An old story, exact origins unknown.
There was a man who was wandering the countryside, down on his luck. Penniless and illiterate, his prospects seemed dim. But he was a very clever man, despite his lack of formal education.
The man came to a small hamlet in a mountain valley. All of the residents of this town were, like the man, illiterate, but not nearly so clever. The man saw his opportunity.
He passed himself off as being educated and literate. The illiterate townspeople were thrilled and honored to have him in their midst. They came to him for advice, to settle disputes, to soak up his wisdom. Soon he was made mayor.
One hot summer day the man was making a speech to the populace in the town square. He had some sheets of paper with words printed on them in fornt of him, to make it appear that he was "reading" from a speech he had "written." The townspeople listened, rapt, to his insightful and wise oratory.
As luck would have it, though, this particular day there was a stranger passing through the town. This stranger, much to our hero's dismay, actually did know how to read. And the stranger noticed that the mayor's "speech" was upside-down on the podium!
The stranger exposed the mayor as a charlatan, telling the people, "Look! The paper's upside down! He's a fraud -- he's as illiterate as all of you!"
Now a less clever man would probably have ended up tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. But our hero was no ordinary illiterate. Completely unfuffled, he scoffed in response, "If one knows how to read, why should it matter if the paper is upside down or right-side-up?"
The townspeople were once again enthralled with their mayor's intelligence and wisdom and immediately set upon the stranger and chased him from the town.
Loss, Sadness, Ego, and Lessons Learned
It is with the most profound sadness that I inform you all that My beloved girl sorceress is no longer Mine. The sense of loss I feel is deep and consuming. It is very much as though a part of Me has gone with her. It is at times like this that I find it very difficult indeed to follow My own advice. There is nothing but tears, emptiness, a longing that can't be fulfilled. An empty collar and a broken lock. The emptiness all around silenty mocks Me.
sorceress was not released becasue she displeased Me, or dishonored Me, or anything of that nature. she begged her release because what she is can not be denied, and she could not continue as Mine as a result. I granted her release because I saw that too, and saw this moment coming. I love her too much to ever hold her back, and becasue what must be, must be.
And that's where ego comes in. I saw this coming, could feel it. But, even to the end I felt as though there was something I could do. I felt as though My power, My love, My insight, really could conquer all. I don't mind admitting that folly; a good Dominant needs a healthy ego (and then some). To be reminded of one's own limitations in the face of the motive force of the universe, i. e., things that must happen, doesn't diminish Me. In the end it will strengthen Me, and bring Me closer and more into harmony with that motive force.
As lessons go, the value will far outweigh the pain. As soon as I can stem the tears.
Thank you, sorceress, for all you did for Me, for all you tried to do, with all of you. For serving and pleasing Me so well and loving Me without fear, without question, without reservation. For embracing your slavery and plunging yourself into trying to learn and understand everything, even when you were provided with the merest hint of a hint as to what the thing to be learned was. For being a wondereful supportive loivng sister to storm and iris.
The magic in you shines -- and even through My tears I can acknowledge that it shines brighter than it did before we met, yes, because of Me and because of your deep love and devotion and submission. I have no doubt that that magic will shine brighter still as you make your way forward along the path that awaits you.
Thank you, from the bottom of My heart. I love you so much. Fly high and far.
"I wonder what she is doing at this hour
my Andean and sweet Rita
of reeds and wild cherry trees.
Now that this weariness chokes me, and blood dozes off
this lazy brandy inside me.
I wonder what she is doing with those hands
that in attitude of penitence
used to iron starchy whiteness
in the afternoons;
Now that the rain is taking away my desire to go on.
I wonder what has become of her skirt with lace
of her toils, of her walk;
of her scent of spring sugar cane from that place.
She must be at the door,
gazing at a fast-moving cloud.
A wild bird on the tile roof will let out a call;
And shivering she will say at last, "Jesus, it's cold!"
--Cesar Vallejo
New Links
New links: Dirty Prom Queen . . . Cama De Casa (in Spanish) . . . Woman Rules Roost . . . Joyscape . . . Lazy Geisha
Just a reminder -- if you're linked to Me and I'm not linked to you, let Me know and I'll add a link to you.
Just a reminder -- if you're linked to Me and I'm not linked to you, let Me know and I'll add a link to you.
Spiritual Aspects, Part 7: Approaching The Unknown
I've been having trouble addressing this topic for a while now. I left off the series of Fully Exploring The Known posts by saying that "knowlege is independent of language." Well, that's great, but it by defintion doesn't leave much to write about. [Not that that will stop Me, of course.]
One way to apporach things that are very difficult to talk about becasue of the tautological nature of knowledge and human thought is to, for lack of a better word, "meditate" on certain thoughts, ideas, etc. Not with the goal of extracting "meaning" from them, necessarily, but to clear one's mind and just let the words wash over. Several times. One often finds that going forward, "meaning" presents itself, often much later, almost surreptitiously, when one is engaged in doing/thinking/talking about something else entirely.
There is no way to explain what I refer to as The Unknown. By its very nature it is opaque to rational explanation. It can be experienced and described, but only in its effects, not in its underlying nature. In some ways it is like the best poetry in that regard -- if can affect us in startling, inexplicable ways. So it seems appropriate for the first meditation to be on one of My favorite passages from poetry.
One way to apporach things that are very difficult to talk about becasue of the tautological nature of knowledge and human thought is to, for lack of a better word, "meditate" on certain thoughts, ideas, etc. Not with the goal of extracting "meaning" from them, necessarily, but to clear one's mind and just let the words wash over. Several times. One often finds that going forward, "meaning" presents itself, often much later, almost surreptitiously, when one is engaged in doing/thinking/talking about something else entirely.
There is no way to explain what I refer to as The Unknown. By its very nature it is opaque to rational explanation. It can be experienced and described, but only in its effects, not in its underlying nature. In some ways it is like the best poetry in that regard -- if can affect us in startling, inexplicable ways. So it seems appropriate for the first meditation to be on one of My favorite passages from poetry.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
--From "Four Quartets" by T. S. Eliot
What Is Kink?
I've seen over the past few months a number of posts on the above question in many different blogs.
I certainly can't answer it in any definitive, satisfying way. But others, sometimes without meaning to, might have shed some light on it.
"Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken." --Old Joke
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hardcore pornogrpahy] and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it." --Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
"Hipness is -- What it is!
Sometimes hipness is, what it ain't." --Tower of Power, "What is Hip?"
"We classify anything that isn't quite regular hardcore or softcore, and isn't already classed under Bondage content, as being 'kink' content. Examples of such might be a foot fetish title, or a Urination title, or anything that focuses on a sub-set interest." -- www.weblegal.com
"Call me kinky, I don't mind. I AM kinky -- if you mean different from the lie we're sold as the norm. At 42, I'm celebrating a quarter century of making love with many different people, many different ways." --Loraine Hutchins
"Kink is a term used to refer to unconventional sexual practices such as bondage, domination and submission, and sadomasochism (known collectively as BDSM), and sexual fetishism." --Wikipedia
"Sex and kink are like apple pie and ice-cream. They taste good separately, but they taste even better together." --girlphoria.com
"I'm a man - I'm a goddess
I'm a man - I'm a hooker
I'm a man - I'm a blue movie
I'm a man - I'm a slut
I'm a man - I'm YOUR babe
I'm a man - I'm a dream divine . . . " --Berlin, "Sex"
"Whip me! Beat me! make me write bad checks!" --Old joke
"Lindsey Butler - 'How could anyone have sex on a stick? It sounds so painful.'
Lydia Hu - 'I dunno, but in Minnesota, everything is on a stick.' " -- from Lindsey's funny quotes from college(2003-2004)
Glad I could clear this up for everyone. :)
I certainly can't answer it in any definitive, satisfying way. But others, sometimes without meaning to, might have shed some light on it.
"Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken." --Old Joke
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hardcore pornogrpahy] and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it." --Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
"Hipness is -- What it is!
Sometimes hipness is, what it ain't." --Tower of Power, "What is Hip?"
"We classify anything that isn't quite regular hardcore or softcore, and isn't already classed under Bondage content, as being 'kink' content. Examples of such might be a foot fetish title, or a Urination title, or anything that focuses on a sub-set interest." -- www.weblegal.com
"Call me kinky, I don't mind. I AM kinky -- if you mean different from the lie we're sold as the norm. At 42, I'm celebrating a quarter century of making love with many different people, many different ways." --Loraine Hutchins
"Kink is a term used to refer to unconventional sexual practices such as bondage, domination and submission, and sadomasochism (known collectively as BDSM), and sexual fetishism." --Wikipedia
"Sex and kink are like apple pie and ice-cream. They taste good separately, but they taste even better together." --girlphoria.com
"I'm a man - I'm a goddess
I'm a man - I'm a hooker
I'm a man - I'm a blue movie
I'm a man - I'm a slut
I'm a man - I'm YOUR babe
I'm a man - I'm a dream divine . . . " --Berlin, "Sex"
"Whip me! Beat me! make me write bad checks!" --Old joke
"Lindsey Butler - 'How could anyone have sex on a stick? It sounds so painful.'
Lydia Hu - 'I dunno, but in Minnesota, everything is on a stick.' " -- from Lindsey's funny quotes from college(2003-2004)
Glad I could clear this up for everyone. :)
Purple Sparks
freya, in her excellent blog, recently posted the following:
" . . . I subscribe to several sites that do writing prompts of either words or longer ideas, questions, etc. Today's writing prompt - "write about the color of hunger"
freya goes on to write about what the color of hunger is, for her -- and as always, she writes really well about sex and desire. The woman could probably wirte a grocery list that would be thrillingly erotic. (Not a challenge, freya, but feel free to try LOL.)
And that phrase got Me thinking on what the color of hunger is for Me -- and it didn't take long for the answer to emerge.
Hunger is purple. Not a wimpy, pinky purple, but a deep rich involving purple. Purple is the color of sacrifice. It oozes out out of My girls like purple blood -- it isn't sexual, per se, although desire is a big part of it. It's the hunger of them to serve, to please, to be and to do and to give everything to Me, to sacrifice. And it shines and shimmers in Me, when I feel it from them, it ignites the magic between us and everything is filled with purple sparks; the air crackles with the force of it when I reach inside that purple mass and rip out everything I want. And the softer purple glow that fills everything in the aftermath . . . the low humm where contentment at having served (and having been served) well mixed with the knowledge that there is always more to be taken (and to take).
Thanks, freya, for a wonderful inspiration today.
" . . . I subscribe to several sites that do writing prompts of either words or longer ideas, questions, etc. Today's writing prompt - "write about the color of hunger"
freya goes on to write about what the color of hunger is, for her -- and as always, she writes really well about sex and desire. The woman could probably wirte a grocery list that would be thrillingly erotic. (Not a challenge, freya, but feel free to try LOL.)
And that phrase got Me thinking on what the color of hunger is for Me -- and it didn't take long for the answer to emerge.
Hunger is purple. Not a wimpy, pinky purple, but a deep rich involving purple. Purple is the color of sacrifice. It oozes out out of My girls like purple blood -- it isn't sexual, per se, although desire is a big part of it. It's the hunger of them to serve, to please, to be and to do and to give everything to Me, to sacrifice. And it shines and shimmers in Me, when I feel it from them, it ignites the magic between us and everything is filled with purple sparks; the air crackles with the force of it when I reach inside that purple mass and rip out everything I want. And the softer purple glow that fills everything in the aftermath . . . the low humm where contentment at having served (and having been served) well mixed with the knowledge that there is always more to be taken (and to take).
Thanks, freya, for a wonderful inspiration today.
All Part of the Inventory
Today was a generally crummy day. Work was long, busy, frustrating. I felt tired from the moment I got there and things simply drifted downhill from there. Everyone and everything seemed to annoy Me, for no particularly good reason.
Finally getting home didn't improve My mood much. There was nothing I felt like eating. Blogger was moving very slowly (it took about ten tries to load this page).
It's the sort of day where the ultimate end of it, one's head laying on the pillow and abandoning everything to the respite of sleep, seems like the best and only improvement.
But of course it's only 7PM, and though I could probably force Myself to sleep now, doing so would be disastrous -- I'd be wide awake at 2:30AM and that would turn tomorrow into a nightmare.
Sitting here, the Orville Reddenbacher lookailke on TV droning on in the background about eharmony's 1,392 dimensions of compatibility or whatever it is, I get to thinking about bad days, and how they have their place. In the inventory of life, the simple cliched truth is that days like today when taken as part of the mass, help form the baseline of life. The baseline from which the great days, the moments of elation, the absolutely fantastic parts of life, spring up and stand out. And that very amplitude above the baseline is a big part of what makes the great days great.
So in the end it's a day to file away under "crummy," close the drawer and smile. Another bad day bites the dust. My overall odds have improved by a tiny bit going forward. Cool.
Finally getting home didn't improve My mood much. There was nothing I felt like eating. Blogger was moving very slowly (it took about ten tries to load this page).
It's the sort of day where the ultimate end of it, one's head laying on the pillow and abandoning everything to the respite of sleep, seems like the best and only improvement.
But of course it's only 7PM, and though I could probably force Myself to sleep now, doing so would be disastrous -- I'd be wide awake at 2:30AM and that would turn tomorrow into a nightmare.
Sitting here, the Orville Reddenbacher lookailke on TV droning on in the background about eharmony's 1,392 dimensions of compatibility or whatever it is, I get to thinking about bad days, and how they have their place. In the inventory of life, the simple cliched truth is that days like today when taken as part of the mass, help form the baseline of life. The baseline from which the great days, the moments of elation, the absolutely fantastic parts of life, spring up and stand out. And that very amplitude above the baseline is a big part of what makes the great days great.
So in the end it's a day to file away under "crummy," close the drawer and smile. Another bad day bites the dust. My overall odds have improved by a tiny bit going forward. Cool.
What's Left Behind (Part 2)
One of My little conundra that I frequently annoy the girls (and others) with goes as follows:
We are what we let go of, not what we hold onto.
I was thinking about this in light of My previous post, in which I talked about how some people leave D/s behind, sometimes permanently. And right in that word "permanently" is the crux of the matter, and the "proof" of the seemingly nonsensical statement above.
It's our nature to cling. Physically, emotionally, mentally. We cling to people, to things, and to ideas. We cling to the past -- sometimes perversely the worse it was the more we cling to it. And perhaps more than anything else we cling to our own idea of ourselves, and again from what I often see the worse that self-image is the more tenaciously it's clung to.
Where it gets very contorted is that we've lost perspective on the fact that that idea of ourselves is largely the accumulation and processing of the perceptions, thoughts, words, and judgments of others. What we have come to think that we are turns out to be largely "foreign matter" that's become part of "us" -- part of what I've called "the shell" in My posts about Fully Exploring the Known (see the April archives page).
Thus what I see as a large part of success in personal terms, both in daily life and in D/s, has to do with moving from the orientation of holding on to the orientation of letting go. The struggle is to identify what's become a part of us that never belonged there, and to slowly, systematically evaluate it -- possibly with the goal of eradicating it. But it turns out that realizing that foreign matter in the shell for what it is deprives it of its power anyway, so eradicating it becomes a moot point, often.
That is what I mean when I say that we are what we let go of, not what we hold on to. A recognition that the change in orientation needs to take place and a committment to that process.
So what's all that got to do with why people leave D/s and their reasons for doing so? A few things.
1. There is the "surface" issue, the "society" thing. D/s is not a mainstream pursuit -- there is, as cliched as it is, societal disapproval by and large and the emotional baggage that accompanies that. It's not to be dismissed as a factor that makes D/s more stressful than it otherwise should be. And "stress" is, in essence, a massive infestation of foreign matter into the shell. It makes us question our choices, our path, and usually not in a good way. The pressure of being "closeted," as it were, is more than many people can take. For others, the stress of being "open" is even worse. In times of stress we will cling more to the familiar, the stuff that feels like "us," even when it will go against what we know we want/need. It takes a "letting go" on a massive scale in order to minimize that kind of stress.
2. There are at times overridingly important realities. Age, children, work, health, safety, etc. At times there is a strictly practical choice, a sacrifice, that needs to be made. It's a cruel reality that we sometimes are forced to choose between what we are and what we have to be. That choice is above and beyond this discussion, except that I'll simply point out that it's important to be sure that one is choosing based on absolute necessities and not making the convenient, less painful in the short term, choice.
3. The pain that I've seen in people who've left D/s is not from having let go of D/s, it's from clinging to the idea that D/s was something they could get along without. Many people, and again this is part #1, above, actually do think that they are involved in a pursuit that is "perverted," abnormal. (And not in the kinky fun way). Decades of parents and teachers and preachers and talk-show idiots and sensationalized media have warped our ideas of sex and interpersonal relations to a degree that I'm amazed at the number of people who actually feel good about what they are. It's so easy to revert, to cling back to what will "work," even though in the long run that ends up hurting a lot more.
We truly are what we let go of, because only by letting go of what doesn't belong can we see and understand exactly those few things that we should, above all else, hold onto.
We are what we let go of, not what we hold onto.
I was thinking about this in light of My previous post, in which I talked about how some people leave D/s behind, sometimes permanently. And right in that word "permanently" is the crux of the matter, and the "proof" of the seemingly nonsensical statement above.
It's our nature to cling. Physically, emotionally, mentally. We cling to people, to things, and to ideas. We cling to the past -- sometimes perversely the worse it was the more we cling to it. And perhaps more than anything else we cling to our own idea of ourselves, and again from what I often see the worse that self-image is the more tenaciously it's clung to.
Where it gets very contorted is that we've lost perspective on the fact that that idea of ourselves is largely the accumulation and processing of the perceptions, thoughts, words, and judgments of others. What we have come to think that we are turns out to be largely "foreign matter" that's become part of "us" -- part of what I've called "the shell" in My posts about Fully Exploring the Known (see the April archives page).
Thus what I see as a large part of success in personal terms, both in daily life and in D/s, has to do with moving from the orientation of holding on to the orientation of letting go. The struggle is to identify what's become a part of us that never belonged there, and to slowly, systematically evaluate it -- possibly with the goal of eradicating it. But it turns out that realizing that foreign matter in the shell for what it is deprives it of its power anyway, so eradicating it becomes a moot point, often.
That is what I mean when I say that we are what we let go of, not what we hold on to. A recognition that the change in orientation needs to take place and a committment to that process.
So what's all that got to do with why people leave D/s and their reasons for doing so? A few things.
1. There is the "surface" issue, the "society" thing. D/s is not a mainstream pursuit -- there is, as cliched as it is, societal disapproval by and large and the emotional baggage that accompanies that. It's not to be dismissed as a factor that makes D/s more stressful than it otherwise should be. And "stress" is, in essence, a massive infestation of foreign matter into the shell. It makes us question our choices, our path, and usually not in a good way. The pressure of being "closeted," as it were, is more than many people can take. For others, the stress of being "open" is even worse. In times of stress we will cling more to the familiar, the stuff that feels like "us," even when it will go against what we know we want/need. It takes a "letting go" on a massive scale in order to minimize that kind of stress.
2. There are at times overridingly important realities. Age, children, work, health, safety, etc. At times there is a strictly practical choice, a sacrifice, that needs to be made. It's a cruel reality that we sometimes are forced to choose between what we are and what we have to be. That choice is above and beyond this discussion, except that I'll simply point out that it's important to be sure that one is choosing based on absolute necessities and not making the convenient, less painful in the short term, choice.
3. The pain that I've seen in people who've left D/s is not from having let go of D/s, it's from clinging to the idea that D/s was something they could get along without. Many people, and again this is part #1, above, actually do think that they are involved in a pursuit that is "perverted," abnormal. (And not in the kinky fun way). Decades of parents and teachers and preachers and talk-show idiots and sensationalized media have warped our ideas of sex and interpersonal relations to a degree that I'm amazed at the number of people who actually feel good about what they are. It's so easy to revert, to cling back to what will "work," even though in the long run that ends up hurting a lot more.
We truly are what we let go of, because only by letting go of what doesn't belong can we see and understand exactly those few things that we should, above all else, hold onto.
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