertheless any submissive with half a brain is going to have them, even if that word isn’t used.

I’m enjoying having a more forceful man in my life…one who sees that my fears are mostly vaporous in the fires of my libido and can be easily overcome.

Very sexy that.

Oh…And just so you know. I watchin’. I’m going to have fun using all this stuff I’m learning from him. *smacks lips in anticipation of striking a wicked fear in a man some day soon…*

I’m just having some fun looking back, something that’s good to do before starting anew. *smiles*

Image here.

Noumenal Planes

From an old post:

On the phenomenal plane we seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain. On the noumenal plane we know the absence of both – which is Bliss. – Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei

“Mmmm…there is a point in trance states in which the left brain just goes silent and which we just reach a state of being-ness…there is no pleasure or pain which separates any part of reality…it just is. It is a sensation that adds to the orchestra of life.

And I notice that many people who can tolerate intense physical pain are utter cowards about emotional pain. Odd that…don’t you think?”

~~~o0o~~~

I really only needed the quote for this post, but I thought my original thoughts were interesting enough to include here, even though they don’t really apply to anything I’m going to say now.

First…some very random thoughts streaming through in response to the quote:

When I’m in emotional pain, I want physical pain, cause it makes the insides and outsides match.

There’s some times though when the physical pain is given in a way that’s emotional and spiritual and it feels like I’ve been dumped into the fire instead of standing by it getting warmed and all matchy. It feels like too much then…and all I want is soothing and mercy.

Now for the thoughts that inspired this post:

Bliss…a thing I’ve chased in my life a whole lot.

I used to look for it in base sensations…drinking, casual sex, excitement, popularity, new relationship energy…

Then I looked for it in this intellectually snobbish way…thinking that it took some kind of ascetism to reach this blissful state and that I had to be monk’ish to get there. I’d go back and forth between rebelling about that and embracing difficult things like week long silent retreats and fasts to get there.

Then I realized that this was all my intellectual babbling about it.

I realized that its about true happiness.

Not happiness cause I’ve got a new car and a million dollar house. Its not about stuff. Its not about prestige or any other material or social thing. Its not about ascetisism.

Its about what’s inside…about being fully present to everything in this moment. There you are in a chair reading this. You can become aware of your skin, your bones and muscles…how they feel. You can imagine how my voice might sound if I were saying this to you verbally instead of you reading it. Maybe there’s a sound of traffic or the elements outside your door. Maybe there’s music or there’s a kid hanging off your shoulder wanting a snack, or a lover reading over  it…

If you keep living in this moment, like this  way that I’m guiding you to with my words, you’ll feel a slow bubbling up of something that’s like an elixir…

Keep going with being present to your moment until you feel it…even a whisper of it…

Its there all the time, this bubbling thing that feels so good. Its never missing from your every day reality. Its you. Its the essence of you.

You are bliss.

And you are never without that bliss.

And for me, tantra and bdsm is about being in the moment in an intense way and to share that with someone I love.

Imagine that bliss bubbling up through you.

And then your partner sends his/her own bliss boiling up the center of you…Its a penetration that’s holy. After all its soul-bliss that’s filling you…

And then you do the same to Another…and that fire turns both hot and cold, dancing on your skin and on some unnameable thing in the center of you, which just writhes as if in orgasm when this beautiful energy streams over it.

Its easy to imagine how that fire could heat your libido…

How it could cause you to become intoxicated by it.

This is the experience of tantra.

It seems that this quote doesn’t apply to something so pleasurable doesn’t it?

That’’s because the quote doesn’t mean what you think it does…that life is pleasureless or painless if you reach a certain state of consciousness. No it means that you let go of your assumptions, expectations, judgments, ect of reality. You are not driven to gain pleasure, nor to avoid pain. You only seek to experience the true bliss of your true nature.

BDSM is another journey there.

Though very often people only use it for thrill seeking.

It can be far more than that.

It can be a direct route into that true nature I’m speaking of.

Personally, I’ve a thing about combining them…

Together they are nirvana to me.

And to share that with another human being?

Yes! Yes! Yes. *breathy sigh* yes….

This is why tantra and BDSM are necessary for me.

I cannot have a primary partnership without them.

Patterns In Your Heart

Image here.

“If only I could throw away the urge to trace my patterns in your heart, I could really see you.”

David Brandon

Zen in the Art of Helping

I am often overwhelmed with the desire to caress a person’s face.

For me, it is the same as caressing their heart and soul.

I want to touch that bright, adorable fire in the person…to get cozy with it.

My patterns…

It is great hubris to wish to make changes in another’s consciousness.

I know. I’m a spiritual teacher and I very often find myself catalyzing an evolution of consciousness in Another.

It is simply true that people who do that face great resistence and very often great resentment. It is no easy thing to face the wrath of someone’s denial when its poked into awareness.

I find that very un-fun and I tend to avoid it unless it seems the only ethical thing to do, given the moment’s circumstances.

My patterns…?

No. Not mine.

I do my best to look into a person and see their True patterns of happiness and wholeness and if it seems right, to catalyze a return to that pattern.

Its far more fun to caress that pristine beauty than it is to rub their rough parts with my tender hands and heart. *winks*

Some new thoughts from an old post.

On Love and D/s

Image here.

In January, I published Pondering More in which I considered these questions from The Thinking Dominant:

“Do you think that subs confuse submission with love? Is it possible to need to submit because love is there? Is it possible to love someone because they submit?

Do you think Doms confuse Dominance with love? Is it possible to need to be dominant because love is there? Is it possible to love someone because you control them?”

Here’s another post that Alice wrote too if you are interested. She’s got some good thoughts on the topic. By the way, if you’ve got some writing on this discussion topic, I’d love it if you linked it here in comments, so that a reader can contemplate many opinions about it.

I’m bringing up this topic because its run through my mind again recently. I’ve got more thoughts to share regarding this since my thinking and emotional experience has developed…

First let me say that I feel that this D/s roles thing is meaningless when it boils down to the bottom line of a relationship.

Love. That’s what things boil down to; love and sharing your time or life together. Love, even a lighter kind that’s a fondness for a friend or a concern/compassion for another human being…? These are a reason to offer your yielding or your direction to another human being. So…the mechanics of all this is just so much monkey mindedness really.

When it boils down to things, submission and domination are a business of the mind that I can see myself not needing any more as a concept at some time in my not too distant future.

That does not mean that I will stop needing a man to create submissive feelings in me with his actions or that I will stop needing to create them in a man with my actions. It just means that I don’t need to invest all sorts of attachment to calling myself a switch or a dominant or a submissive, nor an investment in what others think or feel about it. It will just be how I share love in this moment…but maybe I have other priorities in the next.

That said, I’ve learned something about myself recently. Until this final change in my marriage and the loss of a close friendship in which a certain power exchange was a part of the dynamic between us, I needed a deep loving connection to feel submission for someone…

This was not so when I felt dominance. I could and have given my dominance to countless people without a loving connection. I can count many years of meditation students, peer counseling, raising children, raising men, training animals from the age of 10 on, even within my friendships since I was a very young girl, I’ve always been the one people turned to for advice and direction. I need only feel empathy for them and feel concern for their well being to feel moved to offer some level of dominance to them.

I am careful about the depth of what I share however, because I do feel that if you offer mentoring/dominance/guidance, then you are responsible to see things through to a good place with that person. I never really asked myself why it is I could have such an internal boundary about things as a dominant, but these internal boundaries were missing with my submissive experiences. I would generally get all picket fences about things easily and quickly, even if I hid it from the man I submitted to. Not always…but frequently.

I have learned recently that if I feel a certain kind of bond that’s a combination of empathy, soulful exchange, and intellectual admiration, I’m able to offer my submissiveness without getting all picket fence about things emotionally.

Does it still tug at those desires for a deeper connection? Yes. It does. There’s a deep spot inside me that wants/needs a certain kind of connection. It is sated deeply by my pursuit of ceremony and meditation, but there is still an element of deep yearning for a human connection in that desire for submissive connection and that it be a reliable daily one.

I can feel a desire to curl up in a man I’m feeling submission for. And I don’t think that’s a bad desire..I think its totally natural to want to curl into someone. I think its natural for a person to want to curl into someone who’s touching them deeply. That’s not a D/s thing. That’s a human connection thing. Its when the future enters into my thoughts that it can be out of pace with anything else going on in the D/s between myself and Another, or just plain inappropriate.

Loss has hardened some things inside me. I’m not so pliable or so impulsive with my heart. And these aren’t bad changes. Its slowing me down emotionally. Its created some healthy caution. And I absolutely am not going to pursue anyone based on spiritual messages any more. I’ll give them a fair chance to be a part of my life…but I’m just going to wait and see with these connections in future.

And in case you are curious. Yes, there’s men in my life about whom I’ve had spiritual insights regarding the future. Either they will manifest or they will not. I’m not giving it my intense attention.

The other new thoughts which I wanted to share is that I feel its an act of deep compassion to share D/s with someone because we are meeting each other’s needs. These are deep needs inside us. We share our vulnerabilities and bare our foibles and quirks and differently shaped desires with each other. It is just as painful to a dominant to have his or her dominance rejected or abused as it is for a submissive to experience such a loss. When we play this way, we are playing in the fault lines of our personalities and emotions. We’re playing in places that can crack and shatter each other. It takes a great deal of compassion and responsibility to share that in a healthy way.

It only makes sense that its easy to wrap that up in a package we call ‘love’ when we talk about it…but there is indeed a difference between compassion and love. The difference for me is the depth and also the expectations involved. Compassion is something that I feel without any attachment to outcomes. It doesn’t influence my ability to respond. I may just as easily walk away and leave someone to sit in their mess as to help them pick themselves up and brush themselves off. Compassion leads me to take a person’s measure and then assess what’s the best response given what I know. I act from there with as much kindness as possible.

Love on the other hand, wraps up mutual needs and agreements into the emotions. Love is deep and expands into every part of my being. It is a far deeper experience of compassion. And it doesn’t change because someone doesn’t return it…Its only the expectations that cause any pain in things. I can loose those if need be…but to feel love, for me, takes me into the desire for the future.

Do I love because I feel someone’s submission to me or because I feel their dominance toward me? No. I love because its how my soul feels toward Another. My submissiveness or dominance is predicated on their unique personality and our chemistry together. One does not spur the other…but it will deepen it…and I can fall in love based on D/s between myself and Another.

Just a ramble on changes of consciousness for me…No big conclusions I don’t think…just some more clarity about some things. *smiles*