daughter of the sea

the time has come

2009-12-14T06:09:00.000-05:00

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

... this always struck me as such a profound and insightful absurdity ... much like my thoughts at times.

In my own world, the time has come to say goodbye for a bit...life has reached up and bit me hard and for the forseeable future, I know I won't have time to write (as has been more than obvious from the paucity of entries over the past few months).

I will pop in now and again and check in with everyone and hope to at some time in the future, start sharing again.

Be well.

Have a wonderful holiday.

tongue in cheek...

2009-12-10T09:25:00.004-05:00

I read some material lately that stirred things in me that I'll have to explore further ... but it also sparked a memory of Marlowe's Song: A Passionate Shepherd to his Love and Sir Walter Ralaigh's tongue-in-cheek reply... I'm attaching links to the ORIGINALS (which are well worth the read)- here is MY version of both!

Marlowe's Song: A Passionate Shepherd to his Love

Sir Walter Ralegh's Reply

Sadist's Song: A Passionate Sadist to his Sub

Come live with me, and be my sub;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And you will lie tied to the rocks,
Seeing the sadists flog their flocks
with whip and chain and vehement urgings
pushing subbies into musings.

And I will make thee beds of thorns and roses
And a thousand stingy posies;
A cap of pain, and a kirtle
Pulled so tight with ropes of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest leather
Which from my hands is soon shed;
Stud-lined slippers for the hurt,
With buckles of the sharpest quirt;

A belt of leather and steel buds,
With coral clamps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my sub.

The swooning subbies shall dance and sing
For my delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my sub.

Selkie- The Sub's Reply

IF all the world and love were young,
And truth in every sadist's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy sub.

Time drives the want from heart to soul,
When rivers rage and subs grow cold;
And sea maidens are struck dumb;
by those who whine of tasks to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The whips, thy wants, thy thorns and roses,
Thy paddles, tongue, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of leather and anal buds,
Thy coral clamps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy sub.

But could truth last and love still breed,
Had promises no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy sub.

I remember ... and the fight continues... we will not stand down

2009-12-06T07:52:00.000-05:00

Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department
Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/734817--lessons-of-the-montreal-massacre?bn=1

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/734817--lessons-of-the-montreal-massacre?bn=1

Faith

2009-11-25T14:22:00.002-05:00

Faith ..I’ve been musing on it (or the lack thereof) lately. Faith is such a fragile entity, a tender, mutable reality that once shattered, cuts deep.
Faith in a greater being, for instance, once provided what I thought was a bedrock impervious to the movement of earth and time; a solid, real belief that I held to me, warm and solid, in the nights of despair and anguish. Faith was my stalwart companion for a very long time, my right hand, the thing to which I turned not just in times of trouble but during those moments of joyous illumination, a reality that would underline the transcendence of spirit.

There is also faith in self – that vein of self-awareness and introspection that you believe gives you perspective and wisdom. In some ways, the erosion of faith in self is congruent with the loss of faith in that which lies beyond the corporeal reality of our endless days. For only by believing in self and our innate abilities to make reasoned judgments, can we find the courage to believe in something that lies beyond our physical grasp.

There is faith in others also. Faith in our partners (whatever the flavour), in our family, in those we believe care for us, want for us the best. Perhaps because that level of faith is so personal, it is something we can feel, touch, emote and internalize, the erosion of that faith is all the more painful.

Without faith, I find the days lack lustre and depth. There is a greyness to the movement through time that envelops and confuses and licks despair in moments of introspection and awareness.

In hindsight, I very much miss my days of faith; I yearn for the warm comfort, the steadfastness of my devotion, what I thought to be the immutability of my awareness. A world without faith lacks a dimension (at least in my eyes) that brings one beyond the pragmatism of simple existence into a realm that promises something beyond that which can be touched.

The question of course being, how does one regain the ability to believe?

Queen Maeve

2009-11-19T19:14:00.000-05:00

23 years ago today, a much younger me was lying on my bed, watching with an obsessive fascination the rise and fall of a small baby’s chest.

She was born at 2:30 that early Wednesday morning, a screaming, crimson faced 8.8 lbs bundle with flailing limbs and fury spitting from her scrunched, furious face, a shock of luxurient black hair and huge green eyes narrowed in rage. As she lay there between my legs, thrashing legs and arms in outrage at being summarily pulled into this harsh, glaring, cold world, we watched bemused. The doctor stood there grinning and looking at me, said laughing, “THAT is the most pissed off newborn I have ever delivered!”

From start to finish, the entire experience had lasted a scant three hours and full of energy still, I was entranced… in awe at this new human being we had brought into the world.

I lasted around 7 hours at the hospital, then against their advice, bundled my solid little infant in her new snowsuit, called a cab and went home. D. had left us around 5 a.m to head home, shower and go to work and didn’t drive at the time regardless; he wanted me to wait but I couldn’t stand the obsessive regimentation of the hospital. When I was told to wash my breast with “as hot water as I could stand” before offering it to my child, my natural Irish pragmatism, said ENOUGH and off I went.

I didn’t know this day 23 years ago that the path I was taking had just diverged, that as Frost said, my steps turned to the “path less travelled”.

I was focused, somewhat obsessive, incredibly driven and had vision. I had worked hard to reach the professional level I then enjoyed; head editor of a prestigious forecasting company, respected, incredibly well-paid and on the fast track. The child was wanted but in my pre-birth mind, was to be fit in around the realities of a job I had spent so many hard years working towards. I have worked since I was 13 – right through high school, putting myself through two degrees and with drive and ambition forging my way in a man’s world.

And then she arrived.

And my world tilted and the universe shook and life as I knew it irrevocably changed.

All those years of obsessive want became so much powdery dust, blown away in the clarity of her gaze, negligible in the suction of a small mouth on a turgid breast.

And the ensuing weeks only increased my resolve, deepened my adoration and engendered in me a fierce, enraptured understanding that there was no going back.

And thus, as the scant 16 weeks of maternity leave drew to an end, I sat, grasping my child fiercely to be breast and tears in my eyes, said to D. “ I CAN’T go back! I CAN’T leave her!|”

And he, smiling gently, said “I know, I was wondering when you would figure that out”.

And that week I quit my job, found a night job typing for $50,000 less in salary and never looked back.

Happy Birthday Maeve, my beautiful, brave, fierce daughter. You have added to my life immeasurably.

Objectification and the Power of ID

2009-11-19T13:08:00.002-05:00

It’s no secret that I have some deep-seated and profound objections to being objectified.

Vesta , mouse and JZ all bring up some concise and illuminating arguments for and against what mouse aptly describes as the “The power of I”.

What is Objectification?

Although not always the case, individuals who enjoy being objectified are often (usually) masochists as well and enjoy the pain caused by the commensurate humiliation which accompanies being objectified as an object – sexually or otherwise - and not as an individual. In essence, my view is that these participants find an emotional and physical excitement in being viewed only as a collection of body parts or non-sentient object and not as a multi-faceted unique human being.

There are, of course, different levels and types of objectification. In some arenas, individuals enjoy being used as actual “objects” – as in coffee tables, ottomans, etc. Releasing them from their “humanity” in essence frees them to enter a meditative state wherein they find a measure of peace.

But the objectification I will address in this blog concerns the creation of a “persona” – inevitably a limited, single-faceted creature with little will and simplistic needs.

Either form of objectification is ultimately limited in scope and duration because reality bites – the demands of time and space force one dimensional creations to take on colour and complexity simply because no one is capable of remaining (nor should they) in a singular mindset.

Unfortunately, serious objectification which is expected to be consistent and constant can be considered ‘edge” play in terms of the massive emotional impact it can have on the individual being objectified.

The Science of “I”

I paraphrase here, but in a nutshell, healthy human growth entails several phases. From birth to around three years old, a child needs to hear and experience, often just through gentle, supportive touch, encouragement, affirmation and support for simply being who he or she IS, their thinking noted and approved – i.e. just for “being” they are being enjoyed, encouraged and supported.

As they grow, children’ needs become more complex. Children, as they grow must learn affirmations for power, structure, separation, sexuality and identity – in essence, they are learning the strength of the “I”. For anyone who has been around children, some of the FIRST words most healthy kids express are ‘MINE”, ME” and “I WANT”. Those are crucial to a healthy development of esteem, strength and purpose.

The human internalization of “self” is, to my mind, a consistent and ongoing part of remaining healthy and contributes to the continued growth and understanding of the individual’s own needs. I also feel strongly that one can only enter into a strong relationship if your own ego is intact and healthy – at least a relationship that has a chance of standing the test of time and the inevitable stress with which every life is inundated to a greater or lesser extent.

Different Perspectives

Mis-use, to my mind, can have a profound and negative impact on any individual’s psyche, sense of self and esteem. Mouse points out her former dominant did exactly that – and rather than using objectification to elicit a sensual and piquant nuance to their relationship, used it as a tool to punish and to suppress her sense of identity.

From a rational perspective, I understand the emotional impact that some receive from being objectified – in one way, it is a form of freedom to have everything that individualizes you discounted, thus releasing you from responsibility for subsequent actions and freeing you from any moral constraints which might impede following a desired imperative.

I think Vesta’s experience to date internalizes much of that. She states “It is an opportunity to feel free and liberated; to live in harmony and at peace.” I don’t in any way wish to disparage or criticize Vesta’s choice and her decision to ostensibly “separate” parts of herself into distinct personalities – it works for her and thus more power to her!

But as is no doubt obvious, I don’t “get it”.

I think life experiences in many cases have a tremendous impact on how an individual internalizes and deals with objectification.

I think in my case, having worked in what was very much a “man’s world” for a good part of my professional life, I quickly learned the negative impacts of being “objectified” as a human being. My ability to write, my intelligence, my coping skills and work ethic were largely irrelevant in comparison to long legs, luxuriant hair and my gender. Being treated as a sexual object when your focus is simply on getting a good story or finding out salient facts about current issues hardly creates a fondness for being seen only in the context of my sexual identity.

On a more internal level, I have always been an introspective, complicated individual who in turn perceives other individuals as similarly multi-faceted. Acceptance and understanding of the myriad complicated and fascinating personality traits of every individual is both a necessity and from a human perspective, crucial to the ultimate comprehension and acceptance of each other’s personal quirks.

Male Perspective

Further, based on some responses I read and other reactions to various articles and blogs I’ve read about objectification, I admit I find it perplexing and frankly, disconcerting that so many self-styled dominants bleat their delight in it!

In one way, I understand it.

Taking the BDSM nuance out of objectification, the presentation of female as object remains a persistent and unfortunate reality both in the past and in the present. Of course I cannot help but surmise that the male ego remains so fragile that many simply cannot deal with the complexity of female psyches. Despite some gains towards equality of gender, the position of females remains inequitable– to a greater or lesser extent dependent on the culture.

When all is said and done, many males simply find the thought of a living, breathing “doll” simply too enchanting for words – after all, what demands does a one-dimensional creature make on a man, either emotionally, physically or spiritually? A “doll” doesn’t need to have her needs taken into consideration; she won’t evaluate or make judgments; nor will “dolls” question or challenge their “owner” in any way.

And, putting the BDSM context back in the equation, anyone who is familiar with the lifestyle ONLY online could not be faulted for thinking THIS lifestyle somehow encourages one-dimensional caricatures! Thank god, those whom I know in the lifestyle in real life are simply other “people” like anyone else – all with their own complicated, multi-faceted quirks! Because as D. has said about other practices we’ve read about here on the world wide web, reality would quickly dissipate the illusion.

Perspective

I should, at this point, be clear that in the context of a “scene” I find objectification more “palatable” and even understandable. In the context of play it can offer a sensual edge to play. In that context, I do not in any way denigrate or perceive objectification as anything other than another nuance to a sexual relationship or a dynamic.

But I cannot help but wonder that objectification is something desired by many submissives or slaves when it has been my experience that so many struggle with a sense of self-esteem and self-worth. I guess I’m not sure how being objectified somehow reaffirms an individual’s worth.

In short, I think one would have to START (as with Vesta, for instance) with a healthy, strong ID, vigorous self-esteem and a strong, solid relationship before objectification can find a healthy place in the dynamic.

Canadian eh?

2009-11-12T07:41:00.000-05:00

WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE PROVINCE ...?

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

1. Vancouver : 1.5 million people and two bridges. You do the math.
2. Your $400,000 Vancouver home is just 5 hours from downtown.
3. You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations.
4. There's always some sort of deforestation protest going on
5. Weed.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN ALBERTA

1. Big rock between you and B.C.
2. Ottawa who?
3. Tax is 5% instead of the approximately 200% it is for the rest of the country.
4. You can exploit almost any natural resource you can think of.
5. You live in the only province that could actually afford to be its own country..
6. The Americans below you are all in anti-government militia groups.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN SASKATCHEWAN

1. You never run out of wheat.
2. Your province is really easy to draw.
3. You can watch the dog run away from home for hours.
4. People will assume you live on a farm.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN MANITOBA

1. You wake up one morning to find that you suddenly have a beachfront property.
2. Hundreds of huge, horribly frigid lakes.
3. Nothing compares to a wicked Winnipeg winter.
4. You can be an Easterner or a Westerner depending on your mood.
5. You can pass the time watching trucks and barns float by.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN ONTARIO

1. You live in the centre of the universe.
2. Your $400,000 Toronto home is actually a dump.
3. You and you alone decide who will win the federal election.
4. The only province with hard-core American-style crime.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN QUEBEC

1. Racism is socially acceptable.
2. You can take bets with your friends on which English neighbour will move out next.
3. Other provinces basically bribe you to stay in Canada .
4. You can blame all your problems on the "Anglo A*#!%!"

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NEW BRUNSWICK

1. One way or another, the government gets 98% of your income.
2... You're poor, but not as poor as the Newfies.
3. No one ever blames anything on New Brunswick .
4. Everybody has a grandfather who runs a lighthouse.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NOVA SCOTIA

1. Everyone can play the fiddle. The ones who can't, think they can
2. You can pretend to have Scottish heritage as an excuse to get drunk and wear a kilt.
3. You are the only reason Anne Murray makes money.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

1. Even though more people live on Vancouver Island , you still got the big, new bridge.
2. You can walk across the province in half an hour.
3. You can drive across the province in two minutes.
4. Everyone has been an extra on "Road to Avonlea."
5. This is where all those tiny, red potatoes come from.
6. You can confuse ships by turning your porch lights on and off at night.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NEWFOUNDLAND

1. If Quebec separates, you will float off to sea.
2. If you do something stupid, you have a built-in excuse.
3. The workday is about two hours long.
4. It is socially acceptable to wear your hip waders to your wedding.

Let's face it: Canadians are a rare breed.

The Official Canadian Temperature Conversion Chart

50° Fahrenheit / (10° C)
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
Canadians plant gardens.

35° Fahrenheit / (1.6° C)
Italian Cars won't start
Canadians drive with the windows down

32° Fahrenheit / (0° C)
American water freezes
Canadian water gets thicker.

0° Fahrenheit/ (-17.9° C)
New York City landlords finally turn on the heat.
Canadians have the last cookout of the season.

-60° Fahrenheit / (-51° C)
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door.

-109.9° Fahrenheit /(-78.5° C)
Carbon dioxide freezes makes dry ice.
Canadians pull down their earflaps.

-173° Fahrenheit / (-114° C)
Ethyl alcohol freezes.
Canadians get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg

-459.67° Fahrenheit / (-273.15° C)
Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops.
Canadians start saying "cold, eh?"

-500° Fahrenheit / (-295° C)
Hell freezes over.
The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup

It's only two minutes ...

2009-11-11T06:42:00.001-05:00

Remembrance Day always leave me feeling unsettled and emotional. Remembrance Day in Toronto makes me even more so – for the simple reality of our mosaic which incorporates the most diverse group of cultures, colour and backgrounds of anywhere in the world means the solemnity and respect which I’ve always accorded this most important date is often given short shrift.. leaving me resentful and angry.

Rationally, I realize that it is difficult to empathize with the profound gratefulness and respect that most Canadians hold for those who have served in Canada’s name. I have to remind myself that the intensity with which most Canadians greet our military’s efforts in countries which do not enjoy the same freedom and rights that we do here is not always understood.

Perhaps more than ever today, however, we MUST teach our citizens to remember with respect, with gratefulness, with pride and with sorrow, those who have died not just in the big Wars which are receding now into the mists of history, but all the ones since.

Probably more than at any time in my tenure here in this wonderful country, do I internalize and understand the true nature of the sacrifices being made by young men and women, who in the name of decency, who in the belief that every individual in the world deserves certain rights and freedoms serve now, right this MINUTE in a country far away from home, in a culture foreign to their upbringing, in a place where danger is around every corner.. they LIVE the dream of freedom and put their lives on the line in its name.

Children the same age as MY children are giving up their lives, their youth and living with courage, dignity and respect a reality so many of us simply take for granted.

As someone who has experienced many times over the past few years, the solemn, respectful greeting of our dead as they travel the Highway of Heroes, this war in Afghanistan has given a face to what used to be an ideal that while respected, was removed from my own experience.

I have watched the hearses pass under the bridges which are crowded with the everyday citizens, as well as the fireman, the police, the veterans, many wearing red… flags snapping in the breeze, the silence profound as homage is paid to the boy or the girl in the coffin within.

I see their faces in the papers and read their stories and mourn the loss of futures barely realized.

So, on this day, at 11 a.m., PLEASE stop whatever you are doing. Stand proud, give with your silence and thoughts the respect, the thanks, the homage that these young warriers have earned.

And to put a face on the reality of the soldier’s lives – thank you Buffalo (Vietnam vet), thank you Derek (still in the military, decorated twice for bravery in the Bosnian war), profound, grateful thanks to each and every one of the brave individuals in our military.

You do us proud.

Fallabilities

2009-11-10T13:49:00.002-05:00

The fallibility of the human beast is both inevitable and incontrovertible; and each of us, at some point (and usually on a regular basis) is guilty of creating out of human flesh, a shining paragon, imbuing them with infinite wisdom, commensurate insight and an incandescent ability to comprehend and deal with all of life’s vicissitudes... and then, when the gloss begins to dull, when the gold becomes tarnished and is shown to be fake, when the solidity of person becomes suspect, we destroy them.

I think most of us yearn to harbour at some point, an implacable belief in someone, in their ability to cope and in their comprehension and grasp of elemental issues and problems which leave you flailing.

The reality of course is that each and every one of us are fallible human beings.

Each of us harbours moments of insight and fillips of wisdom but in large part, we all fumble through this life and through a combination of luck, blind faith and ignorance make our halting way through crisis and joys equally.

The unfairness of creating in another frail human spirit delusions of godhead, grandiose abilities to predict and unrealistic abilities to soothe, comprehend and “fix” is ultimately so unfair yet so human.

My father was my first (but not my last) clay god. Adored, cosseted, imbued with mystery bolstered by his emotional remoteness, his physical (in our early years) distance (first five years in Canada while my sister and I and our mother were in Ireland – then travelled extensively all week for the first many years in Canada and in other countries), our mother was a god-maker. In our early days, we drank in her accolades to his intelligence, his wisdom, his abilities and talents.

And I was my “daddy’s girl”- his feisty, flame haired, hot tempered passionate child who ignored his physical discomfort with affection and countered it with the enthusiastic affection taught by a mother (for while by nature, loving, he had been brought up since 2 in an almost isolated state in boarding school – he was in his own way, Ebenezer Scrooge without the meanness) and whose enthusiasm and adoration was a balm to a man who in the end cherished his family above all else.

My disillusionment was protracted and gradual; an erosion of faith, a breaking of trust, an awareness of self that allowed me to see things (I thought) from a perspective which showed me what I then perceived as “truth”. Over the years, I learned the difference between intelligence and “business smarts”, between self-knowledge and a refusal to face realities and ultimately, how wilfully blind an individual could be – and where I once saw strength I saw weakness and where I saw resolve, I found excuses.

But I also learned that TRUTH is not cast in stone; TRUTH was the WAY THINGS WERE without the patina of pretence nor the distortions of perspective (or so I thought then). It was only maturity and experience that showed me there is no TRUTH – only your perception of it – perceptions based on your knowledge, experience and insight AT THAT MOMENT. A new twist, a nugget of new insight, a smidgen of another’s reality and all could change.

What is it in the human spirit that demands perfection in another when the lack of same is so apparent in ourselves?

Is it a reaching for the stars? That implacable, confusing, awe-inspiring human spirit that keeps seeking a flawless individual to worship? Our history is riddled with the human need to find something beyond themselves, a spirit, a need, a being who transcends our human fragilities and in so doing, somehow promises redemption.

Perhaps more than many other lifestyles, many of those in D/s or particularly, M/s power exchanges tend to romanticize and mythecize their respective roles. Of course, the end result is that the rich, three-dimensional tapestry of human emotion and personality is then reduced to a two-dimensional canvas with neither life nor movement.

Unfortunately, for those who insist on creating caricatures out of the intricacy of the human beast, there is also the inevitability of disillusionment – not the possibility but the inevitability. For each of us carries with us the seeds of our own destruction; we have embedded in our very humanity the realities of our own fallacies and our inability to see clearly our own intransigence.

Yet we rail and cry foul when our heroes tumble from the pedestals onto which we pushed them. We are outraged when beliefs created in our own fervid imaginations fall to dust and are swept away on the breath of betrayal.

But in the end, it is our own fault.

For wanting to believe.

Scent

2009-11-03T10:01:00.000-05:00

I think most of us consistently and pragmatically underestimate the power of smell.

As I walked the dogs this morning I breathed deep the crisp air and pulled it deep within my lungs, breathing coolness into the warmth of lung and blood coursing through cool skin, then breathing need into the Halloween air in a sigh of vapour and feeling the whisper of snow rustle along my skin, tickling my nostrils with the promise of the coming winter.

I smell earth, rich, loamy, dampness underneath the crackle of leaves beneath my boot, with the hint of frost clinging to the leather sole and crackling in the morning dark. Earth smells dark and rich and fecund, for the dying leaves nestle into the embrace of soil and sigh their goodness into its deep environs. The cool air tastes of mint and frost upon my tongue and coats my throat with a whisper of tomorrow’s inevitability and smells like peppermint in the early gloam of morning.

The warm, living reality of dog drifts on the crispness of autumn want and envelops me in its sweet furred simplicity. Dogs smell of warmth and need and smooth muscle and coarse fur which coats the back of your nose and slides along your skin like home.

The moon hangs low in the sky, a pulsing silver orb spilling silver light through the drifting dream of trees shedding their summer mantles, trunks crisping grey in the dark of the early morning, breathing cold into the gloaming darkness.

I gaze up into the clarity of sky and night and watch the stars twinkle distantly in frosty grandeur, so removed from the summer nights which envelope and cocoon in heat the damp, salt of our bodies. Summer holds us close; the earth and sky surround and enfold and smells dance on breezes in a kaleidoscope of colour and song. Autumn is more subtle; to my mind, more enticing in its cool richness and aroma of dreaming sleep to come.

My mind flickers and dances over the reality of smells which engender thought and emotion and remembrances with a clarity which seems to fold time in on itself and bring you into the moment.

I walk into the house and the smell of crisp recoils from the warmth of wall and floor and the whispering, conjoined realities of home. Lavender and vanilla swirl and breathe welcome while the dogs’ fur breathes cool still and underneath, the canine reality of bone and sinew barks for precedence over the twitching whispering chuckles of the radiators.

The scent of him in the closeness of our room when I pull back the quilt and as if blind, run my fingers along his sleep damp body. The warmth of his skin breathes rich into my nose as my fingers read skin and soft waking muscle.

I nuzzle my mouth between his thighs into the warmth of his groin and close my eyes (although in the darkness of the room, dark whispers smell to me) and breathe deep the aroma of his sleeping body. A sheen of clean, astringent sweat, and the earthy, moistness of the pale tender skin and then I run my lips along the stirring length, sipping want into its burgeoning need.

My nostrils flare and I smell the swelling taste of him, the sharper, mouth puckering deliciousness and his odour slides down my throat and permeates the close air of the closed chamber and I want to roll and coat myself in the familiar yet ever new pheromones and feel my breasts tighten and an ache between my thighs.

In the darkness my eyes are blind and the febrile touch of finger and the smell of our realities mesh and meld and paint the room rich and scarlet.

What smells bring memories alive to you?

Tuesday Tirade ...

2009-10-27T11:25:00.002-04:00

Life can be so damn irritating at times; and there are moments when I just want to grab my dogs and run far far away to a cabin by the sea.

I’m still feeling rather overwhelmed at the moment; work is incredibly stressful right now due to a massive workload being handled by a MUCH reduced staff with the same expectations and egos tantrumming when there simply aren’t enough hours in a day to get the work done in a timeframe they consider “equitable”.

Home is just as crazy as I am starting to have the Christmas stress building with no time, not enough money and my own stupid insistence on creating ‘perfection’. Keeping a house clean (which is rather an obsession of mine) when said house has 5 to 7 people PLUS at any given time, 3 dogs, 4 cats, a guinea pig and a rabbit and said cleaning has to be juggled between 50 hour work weeks, volunteer time (which I have already cut back on and categorically refuse to cut back any further), dealing with kids’ schoolwork (yeah, even though they are in university), “commuting” to and from Montreal to deal with my mother and my incredibly irritating sister, and then emotional angst which finds its slippery, insidious way on a regular basis through the reality that is my life and I am ONE crankypants individual these days!

So there I am – up at 3:15 am, emptying the dishwasher, putting on laundry, making lunches, walking dogs ... all before 4:45 a.m. .. then a 10 hour workday where I don't get a chance to breath and THEN getting home at 6, preparing a healthy dinner and feeding people at 7 or later ... then more laundry, more cleaning, walking dogs again.... edit a few essays, make a few fruitcakes, sort out some papers ....and falling into bed at 11 or so and sleeping a few hours until the clarion call of 3:15 coaxes me out of a restless sleep yet again...

I resent the hell out of the fact that there is no such thing as “my time” – you know, that TIME where I get to kick back, perhaps enjoy some of the things I enjoy doing – like blogging or WRITING damn it. It just doesn’t exist.... just like my ‘space’ in my home which doesn’t exist.
And I am well aware that when in this moody, wilful, irritated and unreasonable state of mind, I probably should NOT write as issues which as a rule aggravate me past the “irritation” quotient and morph into rant mode.

But of course, as I AM a wilful, irritating and oftentimes, unreasonable individual, I’m going to anyway.
First, there are those who no doubt BECAUSE of said wilfulness, coupled with a rather noticeable lack of “sweetness” together with a rather glaring lack of nobility as probably the anthethsis of “submissive”. Which brings me to my rant. Why is that that submissive women are so often depicted as these saintly, self-sacrificing, WUSSES all the time??

I should simply take a deep breath and calm down as it is –and I KNOW this – such a web phenomenon .. this creation of a “perfect” submissive creature with her sweet personality, eagerness to adhere to her dominant’s every thought, word and deed, her constant yearning for control and management, her willingness to suspend her own beliefs, inner convictions and urges to the “greater” wisdom and ultimate firm hand of her dominant.

Bullshit.

Why in the world should submissive women be pigeonholed into a narrow interpretation of personality and “acceptable” traits?

We are not cardboard cut-outs, created out of whole cloth to fit a mould formed by the adolescent fantasies of online would-be dominants.

Submission, when all is said and done, is simply one facet of the complicated psyches of an individual who carries with them all the intricacies, quirkiness and individuality of ANY human being. Because I have chosen in the past to submit to someone whom I admire, respect and love does not mean that magically, all those “undesirable” selkie traits like my wilfulness, stubbornness, temper and tendency to be controlling (GASP, yeah, truly!) and inescapable propensity to make snap judgments and react emotionally are suddenly GONE.

Nope. Sorry boys, still me here!

And during the many years when I lived in a dynamic which very much encompassed the D/s ideal, I was still a wilful bitch- quite a lot truth be told! I’m intense and emotional and quick-tempered ... but damn it, I was a pretty damn GOOD submissive with all of that!

Thank god that I lived a real life dynamic .. because if I were dipping my toe in BDSM waters for the first time by perusing the internet alone, I might very well have never recognized the reality of my innate submissiveness nor felt I in any way or form fit the “mould”.

Because the popular concept of the delicate, noble, subservient and retiring submissive is about as far from this pugnacious, determined, opinionated redhead as can be...

And I am NOT bashing anyone’s own concept of a dynamic which turns their crank; just pointing out that however you cut the cloth, pushing, squeezing and forcing people into predetermined shapes with the commensurate “traits” will ultimately be self-defeating and in the end, nix the possibility of living a rich, multi-faceted, rewarding dynamic which encompasses, embraces and accepts the reality of each individual.

Small Timeout ....

2009-10-14T06:08:00.001-04:00

I'm absoultely SWAMPED at work - beyond all - we are so short-staffed and overwhelmed with work PLUS major things to do at home! Trying to winterize house, clean up garden, kid-related stuff and at least three trips to Montreal to see my mum in the next 6 to 7 weeks .... so taking a time-out.

Will catch up with everyone soon when I catch my breath!

still treading water ... will catch up when I get a moment- in the interim, was going to rework the last post but don't have the time, so am leaving it the way it was.

2009-10-12T10:42:00.002-04:00

why would you choose to be with someone who doesn't

encourage you and want you to be all who you are???

Some time ago, Terri, at her blog Honor Yourself posed this question and sent me into a veritable storm of thought and musings (quoted with her permission). Her entire discussion is WELL worth the read and I urge you to go there and learn. Truth be told, I actually wrote a passionate diatribe about this very thing, then decided in the end that I wasn’t comfortable posting it.

However, both Sir J , mouse and JZ have all approached this same question from similar but slightly different perspectives quite recently.

What resonates most with Sir J’s musings are his comments:

And inside the box of this relationship, when you look in the mirror at yourself, what do you see? How do you look? Do you look good . . . or no? Do you feel good? Does this relationship enhance your well-being? Does this relationship offer you opportunities to enhance the well-being of another? Does this relationship encourage you to become your Highest Self? How would you like for this relationship to stay the same? How would you like for this relationship to change? Are there steps you need to take to change who you are in this relationship?

Mouse’s words also had import to me:

Of course, our relationship "box" isn't really a box, to me it's an old house built long ago. The foundation is solid, and the bones of the house are in great shape. It has magnificent flow. Yes, it creaks and sometimes groans, it expands and contracts with the weather. It must be maintained.

Now JZ’s comments, while not directed towards the exact same subject so aptly covered by Sir J and mouse still address the same basic concept. In her case, she realized that being with someone who did not accept ALL the complicated, myriad aspects of self was not worth the price.

Why do so many people not value themselves?

How does one assess self-worth?

WHY would someone stay in a relationship with an individual who neither supports nor encourages you and in fact does not wish you to be everything you CAN be?

So I sit here wondering WHY is it so difficult for so many of us to figure out something so utterly true?

“Youth is wasted on the young” (Geroge Bernard Shaw)

Not that I truly believe that but certainly while there are sometimes wise youth, I think experience if accompanied by commensurate insight and a willingness to change brings with it its own rewards. One of them is the wisdom to grasp to your heart, to feel to your soul, the truth of those words.

are you living your life as you?

or are you living your life as your partner's perception of you?

The past several years have revealed some hard truths to me; truths which undermined the very foundation of my trust, beliefs and heartfelt convictions. Truths which forced me to reconsider memories I thought real and instead learned were delusion.

And the lessons were harsh.

I learned my faith was illusionary, insubstantial and unable to be sustained in the glaring light of reality, the veil parted and the light implacable. I was taught I could not rely on my very recollections and memories, that they were flawed and delusional. I learned that trust, once broken, is incredibly difficult to regain and that what I perceived to be my strengths were in truth fundamental weaknesses in character.

I learned I was a fool.

I internalized the total stupidity of my own perceptions and was disgusted and appalled at my wilful ignorance.

But together with the crumbling of the foundations of self, came insight, hard won, painful and real. Insight into my own willingness to sustain fabrication and coat unpalatable reality with a patina of romance. I was also given the insight to weigh the cost of my misplaced beliefs and see, at least partially, the price of such lack of perception.

And when all was said and done, the pain was hardly just mine and mine alone.

When you pull apart the roots of two entwined plants, both suffer, both falter, both must fight to regain strength and health and beauty.

For every action there is a reaction ….

Only recently, have I been able to see beyond the chaos of my own emotions and internalize the absolute truth that I do not exist in a vacuum. The very act of inflicting pain engenders an agony of heart and mind that rivalled the extent of my own confusion and despair.

And, when I look at the question again – I see clearly that my own disfunctions, insecurities and wilfulness had their part in perhaps pushing another individual to live your life as your partner's perception of you?

Et tu, Brutus? Indeed.

Because the reality is that when one survives tsnami, then your life priorities, your knowledge of self and perceptions of your reality are irrevocably changed. And though we demonize change a lot and make it negative, it can also be positive (though truth be told, it is neither good nor bad, it just IS).

I am a stronger person today.

I am a more self-aware person today.

My ego, which I thought utterly fragile, has somehow survived, battered, bruised and scarred, but still me (I think - truth be told sometimes I find myself perplexed at this new me, unrecognizable as she is in some ways).

And my will is slowly re-establishing its determination and strength to move forward, to mend the broken parts of me and forge new, stronger ties and to foster a deeper understanding of what I need in life to make me content.

Some goals are long-term and will require a great deal of work, others, more short-term and simpler are straightforward and there are even a few that I feel have already been mastered to a greater or lesser degree.

The truth is that the future remains opaque; my path obscured, but I have mustered the strength to keep forging ahead, to place one foot in front of another and just keep moving … and in that sense that is a huge victory as a year ago, I was mired in a despair so overwhelming I questioned my ability to survive.

Today I find a measure of peace (at times).

Today I find a measure of understanding (at time).

Today I know I will see tomorrow.

Today I am sadder.

Today, I find it more difficult to find joy.

Today, I’m trying to figure out who “me” is.

The reality is that no matter the type of dynamic, every single one of us should periodically step outside our current realities and try our best to look, with an unbiased eye (or as close as we can to being removed from the emotion of the situation) at the reality of our lives. We need to pragmatically figure out what is working for us, what is not. We need to honestly admit to ourselves the positives of the dynamic and the inevitable negatives and then weigh one against the other.

If the balance is weighted towards the negative side of the equation, THEN we need to look inside and figure out why we are allowing ourselves to maintain a status quo that in the end, provides very little positive spiritual energy to our lives.

Insights granted me at a sometimes painful cost are nonetheless illuminating. I realized that my quietly social nature has been very much suppressed – to a degree that horrified me when I saw the extent of my withdrawal from human interaction. I realized too that my writing, always an integral, crucial part of who I am can no longer be a bargaining chip; it is and will remain something that is as important to me as breathing and I will never again allow pressure – whether overt or subtle - to dissuade me from practicing my passion.

More esoteric insights were also granted me; for instance, I learned to recognize how susceptible I am at creating demons when sometimes there are none. I learned I am far too sensitive and prone to create drama when none is intended.

And I learned too how MY actions, whether deliberate or careless, provoking or ignorant, have in turn THEIR impact on those close to me – and that as I expect others to take responsibility, so too must I stand up and accept the role I have had in causing agony of mind.

In the end, self-awareness is crucial to a balanced life. A continuing and honest appraisal of our personal goals, needs and wants should and must be a part of maintaining a healthy mind and spirit. The fallibility of human nature is inarguable; but so too is our capacity to seek wisdom and balance and to gain illumination and
self-awareness is infinite and in its own way, inspiring.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. (Marie Curie)

Orgasm Control and "Coming on Command" OH MY....

2009-10-08T06:45:00.000-04:00

I’m always fascinated by the intricacies of people’s lives and the motivations, checks and balances that individuals use to make sense of their existence. One of the things I work actively at is to suspend critical thinking and try to understand and internalize everyone’s right to live their lives as they see fit, to accept with equanimity practices I might find curious, perplexing, even, in my personal view, pointless!

The critical, pragmatic selkie however, DOES find it difficult – almost impossible – to suspend belief in certain instances or with respect to certain claims I just cannot find credible or actions for which I simply don’t see a point ... other than to say “I made her do it”.

One of the sticking points for me centers on the many discussion I see (usually in a D/s or M/s context) about orgasm control and ‘coming on command’.

Bottom line, I CANNOT, no matter how open-minded I try to be, no matter how credulous I try to pretend to believe (a) in the efficacy of “orgasm control” (on many levels to be discussed), and (b) that ‘coming on command’ is possible.

There, I’m not going to wrap it up in placatory language or obfuscate it with adjectives.

I don’t understand the need for “orgasm control” and bottom line, I do NOT believe that ‘coming on command’ is possible – I just don’t.

1) Orgasm control

First, let’s talk about female orgasms.

MY reality - based on science and yeah, personal knowledge – is that women’s orgasms are at best a complicated process.

Just a quick look at readily available material:

According to a 1999 survey, around 43 per cent of women in the US have some sort of problem with their sex lives (Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 281, page 537).
recent Redbook survey shows that 52% of women regularly fake orgasms
Most women need about 20 minutes of clitoral or G-spot stimulation to hit the jackpot. But an estimated 24 to 37 percent of women can't climax (and smoking, drinking, emotional disorders, medications, and menopause can make things worse). The Science of Orgasm (Johns Hopkins University Press),
According to the first genetic study of the female orgasm, up to 45 per cent of the variation in women’s ability to have them could be down to genes.
The Hite Report found that a whopping 70% of women reported not being able to archive orgasm through just in/out vaginal sex.

Now the reality is that I have only ever read about “orgasm control” online – any real time friends I have tend to find it as perplexing as me. Again, I reiterate, I don’t knock it, I just don’t get it.

However, Vesta does a great job of discussing the “logic” of it which I can grasp to a limited extent but which ultimately I still don’t understand. Denying an orgasm? When in MOST cases, the majority of women generally grapple with the REALITY of orgasming period? Not getting that part (and yeah, will probably get inundated with people assuring me they can orgasm 30 times a day; and yes, I believe there are women like that but still assert that they are the MINORITY – and science bears me out).

The whole orgasm control thing escapes me – and I admit readily that is a personal opinion and preference only. Obviously I have no objection if it turns your crank, as they say – different strokes for different folks!

Another point which swan mentions in Wednesday's blog – is that as tenuous as orgasms can be for any woman, for aging women it can prove even more of a challenge. Menopause, medical issues, life stressors, time crunches and responsibilities are all factors which negatively and inexorably impact a woman’s ability to orgasm (which requires, when all is said and done, a mental ability to ‘let go’, something many women AND service-oriented submissive women who live to please, have trouble with).

Further, delaying an orgasm by coaxing someone almost to a peak, then back down again and again, while it CAN be a very effective form of sexual interplay (and not to be confused with creating rules around when and where one can have an orgasm) can backfire - badly. It can, as D. points out, derail the focus most of us need to reach the top. JZ in her comments to Vesta’s blog cited above, also wisely points out that repeated and prolonged denial can ultimately negatively impact a woman’s natural ability to relax enough to orgasm. This I know to be true as I experienced it personally.

But, the physical realities aside, I just don’t “get” what orgasm denial is supposed to accomplish. Perhaps it is because I am, at heart, a pragmatist, and a time-crunched one at that. It astonishes me that individuals have the TIME to indulge in such extended “play” with no appreciable purpose that I can ascertain other than to deny what I would think one would want to ENCOURAGE.

Of course, I concede that for some individuals, dominant or submissive, orgasm control is an important part of their overall dynamic. I just don’t understand why a dominant would feel the need to exert that kind of control over something that ultimately proves so little. Orgasm control as a power tool also leaves me cold from the perspective of a practical, service-oriented submissive, I don’t really see its purpose. Oral worship of HIM I get, directives regarding practicalities to do with his comfort I understand, but controlling my sexuality because you “can”? Not sure what that accomplishes.

2) Coming on command

This seems such a popular subject out here on the net. I think it gives the illusion of such total control and dominance that the concept is in itself deliciously irresistible to both dominants and submissives alike. I believe implicitly that many feel it provides the ultimate proof of dominance and even for the submissive, inexorably underlines the extent of her submissiveness (i.e. her mind is so much HIS – because I’ve YET to hear about a female dominant MAKING a male submissive “come on command” – without any kind of physical stimulation!).

Bottom line? I think its bullshit. I do NOT believe it can be done.

I’m a bit of a reader and have read voraciously on many subjects, human sexuality included. The science of sexuality is a multi-billion dollar business – sex sells. Science continues to search (so far with only limited success) for answers to the capriciousness of female sexuality. I do NOT think for one second that IF ‘coming on command’ could be empirically proven that the scientific community would not have JUMPED on this and done copious studies and have streams of evidence proving the veracity of this ability.

Further, I would conjecture that a form of psychological manipulation is implicit in the practice; and as very few dominants out there have pursued degrees in psychiatry or psychology, I hardly believe that most have the necessary tools to create what is in essence, an incredibly difficult manipulation of the human mind.

Reconditioning is an incredibly difficult thing to accomplish. The human psyche is complicated and tenacious and if it were simplistic to change bodily and mental functions then none of us would have any bad habits – which simply is not true.

D. engaged in an interesting discussion on Fet (if anyone wants the link, let me know)- where basically he made what I consider some extremely salient points. At one point, he addresses one dominant’s assertion that it can be done through behavioural conditioning:

I understand your pavlovian argument, of behavioral shaping for the desired response, but i see it as infinitely difficult, because of all of the variables,( social, emotional and physical,) to achieve, it may be possible. if it was simple and easy i would think that the information would be made readily available for a price. someone would have written a book and made an instructional video.

it is difficult enough to train and help someone to alter their cognitive behaviours, ie. treating those who smoke, over eat, suffer from anxiety, fears, compulsions, phobias, and anger management problems etc.. it takes hours and hour of therapy, years of work and in a lot of cases, medication, before the desire behavior is firmly imprinted, and a lot of times the therapy is never completely successful.

Further on, he brings out one of my most compelling points, which is:

in the light of absolutely no empirical evidence. with the fact that there is not one of the foremost institutes that study human sexuality, that has done, or even given the topic of orgasm on command without any prior physical stimulation, any credence, let alone seriously looked at the phenomenon, that a search for any article in the scientific community has come up short. i have been unable to find even any reputable BDSM authors that have dealt with the subject. (my emphasis)

I’ve had this argument before, of course. On my very brief sojourn on Fetlife I remember getting into an argument there and still giggle at the dominant who claims to make his submissive orgasm by pulling her finger LOL… because the IMMATURE selkie can only laugh and think of what “pulling the finger” meant when I was a kid – and it wasn’t an orgasm!

Again, almost exclusively, the whole subject of “coming on command’ seems to me to be one of those internet myths, which is remarkably handy in view of the fact that empirical evidence is never actually provided.

I even concede that certain individuals may have convinced themselves either that they can order and make their submissive or slave come or conversely, that a submissive or slave is so eager to please that she thinks or gives the impression that she can accede. I think it naive if one thinks that not a possibility! It is the nature of submissives and slaves to please, to want to make their dominant proud.

The bottom line is that ancedotal exmaples simply don't and won't convince me. I hold firm to my belief that until emperical evidence is proferred, it is a fun fantasy and nothing more.

Further, the BAD selkie can’t help thinking that it sure lets the dominant out of ensuring sexual pleasure is experienced by the submissive … no work involved in saying a few words. In that sense, this touches on another belief of mine – which is people generally tend to exaggerate the amount –and quality –of sexual interplay in which they indulge. But that is a rant for another blog...

This and that ...

2009-10-05T08:20:00.000-04:00

You GO girl.... Toronto dominatrix challenges the Courts .... "The 49-year-old Toronto grandmother, along with prostitutes Valerie Scott, 51, and Amy Lebovitch, 30, is asking Ontario's Superior Court of Justice to invalidate Criminal Code provisions that serve as Canada's policy response to the world's oldest profession."
Scuse me for NOT having one bit of sympathy for this damn predator ... and on top of that he tries to inflict guilt on victims for coming forward and doesn't have the guts to kill himself but makes some poor train driver do it for him. Good riddance to at least one predator.
WTF?? REVERSING on the 401? Have seen it countless times; in fact my very FIRST time driving on the 401 I had to institute some evasive action to avoid hitting an friggin idiot who missed his exit and was REVERSING on a highway where the avearge speed was 130 km ... the real victim in this is the poor truck driver - who while fortunate enough not to be badly hurt, nonetheless is no doubt traumitized that his truck hit and killed someone (through no fault of his own)
Yes, you should have to pay. There seems to be a tendency in Canada to accept everyone; we are becoming a joke among the world's exploiters who come here for our healthy care, dump their elderly high-cost family members and shout we MUST pay for it all - it's time new policies were enacted. If there was a true commitment to this nation, an acceptance of our culture and our viewpoints, then fine, but there is NOT.
Censorship raises its ugly head ... yet again

Coming "out"

2009-10-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

A blog I read recently spoke of the perceived dilemma of maintaining protocols and formalities when out in the world. In short, basically in terms of using certain pejoratives, the individuals would in effect be indicating that their lifestyle choice was far from mainstream.

I’m not ashamed of what I am nor of the dynamic that I once enjoyed. Had someone confronted me directly, I would most likely have admitted to my choices; certainly my blog isn’t hidden, nor is my picture (which is up to date) and my nic, “selkie” is well known among close friends and family.

Having said that, D. and I NEVER made it obvious in our home, in our careers nor in out friendships which were out of the realm of kink. Not due to shame or embarrassment but quite simply, out of respect for others.

My kink is my kink.

But kink can be powerfully affecting to individuals unfamiliar with the intricacies of the various dynamics. It can have an unreasonably powerful impact on those who don’t understand the underlying motivations and rewards and can be extremely off-putting to the uninitiated when exposed to some of the more esoteric practices.

Obviously, none of us live in a vacuum. Influences abound which mould and affect all of us and each of us carries with us innate prejudices, decided opinions and concepts of how we perceive life and humanity in general. With the sheer volume of dross out there in cyber space, for instance, every lifestyle choice, esoteric concepts and practices are easily accessible to the curious who wish to satisfy prurient interests without actually exposing themselves.

I think especially those who practice lifestyle related practices predominantly online lose sight of the realities which would meet its actualities in real time. The other anomaly of course are those who assert online that they are “out” in real life but don’t even provide a real photograph!

Most of us work fulltime these days – women and men. To be taken seriously, to engender respect and the development of professional work relationships requires confidence, determination and strength. Yeah, even for submissives (female and male).

The REALITY of our human experience is that we are judged on our appearance. We are judged on our demeanour. We are judged in how we present ourselves and how we conduct ourselves. And yes, we ARE judged on our lifestyle choices.

Is this so odd? Do we not tell our children that people will judge them on how they look? act? present themselves? Do we not draw our OWN conclusions when we meet people based on those self-same markers - which - before a friendship is developed, is ALL we have on which to base an opinion?

Any woman or man who comes "out" to people lacking the basic understanding and commensurate knowledge of the spectrum of a D/s or M/s relationship (one which includes respect, caring and encouragement of intelligence, ability and skills), would most definitely court almost certain disrespect and immediate disdain from individuals who would walk away with a very skewed perception of the worth of someone they thought about in very different terms before the insight.

I am the first to “stand up and be counted” when it comes to defending an ideal, acknowledging the right to personal beliefs and fighting for personal freedoms.

But I also live in the real world.

Apart from the professional arena; I admit I have strong views (big surprise!) on the more obvious practices and powerful protocols used on a personal level when children are involved. Certainly, when it comes to children, very few people do NOT have decided views on upbringing.

For me, however, introducing a lifestyle to children that carries with it such obvious preferences and powerful protocols is wrong. AS wrong as exposing them (in my opinion) to any kind of influence which will unduly influence and prejudice them – from fanatical religious views (of any flavour) to prejudices against race, colour or gender.

Females already face an uneven playing field (albeit, a better turf than when I was young). Having my girls and my boy indoctrinated into believing that women are “naturally” subservient and men “naturally” dominant is repugnant (or for that matter, vice versa). I want them to choose their own paths; as much as possible I want to bring them up with open minds, unmarred by my own known preferences.

Finally, the intimacy engendered by a working D/s (or M/s) relationship is also precious and to me, personal. Even before embracing the lifestyle, I was intensely private when it came to my relationship. I was never one for necking in public, hanging over my significant other, or even for ‘cutsey’ nicknames and billing and cooing at each other.

I saw no reason to adopt a different attitude once we became D/s.

Frankly, flaunting it to a degree that makes it offensive to mainstream society is more about a cry for attention than a true commitment to, and pride, in your relationship. I know there are those who bleat that ‘they are not ashamed’ and go around with obvious collars, fawning attitudes, arrogance and adopt extreme attitudes and clothing choices, but to me, they are poseurs who like teenagers are trying to shock, and ultimately, crave attention.

Is your dynamic any less influential because you are discrete?

Are you any less a submissive/slave, dominant/Master because you recognize realities?

Or, rather, are you in fact truly engaged in a real relationship which carries with it the commensurate responsibilities owed by each member of society to function within the confines of generally accepted norms?

Further, there are many and varied ways to underline and enhance a dynamic without being offensive, outrageous or forcing non-participants to become voyeurs. Intimacy carries with it, its own language, its own signs and signals. None of which need to be shared with the general public – kinky or not.

How we present ourselves to a society which initially judges based on appearance and demeanour largely determines to what level and degree we are accepted and how seriously we are taken. But apart from the need to preserve dignity and maintain decorum (and rightly so) in a professional environment, I also find it offensive to believe that it is acceptable to force our choices on each those who neither understand, desire or require an intimate glimpse into what is essentially a private choice.

Wednesday chuckle

2009-09-30T12:02:00.000-04:00

See me, Feel me...

2009-09-28T09:30:00.003-04:00

I step into a night which breathes and gallops want into the pale skin of my reality. Restless, anxious with that intangible, nerve-tingling, itching edge that ripples thought into skin and sends electric shocks to limbs that can’t relax; in my shoulder I feel the ache of unresolved want. The dogs snuffle and pull at the ties which bind their energy into sedation but the wind growls in my ear and licks need into my eyes which search a sky of roiling, twitching cloud and dark and feel on the periphery of soul the mumbling earth beneath my feet.

I unsnap the leashes and stretch my legs and feel the wind sweep me in its damp, triumphant want and pull me soaring through the night with my breath streaming into the smoke of mist and mingling with the roar of its passage. The sound of my steps are lost as the earth moves and the line between this reality and the truth as I once knew it stretches thin, shimmering in the Halloween night until the curtain of deception sighs defeat and I hurtle into the moment.

Swift through the night I flee, the shadows of the hounds with crimson eyes beside me, stretching limbs made of molten fire and need matching the fleetness of a strength forgotten. My soul stretches and pulses beneath the fragile flesh of my prison and yearns outward into the magic of this early morning storm and I open wide and allow all the words trapped beneath my throat to roar into the sky and be absorbed into the triumphant wind which embraces and buffets my desperation.

Because talking is so damn hard.

Communication is touted, revered, recommended, bleated as the panacea for all ills. But truly it is far easier to mouth the words as if they were a magic spell that restores confidence, instils understanding and begets a eureka moment than really internalize them.

The human beast when all is said and done has a genius for misinterpretation that despite the best communicator, can cause endless confusion and misunderstandings.

I think the term “communicate” is often mouthed with no true understanding of what that means. And to me, communications is so much more than sounds emitted from throats grown weary of hoping. Touch is perhaps one of the most powerful communication tools but to my mind, the single most powerful instrument is hearing.

And again, such is the complexity of the human paradox that even hearing can be problematic.

It is as if each of us carries inside us the constant hum of white noise, electrical impulses that create static and interrupt the flow of thought and speech. The baggage that weighs each of our unique personalities is incontrovertible and implacable; and can, will, usually DOES cause misunderstanding and confusion as the “white noise” of our own complexities twist the words that are being directed our way. None of us is inviolate when it comes to the human reality of fractured understanding.

JZ, Sir J , and many others have talked about the whole dynamic of listening, learning and communicating and touched on something I also believe true; submissives in particular are not the best at communicating their needs generally.

For in one sense, voicing a “want”, a “need” in a submissive mind seems like a ‘demand’, an anathema to the submissive personality – no matter how outwardly bold and brash that individual seems. Many of us too are unfair in our voiceless, whispering need to be “read”, interpreted and understood – all without providing the much maligned dominant one iota of a clue as to what we yearn for.

But ultimately, any relationship – no matter its designation or “name” – involves two people, both of whom must “listen” and truly HEAR and both of whom must at least make the attempt to communicate.

But as I said earlier, communication is not all about words. Bodies speak volumes and eyes can provide insight and comprehension. A cliché in one sense, that eyes speak but nonetheless to those who see with thought and caring, they are indeed windows to the soul.

Physical reactions, intangible but apparent and often decided, speak to those who choose to hear. Touch can be a powerful tool for communication. Which of us would deny that we can sense those sometimes almost imperceptible but unmistakable reactions of skin and muscle when certain demands are made, sexual, service-oriented or otherwise. Fingers which trace heat along skin can sense a denial or a welcome. Solid, real bodily realities provide rich fodder to those who care to understand.

For those who lack the courage or the will to say the words sometimes, the unspoken needs to be read.

I do not deny the need for classic “communication”; the simple imparting in straightforward words wishes, needs, confusions, irritations or questions. But when all is said and done, we are creatures of muscle and tendon, blood and skin and need and to truly “communicate” we must understand the need to use all our senses to impart the realities of words.

For words can be twisted and misinterpreted, frozen in voices unable to emit their need, tangled in confusion and fear and in the end, simply “sound” which can be so easily lost in the cacophony of our own thoughts….

The night cries out to me as my dogs and I race the roar of its demand and are swept into the maelstrom of elemental need. Over the humming, grumbling roar I hear the words echo clear then fade and then tangle in the swirling confusion of the storm and breathe deep the ozone-rich truth of its implacable pursuit and succomb.

THE WHO - See Me, Feel Me - Listening to You (1975)

2009-09-28T08:15:00.001-04:00

Rage, rage at the dying of the light

2009-09-22T19:59:00.000-04:00

You will come driving

f-cynyr

You will come driving

skeletal and stark, sockets

empty of eyes but full

of blaze and vision, and you

will rattle your bones bereft

of flesh, draped in

tatters and shatter

you will come driving

blurring the road and swallowing

my refuge and fodder. your ravenous

speed compressing my time

to moments without breath to gasp

the words I desperately need to shout,

but your driving frenzy will blow

away any sound of disclosure I utter.

you will come driving,

laughing the sharp edges of your

murk and zeal, you in your rush

for the finish, will rattle

my sanctum, and torment my fall,

with your handfuls of nothing

and mouthful of dark..

you will come driving

from the tumult to the halt,

from the flaccid to the fleeting,

your hingeless jaw laughing,

your fiery breath strumming

the air and bubbling the clouds

into a gulping dirge.

you will come driving

speeding, but leisurely stretching

your time to the limit, with

sulphur and sandalwood

and allure and aversion

you will laugh your demoniacal

laugh we use to share, and the

emptiness that were your

eyes, will sparkle at me

with glee, as I get in too

ride with you

when you come driving.

I find myself focused lately on death. No, not my own (as other than my somewhat unbalanced obsession with ensuring if I did die everything would be taken care of, I’m don’t brood about my morality to any great extent), but the certainty and the final reality of it. The no more chances, no more possibilities horror of it.

“compressing my time

to moments without breath to gasp

the words I desperately need to shout,”

says finbar in his morbid but powerful ode to the Pale Rider.

How true! What a reminder to each of us to carpe diem (seize the moment), to internalize that life is ultimately fleeting and each moment precious in its uniqueness and in its ability to impart emotion, experience, comprehension and thought. For we don’t know when the “bell will toll” for us.

Will we, when that moment comes – unexpected, shocking and unseen in its inevitability, will we regret those words left unsaid? Will we in those final moments feel our hearts contract as we wail the lack of a last chance to speak? Will be think in those endless final moments of the things we did not do? The steps we avoided? The paths ignored and rejected through fear or trepidation or a simple unwillingness to upset the relentlessly even tenor of lives half lived?

It has been a year of death for me. Two good neighbours, one perhaps less shocking than the other (for while his 70 years was not that long, my other dear neighbour’s 33 was an abomination); my precious, beloved, much missed friend Mel – taken so unexpectedly and even now, I find myself reaching for the phone to arrange a time to meet .... and now my cousin Jim, my tragic, sad, unhappy cousin Jim... my mind keeps going over and over his mindset. I keep wondering if some small change, a phone call, a neighbour dropping by, a chance-met encounter, something might have stayed his hand.... given him the strength to meet another day.

“Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage rage at the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas

Thomas’ words haunt me and fill my heart with a hot, rich comprehension for I too rage against the dying of the light. I do not accept death’s claims with equanimity nor a calm heart. I fight and rail against his inevitable victory and descry the frailness of our human state.

I do not understand, you see, where we go.

Once upon a time there was a god and I thought a place beyond but that myth is no longer mine to hold as a comfort on those cold, dark nights when the sky wheels around me in its endless expanse of deep endless space and I look up and all I see in the glittering fabric of my world are the dying screams of stars.

And as I mourn bitterly the death of a good man, I mourn too the closing of a door I thought open, the loss of a part of my youth and the final tenuous hold on a land I hold dear, whose green fields and sweet air have too long simply been a fading memory, now destined to become muted and dusty and faded until the final tendrils of remembered thought dissipate and are lost.

Dylan Thomas

2009-09-22T19:53:00.001-04:00

MEME - 56 things about selkie

2009-09-21T19:57:00.001-04:00

Stolen (but with permission!) from morningstar

1. Nervous habits - bite my nails, wring my hands, CLEAN obsessively
2. Are you double jointed - I wish! My flexibilty sucks.
3. Can you roll your tongue - nope, but I can do quite amazing things with it nonetheless
4. Can you raise one eyebrow at a time - yes
5. Can you blow spit bubbles - EWWWW - gross!
6. Can you cross your eyes - absoultely - but have to watch the wind doesn't change or they'll stay that way
7. Tattoos - "D" on my butt, vine on my back, several more planned
8. Piercing - 3 in one ear, 2 in the other, 4 intimate piercings
9. Do you make your bed daily - yes (well technically, D does it most days as he is out last)

CLOTHES

10. Which shoe goes on first - right
11. Speaking of shoes, have you ever thrown one at anyone? actually no-
12. On the average, how much money do you carry - varies - whatever I have I seem to spend so try to keep it low
13. What jewelry do you wear 24/7 - only my silver necklace with O ring
14. Favorite piece of clothing - don't really have one

FOOD

15. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it - cut it
16. Have you ever eaten Spam - YUCK - nope, would never touch it
17. Do you use extra salt on your food - never
18. How many cereals in your cabinet - probably around 4
19. What's your favorite beverage - coffee
20. What's your favorite fast food restaurant - Mr. Greek
21. Do you cook - all the time

GROOMING

22. How often do you brush your teeth - probalby 4 or 5 times a day
23. Hair drying method - air!
24. Have you ever colored/highlighted your hair - I like to put copper highlights in when I can

MANNERS

25. Do you swear - yes, I have an unfortunate mouth at times although I do try to ensure it is where people won't be offended
26. Do you ever spit - disgusting..

FAVORITE

27. Animal - dogs, cats, rabbits, you name it
28. Food - chocolate
29. Month - October
30. Day - Sunday
31. Cartoon - don't watch them
32. Shoe brand - any cowboy boot with good leather
33. Subject in school - English and Classics
34. Color - RED
35. Sport - lacrosse
36. TV shows - not much of a fan of TV - maybe NCIS
37. Thing to do in the spring - dig in the garden (like morningstar) and clean up yard
38. Thing to do in the summer - hide from the sun and hike in woods with dogs, have evening fires outside
39. Thing to do in the autumn - hike some more, go outside a lot in the country, bake lots of soups and pies
40. Thing to do in the winter - shovel snow, hike with dogs and cook hearty meals

IN AND AROUND

41. In the CD player - Sarah Brightman, Drop Kick Murphys
42. Person you talk most on the phone with - I HATE the phone too (morningstar's answer)- but probably my mum
43. Reading - Elizabeth George (mystery), Julia Cameron (writing diet) and Germaine Greer
44. Do you regularly check yourself out in store windows/mirrors - not if I can avoid it
45. What color is your bedroom - paris blue
46. Do you use an alarm clock - yes, but it seldom goes off as my internal alarm is almost infallible
47. Window seat or aisle - window - I hate people crawling over me or having to get up and down

DUMB

48. What's your sleeping position - back usually
49. Even in hot weather do you use a blanket - sheet, sometimes nothing
50. Do you snore - not since I had my deviated septum fixed!
51. Do you sleepwalk - nope
52. Do you talk in your sleep nope
53. Do you sleep with stuffed animals - nope - have various cats, dogs and D! no room for stuffed animals!
54. How about with the light on - off, I like it pitch dark
55. Do you fall asleep with the TV or radio on - neither - I hate noise, it distracts me
56. Last interesting person you met -morningstar and her Sir!

Body Image

2009-09-14T14:04:00.001-04:00

Individual perceptions of our bodies are often problematic for many people, for reasons which can be as varied as the individuals involved. It is a subject close to my own heart, and one to which I return (somewhat obsessively at times) again and again. I find myself fascinated by insights offered by friends into their own struggles or perceptions of how they view themselves. A concept of self that includes confidence in appearance, a certainty of desirability and self-assurance or worth based on not just innate personality but on appearance, continues to elude me for reasons which continue to perplex and frustrate not just me but those who say they love me.

I follow with interest writings by friends whose inner perceptions of self have offered glimpses into mindsets that fascinate me and at times made me envious. For it seems my entire life I’ve struggled with an impaired sense of self that has resulted in most of my existence being caught up in a circle of self-loathing.

A friend once said in her own writings, she was taught to ‘look at herself through her Master’s eyes’ and in so doing, finally discovered her own beauty. How wonderful a concept! (What a wise Master!) And how true. I know that, I KNOW it and apply it generously and honestly to those whom I myself adore, but somehow I can’t seem to apply that same rule of thumb to myself.

Inevitably those of us who suffer from what is in truth, a type of body dysmorphia, think that changing our bodies to some dreamed off state of being will make our discontent disappear. We think if we exercise more, firm up the arms, develop washboard abs, get those calf muscles flexing ... if we whittle away the weight and somehow, magically, fit into that yearned for size 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 ...0.... pick a number ... pick a number ANY number – because when all is said and done our rational minds KNOW that simply squeezing into a given size is not going to – in the end- make us happy.

There will be momentary triumphs of course when we reach (usually) the next size DOWN but then, that won’t be enough. We barely give ourselves time to savour our victory, the achievement of our “goal” when our eyes are again looking ahead; again, thinking, if we got to THIS size, surely, surely, the next one will be even more wonderfully rewarding. Not just attainable, but won’t it make us SO happy. We’ll be content THEN, we KNOW that ... and we whittle away and we exercise obsessively and we get to that NEXT size and we’re barely there and the cycle begins again ...

And then, because ultimately, people like me are unbalanced when it comes to how we view our bodies, something will happen – often some emotional blow – or exhaustion, or demands so onerous it derails our carefully planned strategies, often, usually, it is emotional in nature the reason we use to derail our goals, to sabotage and undermine our quest for the “perfect” size – you know, the one that will make you happy, the shape that will make it all better, the body type that makes you, finally, finally, sexy, desirable, delectable, KEEPABLE.

Yeah, that size.

Then all our hard efforts, our hard work, our quivering, fragile pride in our accomplishment is shattered and damn, there we are at the bottom again, failures, losers, screwing up AGAIN ... not reaching our goals AGAIN...

And yet, and yet ... I KNOW that even reaching that random goal, that yearned for “perfect” size doesn’t bring peace, hell it doesn’t even bring a sense of validation.

At one point – a couple of years ago – I hit “the size” – yeah, the skinny one, the one where you go into a store, for once without cringing, and get a rush- a HUGE rush when you have to keep asking for ANOTHER size – yeah, ANOTHER size less than the one you actually tried on – and sometimes, even more exciting, you end up trying on one that is TWO OR MORE sizes less than you thought you would need.

Problem is, I wasn’t happy then either.

Oh, I was thin, hell at one point, skinny. But did I look in the mirror and say, YEAH SELKIE – you DID it! Nope- I looked in the mirror and thought, crap, look at that skin- so much of it! Crap- look at that, my boobs are so small now. Crap, ugly stomach or WHAT? Hell, look at my shoulders, how BONY are those ... YUCK.

Of course I realized, even then as I looked at myself with self-loathing that this was SO not about the physical realities and so much MORE about what was behind my eyes. Because I remember (before that skinny phase) losing just about half of the weight and being in such a wonderful space with D. that I felt lush, feminine, sexual and so deliciously desirable. The little rolls still left, the imperfections faded to nothing before his gaze and I felt confident, wanted, complete.

For a while, when things turned sour I kept losing ....losing, losing, losing... fading away, a skeletal wraith with gaunt limbs and sunken eyes until the emotional morass of my realities sought to fill the empty spaces with the momentary, fleeting and ultimately, deceitful comfort of calories.

And again, I sit here, feeling a failure, feeling defeated, despairing that I’ll ever get it right.
Yet I have learned.

I know that my physical realities are in my world, reflections of my emotional life. That I fill with food what I should be pouring out in words and gaining flesh is not the same as gaining insight. I understand that the diabolical dance I have engaged in a good part of my life has to end and the music stopped. I know that my self-worth should not be based on my pant size nor my self-esteem on whether I can get into a size smaller than I did before.

And all that is what I know rationally .. I just have to convince the emotional soul of me of its truth.

not really a 'friend'

2009-09-14T08:35:00.000-04:00

for more than 25 years I have had a friend named "C".

I met her when she was in what I didn't realize was to be the first of many "crisis" - she was in fact being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. In all fairness, seriously stalked - as in coming out of her apartment to find the nearby bus shelter plastered with 100s of posters begging her to take him back, as in driving down a street, coming to a stop sign and having him leap on the front of her car, as in an average of 125+ messages a day on her phone ... and this was way back when stalking was not considered an issue. When the one being stalked was inevitably considered "hysterical", "over-reactive" ...

I got involved becuase that's what I do - get involved. Got in touch with a wonderful feminist on the local paper. Got her help. Got a cop who took her seriously - and after time, it worked - the psycho stopped stalking and her case was in fact one that was used to bolster Ontario's subsequent anti-stalking law.

But in hindsight, the 'stalking' was indicative of what I eventually learned to understand was the chaos of her life.

She is, was, when all was said and done, unbalanced; in time I came to believe to my soul unbalanced in the sense of chemical imbalance, as in bipolar. Several counsellors (to my knowledge she has been seeing a succession of psychologists, counsellors, psychiatrists, doctors for more than 30 years) actually highly recommended drug therapy - which she rejected outright and was insensed at the very thought.

For the reality is that it is NEVER EVER HER FAULT. It is and remains ALWAYS someone's else's FAULT.

She is, in her opinion, painfully honest, straightforward and a wonderful person. She doesn't understand how again and again she is betrayed, neglected, rejected and hurt.

She is, in truth, one of the most narcissitic, self-absorbed, delusional individuals I've ever known.

Not that I haven't loved and cared about her - recognizing both her pyschosis AND sometimes her innate sweetness.

But it palls after awhile. She is so invariably high maintenance. You have to double-think everything you say to her, watch every word, and most of all- FOLLOW HER RULES or how she feels she should, deserves, MSUT be treated.

The psychosis, imbalance, whatever the hell you want to call it has been getting definitely worse. And in so doing, she has becoming increasingly strident, increasingly demanding, increasingly intolerant of what she perceives as any "breech" of protocal with respect to how she is treated. It has been incredibly wearing.

Two years ago when my own life became unbearably bleak and I entered a pit, I realized that after 20+ years of support, I simply had nothing left in me to give to her. I told her that upfront. Told her I was going through the Inferno and dying with it and I couldn't balance her out anymore. Ostensibly, becuase in her delusion she maintains she is a caring, nurturing human being - she pulled back, "gave me my space", but through it all I sensed the increasing anger in her at my withdrawal.

Several times we touched base (keeping in mind, that previous to this "break"- I actually moved her in and got her back on her feet after a HUGE psychotic break - she spent almost 8 months in my home - with no strings, tons of support, no charge for anything and lashings of food and love and ALWAYS an ear and sympathy) and met occasionally for supper or lunch.

I maintained my distance; was honest with her that I was trying to rebuild my own life. Further, I found my sympathy was rapidly dispersing as she screwed up relationship after relationship, left jobs in a huff, accused "friends" of betrayal and not living up to HER standards. 25 years of the same pattern gets (at some point) very stale indeed.

So I got the letter last week. The terse, accusatory brief missive which basically dismissed me out of her life.

Because we had arranged to meet for dinner on a Friday night. And I emailed Friday morning, early - about arrangements - when and what time. Apparently, that was a faux pas. I SHOULD have contacted her my PHONE at least three days previous - otherwise I was being "rude and inconsiderate" - and in my email I had mentioned I had been having some hard times - and was told I had NO idea what "real" issues were.

Apparently not.

Regardless, there is a part of me that is sad that this rather symbiotic relationship is done, becuase I'll worry about her you know - I will. Another HUGE part of me is glad if I never ever have to deal with her again. And feeling guilty for feeling glad.

FFF#3 -

2009-09-11T20:11:00.000-04:00

Sunlight spills light down the towering glass fronted building but the angle is perfect.

He sees her as he does each day, stretching, back to the glass wall, muscles rippling beneath smooth- slender legs, arms sweeping up, then down, and yes.. yes.. he strains and between his legs, his cock stirs, jerks and hardens...

Yes. YES.

He watches as she bends, skirt tightening, slipping up, UP and the sweet, plump cheeks of her ass, slightly spread as she grasps her ankles and he imagines, dreams, his hands on those hips and the feel of her as he pushes deep.

Spanky and Tiggs FFF Challenge #3: Write a short piece of erotic fiction containing exactly 100 words (or a drabble, as Flash Fiction writers call them) inspired by the photo above. How much heat can you generate in 100 words?

DAMN, 100 words? That is bloody HARD.

The Leap- Protection

2009-09-09T18:05:00.002-04:00

Read Faith first and Honesty second

Oddly, I get the panic reaction when I think of submitting to someone to a level where I don’t anticipate or expect to be promised at least a comparable level of reciprocal honesty. But then “honesty” as a concept is something that D. and I have struggled mightily with and in hindsight, has probably been one of our biggest issues. Primarily because our interpretations, our concepts of what “honest” means have been radically different – a reality that we didn’t even recognize until the past couple of years brought our different precepts into stark relief.

There have been times during my relationship that what he termed my “duplicity” has driven him into a rage and a frenzy of accusations. He has even (in the past) labelled what I term my ‘Celtic storytelling” as a variation of lying – which I found astonishing and wounding; it is almost categorically impossible for me to tell a story with no embellishments or fillips to amuse and enrapture the listener. Nor are my exaggerations intended to be taken as the “truth” – so obvious are they, to me it is clearly simply part of a tale.

Where I am complicit, is my tendency to hide. Because in a sense that is “lying” –sins of omission can be as calamitous and wounding as an outright lie after all. NOT telling can be in itself a deal-breaker – a reason to shatter trust and create unease and a sense of distrust.

But then ‘hiding’ can quite frankly be a rational reaction to an untenable or irrational reaction, thus triggering what mouse terms the need to “self-protect”. If revealing certain truths can trigger an unwanted and frightening response, then in one way, it is a RATIONAL reaction to ‘hide’ even more; even if (and of course, this is ultimately a subjective viewpoint) one is perplexed and confused at the intensity of a response to what you see as something innocuous.

One can eventually end up on a treadmill of subterfuge and reaction that is unhealthy and utterly destructive to any dynamic.

The upside however to this is that people can and do change. Compromise and communication can clear up misinterpretations and a willingness to open minds to other interpretations of what you have always thought of as absolutes is essential to move forward.

Ultimately, it is figuring out what are the parameters of what you consider absolutes and what are the limits of what he (or she) considers absolutely untenable and absolute. Then work from there. Depending on the dynamic, there is compromise – or not. Several of my online slave friends have been frank that while their
Masters often do include them in their thought process, and often listen to their viewpoints, there are issues and times when his word is simply it – as ultimately in that power dynamic their agreement is unnecessary.

Which is why I probably could never be a slave.

Hell, sometimes I wonder if I will ever be a submissive again.

For in the end, the damn void is there – you need to decide whether you HAVE the faith to take that leap over that dark crevasse where rocks and boulders jut and threaten to annihilate if you miss your step ...you need to believe that the words and more importantly, the actions, are honest and most of all sincere... and in the end, you have to rigidly, strictly suppress that urge to –self-protect and JUMP.

The Leap - Honesty

2009-09-09T18:00:00.001-04:00

Read Faith first.

I certainly agree with those who argue that total honesty is not always the reality to which anyone is entitled. Frankly, I think being completely and utterly honest at every moment, about every minute thought and deed is an impossibility. Nor is it deceptive if the rebellious thoughts are fleeting and internalized rather than externalized in action. No human being has complete control over their thoughts; all we can guarantee is how those thoughts are expressed – or IF they are.

I also think our society is actually accepting and in fact encouraging of ‘small’ dishonesties .. those not meant to deceive but to be kind. Lies of omission perhaps are open to interpretation but surely to spare someone’s feelings it is kinder to utter words that are in essence, a “lie”. These little subterfuges after all, are often called not lies but ‘social graces’.

But swan, alice n and chloe also tackle something far removed from that kind of benign omittace.

They admit instead that they have, in their submission, given full permission to their Masters to tell them as little – or as much – as he chooses. Further, each admits frankly that even when/if a lie is revealed, that is neither a deterrent nor a deal-breaker – because they have made the leap TO faith. That the person who steers their destiny is, by definition and agreement, exempt from the societal norm of “complete honesty between partners”. The crux, of course, being they are NOT partners, for by definition, each of them has freely given up the right to equal treatment.

I find it telling that for me, my thoughts baulk at that kind of acceptance. While part of me is in awe of the level of faith that incorporates, and yes, even admiring at some level – another part of me – the inner, reptile-brain of selkie – finds that frightening. The feminist selkie screams this is what our mothers used to do and so many were deceived and left bereft. The selkie with her life experiences knows that faith can be broken, trust shattered.

I comprehend that certain individuals have chosen to place their faith and offered their trust to individuals whom they have allowed a freedom of thought, action and intent radically different than that vouchsafed them
– and that of course is their right. In its own way it is breathtakingly admirable – and for me, impossible to emulate.

Which of course brings me to the next thought which I believe naturally flows from this ....

The Leap - Faith

2009-09-09T17:56:00.002-04:00

Reading Swan and then Chloe’s blogs got me thinking about the concept of ‘faith’ – because when all is said and done, ‘trust’ is ultimately based on faith – faith in the integrity of the individual to whom you offer that trust, faith that your trust will not be misplaced, faith that the one whom you have entrusted with your heart and soul cherishes the gift and has – at all times – your best interests at heart.

Faith of course is one of those intangible concepts that you can neither quantify, nor touch nor prove empirically. Soren Kierkegaard coined the phrase, albeit he called it a ‘leap TO faith” (the leap being required to resolve the paradoxes implicit to Christianity). That is actually substantively correct – after all when choosing to trust, you are stepping across a void TO something – in this case, a belief.

In and of itself – whether “to” or “of”, the context is clear.

And whether applied to believing in a greater being or believing in the person to whom you offer your submission, the precept is the same. Faith.

Faith in a dominant’s strength of will, integrity and perhaps most importantly, RIGHT to live as he chooses and RIGHT to impart as little – or as much- of a given truth as he sees fit. Because when all is said and done, Swan puts it beautifully – “I'd be a fool to allow that to be the case if I did not have complete and entire trust in His loyalty, integrity, and good faith.”

That one sentence seems to exemplify why a submissive or slave chooses to place her faith and trust in someone’s hands; hands which are, when all is said and done, HUMAN, and thus fallible. Spare me those who cry that their dominant is ‘perfect’, ‘never wrong’, ‘all-knowing’, ‘all-seeing’ – the font of ultimate wisdom – damn, people, that is a fantasy!

“Perfect” works in novels but real people bring with them their own innate prejudices, flaws and perceptions coloured by their personal experiences and desires. Yeah, even dominants.

However, this does not mean that you cannot trust. For when all is said and done, faith is based on making that leap – feeling to your bone that those in charge of your well-being have at heart YOUR best interests.

One chooses to believe in the good intentions; one chooses to believe the individual has perspective and experience to make informed and intelligent choices. One agrees that while it is not always clear why, acceptance and acquiescence are the price of offering that faith.

Truth be told, I’m absolutely blown away by people who have the strength of their conviction.

Faith is something I’ve struggled mightily with the past several years, on every level. From belief in a higher being (i.e. god) to belief in a dominant being (D.) Unfortunately, in both cases, reality bit deep and faith I believed sacrosanct and inviolable was shattered and shredded beyond recognition.

For when all is said and done, one of the cornerstones of being able to LEAP to faith is doing so with the knowledge not only that you COULD fall but the awareness that you very well MIGHT ... and making that leap regardless.

Entwined and inseparable from discussing the concept of faith, comes one’s interpretation of what is required in terms of “honesty”.

Flash Fiction FRiday, Challenge 2

2009-09-04T08:57:00.001-04:00

I thought I would give this a shot - a good exercise and fun in the doing! The brainchild of Tiggs and Spanky, a fun way to start the day. Heres the link for today's offering. (and DAMN its hard for Ms. Wordy here to write a MAXIMUM of 96 words!)

Behind the glistening torrent, sunlight spills in molten streams of gold through the pale frothing surge, sparking ethereal gleaming gems that sparkle in the mist. My wild satryr, my Priapus , you press against my slick skin, hands cupping swollen breasts. Moisture froths through our narrow cavern, licking coolness into fevered flesh as we move in the eternal dance.

I moan, and feel your thrusts against the plump, reddened flesh, abraded into hot need by your palm and breathe deep the moisture-laden air and bring its cool solace into the hot panting breath of my need.

Temper, temper

2009-09-02T09:51:00.001-04:00

Vesta’s comments on my Scars blog got me musing on temper and the usefulness of certain emotions in dealing with the challenges that life throws up for all of us. I think she is correct that emotions such as my rage, for instance, CAN be a destructive and ultimately, self-defeating personality trait if allowed unfettered reign yet, conversely, time and a great deal of insight have shown me that even perceived negative traits such as “temper” can be a positive and liberating factor.

Any emotion in excess, allowed to explode without forethought, control and in circumstances which reflect the need, can be dangerous and ultimately self-destructive.

But as I get older, I am beginning to realize that some emotions have a better rap than others. Seldom do people see excess compassion as an issue – although that can result in someone making some poor choices in terms of their time and the distribution of their finances. Nor do people generally perceive those with empathy as individuals with a personality disorder yet again, an over-developed sense of empathy can hamstring the individual empathising in terms of their ability to cope and make decisions of a rational nature.

The truth of the matter is, any emotion in excess can be problematic.

My entire life, I struggled with what was termed my “bad temper”. I grew up feeling as if I were in some way damaged or emotionally disturbed, that my outburst were unhealthy, destructive and without reason. I was derided for my passion, criticized for my fierceness and admonished daily on “controlling myself”. And overall, I DID learn to control and internalize my anger, to swallow my passion and dampen my certitude of conviction.

I learned to master my tongue and discovered that white-hot rage could effectively derail one’s ability to be taken seriously. That taking that righteous rage and channelling it into action was far more effective. Take the heat, hone it and cool it until like ice it is sharp, glittering and lethal.

Because the reality was, my temper was very seldom based on a capricious sense of outrage. In fact it was usually fuelled by something that provided (in my eyes) a formidably rational basis. My outrage was seldom prompted by petulance or overriding sense of entitlement and was often provoked on behalf of a situation or person unrelated to me, or circumstances wherein I felt SOMEONE had to stand up and be counted.

My rage was my defence as well against prejudice and misogyny when travelling in professional circles then largely controlled by men with little regard for intellect and expertise when in a female guise. It’s icy strength bolstered me during times when life threatened to overwhelm me with demands I felt beyond my ability to handle.

My rage gave me strength and purpose and an iron will when negotiating the shoals of a relationship which threatened to consume me. At the same time, the dynamic of that relationship as it evolved more than anything else taught me to swallow it, to push it down deep into my soul, to lock it up and throw away the key for fear its clean, shining righteousness would wound the one I cared for above all others.

For my rage threatened to the core the ability I had to tolerate his even more formidable rage, clothed as it was in a fiercely passive countenance, against which my rage sizzled and expired. For my rage threatened the fragile balance that we maintained between us, the great yearning abyss of our need for each other. And so I put it away, dampened it and tried to extinguish it.

What I didn’t realize is in so doing I was excising a hugely important part of who I was. By refusing ingress to an integral part of my personality – my fierce, needful HONEST anger, I was slowly and inexorably undermining my very sense of self.

When the crash and burn happened, I was left gasping in a pit so deep I truly thought I would never climb out. Months of relentless pain and despair left me shattered, damaged, I felt beyond repair, a shell of the passionate, caring, intense person I once was. I felt as insubstantial as smoke, as if my very body was thinning and becoming opaque, soon to drift away on the tendrils of lost hope, to dissipate in the frigid breeze of rejection and repudiation.

For a very long time, I huddled shivering and bereft in the Dark Place, the only tether a fragile but unbreakable thread which lead to my children. Slowly, painfully, I began to gather the lost threads of self and with arthritic, clumsy fingers begin to stitch together what I knew to be an approximation of the person I once was… and as I searched among the skeins of wool, the colours muted and subdued in the grey light which drifted though the narrow windows of my soul, my eyes were drawn to the trembling, throbbing scarlet of my rage. Several times, I averted my eyes, for old habits are hard to break and my frozen fingers would weave in a less risible colour into the damaged fabric, but finally, one day I reached and burrowing among the shards of my life, found the hot, tensile strength of rage and wove it into the now.

And in so doing, it was as if the entire prison of my own making brightened. That one thread strengthened the hold I had on life and infused in me a desire and the commensurate strength to reach up. It cleared my mind slowly but surely and grasping its warmth to me, I was able to coax the weak, flickering flame of will into something stronger, something finer and slowly but surely, I began to find my strength once again.

And yes, for some months my rage fuelled a great and terrible anger, all the worse for its icy control and relentless condemnation. I allowed it to burn away the detritus of my despair (although the scars are there forever) and then, knowing that any fire untended can turn on its creator, I banked its bright, clean flames and carefully, grateful but determined, I opened the cupboard and hung it to the side.

It’s there though and I am happy it is there. I recognize that to try to kill a part of yourself does nothing but cause dissonance and an imbalance in soul and heart. My rage, when all is said and done, is merely another part of my complicated psyche and as such, has its place in my world. Like any other emotion, it is a valid and useful tool, there to be used when needed.

In the end, contrary to all the platitudes and the Christian ethics of turning the other cheek, it was embracing and using my rage that gave me strength.

Scars

2009-08-31T08:59:00.002-04:00

I smelled Fall today on the breeze which licked promise of change into the skin of my want as I drifted through the dark night and followed the trail of restless discontent which drew me along the midnight roads. My mind won’t settle and dread trickles dreary through pore and sinew as I walk the night and watch the stars wheel free above me and yearn towards the heavens and the freedom they promise.

I close my eyes and the whisper of ocean sweeps into my thoughts and I breathe deep the spume which drifts cool through thoughts of rocky shores and yearn with a physical ache that catches my breath towards change and venues unconquered.

I tremble within the prison of thought and emotion and wonder at the human capacity to metamorphosis and the ability to shed skin and mindset together with the seasons which flip time through our lives and leach possibilities from our future. The paths are always there, though hidden perhaps in a fall of leave and loam and the detritus of past actions and spent emotions.

I have been musing lately on the nature of change and the impact on our lives of pain delivered with forethought and intent and without the leavening power of care. Scars change the landscape of skin and sinew and form new venue not always familiar to eyes which reinvent remembered lands now twisted and scarred with thought and deed. Lands which spark recognition then confusion as we pause, certainty confused by new settings.

The human psyche is truly remarkable in its ability to withstand agonies that in hindsight, seem insurmountable and impossible to internalize. Yet many of us do and indeed, find inner strength and purpose that forces us forward, reluctant, in pain yet with fortitude and determination cloaked in inevitability and a stoic need to continue.

A year ago, I was here – and the mantle of rage still sits comfortably there in the front of my cupboard although truth be told, I seldom wear it these days. Nonetheless, it is there, not yet pushed to the back nor do I feel inclined, in thought, word or deed, to put it away anytime soon. For its warmth and strength have sustained me through times of bleakness and the the black fragility of broken soul for longer than I care to recall.

I think perhaps that the rich red expanse of rage will be internal to who I am for the balance of a life that has used its rich cloth often to provide strength through times of need. I have no desire to fight the conflagration of its enveloping folds nor wish to reject its sometimes painful hold.

It is, when all is said and done, part of the entirety of me.

I run my fingers along the scars of a psyche battered by neglect and spite and feel the healing beneath the twisted skin. Like rage, this scarred reminder of past agonies is integral to who I am right now and while his fingers are gentle now and run warmth along the whorls and twists of his creation, I recognize that scars are not just skin deep but run tendrils of change soul-deep.

I recognize too that scars are not intrinsic only to me but that each of us carries with us, sometimes obvious, sometimes not, life’s interpretation of what it means to exist.

Role-Playing versus Reality in the D/s - Part 2

2009-08-30T15:09:00.000-04:00

read Part 1 first

Fantasy Island

You see fantasy doesn’t provide for a whole lot of what I’ve just described. Other than the self-confessions of submissives seeking punishment. Or arbitrary rulings by dominants seeking justification for anger.

Fantasy d/s and m/s means you have finite windows of time when you ‘take on’ your persona; because the REALITY is that you have a wife or husband who probably doesn’t know what the hell you’re playing at online.

It often seems to me that BDSM and the dynamics integral to the lifestyle provide an “excuse” and “justification” to many individuals to basically fuck around. Because almost inevitably, the sexual dynamic of the equation is the motivation for it. Somehow, by taking it out of the realm of pure sexual exploration and bringing into the world of D/s or M/s it can then be seen as a “respectable need to fulfill THAT part of yourself” - you know, the part your REAL partner ‘refuses” to explore with you – and thereby absolves the participant from qualms of conscience, somehow makes it NOT cheating.

I even understand the lure

Damn, game-playing is addictive. I was a megalomaniac with Risk and toppled empires and betrayed allies and took over friendly nations – and role playing in the BDSM world can be equally addictive.

But to me, it is ridiculously simple to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Show me a blog where the submissive is ALWAYS compliant, acquiescent, and servile to her Master. Show me a blog where the Master is all-seeing, wise and always correct. Most of all, show me a blog where the sexual exploits form the crux of the writings, where the prurient details are the primary subject-matter and I would bet money we’re talking online ...

And bringing online off, very, very seldom works.

I know that because I am actually conversant with a number of online into reality relationships, and almost without exception, within a fairly brief period of time, they dissolved in a miasma of disappointment, disillusionment and anger. Because REALITY means maintaining an online persona 24 hours a day, 7 days a week just isn’t possible. REALITY means that claims made are quickly seen to be either true or not. REALITY means that you get to see the aspects of self that had to that point been downplayed or overlooked and now have to be dealt with.

And yes, I do know that some DO work. Because in TODAY’S milieu, meeting online is a valid and sometimes excellent way of meeting people.

And thus it is possible (in theory anyway) to bring an Ms/s or D/s dynamic into reality if both participants are willing to make the changes necessary to suddenly allow for the influx of real life. The demands of children. The financial constraints or worries. Who cleans the toilet, does the dishes, picks up the laundry. Because online of course, those mundane realities are always the submissive’s job, part of her ‘servitude” but offline, the REALITY is she is probably working fulltime, has responsibilities to family and kids, and has a myriad of other demands on her real-time time that preclude the living out of what had been possible in a few hours a night. Conversely, the Master will have commensurate responsibilities to family and job, and demands as well that make him less than willing perhaps to take on total and intimate responsibility for someone else’s actions on a moment to moment basis.

That to me, is the line between fantasy and role-playing dynamics and real ones.

It’s bringing it into the realm where you can’t hide behind a created persona, where you learn to live with day to day pressures and realities and in the living, find ways to interact and maintain the dynamic which you both crave. It is knowing and wanting more than just the sexual servitude or the rush that sexual domination and submission provide, because you have internalized that the true motivation and satisfaction of an M/s or D/s dynamic is so much more than just physical.

In role-playing, you turn off the computer at the end of the night and walk back into your real life.

In real life dynamics, you take your problems and issues and joys and successes and failures with you both to bed.

Role-Playing versus Reality in the D/s World- Part 1

2009-08-30T15:03:00.002-04:00

Greengirl asked, in my previous blog, “I am asking this question sincerely: what makes something role-playing or fantasy playing versus a d/s or m/s dynamic? I understand well that people are individuals and that the interactions of two (or more) people are thus unique. I also understand that there is no threshold criterion or set of definitions, but what do you see as being the fundamental difference? “

A valid question indeed!

I realize lately my tone is somewhat strident, my opinion decided. So I want to clarify first and foremost that I LOVE getting questions, being challenged, offered opposing viewpoints. I do not for one second think my opinion is the ONLY one, not even the most valid! It is simply my reality – how I perceive the world and as such, quantify a set of imperatives by which I’ve come to guide my life.

I have also reached a stage in my life where I find myself no longer fettered by convention nor bothered by the possibility of criticism and disapproval from others. While I take to heart disappointment or censure from those whom I love and respect, I am actively – and to a limited extent - liberating myself from the feminine constraints which smother ALL women from birth – rejecting societal pressures to force me into a certain “acceptable” mode of behaviour and demeanour.

So that being said (and I hope clarifying my position), this is how I differentiate.

Role-playing and Fantasy vs. Reality

First and foremost, the difference between role-playing and fantasy and what I believe is a real d/s or m/s dynamic, is at its most simplistic, REALITY itself.

Reality has a way of bitch smacking even the most imaginative individual into facing hard facts. All our realities bring with them, the commensurate pressures of living. Jobs which are often boring and conversely, too demanding. Financial worries. Mundane must do’s such as laundry and cooking meals, homework with children and cleaning the litter boxes. Reality brings days where you feel like strangling anyone that crosses your path, and nights when exhaustion precludes the sex you would like to have but that your tired body simply cannot contemplate. It brings with it moments when you want to scream at your partner – Master or not – and moments when he or she wants to kick a partner (submissive or not) to the curb out of frustration.

All of those mundane realities can be suspended in the online world. Your online Master or online subby is, in their minds and in yours, the epitome of perfection. Masters (and as mentioned before, I use this gender simply for convenience not because of any other reason) are always wise, always patient, have insight and an almost frightening ability to see motivation and to discern need. Submissives are invariably seeking to be always compliant, always humble, constantly seeking ways and means to meet the stated requirements of the beloved Master ... to find within themselves the perfect being whose acquiescence and surrender will fulfill his need for complete and utter control.

Does it mean that none of the yearning need to surrender, the commensurate opposite need to control, the ultimate goal which those of us with these inner compulsions to serve or be served seek is a myth?

Absolutely NOT.

“Real”D/s

There is a beauty in surrendering. There is an overwhelming joy in submitting to someone who makes your heart sing, who completes the circle so for that moment, that second, that point in time, there is such peace that it can bring you to tears .... and I know, from D’s words and thoughts, that for him, a similar and as profoundly spiritual experience occurred at points in our relationship from the opposite end of the spectrum.

And during our many, many years together, we wove elements of our dynamic into the fabric of our reality. Before we even knew to call what we had a Dominant/submissive dynamic, before we learned to call our dark sides (his sadism, my masochism, which of course are not necessary elements of either the M/s or D/s dynamic but often found there, nonetheless), BDSM – we danced the dance.

We had rituals. We had things I did for him as a matter of course (I am very service oriented). He in turn provided nurturing, he was my rock, my pool of calm in my chaotic ocean. And yes, ultimately, the direction our lives took were largely his choice, good or bad.

D. quite frankly, like no other man in my life, controlled my thoughts, words and deeds. I changed elemental parts of myself to try to meet his expectations. And I did so joyously and because I needed to, wanted to, craved to. And he in turn, despite fighting his need for me, found himself growing and expanding into a life he might never have imagined as his feet walked in tandem with mine down paths neither of us envisioned.

Because you see, reality means you DO impact each other. It means change occurs whether sought or not. It also means that not all changes are positive nor experiences constructive.

It also means there are times in your lives, sometimes even extended periods of time, when the dynamic is in abeyance, suspended and neglected because of other more pressing concerns, when only elements of it are there, strong threads of connectivity and strength that maintain you both, and in dark days of pressure and time constraint and stress, sustain and maintain the ultimate way you interact.

Reality means there is awareness on the part of each individual that certain strengths should be nurtured and appreciated; whether they “fit” the fantasy description of the dynamic you call yourselves. It means that not every moment is perfect, nor every encounter positive. It means people – both the dominant and the submissive, screw up – not once, not twice, but because we are fallible human beings, throughout your lives together.

PART TWO FOLLOWING

It's a DYNAMIC

2009-08-24T20:45:00.005-04:00

What are little submissives made of?
What are little submissives made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice
That’s what little submissives are made of?

What are little dominants made of?
What are little dominants made of?
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails
That’s what little dominants are made of.

Except they are NOT.

First, dominance is NOT gender-exclusive. As much as the ostensible internet doms pontificate about a “man’s natural order is to command” and a “woman’s is to submit” – it JUST ain’t true! There are MANY many male submissives and many, many female dominants. Literature providing advice on domination is almost predominantly female written. Munches often offer a plethora of female dominants and male submissives. The only arena that persists in the myth of male-based dominance and female-based submission as a given is the internet – which is hardly proof of the pudding to continue the nursery rhyme metaphor.

“Indeed, submissive men are the single largest component of the D/s communities and widespread male interest in sexual submission is an observable phenomenon.”

Different Loving – the World of Sexual Dominance & Submission
by Gloria Brame and William D. Brame and John Jacobs

Nancy Friday
“Why did I in fact receive far more fantasies from men that expressed masochistic desires than the other way around – the ratio was 4 to 1”

On a more personal note, D. has attended a fair share of hand-on classes on flogging and other delicious forays and without exception, the classes have been made up of predominantly MALE switches or submissives and FEMALE dominants. His last class on flogging (4 hour class) had 11 participants – 9 female dominants, 1 male switch (who candidly admitted his FEMALE partner insisted he go and become a switch for her edification) and ONE dominant – D.

Worse than the assumption – often given weight as fact – of the exclusive sectioning of gender into either submission or domination, my forays near and far around the web have lately made me somewhat of a cranky pants, engendered in part by the ridiculous assertions, infantile perceptions and no doubt- internet-generated assumptions regarding what in fact does “being submissive” or conversely, “being dominant” mean?

I feel as if I am trapped lately in an endless nightmare of Fetlife nonsense (and yes, I admit I lasted barely a month before I was driven out by what my daughter used to call the “stupid-heads).

Now, having clarified how strongly I feel about gender-based designations, from this point, I will use the feminine tense for submission and the male for domination- simply because that is what I myself am familiar with, NOT because it is the only choice.

Submission first and foremost is something that is GIVEN. Not coerced, not demanded, not taken. It is something an individual OFFERS to another individual who has, through time, experience, understanding, leadership and character compelled a need in her to offer, humbly, her body, mind and heart to his care.

His CARE.

Too often I see again and again, the inevitable MALE self-designated dominant pontificating on HIS demands, what he wants, what is crucial to HIS peace of mind – and very damn little about the other half of the equation.

A submissive is more than a pair of breasts, a cunt.

She is a breathing, thinking, feeling human being with all the complicated psyche of any human being. She brings with her not just a body to fuck or abuse, but a Pandora’s box of past experiences (good and bad), personality traits intrinsic to who she is, a lifetime of personal skills, observations born of a lifetime of her personal encounters, her demons, her angels.

And what she seeks is an honourable dominant.

Someone to serve who deserves her servitude, who both relishes and is grateful for the gift of her pain, a man who himself is multi-dimensional, has his own demons and his own angels, who is humble enough to understand his own limitations and proud and capable enough to be willing to work at and overcome them. A man whose inner strength and confidence make him admirable and whose strength makes him compelling.

Someone who understands that her submission brings with it a commensurate responsibility of care. Someone who inspires in her a fervid and passionate desire to become the best she can be – for his sake and with his guidance.

Someone who understands that a D/s relationship is in truth a DYNAMIC.

dy·nam·ic [ dī námmik ]

adjective

Definition:

1. vigorous and purposeful: full of energy, enthusiasm, and a sense of purpose and able both to get things going and to get things done

2. active and changing: characterized by vigorous activity and producing or undergoing change and developmenta dynamic economy

3. physics relating to energy and motion: involving or relating to energy and forces that produce motion ...

6. physics changing over time: describes any system that changes over time.

(from Encarta)

Apt description is it not? A healthy D/s relationship is “vigorous and purposeful”, it is “active and changing and relates to “energy and forces that produce motion” ... and because we are dealing with mutable, changeable and ever-growing minds and hearts, dynamic ALSO means “any system that changes over time”.

But get this... it is two-way!

And you know what? It is ALL about free will – as contradictory as some of the internet denizens may find that – it is ALL about CHOOSING – for BOTH parties.
Not only hers to submit, but HIS to accept the submission , and AWARENESS of expectations and willingness to relinquish will because it is her CHOICE and her wish to do so and yes, HIS right, if he SO CHOOSES, to accept.

It is not about coercion.

It is not about duplicity.

It is most definitely not about only one individual’s adolescent fantasies.

Dreams

2009-08-17T10:33:00.000-04:00

My hair spills down my back, damp tendrils of curl wildly dancing around my face as humid night slides across my flushed skin and the warm breath of summer breathes hot along the dark road which stretches ahead of the gambolling dogs. I walk the night and gaze up at the sliver of moon which hangs low on the horizon, golden light glowing in the glimpse into the world beyond.

My body feels swollen and fecund, breasts loose under the thin material of my summer dress, engorged, nipples distended and clearly delineated. Skin bared by the skimpy dress stings slightly in the slight breeze which ruffles a slight relief across my moist skin, and I smile as I recall past pleasure. I look about but the night is mine and the shrouded misty street is empty. I reach into the bodice and cup the warm, plump flesh then sighing, release first one, then the other breast to jounce slightly, their slight weight freed from the meagre constraint of cotton, the soft flesh bared to the gloaming night.

I look down and see the pale flesh glow in the refracted light of streetlamps, the nipples dark and swollen. A bruise blooms on the inner curve of my left breast and when I run my fingers gently over the darkened flesh, a slight ache brings a twinge between my thighs.

Slipping into the house a little later, my flesh contracts, the tiny hairs on my arm stiffening as the air conditioning blows cool against my humid flesh. I slip into the dark room, the hiss of the air conditioner breathing in the background as I kneel on the bed, sheets cool beneath my knees.

Barely touching, I pull the sheet down his body and shiver as his unique scent drifts through the cool of the room, an atavistic response to a scent as familiar to me as my own. I lean, breasts hanging, falling from my rib cage, nipples yearning toward the warm, sleeping flesh. I breathe along the length of his body until I reach the sweet juncture of his groin where his length lies quiescent along one strong thigh.

Opening my lips I exhale along the tender, soft flesh, tongue trailing, barely touching its salty tip. I nestle my mouth into the juncture of thighs and tightening my lips push against his loose scrotum, then lick strongly along the perineum. In the light which drifts from the hallway, my eyes gleam in the dusk of the room and watch as he stirs and smile as the soft flesh jerks and shivers.

My fingers dance between his thighs and I hear him sigh and breasts trembling, I follow my eyes to his humid cock and envelop his length in my warm mouth, lips sealing. I feel his flesh jerking and lengthening, hardening as my tongue probes and licks and my mouth suckles at his root, pulling it up and out from the tender, delicate flesh of his scrotum.

His breath catches in the quiet of the room and then quickens as my mouth works rhythmically, my tongue dancing lightning quick around the pulsing length, dipping and rimming the sweet hooded tip, lapping, cheeks hollowing as I pull him deep into my throat. My other hand captures my breast which jounces as my head bobs and I squeeze it reflexively, my fingers indenting its smooth freckled flesh.

Not yet ritual yet comfort and a sweet sensuous moment in a chaotic life of demand and need and reluctant, sighing, my lips loosen and I slowly release his throbbing length to lie solid against his belly and gently, delicately, drop butterfly kisses along its length and up the warm torso and nestle into the crook of his neck and pull his scent deep.

Sighing, I rise and crawl off the bed to face my day, leaving him slumbering and dreaming dulcet dreams of creamy thighs and warm mouths.

Sunday Shout: Internet Seers

2009-08-16T14:25:00.002-04:00

I know, it’s not Thursday Rant Day, so I am now instituting a Sunday Shout day.

I actually had a delicious, unexpected and thoroughly enjoyable few hours to myself today; normally I would have brought the bad shepherds to the park and for a swim but it is so excruciatingly hot outside, even contemplating it, makes me ill. I was out for a couple of hours early this morning to run errands and by the time 10 a.m. came I was a mess – this skin, this hair, this constitution still thinks it is living by the cool Atlantic and cannot tolerate this kind of inferno!

So I here I sit, laptop in hand, dogs at my feet, surfing the net ...

And in so doing came across a whole subculture which I will honestly state, I usually avoid. First – I am NOT saying that people living lifestyles to which I cannot relate are “wrong” nor that they do not have the RIGHT to live a life that works for them – but hell, when one put themselves out there (and that includes me) – then we also open ourselves to conflicting viewpoints.

It’s those blogs I see (and I came across a whole bunch, cleverly and erroneously (in my opinion) incorrectly labelled) where the Dominant is the All-Knowing, Invariably Correct God-Man and where the submissive is the Ultra-Feminine, Always Subservient, Always Submissive Little Girl-Woman – you know the types.

First, in MY opinion that is NOT D/s or M/s but more correctly, a stylized, unrealistic HOH or DD – both of which may have ELEMENTS of D/s or M/s and some S/m thrown in for good measure – but in their narrow interpretation of power relationships do not allow for what I believe are a plethora of various dynamics under the umbrella of real life BDSM.

Don’t get me wrong- there are REAL HOH and DD dynamics that I am sure work and work well. Some of my own internet buddies practice this lifestyle and do it admirably and well. The difference between THEIR realities and much of the crap I read out there (and worse are those who present themselves as “experts” and “counsellors”) is that in the real relationships, it is obvious and comforting to understand and read about the realities of life which get in the way of the fantasy. In short, like us all, it is obvious that both parties are fallible, sometimes wrong and most of all, REAL. What they strive for is a concept of a dynamic which fulfills their individual needs with a healthy dose of understanding that any relationship is a work in progress and either individual is capable of making mistakes.

There are just certain platitudes, “assumptions” made that are simply not accurate. Dominance and submission is not gender-based – it simply is not. It is not the “natural order” but rather a religious-based dogma boosted by cultural interpretations and prejudices and bolstered by centuries of misogyny.

Even more illuminating, this entire “concept” is almost ENTIRELY an internet-propagated mythology that does not stand the test of real time dynamics. I often see it as an elaborate and alternate form of “gaming” (Dungeons and Dragons, where are you?).

Most objectionable about the preachy blogs I see out there is the assumptions that somehow the male, simply through (one must surmise) owning a penis, is somehow granted insight, perspective and an almost psychic ability to comprehend, interpret and grasp the intricacies of dialogue, action and reaction that occurs between any two individuals. That in his godhead, he is capable of invariable and incontrovertible correctness in word and deed and is, because of his lofty status, is never open to criticism nor disagreement.

Conversely, the submissive (with the mutable reality of vagina) must in thought, word, deed and demeanour be always seeking to “live up” to the male’s expectations and requirements. In short, she is ultimately and almost irredeemably flawed against the Dominant’s perfection.

Truth be told, it is not really that difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff... for the pretence of infallibility becomes with time, tedious to the extreme. Being perfect, when all is said and done, leaves very little to talk about in the end!

In addition to the Heart of Darkness mentality of the male Dominant in these absurd compilations of bombast and peachiness, there is a commensurate tendency to denigrate and dehumanize the submissive. She becomes one-dimensional and crudely drawn – a collection of female genetalia and vacuous thought processes, which begs the question, why in the world would one wish someone so weak of spirit and malleable to submit?

By the same token, as a submissive, I can’t think of anything more horrifying than submitting to someone who presents himself as having no human flaws nor would never find himself at a loss for words or counsel.

However you describe your dynamic – either in the living or the hope of achieving – understanding and accepting the fallibility of the human beast is the first step towards building a healthy dynamic. Dialogue which is collaborative and mutual is essential. Comprehending and being comfortable with your partner (or potential partner’s) ultimate goals for a fulfilling relationship involves communication, compromise and a fluidity of purpose that would be categorically rejected by our Internet Seers.

D/s, M/s, HOH, DD – these are, when all is said and done, CONCEPTS of a lifestyle to which one can aspire – in the doing, they require an open mind, a cautious soul and an understanding of human fallacies.

just saying....

2009-08-15T18:28:00.003-04:00

if one decides to take up some BDSM-practices again after a VERY long hiatus - let's say, some serious spanking... well, one should keep in mind that we got one bad shepherd in November 2007 and the other in May 2008. Keeping in mind that bad shepherds are VERY attached to their mum and as a breed, VERY protective.

Just saying.

Finn didn't MEAN to rip your pants nor did the Llyr-boy really REALLY plan on biting when he straddled my back and snarled at you after they battered the door down and pounded to the rescue ... you KNOW the bad shepherds love you - ...

grins...

they just love me MORE.

History

2009-08-14T14:07:00.002-04:00

(Finbar gave permission for me to post the poem below, one of my favourites of his)

Touching Your Hips

by f-cynyr

I know touching your
hips, that in ages hence,
someone beyond me will
reside in the summer green
of your eyes.

And they will, like me now,
be touching your hips with
wishes on their breath and
allure in their mouth.

And like me, they will drift
in the folds of your body and
ride the puffing billows
of your warmth.

And I will ache, when ages hence,
my hands will be empty
of the heat and form that
my palms and fingers now
decode and solve.

And ages hence, the cavity of
your absence will throb in my
collapsing chest and I will be lost
in the vastness of my future without
the buoyancy of your breath and
the promise of your hips.

_____________________________________________________________________

If you think about it, the concept of ‘history’ is utterly subjective and reliant on the viewpoint, prejudices, knowledge and outlook of the individual recounting it. This is true not just of our own personal histories – which are coloured by our perceptions and knowledge AT THE TIME, but by history in general. They say the outcome of battles are written by the victors and the perceptions therefore are those of the victorious; the motivations, reasoning and thoughts of the vanquished are given little shrift. The narrator determines the tone and the perception and a true and unbiased rationality is impossible.

Lately, I’ve been musing on my own history and seeing in it as I cast my mind and heart back to other days and reviewing the fallacies of self and motive in the light of today’s illumination, an ironically poignant understanding of situations that at the time perplexed, confused and oftentimes, wounded me in their obtuseness.

History is a quilt of colour and texture that each of us assiduously stitches each day. Our lives are in truth, a fabric, an ever changing panorama of colour and texture and import. We take each moment, each second of our life and thread emotion and experience, pain and joy into a tapestry of unique design. We run our fingers through the textures of sentiment and shiver as we trail passion along our thighs. Needles can prick and wound our fingers as they nimbly weave what we think is fact into the growing design only to stand back and. in contemplating our work, see realities undetected due to proximity and impact.

Our quilt is quixotic and inimitable, each individual creation a kaleidoscope of colour and design, its own unique blueprint. It is inevitable that at points we step back to contemplate our task and in so doing, find fault with past perception and understanding. Maturity, experience and knowledge gained through insight and the patina of new experience muddy colours we thought pristine and bring a rich, burnished glow to what we once thought were mundane cloth.

We pull our history around us and nestle into its memories and recollections and lift a corner of our past to dab tears of past transgressions from eyes gone cloudy with thought.

The human creature tends to judge history and label it in terms of “bad” or “good” when its reality is that it is neither; it is instead the concrete threads which cobble together our lives; its patterns and textures are woven through the threads of other thoughts and experiences and forms in the end a moving, living tapestry of immutable nows that create in each heart and mind a past.

History is changeable, sometimes capricious and at moments, illuminating.

History can be burdensome or it can be liberating. It can bring with it the warmth of shared memories which preclude the necessity of stolid explanation or lend to thought a sting and a painful reminder of what was.

Ultimately it is mutable and open always to a new interpretation, because the fluidity of life together with the complexity of the human spirit provides a never-ending stream of possible interpretations and perceptions that cannot, should not, will not, be captured in resin…

And each of us, each moment, each second, each breath, wield thread and needle and weave into the intricate pattern of our lives, new thoughts, memories and perceptions that create the fabric of future reflections of past lives…

Drew

2009-08-11T17:39:00.003-04:00

[note: the image I found here in a google search for 'red-haired boy' - it is NOT Drew BUT, when I came across it, I was shocked speechless.... because it is IDENTICAL to how I remember him - and checking with D. he too was pole-axed at the resemblance.]

There is a green sign on the highway to and from Montreal, Route 778 – Moulinette Road, Long Sault. If you take the long winding road, you will reach a small community nestled just up from the St. Lawrence, a pristine wilderness of tree and flower-studded meadows, rocky beaches with pristine inlets and campgrounds much in demand during the hot, lazy days of summer and into the blazing glory of fall.

A spirit waits for me there, on the green verge at the side of the road, dotted with echenecia and black eyed susans swaying in the breeze from the cars which breathe past with a sigh, blind to the figure which drifts through the thick stand of trees stretching deep into the countryside. The transport trucks that trundle along the black ribbon of asphalt like lumbering pachyderms, sense not the quiet soul which waits patiently for my frequent journeys past, dreaming of a youth forever suspended in the past.

His name was Drew.

His hair was a deep, rich dark red and fell in waves and curls well below his shoulders, thick and the envy of many, a source of merriment between he and I as we vied for the wildest locks. His eyes were a clear, glacial blue, at times merry, dancing with humour and affection, but could harden into the street-smart realities of his Celtic ancestry and rough upbringing. But I remember most the soft, limpid kindness of those lovely eyes, compassionate and yearning looking into my own as he once again would blot my tears and cup my face.

D. filled my soul, my heart, my mind and my attention in those early days; his actions and reactions, his absences and small, careless cruelties, his compelling sexuality against which I was helpless obsessed me. He was my puppeteer and like a marionette, I danced and cavorted to the tunes he chose and like a broken doll, would lie helpless in the corner when his interest turned elsewhere.

Often, on those cruel nights when D.’s demons drove him from me with a shrug and a careless wave, it was Drew who would appear beside me, his big hands gentle on my face as he wiped away tears, his voice gentle in my ears as he crooned comfort and reassurance and assured me of my worth. He called me Treasure; I remember that now, though for a very long time I had forgotten. He would walk me home after D. abandoned me, his big arm warm around my shoulder, our hair, almost identical, curling in the hot, humid embrace of a Montreal summer night, our thick, red waves twining and dancing as we walked the deserted streets.

At my home, he would lift my hand to his lips and kiss it gently, and run his fingers along my cheek and take upon the tip, the glistening salt drop of my tears and sip it, gently, into his cruelly beautiful sculpted lips, then sighing, tell me again I was a Treasure and send me in.

Even while I felt grateful for his comfort and caring, I was blind to what I think now might have been more; so entwined was I with my obsession, compelling and overwhelming, with D. that there existed not even a small space in my soul that recognized trueness of caring, the genuineness of want.

But I cared for him, my friend and warrior Drew.

Though somewhat a ‘bad boy’ like many I knew in the day, I felt comfortable and safe around him, relaxed and confident of being accepted and liked. In hindsight, I was an innocent among a lot of rather bad wolves and often marvel that it must have been that naivety, the freshness of it that stayed their hands and made their fierce grins gentle, the predatory slavering want, quieten.

Long Sault was a favourite haunt of the crowd among which I mingled, a place where weekend bacchanalias of indulgence played out, maenads and satyrs cavorted and played out their riotous revels against the background of campfire and the blaze of stars in a wine dark sky. But for me, innocent that I was in those days, Long Sault was off-limits and though I sometimes envied and secretly yearned to experience the wildness of those summer nights, I remained obediently home, D’s secret escape, his to take or not, his property and despite the heartache and the agony, content to be so.

And one hot, humid summer night, his eyes alight with the dying cry of starlight, with colours weaving and dancing in a moonless sky, his body insubstantial and ethereal, Drew staggered his way to the black river of asphalt and opened his arms and his heart to the glory of light which swept through the hot summer breeze and grasped eternity .

And I do not pass Exit 778 without thinking of my friend Drew and feeling a poignant sadness for the dreaming spirit which drifts insubstantial along the black-topped highway and dreams of youth and a future never realized.

Drew, you are not forgotten.

The Dark Place

2009-08-07T22:35:00.002-04:00

Each of us has our Dark Place.

Not the safe warm embrace of dusk where we sometimes escape and nestle in the womblike embrace of silence and gentle dawn, where the absence of noise and strife soothes and replenishes spirits battered by lives that have spiralled into chaos and franticness.

No, the Dark Place is a place of grief, of sorrow and despair. It is a creeping, black place where you stumble and fall, and cut yourself on shards of misery and stumble over intent and stub your toe against indecision and regret.

Every single human being has a Dark Place; as children we recognize and fear it and cry out into the night for our parents who soothe us and whisper lies meant to be truths that there is no Dark Place while frantically beating back the fingers of Dark which reach into their own lives.

The human beast is resilient and the pervasive memory of the Dark Place fades and is thrust deep inside as realities of life claim focus and the fleeting pleasure of thought and action, feeling and meaning bring light and create havens, pockets of small moments that illuminate and provide hope (the Dark Place despises hope).

But the Dark Place is always there. The Dark Place festers like a suppurating sore deep in our souls. Its pull is insidious and at times, powerful. Its siren call resonates in moments of great adversity and echoes in our hearts during intervals of pain and disillusion.

For some the Dark Place is familiar and oft visited, a place of reluctant familiarity, for those, “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” ... and cruel realities open the path to the Dark Place’s familiar nooks and crannies, its dark corridors of woeful certitude.

For some, the stay in the Dark Place is thankfully brief, a natural resilience of spirit and belief makes their sojourn in its frigid corridors infrequent and short-lived. For others, the realities of the Dark Place are their everyday bread, its dark embrace more familiar than the light of alternate thought.

As individual as each human being is, so too is their personal Dark Space unique.

I know mine intimately. Its dark corridors are familiar territory, though all Dark Places are ever-changing, moving about and confusing and disorienting their inhabitants. I cast my mind back over a life of contrast and disparity, of places of Light and Illusion and then the inevitable descent into Darkness. and Disillusion and find in the certitude of the inevitable Fall, a bitter irony.

For no matter that when light floods our lives and drowns our gaze in radiant want, cloaking darkness in the refracted glow of hope, the Dark Place survives and waits for dusk to fall.

Carmina Burana

2009-08-07T19:11:00.005-04:00

My favourite opera - probably because it was the very first my father introduced to me!

and thanks to the head's up by JZ - here's a version by Enigma

and yet another Enigma, remix version and the Love Sensuality Devosion one that JZ mentions:

"Modern CRAP"

2009-08-06T21:17:00.002-04:00

Florida Dom cited a story about the ostensible “saving of a marriage” here and sought feedback from his readers respecting Ms. Munson’s manner of handling a potential marriage breakdown.

While my gut reaction was immediate and forceful, time and experience (and self insight) made me pause and reflect further.

You know what? Now some two days later – I STILL say – NOT ON YOUR LIFE BUD!

The whole martyr wife thing leaves me COLD.

Together with the “political wife” syndrome where the long-suffering helpmate whose spent countless hours alone, eaten 1000+ plus rubber chickens, put herself “on” over and over to support a husband whose infidelities and betrayals make a fool and a mockery of her sacrifices – I don’t THINK so.

My feeling? Unlike the majority of the 200+ comments on the story, Laura, you’re a putz! Husband, you’re a JERK.

He didn’t come back! He got DUMPED.

Yeah, pretty damn obvious an affair occurred. And that he got kicked to the curb after a few months.

And you know what, Laura? By “ignoring” it and not demanding the respect and loyalty you deserved as his partner, you in essence, gave him permission to act like a spoiled, petulant CHILD – and what’s more, you’ve given him permission to do it AGAIN. After all, what are the repercussions to him?

Not a damn thing! He got to come and go as he pleased. He wasn’t taxed or harassed or told his actions were irresponsible, hurtful and unacceptable. And then at the end, he gets it all BACK, just as if he had never tried to throw it away! You bet your bottom dollar it will be even easier the NEXT time.

First point: treating an adult man as you would a “trantrumming child” is insulting not just to the woman but to the man! Men are not children. Nor should they be treated as such.

Where the hell is his maturity? His sense of responsibility? His honour?

So while he was doing whatever the hell he was doing, salvaging his “pride”- who was paying the bills? Who was doing that lawn that she saw as such a positive step when he finally stepped up to the plate? Who was taking care of the kids and the house and dealing with her own wounded and painful emotional trauma?

And just what did his kids think?

Did he talk to them about why daddy wasn’t around? Why he was only in and out on his own schedule and why he and mummy were estranged?

Kids aren’t stupid you know.

So nice lesson.

Girl child – this is what you do – you suffer in silence. You allow your partner to “find” himself while you pick up the slack and suck up the pain.

Boy child – lucky eh? You get to turf responsibility. You don’t have to stick to vows made nor follow through on adult responsibilities. Sweet deal, eh?

For me, mutual respect is a HUGE part of any healthy dynamic. It is woefully lacking on both their parts here.

Picking up your toys and saying you’re leaving and don’t want to play any more is simply not an option when we actually grow up. Deciding that you don’t like your choices is not unusual and is often passing due to stress or depression or a myriad of reasons. Working through these with the other adult in the equation is the responsible and mature thing an adult does.

What a misnomer the title of the column “Modern Love”.

That isn’t MODERN love, hell, that is the religiously sanctioned crap women have been handed for the past several centuries. As if keeping the man is what it is all about. As if sucking up pain and humiliation is our lot in life. As if this is “saving” a marriage.

The whole damn thing is a travesty.

I’m all for saving a marriage or a committed relationship. I believe implicitly that no relationship should be jettisoned without fighting hard to see if the love that inspired it in the first place can be salvaged and revived. But damned if that can be done or SHOULD be done if only ONE partner is doing the fighting.

Here, let me pack your bags for you – my lawyer will be in touch...

Pity Party

2009-08-05T11:14:00.001-04:00

DISCLAIMER: Please join me in my pity party today- I intend to wallow in it. Not to worry, I’m nothing if resilient and this too shall pass..

I feel ugly.

I think all of us go through moments of self introspection where we turn a critical eye on on our imperfect bodies with a ruthless disregard for extenuating realities such as time and the inevitable march of gravity. Most of us have the capacity to be cruelly intolerant of our perceived flaws, looking at what we think are irredeemable horrors under a microscope, allowing no leavening dollop of compassion or acceptance to mar our total disgust.

Envy cloaks me in shame as I lament the lack of money which would allow me to buy the erasure of time and experience from a face which has seen too many days, not enough sleep and far, far too much stress. I am envious of a friend who I love dearly and her belly, or lack thereof – sleek through a surgeon’s knife, the inevitable marks of childbearing magically erased, skin and muscle magically restored. I envy her visits to a clinic where laser restores moisture and firmness to skin battered by the sun of thousand days, lines etched through life’s lessons and the marks and inevitable tracing of life’s vicissitudes are no longer apparent.

I know the rational explanations for my mid-life hate-fest. I know the trite if well meant rejoinders about time adding character, that I should bear the marks with “pride”....

It doesn’t cut it today – damned if it cuts it any day, but today, it most definitely doesn’t cut it.

I want to look in a mirror and not cringe.

I want to feel desired.

I want the sensuality that I feel in my soul to be sensed and embraced. I want the essence of the being that is me to be wanted and needed and desired. I want to be able to look at my body, into my eyes, and feel there is a reason WHY someone would want to run their fingers along my pale skin, cup my breasts and tease me into hot panting want. I want to feel that breathless, frantic need pouring from his eyes and spill into hands that grasp and demand and seek.

Words are trite.

Actions speak.

And when you have been as physical as I have, when you have embraced and revelled in and wallowed and adored the reality of flesh, having yours rejected endlessly is humbling. It is humiliating. It is hurtful and soul-destroying.

And it is my reality.

And nothing- absolutely nothing – will convince me that if I had the time, the money, the leisure to combat time’s encroachments, I might still be desired.

I feel ugly today.

daughter of the sea

2009-08-04T09:57:00.004-04:00

The sea isn’t always benign, a soft blue blanket, drowsing under a noonday sun and yawning to a horizon of sky and water that melds and melts into a homogenous whole, a universe of soft breeze and the gentle lap of wave and the rhythmic rocking of surf lapping against the shore.

The sea isn’t always kind, sweet breeze breathing salt along closed lids and puckering lips drying in the heat of the golden heat which spills down from a sky which reflects back the infinity of blue and the wisp of cloud and hope which resonates in your breast as you breathe the rhythm of the surf which whispers sibilantly in your drowsing mind.

The sea is capricious and called cruel when cruelty is a human concept, lending meaning to what is a reality of droplets of salt and precipitation, of cold which snakes up from the depths yet unexplored and is comprised of a thousand million cellular realities of death and life and excretion and endless, repetitive rich cycles of life and death.

And I love it for its capriciousness.

And I love it for its gentleness.

And I love it for its rages.

To stand on a cliff, lashed by wind and feel the slash of salt and frigid water against your skin and hear over the cacophony of your thoughts the roar and rage of water lashed into madness by a night which wheels around your head, a kaleidoscope of light and fury which flashes electric in your mind and resonates a great and powerful throbbing in your heart.

To look through the gloaming dusk and watch the waves vomit spume and heave their great levitation bulk against the standing rocks and send fingers of frigid rage into the crevasses and seek egress to the land which defies its might.

To lose the delineation of skin and sinew, muscle and blood coursing through human veins and feel instead your body expand and reach out and embrace and become one with a sky which wheels and screams and sinks into the heaving brine until the moisture and fury of both coalesce and become a great and wonderful terror that one can breathe in and feel explode in realness in your soul…

that is MY sea.

The one which beckons in the furthest reaches of my soul, that fills my mind with green and grey and fluid depths of cool want and need and makes my heart ache with a physically compelling pain that pulls me towards the water that breathes pretence in its pristine, staidness through the towering steel trap of the city.

The lake I watch with jaundiced eyes mimics the import of words as the lake mimics the sea. They whisper pretence and promise yet carry in them nothing of import or genuineness. I remember when the words would capture me in silken strands of yearning, infused with significance and pregnant with substance and sincerity. I see them now in the harsh light of experience, and while the words wend and encircle my heart in pain and ache, I know beyond their utterances is a vapid reality of lies. Lies, I concur, not always consciously driven nor meant to be not truth.

My youngest daughter runs with a set whose parents utter often the words “I love you” – when greeting, when leaving, when seeing and sighing. I do not. Even before my current reality, I always felt truly that hands and heart and action served more truth up than words which can be released without thought or import or true intent. For me love is the doing not the saying. My love for her is in the creation of meals to tempt a 16-year old vegan appetite; in the stroke of hand through hair when a child is weary, in the knowing and the doing and the nurturing.

Words can carry with them a powerful impact, that I do not deny. But conversely, when the words are exposed and become trite, then the impact is more hurtful, more agonizing in the unmasking of the realty of the moment a harsher lesson by far than mere pretence.

I read the words and I feel a great and terrible rage build.

For I live the reality and it is not those words.

I want my sea and the lonely aerie of sky and brine and the harsh crying roar of an ocean which calls me to its frigid embrace. I want to leave behind the words which wound and cut me like the sharp jutting reality of rock and cliff against which my sea pulses and tears and weeps salted tears of despair.

Musings on Dynamic - Part Two

2009-08-04T08:04:00.002-04:00

(Note: I have cited in italics some of the comments to which I refer, but others can be found under the original post)

In view of the wonderfully enlightening and insightful comments, I felt this subject deserved another visit. And rather than address each one in the comment form, I think it helpful and more likely to engender more thought here in another blog.

There seems to be a general (if not total) consensus that there are several factors at play here.

First and foremost, the “bullshit” quotient – which Buffalo brings up and which many concur with – including me. I concluded some time ago that it was physically impossible in terms of reality for ANYONE to have the sheer number and variety of “encounters” described in some of those silly writings. Not and actually have a real time life – you know, jobs, housework, kids, family, friends – the sort of mundane things that most of us actually deal with on a day to day basis! The fantasy of endless erotic play, extended and frequent flogging sessions, the never-ending priapism just don’t ring true after repetition day after day after day.

In this context, some of the more extreme descriptions of what is termed BDSM play are also suspect – albeit I am well aware that extreme BDSM play does exist and occur (I’m not arguing that)- but I find it easy to discern the reality versus the fantasy if you read regularly as after an extreme session, the “real” person usually is quite straightforward about the recovery period required and the ongoing effects – our bodies, when all is said and done – ARE flesh and require a certain period time to recover!

Second, the fantasy element is also obvious when one looks at the many insightful comments.
Christina’s experience for instance is I think a common one. Thank god that she and others are savvy enough and have enough self-esteem to refuse congress with someone who demands unprotected sex yet admits to multiple partners!

I think Sara hits a very salient point in that many individuals accept abuse under the guise of BDSM play due to emotional issues. As I said in my first blog- I don’t deny these individuals the right to garner whatever satisfaction they can from what are in essence, abusive relationships in sheep’s clothing – but at the same time I am not going to be one of the crowd watching the naked emperor stroll by and pretend he is clothed. As Sara says, “Bottom line, while I don't think you can peg one particular practice as good or bad, I believe there IS a difference between healthy and not healthy, sane and insane, and BDSM doesn't fundamentally change those lines.”

“It is done because it can be so.” insightful Liras points out and she is absolutely correct. A lot of its DOES happen simply because it can.

“I call it abuse, they call it love and fulfilled passion.” she goes on to state and again, I can’t argue. Nor do I have the right to step in and try to “correct” what I see as a skewed and unhealthy viewpoint. But while I do not have the right to interfere, I DO have the right to state categorically and honestly what MY perception of the dynamic is! As they are entitled to live that relationship as otherwise rational adults, so too do I have the right to state I think it abusive and harmful.

That is what an ostensibly “free” society allows.

JZ, newbie or not, has good instincts (in my viewpoint anyway). “Submission is, for me, a way of integrating and becoming more completely myself. How does participating in the destruction of my self-respect have anything to do with that?”

There are those of course who will argue the opposite – that a submissive must be torn down and “re-created” – that she (for it is ALWAYS a she – another sore point for me – you seldom see male submissives treated in this fashion), but I would argue as Jz does: “So what he'd be getting is no longer something either of us can value. What's the point of that"– and that has always been a point that perplexed me. Why indeed are you trying to completely and utterly alter the essence of the submissive who one could safely assume attracted you for certain innate personality quirks that belong only to her?

And darling M:e focuses on an important part of a dynamic – “D/s has the power to be enhancing to a relationship, but also extremely destructive.” – about which most of my insightful readers have voiced concern – that an M/s or D/s dynamic carries with it not just physical impact and the potential realities of physical harm but almost more potentially dangerous is the emotional blast that can occur when involved in a dynamic which demands giving up not just your body but your will and your heart.

Amber, Sir J. and vanilla imp both question when does a submissive become a victim, and why... and are excellent examples of healthy individuals who are able to recognize the difference bewteen surrender and victimization. I also think Amber night have a good clue in that she points out it is not necessarily the act itself that causes concern, but the “attitude” or manner in which it is vested or received.

And the Imp like a few other commentators bring up something often seen on the web (not sure about real life) wherein the submissive herself somehow sees the ability to take the most extreme form of physical and emotional pain as somehow placing her in a superior position to others. I’m not really sure where this concept arose nor why snagging the badge of the ‘most harmed’ is somehow a positive but it is probably largely responsible for my very short tenure on Fetlife where I found the one-upmanship patently irritating and absurd!

Annie offers an eminently rational explanation – and one with which I wholeheartedly concur. “Self-destructive habits are also an addiction. Emotional pain is something people indulge in as much as any other familiar source of drama and stress.” In a nutshell, I think this probably accounts for many destructive relationships – I know that at one point some time ago I wrote about my own perceptions of those who seek emotional and physical trauma again and again and Annie’s words capture my own thoughts perfectly.

And finally, just to address Florida Dom’s comment: Indeed! that may be so – but I guess your words simply illustrate the point I’m trying to make. Whether a submissive has multiple orgasms or NOT is no indication to my mind that the relationship is in any way healthy or in any SENSE positive to her state of mind.

I absolutely concur that no one size fits all – and reiterate again that I do not consider myself in any way superior or able to pass judgment on other relationships – however, having said that, I still would state categorically and emphatically, many self-labelled D/s or M/s relationships I see out there are not what I personally consider truly indicative of MY perception of the dynamic – and most likely under most circumstances would indeed be labelled clearly and unequivocally ABUSE – orgasms or not.

In the end, each of us must draw our own conclusions.

While I fret (as do many here) about the perceptions and internalization of what to my mind is destructive behaviour in some writings, I also feel that each of us must take responsiblity for making our own choices, drawing our own conclusions and giving to others the same freedom of thought and action to which we are entitled.

At the same time, I will retain my lance and continue to tilt at windmills ....

my 'babies'

2009-08-02T17:13:00.003-04:00

Musings on dynamics

2009-07-31T07:12:00.002-04:00

I'm endlessly fascinated by the uniqueness of individuals and the dynamics which compel, obsess and immerse each of them in their intensity and distinctiveness. The BDSM world, because of the nature of the relationships, provides even more fodder for thought.

I was up early this morning – too early – for an appointment and thus had time to kill (an unusual occurrence in my life – hell I almost didn’t know what to do with “time”). So, with a little bit of a luxurious commodity usually far too scarce, I indulged and surfed the web, specifically checking out other blogrolls.

In reading some of the entries on a surprisingly eclectic group of writings, I realized I continue to wonder about what motivates, what inspires, WHY certain activities and dynamics work for certain people, particularly in the rather unusual arena of BDSM.

It’s no secret that in my past dynamic, I was an advocate of a certain degree of pain- nothing extreme, nothing outrageous but to some tastes in a more vanilla world, probably far too intense. Spankings, flogging, pinches and rough use, all can act as a focus and a form of meditation for me.

The reality is that over many years, I have come to understand that each dynamic is unique in itself. While the internet world somehow tries to impose a clear set of rules, delineate a quantifiable set of circumstances, reactions and definitions of what comprises a specific dynamic, what makes a “real” dominant or a “true” submissive, it is incontrovertible I think that because each of IS unique, it is absurd to think that ANY dynamic is readily quantifiable.

And thus, thus, I know that while there are those would find my relationship a mystery (hell, I STILL do), I in turn find myself confused, perplexed yet truly curious as to WHY certain actions, reactions and dynamics work for others.

For instance, I just don’t get certain, apparently common, practices among certain couples.

NOT criticizing – god knows what two consenting adults choose to do among themselves or with other consenting adults is SO their business and no one else’s, but just CURIOUS.

For instance, I don’t get the oft-discussed concept of “lending” out submissives as part of the esoteric and deliberately obfuscating “training”. And before I continue, can I tell you in my opinion and my opinion ONLY I think that what I see out there termed “training” is a big load of hooey and provides fodder to a lot of predators who use it as a tool to confuse, intimidate and control naieve wanna-be submissives who first dip their toes in the internet pools.

But, seriously, WHAT does that teach the submissive? This is a serious question. And WHAT does the dominant get out of it? I’m truly curious.

For instance, I’ve read that it strips a woman of her will completely – reduces her to an object to be manipulated and used – well, that’s where the confusion comes in for me. How does that benefit the dominant? How does it fulfill the submissive?

And then there are the myriad of blogs I see where it seems to me, cruelty is an integral part of the relationship – where women (because it is always women) are smacked for no discernible transgression, or hurt simply “because” – again, I’m wondering, what does this serve? What does it teach?

As stated earlier, I have no issue with pain, but the rational part of selkie seeks a reason, a motivation, a POINT to it – when I used to get flogged, bound, pricked, needled, or whatever it was a dance … a dance the two of us were bound up in and captivated by, a progression of physical responses elicited and emotions engendered, a dance where the focus was applied physically yet resonated at a much deeper level. And throughout, there was always an internal awareness on my part that my physical, mental and emotional equilibrium were being carefully nurtured, monitored and observed.

Some years ago, I wrote a blog on my perceptions of why for some individuals, extreme masochism worked – but even in some of the more intense relationships of which I was aware, there was an obvious caring and deep connection between the sadist and masochist. There were moments of deep intimacy, sweetness and caring that somehow balanced the more extreme physical acts.

But surfing today (and before – it is not something I do at all very much anymore), I find myself confused and perplexed why some women tolerate what appears from their own words to be a relationship entirely comprised of physical, mental and emotional cruelty – yet by adding the BDSM designation, somehow removing it from the realm of abuse.

I do not deny an adult’s right to make choices in the dynamic they choose to inhabit – that smacks of paternalism and is offensive and high handed.

But I guess what I’m wondering is do you think these individuals truly find some form of fulfillment in being treated like they have absolutely no worth OR are they victims of unscrupulous, manipulative partners who inevitably use, abuse and then move on?

I could cite some of the blogs of which I speak, but I think I’ll refrain. Because ultimately, the issues I wonder about are universal.

I don’t get what the motivation and point is of simply hurting someone in passing, when they have done nothing to elicit any type of punishment. I don’t get how passing around a submissive to other partners “teaches” her… teaches her what? And what does the dominant get from it?

I understand sadism, truly I do – I KNOW that sometimes, you hurt your submissive just because it feels so damn GOOD – and in a healthy, emotionally powerful dynamic, that can provide a wonderful nuance to both, but treating her like crap on an ongoing basis, without a commensurate understanding and nurturing of her mind and emotional equilibrium just doesn’t seem like a positive experience to me- yet I see these blogs everywhere.

Comments anyone? Anyone else find this confusing? Or have any explanations?

Soapbox Thursday: The Crying Game

2009-07-30T12:21:00.007-04:00

[DISCLAIMER: Both Pygar and Lilly are wonderful people and I don't in any way intend to impugn or criticize their opinions. I think they are as entitled to their viewpoints as I am to mine and enjoy the dialogue that is subsequently created when we disagree! they both ROCK.

2. No animals were hurt in the making of this rant.

the photo is an image of the actor, Jaye Davidson (MALE but intact)) from The Crying Game ]

In a recent blog (see here), Pygar related an experience with a post-op transsexual woman, about whom only in hindsight did he realize she was once, physiologically, male. His question was, should she have informed him of her status beforehand? The discussion centres primarily on whether or not a post-op transsexual has a moral imperative to inform potential partners of their sex change?

It has engendered an interesting and lively discussion. Lilly’s “rant-on” (see here) reflects her strong belief that not telling is, in her view, a form of deceit.

As my own opinion is unequivocally that the lady had NO imperative – moral or otherwise – to reveal what is in fact her private and personal business and is ultimately irrelevant to who she is, I thought I would outline my arguments.

First, from a biological perspective, there is ample and irrefutable evidence that gender is not based on physiological sexual characteristics. How we present physically is not always commensurate with the thought process, emotional needs and gender-choice that an individual internalizes as real to them. Studies have revealed, again and again, that nature is fluid when it comes to sexual orientation. From observations of homosexuality among numerous species (not just homo sapiens) to case studies of people – and animals – who despite having the sexual characteristics of one gender, live and present as the other sex are there for the asking.

In short, nature screws up – quite often.

A case in point would be the sad history of hermaphrodites in our society. From freaks displayed in circuses, an almost equally repugnant trend began in more “enlightened” times when babies carrying both sets of sexual organs were almost inevitably “turned into” females. Arguments were specious, fulsome and full of scientific jargon as to the necessity and reason for choosing the female sex when both gender sexual organs were present. The reality was simply it is easier to create a vagina than a penis. This caused a great deal of distress and emotional pain to individuals who would have identified as male (not to talk about those content to carry BOTH – as they were born).

The reality is that many of the characteristics we identify with gender are actually artificially imposed dictates of largely paternalistic and misogynist religious dogma. Like many of the prejudices we internalize as fact, the reality is that most of our biases arise as a result of societal imperatives and dictates – NOT because the issues are inherently ‘wrong’ or “unnatural”.

Second, identifying females as female BECAUSE of owing a vagina and breasts and males as being MALE because they have penis and testicles, then we are certainly narrowing down the realities to an unacceptable level. So if a woman has a double mastectomy- does that make her “less female”? If a man is for whatever reason, emasculated by having penis and/or testicles removed – is he “less male”. What about individuals who experience some form of trauma to their sexual organs (i.e. are not born that way) through disease, accident or malicious intent? Are they somehow then NOT the sex they presented as originally?

Third, undertaking an operation that will permanently change your sexual characteristics is fraught with anxiety, emotional trauma and is the result (I would think in pretty well every case) of a lifetime of confusion, distress and insight. Nor is the medical profession quick to perform such a task. Candidates must go through a rigorous and drawn-out period of emotional, psychological and physical testing to qualify. It is, when all is said and done, intensely and powerfully, personal.

On the religious front argument, if you believe in god- how can you then turn around say “he” made a “mistake”?? i.e. these individuals feel to the core of who they are that they trapped in a body which outwardly does not reflect who they are. They were (if that is your belief) “MADE” that way by god – so HOW can it be wrong to correct that?

Fourth, from any perspective, I fail to see why someone is required to reveal their previous gender to a casual sexual partner. If indeed, a relationship formed and it looked as if what began as casual was turning serious for both, I think it probably a good idea to discuss when a rapport, mutual trust and mutual commitment is starting to form. Any relationship must have at its core, honesty and a sense of trust. By the same token, I think it honourable when entering into what looks to be a long-term commitment to be honest about a lot of other things too.

I equate discussing your previous gender on the same lines as sharing information about your upbringing, family issues and/or past emotional trauma – only to be shared with someone with whom you feel a committed, caring and mutually trusting relationship is being formed.

Fifth, CHOICE: Although I see Lilly’s point about "choice", I don’t necessarily agree. One is entitled on a moral –hell, a LEGAL perspective to offer full disclosure when it comes to certain things. Like if you have HIV. Or herpes. Or some other sexually transmitted or other form of transmittal disease (i.e. Hep C is transmittable through body fluids and mucus membranes but not necessarily sexually-related).

But I feel strongly I am NOT compelled on any level to offer full disclosure about certain parts of my life that I consider irrelevant except to someone with whom I am planning to form a committed and long-term relationship. I do not believe even in a committed relationship that an individual has to vomit out every single emotional trauma, moral dilemma, past relationship or experience that has ever taken place in their lives. I truly, honestly and sincerely feel that each of us is entitled to some privacy of thought and emotion, no matter how close you are.

Because transgender issues are so fraught with controversy, I DO believe it would be wise to share this with a potential life partner or one runs the risk of your potential partner feeling betrayed down the road when it comes out (and secrets ALWAYS come out). In that sense, yes, that is where the element of choice comes in.

Like any bred in the bone prejudice – some form of which we ALL exhibit – I think one of the most persistent and prevalent viewpoints regarding transgender individuals is a stubborn insistence on seeing them as ultimately REALLY “male” or REALLY “female”, despite the reality that from almost their earliest memories they truly, sincerely, completely and utterly felt themselves trapped in a body which did not reflect their internal vision of self. And when they then successfully take their physical body and create a shell which then reflects their inner conviction, there is a vast majority of the population which continues to tell them they are “wrong” – that they are in fact the sex they were born.

The bottom line is that it is NOT my place to tell someone who they should live their lives – nor in what form – that is an intensely personal choice and one which I respect.

The Island

2009-07-26T20:48:00.006-04:00

Reality bites.

Sighs.

Not that I’m not glad to see D., my kids, my dogs and the myriad other denizens of my chaotic existence.

But damn it was nice to escape reality for a few days.

To go with the rhythm of the moment and recapture, momentarily, the euphoria of time unfolding unconstrained by duty and demand, unfettered by “musts” and “shoulds”, without tethers of needs and wants and instead, embracing and infinite in its endless possibilities.

My week was in its own way, chaotic and quirky, with a endless litany of unforeseen potential disasters from the large ferry to the island breaking down to the Minister booked to marry the couple taking an unexpected stay of some duration in the hospital and a dreary, never-ending forecast of rain. But somehow I found it easy and comfortable to roll with the punches, change with the moment – to in essence, embrace what I have been trying to internalize for several years now – to let go of what I cannot control.

For ultimately, I believe doing so is one of the penultimate lessons of life. Life, everyone’s life, is full of unexpected stresses, mundane irritations, almost overwhelming blows –emotional, physical and psychological – that each of us must confront, comprehend and cope with. I believe that in order to find the strength to deal with life’s black side, you must understand that you cannot, CANNOT be responsible for nor control the extent, intensity and future of some untenable situation. All we can do is choose how we react, the course we choose to take, the manner in which we “deal” ....

There is a wonderful freedom in doing so.

Though god knows it is not easy and is indeed, an ongoing battle. Especially for me who tends to be somewhat of a control freak, always trying to anticipate and foretell what needs to be done, what needs must be met, to indeed, get things done before the ones I care about realize they need doing! In some respects, that can be a positive personality quick, given that it is balanced with rationality and realism; however, I know that there have been times in my life where I’ve allowed it to overwhelm and drown me in the cacophony of “wants” that I feel cascade into my hands, whether sought or not.

Most of all, however, was I had a chance to commune with my beloved sea. From the moment we stepped on the ferry in Black’s Harbour and turned to the ocean, I felt my mind tremble, then sigh and capitulate to a tremendous, joyous peace that suffixed my body with a rightness of place that brought tears to my eyes as I stood at the railing and watched the waves flow beneath and the sharp, cool tang of the ocean licked colour into my city-pale cheeks.

I didn’t get a chance to actually walk the beach until the second day, then as the wedding guests mingled and caught up on the field behind the motel, bbqs smoking, voices laughing, children playing, I quietly slipped away.

The beach was rough, strewn with clam shells and stones, washed rocks sparkling in the sunlight which spilled from an endless sky and lent a golden glow to the grey sighing waves crashing up on the shore. Seaweed curled amongst the detritus of the ocean bottom and I stepped carefully to avoid slipping. Stopping, I pulled a strand of its stringy, soft length and pulling it to my face, breathed deep its sharp, evocative scent, pulling into my soul the essence of the ocean’s heart.

Leaving my shoes and socks on the deserted beach, rolling my pants up to my thighs, I stepped into the soughing surf, gasping as the crisp, heart-rending cold of the ocean shocked me into the reality of now. Stepping carefully, the soles of my feet no longer calloused and accustomed to the rock-strewn shoreline, I walked through the lisping, sighing sea and gazed out on the endless horizon of sky.

As I walked along the shoreline through the brine, the sounds of civilization slowly softened, then disappeared until my eyes shone blue and grey and green like the waves of my ocean and the whispering surf filled my ears and heart and all that existed was the slow, measured beating of my heart which marched in cadence with the sighing waves sweeping in and out along the island’s flesh.

I yearned to slip into the embrace of the soft water which caressed my thighs and breathed promise into my flesh. I wanted to feel the silk of its reality around my body and feel the ocean stroke cool fingers through my hair and had the day been more advanced, and the sun flaming into the distant horizon, lower, I would have stripped and followed my heart.

But coward that I was, I sighed and turned back, wincing a bit as I clambered over boulders torn from the yawning cliffs above me.

On my return, I discovered I had been away for more than a n hour and a half and was laughed at for my pants which were soaked to the thighs.

While I would have loved longer, I am grateful for the brief respite and the chance to replenish the sound and smell and feel of my home. I clutch to me the memories of its healing and the promise I made as I leaned over the fog-strewn railing of the ferry, the mournful wail of the foghorn rending the darkness and bringing to mind mammoth creatures of the deep, the promise that I would return one day for good.

i'm back....

2009-07-26T11:18:00.004-04:00

had a wonderful, spectacular, MAGICAL week.... will write soon but here's a few pictures to show you the paradise I was enjoying...

The ocean beckons ..

2009-07-19T21:02:00.002-04:00

I go to my beloved sea soon.

Tomorrow I leave for New Brunswick for 5 days, to visit old, dear friends and attend a wedding. But, truth be told, the thing to which I am looking most forward is the sea. For we will be spending three days on a tiny island off the coast of New Brunswick called Grand Manan.

It’s been a lifetime since I was there last – at least 30 years. It is a gem of an island, set in the beautiful, cold Atlantic where whales cavort and call beneath the ocean and fisher folk never learn to swim as the treacherous ocean will freeze them to death or swallow them in its implacable waves before rescuers can reach them.

I feel as if I am going to burst.

I want to walk the rocky, coarse sand of the Atlantic beaches and feel the waves crashing against the shore and breathe deep the salt-laden tang of ocean. I want to wander as the sun flames golden into the restless sea and stand above the cliffs which spill down to the roar of ocean and watch the gulls wheel and cry above and feel my soul burst free.

I am a creature of the sea.

I yearn for it often, an aching, low-grade need that necessity and the realities of my life have forced into abeyance but lives in my soul nonetheless. There is something about the sea that calls to me, that creates in me a sense of peace and yet a wildness that consumes and connects me to the universe unlike anything else I have ever experienced. And it is the wild, cruel, cold Atlantic that whispers to me in my concrete world, the staid lap of lake water a mocking reminder of its glory, but to which I am pulled again and again, only to despair as I watch its changeable depths in vain for the myriad colours and fresh, strong scent of its progenitor.

I will swim in my beloved, cruel ocean.

My friends will laugh and think me mad when I dive into the pristine, frigid depths and feel the sweep of ice trickle through the flame of my hair and marble pale my skin. The cold is such that I can only stay 10 or more minutes then slowly my circulation will start to slow and my body shiver and the euphoria of being embraced will overwhelm and only my rationality will force me, reluctant, from its frigid, beloved grip.

And I will rise, reluctant, from my ocean and walk the rocky, dulce-strewn beach and feel, for that moment, content.

I go to my ocean tomorrow so please be well and let life be wonderful this week and think and be happy that the selkie returns to her home.

Everything Elvis....

2009-07-18T20:06:00.006-04:00

so off we went to Kings and Classics in beautiful Rockton, Ontario... here are a few samples of the ETAs (yeah, took a few minutes - Elvis Tribute Artists).

Dark Lady

2009-07-17T23:24:00.004-04:00

Image from: www.deviantart.com/download/95218579/My_Dark_..

The night embraces the dome of sky washed pale by the light vomited from a city that never sleeps. Pinpricks of silver light mar the smoothness of its cloudless expanse and the rent of its navy cloak gapes, allowing silver light to spill down and spark want into my eyes which drink deep of the moon’s glow. The air is cool against my face this July morning and the dogs, ears pricked, prance before me, eager to taste the night and roll in the flavour of scents that call to their souls and whisper wildness into their hearts.

Walking my dogs at 4 a.m. is oddly, something I love doing. Slipping through the wine-dark night with the warm bodies of my dogs my only company is deliciously freeing. I savour the relative silence of a city that belches a cacophony of sound that becomes white noise during the daylight hours and drowns out the reality of earth and sky and water with its acrid, steely demand.

Even here in the gritty corner of the city that is mine, the breeze which licks colour into my pale cheeks is just a whisper, soon to sweep into the tumultuous sky which roils above my head then thunder on eager hooves into the endless expanse of night to embrace the distant sea.

As the dogs slip silent along the quiet streets, noses following scent of prey and challenger, I allow my thoughts to drift and eddy into the quiet of thought unmarred by demand and entreaty and duty.

As it often does, my mind turns to the sexual nature of the human beast. I must be a indeed a creature of gross appetite, a being of earth and water and substance, a venal woman whose appetites are unnaturally corporeal… because touch and scent and feel and the hot, thrusting need is something that I have craved and obsessed and been guilty of embracing with a boisterous delight and an unapologetic relish for most of my life.

And yet.

Yet. Female sexuality is such a capricious mistress… a willful, provocative and at times disdainful female whose many faces beckons, refuses, embraces, denies and teases with a confusing logic that defies understanding. She is as apt to desert you at the most inauspicious moments and then, in her petulant, demanding way, claim ingress into your mind and heart and quicken your loins, and swell your breasts and catch your breath in your heart … just when you need your head clearest.

She is multi-faceted and complicated, a creature made up of hormones and thought, of need and desire, with a fillip of rage which sweetens and an achingly needful, all encompassing acquiescence that seduces.

Our sexuality can slumber unassailed and oblivious to our plaintive cries for her aid, then, in her own time, awaken, stretch and yawn, sending her long slender fingers through the complicated byways of thought to whisper want into our hearts and a fierce, overwhelming need into our souls.

The night slips around my silent footsteps and I close my eyes and breathe deep the music of the night, the rich, verdant scent of the earth which wafts on the breeze, the intoxicating bouquet of growing things, which gives shape to green and creates a haze of mist around me which cools my breath and hardens my nipples and I feel the pull of the earth which wheels around a distant orb and the moon’s light spills into my mouth and I drink in its need and breathe out the rich female pheromones of want.

I slip into a silent house and send the beasts to slumber and quietly enter the warm closeness of our room and stand, silent, and listen to his breath and relish the scent of our mingling and kneel, insubstantial, a moonlit sprite, a succubus, upon the bed.

I breathe warmth along the length of his body until the warm, rich scent of him pulls me to his groin. I hover close, my mouth open to drink in the want and although I have not yet touched him, I feel him stir in the closeness of the room and sighing, sink my lips along the soft, velvet skin and sip, tenderly, from the tip, a droplet of need that I pull into my throat.

My hair spills silk along his groin and my hands gently part his legs and my mouth dances my demand along his burgeoning length. My fingers play an adagio along the taut line of flesh running between his thighs under the achingly tender skin of his testicles and my mouth coaxes song from his throbbing length until I hear his breath catch in the silence of the night and the loose skin of his testicles tighten and I feel the thrumming against my mouth and the song reaches a crescendo of aching YES and my throat tightens and then sighs open and I feel him spill down my throat and my fingers between my own smooth thighs work frantically until my own need spills onto the flesh warm sheets and together in the quiet of the night rent now with harsh breath, the song dances and weaves a tapestry of intricate beauty….

And as the moon spills her silver light onto our throbbing flesh, I welcome back my dark lady.

waves to everyone

2009-07-17T13:10:00.002-04:00

Nope - NOT dead.

nor have i stopped writing (technically)\

just SWAMPED.

at work, due to people leaving, retiring, one fired.

because they haven't been replacing staff

because they are super busy (good thing)

I barely have time to draw breath.

my laptop has been down so I've had VERY limited access to internet and/or writing at home.

promise though - lots of thoughts in the works and my beautiful laptop is BACK... so hopefully will catch up on everyone's news and get something posted myself!

Storm

2009-07-06T07:51:00.002-04:00

The storm thunders in on growling winds and lashes the roiling sky with hissing breath and the hot, needling spray of want. I stand on the porch and pull the ozone-laden air deep into my lungs, opening my mouth wide to taste the storm and pull its frenzied chaos deep inside. My skin beads and moisture wells and then runs in rivulets down my cool cheeks and I drink in its breathless being.

Thunder rumbles, a levitation beast crouching in the east and my eyes pull in the darkness which trembles over the horizon and promises a violence I embrace with a wildness long absent. My thin cotton shirt moulds to my small breasts and looking down, I watch, bemused, as nipples peak and harden in the cool rain, their paleness pinkening and darkening against the opaque material.

I taste him on my breath and at the back of my throat, tart and pungent, the remembered scent and feel, so long absent, arousing and comforting, remembered atavistic explosion of thought; between my thighs, I feel myself moisten and swell. My breasts ache and I cup my hands over the rain-dark material of my shirt and feel the throbbing warmth beneath my palms and feel the echo of pain and looking down, I peer down and see, bemused, the bruised mark of his passion blooming dark against the celtic white of my skin.

I feel as if I am awakening, the slumbering essence of self stretching deep inside, sending tentative fingers questioning into my psyche, exploring and probing deep to ascertain if the bleakness which has pervaded my soul still prevails or whether the ridiculous hope which springs eternal in my foolish chest holds sway.

I find the human species fascinating, truly I do!

We are capable of such greatness and such ignominy. There are times I despair of the human race, then suddenly I see or hear or read about something that gives me hope.

Our spirits are so fragile, yet so resilient. So tender yet can withstand blows that you think would destroy.

Most perplexing yet awe-inspiring is the human capacity to dig deep within the complex, complicated mess of emotions each of harbours in our unique mixture of genes and traits and find among the mess, a thin thread of hope. Realities of past experience which have scarred and marked psyches and battered beliefs linger, yet bolstered by that human capacity to dream, we dismiss rational thought and turn our faces to the sky and reach out again and again to grasp hope.

At work now, I watch dawn break and flood the sky with red promise and certitude and stand quiescent at the prison of glass and watch the storm battle with the promise of light.

Looking out over the expanse of water in the distance, whose restless surface undulates beneath an uncertain sky, I feel my heart lift as molten sun spills a golden stream of brilliance through the broiling grey of sky and horizon until my eyes are dazzled and the sky sparks and glows and shines with a brilliance that aches and the day breathes hope and night flees, pulling behind it tattered remnants of cloud, enveloping its dark soul in a cloak of affronted dignity.

Despair has etched scars into my soul that I know cannot be erased through time, but scars though visible, can eventually heal and except for the distant ache of the knowledge of the their former pain, can be incorporated into the reality of existence.

Uncertain, I pause, unbalanced and distraught, wondering if the small, fierce ache in my soul is hope or the foolishness of windmills.

I think I am seeing more clearly now (or think I am – the burden each of us must carry is the knowledge that perceptions are often most distorted when they seem the clearest).

I fear yet the resiliency of the human spirit spurs me to step….

For life itself means the inevitability of change and without change there is an absence of life and the knowledge that pain itself means there is life is a bitter pill yet one pregnant with veracity.

Shall I step?

although truth be told, I think that decision has been made....

Bingo!

2009-07-04T15:05:00.003-04:00

Meeting online friends in real life is a situation rife with potential delight on the one hand, and expectations of disaster on the other.

My own recent and vastly unsatisfactory meeting with a former blogging buddy (here) is a case in fact.

So like morningstar, the morning of our coffee klatch rendez vous, butterflies as big (but not nearly as pretty) as the one on her enviable chest were fluttering in my stomach.

Initially I wasn't that nervous; the reality is that we have corresponded fairly regularly and both through emails and through her wonderful blogs, I feel as if I had met a kindred spirit. Morningstar's puckish sense of humour, her ruthless, awe inspiring honesty, her prolific and vastly enjoyable musings have always run so true with me. So often have I read her thoughts and thought I KNOW what that feels like, I KNOW how she feels, that a part of me felt I would recognize her immediately.

Which was fairly dumb of me when all is said and done!

Somehow in the flurry of emails where we excitedly planned our meeting, BOTH of us forgot to actually pinpoint something that would identify us!

Of course, driving to the meeting place, I thought I COULD have asked her Sir to "bell" her LOL ... then I could walk into Timmys and say loudly "could all ladies please stand and shake your booty" and follow the tinkling resonance to its source ...

However, that was in hindsight.... grins.

Regardless, as morningstar points out in her own blog about our meeting, it was as if we were old friends and almost immediately, we knew each right away!

Hugs were spontaneous and sincere on both our parts (she gives an excellent REAL hug too) - and within a few minutes we were chattering away like a couple of magpies, words tumbling over and out and spilling across the small space dividing us like a wonderful silver stream of thought and sharing and emotion that sparkled and danced in the fitful sunshine which speared through the cloudy sky outside.

And before I talk further, our lovely morningstar is definitely looking through the world and into mirrors with vision that is definitely askew.... she is absolutely lovely - lush and feminine and so very pretty with the most GORGEOUS eyes and the loveliest face made even prettier by her personality which simply shines and captures anyone in her vicinity with her charm.

As icing to the already delicious, decadent and wonderful "cake", morningstar's Sir was utterly wonderfully kind to take some time out of his own busy day to join us for coffee and meet the Irish lass! I was very very grateful that he was inclined to check out his littleone's blogger buddy (although, truth to tell, based on the fact that both she and I are shall we say "inclined" to be naughty subbies at times, perhaps he was there to keep an eye on us? grins widely).

Sir is as distinguished and charming as his Littleone's words and his own have promised and his delicious sense of humour is even more delightful in person than online!

All in all, several hours passed in a blink of the eye ... conversations sparkled and danced as we sprang from birth talk to bondage and back again. Sir was the first to leave as duty called and it was with reluctance a little way later morningstar and I bid adieu ... with promises to return and have further meetings and dinner next time D. and I were in town.

Thank you morningstar. Thank You Sir.

I had a wonderful, thoroughly satisfactory meet that restored my faith and exceeded expectations!

I look forward to meeting again soon!

and just as an aside - I haven't deserted my bloggy friends and am not ignoring posts - rather, I've been in Montreal for the past week doing some fairly extensive work together with D. on my mum's house. Promise to catch up with all on my return to To.

so apparantely, I"m "objectionable

2009-06-30T08:47:00.002-04:00

someone flagged my blog as having objectionable content and Google has put an adult content only flag on it!

hell, and I don't even consider a "sex" blog!

Courage

2009-06-29T08:17:00.003-04:00

Courage is not always easily quantified or identifed. It doesn't always wear an obvious and easily reocgnizable face. Courage comes in many forms and one of them is a tall, lanky, deceptively laid back boy with a mohawk and a quiet sense of humour that has endeared him to an incredibly wide variety of people.

Our boy Declan graduated last week. I loved the fact that out of the sea of boys he stood out with his nose ring and his mohawk, his casual dress and quiet confidence. That despite the rainbow of shades of skin and the plenitude of personality, his quiet confidence and comfort in his skin made him a standout.

Identified at a very early age as severely learning disabled, Declan and I struggled mightly through grade school as with tears suppressed and only released in the privacy of my bedroom, I pushed him to excel - through raw determination and belief in him, we spent 10 years convincing him that learning differently does not make him stupid .. that not grasping basic skills as quickly as everyone else not make him slow.

Some thought us harsh as we rejected a majority of the concessions offered to learning disabled kids in favour of forcing strategies that would work around them. Many thought us cruel as we refused suggestions to drop him from academic level to general and pushed him to work harder.

But we reasoned, if he thinks he needs all that help, if he feels that he can only achieve by adopting lower standards, if he internalizes that he needs concessions made to succeed, then where does that leave his belief in his own intelligence? Where does that lend itself to him knowing he CAN and WILL achieve whatever dreams he chooses to pursue?

Early on we got him involved in sports - an arena where how his brain worked so uniquely didn't matter and where his natural determination, dogged determination and natural athleticism lead him to excel (Brown belt judo - silver provincial and high ranking provincail wrestling).

And the past two years of high school he has made it through the academic level without even informing his teachers of his IEP (Individual Education Plan) status; and while his marks were not remarkable, he made it through high school without failing ONE subject, without us receiving ONE phone call, without ONE suspensions or citation for issues. He made it through high school admired as an incredible athlete, a boy welll liked and comfortable in every stratum from the "gangstas" to the geeks.

At all the interviews we attended, all we heard was prasie from teachers and indeed, covering up when I felt he might have done better or worked harder.

Brave Declan - to me, your face is courage. Declan will be attending college in the Fall as an Intervenor - a translator for the blind, deaf and dumb ... another surprise as we weren't sure what new direction our boy would take.

Bondage

2009-06-23T20:09:00.006-04:00

I like to be restrained … I love the slither of rope snaking around my wrists, the close embrace of coils of soft cotton squeezing me tight and the fluttering anticipation of muscles bunching and pulling against the tenseness of controlled want. I like feeling exposed and open, to have choice removed and desire invoked. I love the feeling deep inside my soul when the restraint of my body resonates through my mind and heart and then slips into my soul to free it to fly.

Thus, when Finbar asked me to partner him in a workshop on bondage for Midori (who apparently is world-renowned – go figure) I was amenable.

He has been to several workshops on various subjects from flogging to ropework and beyond. In fact, not long ago he attended another instructor's workshop on flogging (see Flogging ). Midroi herself is currently on a spring turning into summer circuit as she is based out of San Francisco but travels all over to impart her own particular type of wisdom, technique and mindset.

Entering the venue at Come as You Are with no expectations, I was confronted with a very crowded small room chockfull of couples (there was a few prerequisites – one being to BYOR – Bring Your Own Rope AND the other - BYOB – Bring Your Own Bottom), all of whom were ready, willing and eager to learn the art of rope bondage.

I’m probably committing some form of BDSM karmic wrong by admitting right now that I was neither impressed nor enamoured of the workshop that followed. While there were positive elements I took from it – thus no regrets for attending – both Finbar and I left feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Ultimately, of course, it is a personal preference – for us a local instructor, Carey, and her straightforward, practical teaching methods are far more palatable and preferable to the clever technique and showman qualities of Midori.

After introductions and a synopsis of her qualifications, the very lovely Midori created a scene for the edification of her audience … using ropes of course and setting the mood. The “scene” as it were, probably took the better part of 45 minutes as she used rope in a rather masterful way, combining restrained dominance and forceful but carefully planned movements to orchestrate (in the truest sense of the word) the subjection and domming of her volunteer assistant.

And I found the whole thing both yawningly boring and if I’m honest, unpalatable. The contrived writhing and simulated moans of passion of the “assistant” were distinctly vulgar inasmuch as it was about as convincing as a counterfeit bill. Admittedly, Finbar and I seemed to be in the minority and the other workshop participants seemed quite enamoured of the spectacle. But it made me uncomfortable enough that I seriously contemplated leaving at that point. Although not a prude by any means, this type of prurient “come on” and acting is distasteful at best, insulting at worst. Were we seriously supposed to believe that this girl was coming right there in front of us? At a WORKSHOP?

My other bitch of course is that practical selkie wanted some hands-on instruction. Midori`s teaching methodology has a very strong element of performance art – without doubt, decent performance art but without a practical nuance. Had I wished to indulge the voyeur in me (which apparently does not take up a whole lot of my inner desires), I would have sought a different venue. What I signed up for, however (or what Finbar signed us both up for) was some straightforward advice and guidance on the possibilities of rope.

Thankfully, the balance of the 2.5 hour class (perhaps 45 minutes) did indeed involve knots and ties and in that sense, the evening was not a complete waste of time.

I did take away some salient information from my evening, including some excellent bondage techniques. Most revelatory, however, was Midori’s instruction on using the ropes not simply as a means to an end but as a sensual tool in itself. Certainly I was smitten with the way she used rope to form gags, blindfolds and more pertinent, how to use them as a sensuous tool of seduction and mastery in the process of bondage.

The scene in essence is the creation of the bondage – not the end result of being tied up.

Fancy knots and complicated binding can provide a visual feast to the eyes of the beholder.. but to the Bottom half of the equation (speaking from experience), extended time taken to form complicated knots and visual feints of hand create a suffocating sense of boredom simply due to the reality of the AMOUNT of time and effort needed to create a masterpiece of visual acuity.

In the doing, my own flesh is almost superfluous; certainly the Dom is not that focused on soft breasts and smooth thighs but rather on how the rope lies across the jut of hip and embraces the rib cage and whether that knot will hold or whether the visual of the entirety will be satisfactory.

Midori uses a simple knot – and I did find her reference to it as `THAT knot`- endearing, good serviceable cotton rope and imagination to create in the tying a sensual feast and in so doing, she points out that the focus remains on the moment and the sensations and experiences actually being imparted right then.

She rightly points out that overthinking a scene, getting caught up in the mechanics and forgetting the focus can ultimately destroy not just the mood of the moment, but the dynamic between Top and Bottom – leaving both frustrated and dissatisfied.

Thus, she counsels practice, practice, practice, simple knots, decent rope (of shorter lengths rather than longer) and using movement, surprise and skill carefully yet spontaneously and ALWAYS with what she labels GUSTO

All in all, I’ve spent worse evenings. There is no denying Midori is charming and extremely knowledgeable – certainly her books are a must have in any BDSM reference library – but given my own practical bent (and Finbar’s), we would have preferred less flash and more substance.

Belated Father's Day story - Da

2009-06-22T14:17:00.002-04:00

This is a reposting ... something I wrote years ago after my father died from complications of diabetes. I spent 2 months together with my sisters and mum nursing him through his last days.

I see by your eyes when I slip into the room that dusk is starting. I nod hello, ‘bonjour monsieur’ to your roommate at the right – a nice man, complications of diabetes and a heart attack, young too. Across from you, the sweet old lady says hello – I ask her how she is feeling – always a lady she answers softly and uncomplaining. The adorable Quebecois woman to her left laughs happily as I touch her foot – her toothless gums snapping together. She is actually quite young – probably only a few years old than me – but time and care and lack of money have carved lines in her face, taken her teeth and her youth but not her sense of life. You sit, tense, in your narrow bed, your poor bandaged leg with its frame distorting the shape, rocking restlessly. I kiss your forehead, searching your eyes. The circles beneath are bruised and dark, emphasizing the glittering green of your gaze but in them I see my dad, a glimpse only, but still there. I glance outside the window – across the parking lot of the hospital, the soft, gauzy curricles of new leaves glint green in the setting sun. The day had been beautiful, the perfect spring day with the breath of breeze carrying on it countless memories of new beginnings.

I check the pouch which carries your urine and tense, as I see it is almost full. Born of habit and usage, I check the chart and see it was changed a mere hour previous – that means your kidneys are still acting up. You struggle for normalcy, pretending your don’t see the sun which glints through the window at an angle which alerts you to its setting. You ask about ma and whether she got any rest and I pretend not to see your eyes slide to the side, checking fearfully on the angle of light. I ask if you have slept, for a moment the old sardonic grin appears, tugging at me at its incongruity in the gaunt planes of your face. Before these endless nights and days I would have ventured to guess that no-one could have gone for a week without sleep, but time and you have proven me wrong.

I make myself busy, cleaning off your side table, throwing out the used kleenexs which litter its scarred, metal surface, then take the water cups and empty them in the bathroom. An espresso cup from the little Italian bakery on Sources alerts me that Binny had popped in. Walking briskly (for I know dusk is coming), I quickly fill a cardboard bucket with ice and return. You are sitting now on the side of the bed, your gauze covered foot dangling dangerously near the grubby floor. I admonish you and then superstitiously check your foot. A sweetly sick odour wafts from the stain which mars the tip of the white bandage. I ask when they changed it last and you reply irritably it wasn’t long ago.

Dust motes dance in the waning sunlight which at this angle shines directly on your bed. You close your poor tired eyes for a moment, basking in the warmth and promise of safety. Then, your eyes open, the gentleness displaced now by an glittering intensity. You reach and pull the flashlight from the drawer, and began to snap it on and off – checking carefully for the strength of its light. I pull yet another set of batteries from my purse. Taking them, you concentrate carefully on unscrewing the lens and inserting the new batteries.

We chat desultorily as I massage your foot, the skin cracked and broken, with the crème Dede had brought. I also rub in the special lip balm as the constant oxygen has dried out the tender membrane of your lips. You say that Kealin already did that, after your dinner she gave you a sponge bath and rubbed cream in. I say it won’t hurt. Your skin is parchment pale and like vellum it is cracked and worn and somehow fragile. Your cheeks, once plump and rosy, have hollowed and caved in on themselves.

Together we ignore the gathering dusk, the threatening darkness which gathers outside the hospital window, leaching colour from the fragile landscape as it leaches coherence from your mind.

Adrenaline courses through your veins as the light dims, tense, strung taut and almost thrumming, you sit drumming your heels on the bed. I have hung the blankets so your foot is more or less protected, I have learned there is nothing to be gained by trying to calm. Hospital routine continues around us as we sit cocooned in the harsh, grateful light of the fluorescent fixtures about the bed. I give you a few moments peace as I slip downstairs and slot quarters into a machine. I return with a hot, black styrophone cup of coffee. Remnants of reason return to your eyes and you grin conspiratorially with me. Opening the drawer, I slip out a tiny bottle of Irish whiskey and measure a minute drop of your youth into the coffee. I pull the tray closer, your fingers are numb and clumsy, the coffee hot. I warn you and am reassured, slightly, by your crusty response. You sip, small, intense sips at the hot liquid, the sweet smell of Irish rising with the coffee’s steam into the fetid hospital air.

The nurse comes bustling in, her uniform creased but clean. She chats cheerfully to you as she checks your intravenous (fine), your blood levels (good, considering). She murmurs sympathetically as you grimace as she checks the site of the intravenous needle, then pulls off a piece of tape and anchors it more firmly. She efficiently changes the bag of urine, marking down the measurement on your chart. The bed groans and clanks as she adjusts the back, admonishing you to lie back and relax and try to sleep. She turns off the light. In the reflection of light from the corridor, your eyes are huge as they turn fearfully to mine, I take your hand then reach and put the flashlight into it. You turn it on and place it precisely on the tray, spending several minutes adjusting the angle of light. You have your cane now, you sit, back uncomfortably rigid staring out at the night.

I adjust pillows behind your back, I take your cane, I push gently on your shoulders but you resist. I sense your eyes feverishly searching the corners of our small cocoon, the linen walls moving in the slight breeze from the air units. Beyond, your roommates rest, not for them the terrors of the night. Only for you, my dearest father, my once strong, once proud da. Suddenly you sit completely upright, your foot tangling in the steel cage which imprisons it. I pull the blanket up, resigned and help you swing your feet around. I place, despite your protests, the soft slipper on your foot – reminding you that the last thing you need is more infection. You demand your cane and reluctantly I pass it to you. Sure enough, a few seconds later you lurch forward. I am waiting for this and in a second have my shoulder beneath your arm. Limping you swing into the chair I have placed ready. I pull the tray with its precious light closer, anticipating you. I affix the oxygen prongs into your nose. Angrily, you swat away my hand and pull the clear plastic tubing away.

And so we begin our nightly battle, child against parent, parent against the night, child against madness. We skirmish, we battle, we rest (though not for long). Within an hour I have you at least back in the bed, I feel better when your foot is dangling above the floor, grubby and inadequately cleaned from a health system which promises much and delivers little and sees cleanliness as something that can be replaced by a bottom line. My arm smarts where your cane caught me unaware but I have managed to prevail on you to keep the oxygen in for almost 10 minutes and I relish my small victory. Outside no longer exists, not the corridor lit by night lighting, not the sound of nurses and buzzers going on beyond the room to your door, not the life which lies outside the opaque walls of window which reflect a distorted pageant back to us.

We are warriors, you and I, soldiers of an army of two, fighting a battle because that is what we do and what we are, unaware of the war, rather, caught up in passion and desire and madness we do what needs to be done.

At 2 a.m. a gentle hand pulls back the linen curtain and the sweet-faced respiratory technician slips in. You quieten, though just a moment before we were locked in a quiet, intense struggle, me to keep you in bed, you to escape. Reason returns for a moment, and like an admonished child, you sit with your head hanging, your great eyes full of guilt. She sits beside you, murmuring soft words, scolding you gently for not having your oxygen. Obediently, you hold the mask to your face as the ventilin steams through the small holes, hissing sibilantly in the quiet night. Taking advantage, I slip downstairs to stand in the cooling spring night to smoke a cigarette. I inhale and look up into the night sky. Here, in this world, the stars wink above the orb of sky, the smell of spring wafts across my face, touching soft fingers and caressing my skin.

In the other world, the inside one in which you inhabit, there is no breeze, no friendly winks of light to reassure, no velvet darkness to encompass and caress you, just deep, endless hard darkness to strike and buffet you, to lose you in its harsh embrace. Stubbing out the cigarette, I hurry back inside.

A nurse is with you when I slip behind our curtain. She has turned on the night light so it is angled at the end of the bed. You sit, content, bathed in its weak light, unaware and uncaring as she changes the bandage on your foot. I help. As she twists of the layers of gauze, I steel myself. The rot has increased exponentially I think as the soft, stinking mass of your foot is revealed. She looks up, sympathy in her eyes, but she knows I know and want to be here, so says nothing, merely rolls the reeking bandage carefully and placing it in the plastic bag I have ready. With a swab she cleans the area, rinsing off rotting skin, cleaning off infection. Your small toe is already gone. Gloved, I hold your heel gently as she probes at the black mass which used to be your next to smallest – her breath catches and she looks up at me sharply as the mass slides off into the waiting gauze. I meet her eyes with an impersonal gaze and simply fold the gauze over it and add it to the bag. A few minutes later and your foot is wrapped and clean.

The worst part of the night is on us now – the nurse switches off the light as she slips silently out and with the dying of the light goes the last modicum of reason in your poor exhausted brain.

Silently, but intensely we struggle. I hear your breath come shallowly and harsh and attempt to push the prongs of the oxygen into your nose. Determinedly you pull them off, snapping the tubing. I speak quietly but harshly to you, and like a child, you stop, abashed, for a moment. I replace the tubing and we begin our struggle anew. A part of my brain remains apart, amazed at our futile struggles, I question how we came to this, a father and daughter locked in such an intimate and vicious cycle of struggle. Even as I lie, half on you as you struggle to escape, I remember. I remember when you were all to me, the font of all wisdom, the voice of reason. A man loving and educated, teaching us classical music was not violins and cellos but something to feed the soul, that reading opened your mind to the wonders of the world, that education was necessary to expand your universe, not simply a means to an end. A man, emotional and reserved, to whom Christmas was the most joyous day of the year; a man who kissed us and hugged us and never, never laid a hand in anger on us because men would never do that – hurt a woman or child. A man whose tongue would cut and whose great green eyes would bring us to tears. A man, passionate and caring, careless and cruel, but most of all, our da – always there for us.

Exhausted, we both pause in our struggle, I sit beside the bed, keeping an iron fist on your chest to stop you from rising. The cane, your grandfather’s sturdy black ash, is under the bed, away from your reach. I glance at my wrist and see it is close to 4 a.m. I long for mum. Attuned as we are, you ask where she is. I answer, steadily, soon.

As if in answer to our prayers, the curtain twitches. The smell of spring mingled with her own sweet, unmistakable essence precedes her. She is wearing a heavy tweed coat, a warm cashmere scarf wrapped around her throat. She slips over, quietly, her thin frame insubstantial yet like steel, strong. She runs her hand over your face. I feel your relief, but most of all your joy.

Outside, darkness still shrouds the world but inside I feel the light which emanates from her presence. You bask in it. You quieten. From the feeble light of the flashlight I cannot see your expression, but I feel your reason return. She murmurs, then a soft hand takes mine and tugs me outside. We sit on the harsh benches outside the elevator bank, she elicits your night from me, a routine one when all is said and done. She embraces me. Although I am so much larger, I feel enveloped, protected, a child again, safe in the womb. I cling, quietly, desperately, then release her and kissing her soft, worn cheek, we slip back. He is sitting up now, his gaze turned expectantly toward the door as we enter. Content, he is quiet. She slips up onto the bed beside him, he pushes over, even jokes slightly that she is taking all the room. He nestles next to her back, his poor tired eyes close. In the silence of the room I hear his sigh of contentment.

Quietly, I gather my purse and go out to meet the day.

"coulda been a party"...

2009-06-22T08:28:00.003-04:00

Well, that made for an interesting weekend.

Translating an online friendship into reality is often potentially fraught with potential disillusion and disappointment so meeting my friend Jen after almost 5 years of corresponding via blogs, email, facebook and occasional chat was destined to be an interesting exercise.

Picking her up at the airport, I was relieved to recognize her immediately (and she me – thank god for honest pictures). Physically, she was somewhat different than I envisioned and personality wise, the confidence, brashness and quixotic humour translated into a slight awkwardness and a bit of rather charming self-consciousness.

I felt remarkably (for me) sanguine about the meeting and realized in hindsight that the reality was that I was simply comfortable with the possibility of it working out either way; ultimately, other than during a very brief period of our correspondence, I felt I had some insight into the reality of Jen and as such, was neither overly invested nor in any way counting on anything other than it would be fun to meet face to face.

As it is the beginning of Pride Week here in colourful Toronto, and Jen is gay (how serendipitous – it wasn’t planned as she is ostensibly in here for a conference connected with her job), I did some preliminary homework by quizzing some of Rowan’s gay friends about a good place to eat, hang out in the Village.

Thus, after booking her into her hotel in the wilds of Mississauga, we headed downtown for a short tour and then plans for the evening centered on the Village (Church and Wellesley – the gay district of Toronto).

Slacks was the name of the restaurant/club . Small, casual and with a lovely atmosphere, on entering I felt immediately comfortable. Sipping red wine, Jen and I felt out way through what was in fact a ‘first” meeting and caught up with each other’s lives. The evening was young and slowly the place began to fill up with a wide variety of individuals, many of whom were colourful and unique in their demeanours and appearances and offered an endless source of delightful contemplation.

Jen was effusive and charmingly brash as she relaxed with several drinks (I had two glasses of wine then stopped as I was driving). We met two wonderful ladies – waves to Jocelyn and Wendy – who as the evening progressed told us that the place was closing for a private cast party for an Indie film called The Baby Formula (here is a synopsis ) ... well as luck would have it, they gave us tickets to remain and we ended up having a blast at the party as well as enjoying free drinks, food and entertainment!

Also part of our party was a lovely lady called Gayle – in for the weekend from Sarnia and smitten – badly and fulsomely – with my West Coast friend. Gayle had been married for 25+ years when she fell in love with another woman and discovered what she now feels she was suppressing for many years. She earnestly tried to convince me that I had to be “honest” and that if I came “out” , while initially difficult, she is sure that like her, not one of her truly important relationships suffered in the end and she continues to have a terrific relationship with her three kids and even with her ex-husband. In vain, I argued patiently that I really, truly was extremely FOND of penises and couldn’t envision a life without them! Apparently, she remains unconvinced yet at the same time admits that I give off a very decided “straight” air.

She did try to solicit other opinions that once you try pussy you’ll never go back, but I remain unconvinced LOL.
I know that I found the entire evening fascinating as my penchant for people-watching was well satisfied with the variety of individuals who wandered in and out of my purview; further, I got to dance which I enjoy thoroughly (even if I’m not that good at it) and had some stimulating conversations with some truly interesting people.

I did note some realities that made me laugh – such as the fact that apart from myself, the only other TWO individuals who were wearing skirts were two transvestites – one of whom was 6’3” tall, probably weighed around 280 lbs and was the father of 7! (yeah, we saw the pictures and the kids – both sexes- are the spit of “Steph with a K”).

Perhaps it was spending my teenage years in Montreal, but I’ve never had hang-ups one way or the other about gender issues. I’ve always been completely comfortable with love being love, whatever the guise and never had the least difficulty accepting people’s choices.

It was also rather fascinating to me to watch the younger girls and see how comfortable they were in their skin and their choices – a decided and positive step forward from when I was young and my much later “outed” gay friends were terrified of exposure.

It will be interesting to see what unfolds vis-a-vis the friendship I’ve had with Jen for several years; my instinct tells me she was ultimately extremely uncomfortable with meeting in the flesh (despite pushing for it for several years – she has been in Toronto before on business) and I got a sense of disquiet from her that perplexed me.

To be clear, it is not that she has a yen for me in a sexual or emotional way (in fact, she is in a very long and painful recovery from a very bad love affair); rather, perhaps she had infused the reality of selkie with something that in reality doesn’t exist? As any of my regular blogger buddies know, I don’t hold with pretence nor fantasy and what you see is what you get; but perhaps that isn’t what she had created in her mind?

I’m really not sure.

But meeting Jen was a step forward for me in the direction of rediscovering the reality of who I am – of finding the much neglected social aspect of my personality, whose demise I have mourned greatly recently as revelation after revelation has made itself known over the past many years of pain.

So all in all, whether Jen chooses to maintain our online friendship (we originally met on one of my now, long defunct blogs on Yahoo 360 and have maintained our connection on facebook) is up to her. With a few understandable differences, I found Jen to be very much how I envisioned and have no regrets about the face to face.

Soapbox Thursday: Anais Nin(niy)

2009-06-18T08:38:00.002-04:00

Several of you recently commented that while the Story of O had its drawbacks, it was in essence your first introduction to the eroticism of domination and submission. Although I remember a certain prurient curiosity about the book, even way back when I first read it I know it never tweaked me to an appreciable extent.

The author I do recall is Anais Nin.

At around the age of 12 I first came across her Delta of Venus and I was lost. I pulled her prose around me like rich, velvet ... soft, caressing and deliciously sensual. The stirrings of a still naive prepubescent selkie were in part provoked by her surrealistic, intimate writings, with their unapologetic sexuality and tantalising glimpses into an exotic lifestyle foreign to me.

Years later, D. gifted me with volume after volume of her diaries, her poetry and more of her prose and I found myself even more entranced as my own burgeoning sexuality felt a commensurate pull from the intensity and intimacy of her confessions. The dynamic flowering in rich red tones, all encompassing and urgent, between D. and I provided a counterpoint to her drowning submission to the men in her life and I found in her (I thought then) comprehension and understanding of the dark urges which drove me.

It would be a lifetime before I revisited her; perhaps around 2 years ago I rediscovered her books when cleaning out our back room and delighted, stacked them beside my bed, eager to reacquaint myself with remembered delights. D. had recently brought me home her autobiography and I had, amongst the thin volumes of her words, a biography, to that point never perused.

Curious to know the person behind the words, I read both before launching myself onto the visceral sweetness of remembrance of her thoughts.

BIG mistake.

While one can argue that art must in a moral world, be removed from the artist, the reality is that this is almost impossible to accomplish. While rationally one can argue that the “work” is separate from the hands that created it, there is a certain reality which precludes most of us from being completely capable of not allowing our insight into authors to colour the words they create.

Or, perhaps I do a lot of people a disservice, and admit plainly, I find it difficult to do so.

Because having read both her autobiography (and finding myself continually astonished at her blindness to her revelations about self), and her biography (kinder indeed than her OWN words), I found myself in the end incapable of igniting the same enjoyment from her work as I once revelled in.

The reality is that Anais was in every conceivable way a narcissistic, self-absorbed and shallow individual, whose single minded pursuit of stimulation and preoccupation with ‘being a name’ renders her words hollow. While she had provocation to a certain extent for her damaged psyche as it is clearly admitted that her father sexually used her when young (and she, later in life in her late 30s returned and deliberately had a further affair with him to alleviate her “emotions” about the early abuse), her blind sense of justice about choosing the paths she chose is off-putting and (in my opinion only) contemptible. For ultimately it is ALL about Anais..

Her pursuit of sensuality, of “exploring” her psyche, of seeking lovers to expand her thought processes and sexuality are in themselves negligible and in no way deserving of contempt. Her narrow minded tunnel vision on the other hand left me incredulous.

For god’s sake, she somehow managed to completely ignore World War II!!

She talks at length and fulsomely about her “need to submit” and in so doing deceives many into perceiving her as the ultimate submissive. You have to look long and hard to find a submissive blog on the web that doesn’t at some point quote one of her very ‘quotable’ utterances on surrendering her will to another.

The reality, however, is that Anais is one of the worst kinds of submissive. The type masquerading as submissive when in actual fact the entire power base and choices were in her small hands. The type who bleats how much she “needs” to be mastered, to be dominated and subdued when in fact it is she who controls every nuance of the relationship.

Don’t get me wrong – I have no issue with females wishing to dominate – at all. More power to them! What I do have an issue with are individuals who claim loudly and passionately they are sheep, when in fact they are the wolf.... ultimately it comes down to a perception of a personality.

The end result is that I find I cannot engage myself in the same delicious mind space I used to enter when reading her material – overlaying it is my insight into the true measure of her personality. For in the end, after reading both books, I realized that should she exist today, Anais is not someone I would care to know.

Story of O(bession), O(bjectification) and O(bsoletness))

2009-06-15T10:27:00.002-04:00

Ok, I know it’s not Thursday but I’m ranting regardless.

I don’t like the Story of O.

There I’ve said. Has the universe trembled? Has the world staggered in its journey around the sun?

I think Sir Stephen is a LOUSY master and in some ways, characterizes all the WORST characteristics of a bad dominant.

Not only does he not personally oversee a lot of the humiliations that are vested on her (thus placing her in potential danger physically), he is unconcerned and uninvolved with the possible impact on her psyche.

Not to my mind, the personality traits one would seek in someone who is to become the focus of your entire existence.

I won’t even waste my breath on what I think of Rene – wuss that he was.

I could never understand the fascination O had with Sir Stephen, the deep and intense regard she continued to accord him – but it tells me there was something seriously askew about her personality and speaks to me of a frightening lack of perception and insight on her part.

The reality is that while O mistakenly read into Sir Stephen’s prurient and sexually-complicit domination a depth of engagement of thought and emotion that never existed, Sir Stephen was (to my mind) well aware of her fascination and obsession and used it to manipulate and force her into situations that were potentially harmful to her on many levels – physically, mentally and spiritually.

I do not in any way dispute the right of a dominant in a relationship to push, encourage, demand certain concessions and acquiescence from his submissive; in fact, a good dominant is conscious of and active in, pushing limits and creating emotional spaces in which the submissive can expand and grow spiritually, physically and mentally.

But there is (again my opinion only) a commensurate understanding that her wellbeing on every level is always a factor to be seriously considered and taken into account – it is called a “dynamic” for a reason – there is, after all, supposed to be a ‘give and take’ – not just a take, take, take.

It always astonishes me how anyone into kink even on a peripheral level fastens on to the Story of O as the penultimate ‘love story” of the D/s or M/s relationship.

The REALITY is it is anything BUT.

On the one hand, it is more than likely a very good mirror of many relationships I do see out there – relationships wherein one partner is ALWAYS the taker and the other ALWAYS the giver. Relationships where narcissism, self-obsession and selfishness are prominent and a true balance sadly absent.

On the other, the reality is that O is simply a toy to Sir Stephen, one to be used and played with and then discarded with nary a thought – after all there are many other toys out there. And had she sought that type of relationship (for there are individuals who seek that level of objectification and find in it answers the emotional need deep within), then that would be fine. But O did not seek to be a toy but rather a cherished, beloved part of his life.

And in the end, even her request for death (as she finds herself unable to live without him and has been discarded), is treated in a cavalier and dismissive fashion.
So screw you Sir Stephen – you aren’t a dominant, you aren’t a Master – you, like many out there, are simply an abusive, self-centered little boy.

and don’t get me started on Anais Nin ….

MIA

2009-06-15T05:46:00.002-04:00

sorry for the inadvertent MIA here .... laptop has decided to strike and we have been swamped in work. Hope to get the bugger sorted out this week and will try to catch up with everyone.

Triggers

2009-06-11T12:49:00.002-04:00

Each of us harbours in us, intrinsic to the soul, triggers.

Words; actions; smells; or a seemingly unrelated series of events which singly or together create in us a state of emotion. Most of us would label “triggers” as largely negative as it is those emotionally charged triggers that most of us remember. The words, the tone, the scenario opens a floodgate of memories that can overwhelm, immerse and create anxiety, angst and depression.

Yet there are positive triggers or too, and it’s an interesting observation that human beings generally seem to dwell on the negatives in their lives rather than focus on the positive. I’m not sure if the propensity to do so can be narrowed to culture, upbringing, nature or gender but I find it fairly common.

I find the whole “triggering” scenario fascinating if frustrating. Because it is like a game of dominos.... the trigger occurs which in turn provokes an action or emotion which subsequently triggers a reaction and like dominos falling to the implacability of motion, triggers are almost impossible to halt once begun. I find too that some triggers are so powerful that despite awareness of them, mind and soul still react in the pavlovian fashion that one can learn to despise.

Even more disconcerting are the triggers we don’t recognize and can only learn to apprehend when our awareness of a pattern in certain behaviours becomes apparent.

I believe that most of us seek some form of enlightenment over our actions and reactions and yearn to master ourselves and keep our emotions balanced. I think one of the most frustrating aspects of being human is how, despite best intentions, we fall prey again and again to the same learned responses and only in hindsight recognize our complicity in unwarranted reactions.

At the most atavistic level, I think triggers and learned response are part of our “reptile” brain; that part of our brain that controls instinctual survival behaviours. From this internet source:

It's similar to the brain possessed by the hardy reptiles that preceded mammals,
roughly 200 million years ago. It's 'preverbal', but controls life functions
such as autonomic brain, breathing, heart rate and the fight or flight
mechanism. Lacking language, its impulses are instinctual and ritualistic. It's
concerned with fundamental needs such as survival, physical maintenance,
hoarding, dominance, preening and mating. It is also found in lower life forms
such as lizards, crocodiles and birds. It is at the base of your skull emerging
from your spinal column.

TMI – I know but truly I think our ‘triggers’ are somehow embedded in that part of the mind. For triggers are seldom created from an isolated incident, a one-time event, an unusual situation (with the exception of unusual life-altering experiences). Rather, they are learned behaviours that teach us recognition of potential danger – damage to our bodies, harm to our emotions, injury to our equilibrium.

In short, at its most simplistic, triggers can be linked to our “fight or flight” mechanism.

I recognized that the other night when some simple words triggered an intense, powerful and very painful reaction in me.... a reaction which mirrored all the physical characteristics of panic and fright from a heart pounding so hard that it felt as if it were going to escape my chest, to a lightheadness and a huge tsunami of anxiety that threatened to drown me in its intensity.

The aftermath, as my heartbeat slowed, as my emotions begin to equalize, as panic subsided, was an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, a despairing certitude that we are victims of our own weaknesses. That no matter how one struggles to control negative mindsets, the insidious nature of bred-in-the-bone reactions ultimately triumphs over rationale and awareness. That the reality was that those particular words (or almost identical ones) had heretofore preceded Very Bad Things Many Times was irrelevant.

Can we learn new patterns?

Can we recognize, identify and overcome triggers?

What do you think?

The cat came back

2009-06-08T09:30:00.002-04:00

and I'm very happy.

It would have been three weeks tomorrow that Schnitzel disappeared. He is one of our rescues, the sweetest, gentlest cat I've ever known. He seldom wandered further than the front yard. We put up signs, posted on craigslist and I checked in frequently with Toronto Animal Services and checked each time I went to the Humane Society. He did have a collar and tags and is microchipped .. it was the microchip that brought him home.

He ended up in a man's garden at least four blocks away (a long way for him - he isn't the brightest crayon in the box) - and the man and wife thought he was so sweet they determiend to find him a home - but checked first and voila! We got a call and he brought him home!

We are so happy - welcome home Schnitzel!

Inimical or not?

2009-06-06T18:22:00.004-04:00

The current brouhaha about Vivian’s e-book on DD has me musing on some anomalies.

First and foremost, I can’t comment on her qualifications (or not) to write a book on Domestic Discipline. I haven’t read her blogs. I don’t know her entire story except through other voices. Thus I won’t even begin to speculate on the veracity of her writing.

There is one thing I WILL say – I think as compassionate, thinking human beings, we need to avoid what tastes like a ‘witch hunt”. Condemning out of hand a book no one has actually read just doesn’t seem fair. Not that I discount the opinions of those whom I respect – but I would be far more comfortable if the criticism were directed more at the content of the e-book and less at the individual who wrote it.

On a general scale, however, I think some interesting arguments arise in terms of who is qualified to write/talk/give advice on the less documented aspects of the human experience.

On the one hand, there are a plethora of experts in the world (and I’m not talking specifically kink here) – who write erudite tomes on subjects, situations and syndromes with which they themselves do not have first-hand experience. Psychiatrists and psychologists can discuss symptoms, case histories and treatment plans for OCD patients, for instance, and not suffer from the syndrome themselves.

Counselors successfully (sometimes) deal with a myriad of issues that don’t impact on a personal level, their own lives.

Anthropologists talk about social structures in societies they have no in-depth understanding of – and in view of the fact that their very presence already destroys any legitimate empirical evidence – puts to question their conclusions.

The gist, however, of the criticism (and it certainly sounds legitimate) is that dispensing advice about how to create a successful DD relationship requires insight and personal experience, but MOST importantly (my emphasis) – a successful DD relationship.

I know that one of the issues I’ve struggled with in my own writings is the understanding that my experiences are unique to me and to the dynamic and life experience that I’ve personally internalized. I am fully cognizant that the dynamic I lived for many years was probably in some respects, the antithesis of many apparently “successful” and even envied D/s dynamics out there.

Certainly, when I first began perusing the web, I found myself questioning the veracity of what I had always felt was a rich, varied and working dynamic. Fortunately, I quickly wised up to the plethora of “wanna be” kingmakers and quickly learned to dismiss anyone that rigidly defined what is ultimately a human dynamic – for as each of carries with us our own exclusive and exceptional set of quirks, so too will each of our relationships display and internalize its own distinctive flavor.

So, first, there are many, many experts out there that write insightful books about subjects about which they have no personal experience.

Second, the reality is that each of us is unique with a distinctive and exclusive experience of our own dynamics.

BUT – and herein lies the rub.

Is it equally true when talking about a choice someone makes to pursue a certain type of lifestyle that cognitive understanding supersedes empirical knowledge?

I know that a on personal scale, I give far more credence to individuals who have walked the walk, individuals whose honesty about their lifestyle choice incorporates the bad along with the good, the warts together with the smooth skin. Because the reality is we are fallible human beings, we make mistakes, we take missteps, we screw up … and that is further compounded by the reality that our significant others do as well (yes, even the Masters, the Sirs, the dominants, the HOH’s too- last I looked, they belonged to the human race).

But admitting to mistakes, taking ownership of bad decisions, discussing situations and reactions that are counterproductive and inimical to a healthy relationship are only valid if there is a commensurate sharing of what works in the relationship – the actions, reactions, efforts and understandings that together create a healthy dynamic (of any flavor).

I have never subscribed to the “Do as I say not as I do” school of Christian thought.

In the end, all the insight in the world is pointless if one has not achieved a level of understanding on how to make things WORK. And it is difficult indeed to swallow advice based on speculation and a thought process – perhaps insightful, perhaps not – that did not yield in the end the desired result – a successful relationship based on the tenets of the lifestyle you have actively chosen to follow.

From a practical perspective and to illustrate – flogging can be done by anyone choosing to pick up a whip – but proper flogging (wherein the participants both benefit and achieve the desired state of mind) can only be done only by someone who has had “hands-on” experience, training and practice.

I do understand that many of the criticisms of the author’s self-proclaimed expertise is induced by a genuine concern for those who are unfamiliar with the author’s background and history taking to heart the nature of what she preaches.

Unfortunately, the credulousness of the human species continues to astonish.

But the reality is that exponentially there is probably far more disinformation out there on the net than valid information – that is the reality of the web.

It is ultimately the individual who must take responsibility for their own choices and accept their compliance in being lectured to and deceived rather than apportioning blame to those who either knowingly or through their own ignorance create a patina of expertise and purport to hold the key to the incredibly complex world of human relationships.

Reality bites

2009-06-03T09:41:00.004-04:00

….He lay curled up, hands clasped between his bent legs, unkempt hair spilling over a face aged and craggy from abuse, neglect and denial. The morning was chill, enough to make me shiver, as cocooned in the warmth of my warm car, I cringed as I thought how cold the pavement must feel beneath him.

… She was tiny, A hat was pulled tight around the greying coarse hair which framed her wrinkled face, clad in baggy jeans that pooled around her narrow waist and fell in folds around her legs. She moved furtively, a hat pulled down tight, eyes flickering and nervous, creeping down the moving escalator like a little mouse trying to escape the notice of a hungry cat.

… Moving confidently, cell pressed to his ear, suit pressed, sharp, fitting perfectly he strides through the mall like a prince, words staccato and loud, inviting attention and approbation for his person

People … varied, unique, convoluted and every single one different. We don’t see the stories behind the face they show to the world and while sometimes their stories are etched into the reality of their bodies and the worn realities of skin and health, that is only part of their tale.

The homeless man, one of many I see frequently stretched out on pavement around St. Michael’s Hospital – what is his story? I often think to myself; he was a child once, with innocent eyes and wonder waiting to be born, with a future unimagined and endless possibilities yet to be realized. Did he have a mother who looked at his little face with its unlined skin and fresh, questioning eyes and think how much she adored him? Did he have siblings who cuddled and fought and slept in warm puppy piles when winter nights drew close and the cold he now courted as his paramour was then an enemy?

What happened to that man? Was it bred in the bone that he would find the pavement of an uncaring city his home? Was it neglect or abuse or did he somehow lose his way during the tumultuous pubescent years and not find the inner strength to fight his way back?

The small, frail Asian woman with her ill-fitting clothes, clean and pressed, her furtive, frightened air, skittering down the escalator as I walked up with my morning coffee. Her limbs were so tiny, her small frame reminiscent of a frail child, her face so full of character that it entranced me and made my imagination soar. Did she begin her life in a small village, surrounded by rice paddies and a village that followed the cycle of sun and season? Was her birth greeted with regret because she was female and therefore less than? Her hands were strong and worn and capable I noted as we passed and her body, though frail, radiated a lean strength and I could tell in our fleeting encounter that she was no stranger to hard work.

I wondered what she thought of this country. Whether the customs and practices were alienating and perplexing… whether she had children and grandchildren and if so, if she retained her cultural imperatives or had time and proximity opened her eyes to different possibilities.

And the boy, striding purposefully through the mall, a young knight, arrogant and self important – it would be easy to revile him for his brash self confidence and gift him with a privileged childhood and a spoiled young adulthood. But I had been there once – a young professional with a confident air and an arrogant face and yet behind the eyes, where my soul lived, the realities were vastly different. The struggle with self-esteem, the self-questioning, the critical flagellation of my talent were not apparent in my guise yet were real nonetheless.

And as I peruse the cyber world, the same dichotomy emerges, clothed about with words and pretence, painted liberally with fantasy and desire, the unfolding journeys range from the absurd to the sublime and yet others resonate with me, and carry with them the realities of time and demand, of mood and emotion and in their stories I find validation and understanding.

Words can betray us to those who peruse them; for even when we couch our stories in humour and insouciance, our realities can bleed through onto the virtual page and the pain leach into the hearts of our readers.

Time is the great leveller I believe.

For while I do not believe we can truly “know” another simply through what they choose to share, personalities and reactions do over time provide a framework in which to understand at least facets of the writer. The subject matter of our thoughts, the perspectives, the things that enflame, the quirks that attract – all combine to create a structure in which we gain some insight into the person behind the words.

I think this is why – like swan in her blog here and Morningstar in her blog here illustrate beautifully and from the perspective of REALITY, the impossibility of being experts when it is indeed fantasy and a rich imagination that fuels the tales. I find an absurdity coloured with anger for those who purport experience when all that fuels their passion is desire and fantasy.

People are credulous.

People want to believe.

Those entering any unknown realm are uncertain, nervous, eager to learn, passionate in their newfound arena of exploration. They are willing to suspend belief and in the way of people everywhere, quick to see in themselves, ignorance and a lack of knowledge as negatives and failures.

It is the nature of the human beast, I think, except for a very few, to harbour doubts about their abilities and inner convictions and it is immoral for the poseurs and the fakes to capitalize on their uncertainty.

Of course in the end, to my mind, it is all about practicalities. I know that fairly quickly, my credulousness disappeared as the pure impossibility of ANYONE having the kind of time, opportunity and desire that I saw in many of these stories simply defied logic. Short of fiction, the myriad realities of demands on ALL of us – from children to jobs to health issues to mood are inevitable and inescapable.

So tell your tales and like a donkey, bray your “experiences”, but one can only hope that readers can ingest the absurdities and impossibilities together with the fantasy.

And so...

2009-05-27T11:15:00.000-04:00

Mist eddies silently through the quiet streets, drifting moisture-laden clouds that breathe cool on my face and slick vapour into pores until I look down and see tiny droplets of water glistening on the sweep of arm and know my face shimmers like the pulsing dark around me. I gaze up into the shrouded night and feel the sky press around me and in that secret part of myself hear the resonation of something just beyond the curling mist.

Do you ever feel so restless that your skin crawls along the tendons and muscles of your body, a flickering live thing, so you shudder and your skin dances as if an independent cog and not an intricate part of corporeal reality of self?

The Celt in me trembles and feels the weight of possibilities pressing against my soul, pushing maybes into the tangled web of possibilities entrenched in each of our souls, unfledged, deep inside mind and heart. For each of us carries with us the promise of new beginnings, new paths to explore and tributaries overhung with potential and the promise of finding peace.

Moisture weeps from dark morning and sweeps in on factitious winds that tug tendrils of hair from the bundled mass at the nape of my neck, as I slip through clouds of mist and fog which soften and obscure familiar streets and lends to them an air of mystery. A heavy strand of hair becomes unanchored and with a sigh flutters across my face, scented of vanilla and spice and the hot warmth of body.

I’ve realized lately that I seem to have lost some vital parts of who I used to be. The reactions garnered from certain situations have shocked me in the message delivered and prodded me into some uncomfortable soul-searching to ascertain whether those pieces can be regained or are lost forever.

Do you ever look in a mirror and wonder what the hell happened to the person you thought you knew?

The physical realities of aging are inevitable (which I think SUCKS incidentally) and from that perspective I find myself sometimes appalled when I see their realities embossed on my flesh. Because from inside looking out, one never feels all that much different, it is sometimes shocking to see a stranger looking back.

But more emphatic are the emotional and spiritual impacts of maturity. This whole middle aged crisis thing for instance, joking aside, has proven to carry both positive and negative implications – but thus far, seems inevitably entwined with some kind of pain. Now for a masochist, that is not always necessarily a bad thing but there is pain that liberates and pain that cripples and while I internalize that change in itself brings discomfort, some of the revelations I’m being granted have been unwelcome and hurt something deep inside.

I have burrowed deep down into the hidden nooks of my elemental self, seeking the spurious safety of dark, hidden places to mask the totality of my capitulation to sorrow. I have hidden beneath my skin, removed myself from behind my eyes, do they dim? Is their spring green less brilliant?

There is a comfort in separating from sorrow.

There is a calm to be achieved from refusing to feel.

But there is, despite my whinging, a commensurate comprehension of events and insight conferred that carries with it an ironic satisfaction and a niggling sense of rightness. Because in truth, the intellectual in me cannot help but savour the mental acuity which I have gained while the optimist (who I thought, truth to be told, had expired) is quivering and wiggling a little modicum of hope.

I continue to marvel at the complexity of the human animal and its infinite ability to fuck things up.

Yearning

2009-05-21T12:13:00.002-04:00

I stand, nose pressed against the cool glass and yearn into the endless sky which sweeps past in a dizzying expanse of cerulean want and possibilities of another life. I hear the call of the lake, the mournful seeking cry pulling me into the coolness of its embrace.

I am restless and discontented today, chafing at responsibilities and demands, my skin aching

I miss being bound…I miss the sweet touch of rope holding me tight and safe and embraced in caring. My back aches with the need to feel the sting of want across its pale surface. I lean my forehead against the cool windowpane and ache for what was.

My masochism huddles deep in my belly, curled up in a fearful huddle of limbs and need. So long. So long since I fed the need. So long since I felt the sting against my back, the hot, wanting lash of his desire, kissing pink into my spine and blushing lust into the curve of waist, the swell of hip. The feel of his hand against the meat of my bottom, the hot stinging thud, the wriggling, needy, stomach tingling frisson of him against my belly, firm, aching and moist.

I sigh and my eyes drink in the mumbling grey of the lake as it moves restlessly under the wheeling expanse of sky and horizon, and press against the window as if I would dive into the freedom of flight and then find the cool, damp embrace of lake enveloping me in its healing want.

I want to feel my wrists chafing in the binding of spirit. I want to feel the certitude of right and sink deep into my mind and find that small, intimate place where I sit tranquil and with a heart so full of quiet joy that the water from my selkie soul wells up and spills into the reality of now and feel his finger gently trace the glistening trail down my flushed cheek.

I want to lie quiet in my surrender and feel the faint fluttering as I wait patiently for the anticipated hurt, pain I understand and pull into my soul to savour, the sting of lash, the whistle of the cane or the sweet, warmth of flesh on flesh and in the doing, there is giving and in the giving there is acceptance.

I sigh and my eyes blur and fill with regret and mourn the loss of faith and the severing of trust .

Sunlight spills through the cool air and like a capricious kitten skitters through the green glint of leaves which dance and flutter their aching newness in gleeful abandon in the square below. Smoke eddies through the air from the iron and steel of tomorrow’s world and teases my memory with other moments which trail tears through my thoughts and sting regret into my heart.

I am fallow. A parched field, untilled and forgotten. And I realize as my heart beats painfully against the prison of my chest that like a phantom limb, the ache of my loss continues.

Paths

2009-05-21T09:36:00.002-04:00

I was going to ask – do you ever wonder where you would be RIGHT now if you had chosen a different path? But then I realized the question answers itself – I don’t believe there is a person alive that doesn’t at some point speculate where they might right now had they made different choices way back when….

What is an even MORE interesting exercise is ask someone CLOSE to you to speculate where you might have ended up had you made different choices.

D. intriguingly thought I would be unmarried, no children and immersed in a career. I’m not sure why I was surprised at his prediction as he was correct that before my very first child I was NEVER one to yearn for children nor seek the white picket fence life. I was driven, ambitious, competitive and a workaholic.

While I liked babies well enough, I never as a child or teenager or young woman had a desire to propagate them nor in any way desired the stability of married life nor the reality (and what I perceived the stultified existence) of what I saw as a “mundane” life.

Truth be told, I was intense, passionate and highly aggressive when it came to a career.

The choice came as I finished up my Master’s. It was take the offer of a full scholarship to an American University to pursue my PhD or follow D. to Toronto, getting married beforehand. Well, it is obvious I picked the latter but in hindsight, he is PROBABLY right – had he not been in the picture I probably would have taken advantage of the scholarship – which would have lead me to a VERY different path than the one I now tread.

How odd to think of it!

Because there are so many other factors that would come into play.

I have what my parents always termed “tinker’s feet”. Perhaps as a result of a childhood spent in various countries, moving on a whim, travelling extensively but I developed a penchant for it.

Due to the realities of life, my travelling forays pretty well came to a screeching halt and one of my still aching held regrets revolves around the lack of exposure to new countries, cultures and milieus – not just for me but it is like a physical ache that my kids and D as well have never had the opportunities I had. I very much suspect had I pursued a PhD I would have ended up here, there and everywhere as the world is out there for people with advanced degrees and a lack of inhibitions when it comes to exploring it.

While I am cognizant that musing on possibilities is both pointless and in some respects, counter-productive, it sometimes provides food for thought. Because it occurs to me in considering past choices, that in some ways, I have lost sight of some intrinsically personal personality traits that defined in large part who I am.

The whole “mid-life” crisis thing is not always just full of negatives and clichés. The reality is some of us reach an age where there is more behind than ahead and as the realization filters through our workaday brains that we’re on the other side of the hill, it urges us to pause at the top of that hill and look back at where we’ve been.

And distance – metaphysical and real – can sometimes give perspective. Add perspective, throw in life experience, sweeten with maturity and then a dash of sorrow and you end up with a viewpoint that is often remarkably distant from your original intent. Oddly, negative experiences can be even more powerful in providing insight and illumination and the past few years have provided rich opportunities to me to contemplate the realities of life.

Most profound about this new awareness is the understanding that life continues to evolve, that each of us continues to change and the future remains open to interpretation, choice and determination. In short, our future is OURS to create and it is WE who are responsible for making the choices.

I believe it is within our grasp to seriously explore our own psyches and find what motivations, what urgings, what needs we have failed to succour and decide whether the consequences are worth the impetus to change.

At the end of it all, there are consequence and impact to every choice made – even the ones we refuse to make and no one but ourselves can be held responsible for the unfolding of new paths … or keeping our trudging steps in the ruts of the old.

The Village Square - Musings on the Internet

2009-05-19T14:40:00.002-04:00

The much-touted “anonymity” of the internet is a concept I think vastly over-rated. The belief that you can be who you like, what you like, take on the persona, the appearance of what you would like to be or perhaps how you would like to present yourself is I think an erroneous assumption..

This is true only in quantifiable measures, I think. Now while it seem that sociopaths seem to be everywhere these days (which leads one to questions the morality which is prevalent in our society), given that one is NOT a sociopath, I truly believe that people can't hide their ultimate personalities. You may start out "pretending" but the real you will eventually stand up and make itself known - I think that is human nature. This is particularly apt to occur if you carry on long-term internet "friendships" or dialogues.

I’ve never even attempted to be someone other than who I am – I know that the “real me” would just rebel against it.

There are SO many ways to track where a person has been after all, so lying about where you’re located, for instance, is almost an exercise in futility Even among housemates, it is not simplistic. While simple enough to erase cookies, history and files - if the person owning the computer or with administrative rights has Mcafee for instance, they can track an "event log" which details exactly where a particular user has been. And for the myriad computer geeks out there, tracing someone’s whereabouts is fairly straightforward if you know the tricks and have the (often) free programs.

Further, with a very few exceptions, we are all creatures of habit. We use certain names, certain passwords - our themes remain fairly consistent because to do otherwise would make it impossible to keep track of your user names and passwords - most of us think sequentially and our short-term memories are limited - so we use markers to remind us of certain things - this is true not just on the internet but in the plethora of "security" that abounds out there now, in our daily lives - we seem to need some sort of code for everything these days.

So ultimately, you can run but you can't hide.

I am really starting to realize that the promised anonymity of the internet is all a big load of hooey - we can ALL be traced.

Not having anything to hide, this in itself would not normally bother me - the spurious privacy extended by either Vista or XP is enough for regular privacy needs in the home- i.e. you don't want the kiddies seeing daddy or mummy happens to like (in my case) BDSM, for instance - you have your own name, your own password, your own page as it were.

Even more important, there is such a thing as personal morality involved. From an early age, I tried to teach my kids respect for personal space and in turn, tried to allow them their own privacy (within reason). D. and I assumed our children (yes, even the teenagers) were telling us the truth until events or words proved otherwise. Did it come back to bite us in the ass? Absolutely at certain times- but I still think it was the moral choice to make and overall, our children did not abuse our trust.

As they are older now, I find that they provide us with the same respect. For instance, my kids know I have a blog – but have never once asked to see it, in fact they actively avoid searching for it. When one of my daughter’s friends came across it, Rowan was mortified and furious and told her to stay away- that it was “my mum’s personal space”. In that vein, I am not on their facebook site nor they on mine – all concerned find it horrifying to think of “sharing” that way.

While I think to some extent, what we peruse or enjoy, the pages we frequent, the blogs we love are indicative of certain personality traits and can to a limited extent, define the totality of what we are – they are again, ultimately only a facet of the complicated psyches that we are. So to extrapolate an in-depth and personal “knowledge” of an individual simply through online dialogue is I think a very erroneous assumption and potentially disastrous if one starts assigning too much weight to a perception that is ultimately based only on what the individual chooses to share.

At its most simplistic, assuming you “know” someone simply through their words is like claiming a personal relationship with an author – because you’ve read everything he’s written you claim to know him intimately. But the reality is you do not. You only know what he has shared in his art.

Not that I discount the possibility of real friendships occurring. I think they can. Because ultimately the internet is simply another tool – a meeting place which in today’s global village substitutes for the town square. We reach out and dance our thoughts along the strings of the web and skitter along its highways and byways and along the way, find little nests of comfort, places where thoughts and words and personality attract and intrigue, “kitchens” where we can sit and catch up and bend the ear of a sympathetic friend, “clubs” where we can flirt and dance and know ourselves safe and quiet places where we can sit and contemplate and muse on thoughts which spark familiarity in our hearts.

But caution must be exercised. A certain wariness maintained. Because the unfortunate reality is that the spurious anonymity often gives cruelty a mask and dishonesty a patina of respectability. Clever words do not always reflect intelligence and insight nor erudite musings compassion.

Like any other relationship, a healthy dose of self-esteem, an unjaundiced eye and clear sight offer the best protection.

Venture into the square and meet your neighbours – just know like in real life, you don’t know what occurs behind closed doors.

7 things

2009-05-17T11:34:00.005-04:00

So the Imp tagged me - I actually like doing these silly things but have a rule about tagging others - so I would love to hear some of "your" seven things - just won't put anyone on the spot.

Rules:
1. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post
2. Share 7 facts about yourself in the post
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post, leave their names & links to their blogs
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

This is actually way harder than I thought when I first read it:

Selkie Fact 1 - I don't tan - ever - at all - I just burn - I learned this early on when I lived in Grand Bahamas - so I was around 15 the last time I even tried. I wear 45 spf sunscreen and spend most of the summer cocooning - I love my garden but only work in it early morning and late afternoon in the shade - this isn't that hard as I adore trees and have many of them in my yard.

Selkie Fact 2 - I broke my back when I was 15 - was in a steel body brace for 1.5 years - and still went dancing - I did this in Ireland when my cousins and I were being stupid on a tractor. I fell off and went under the wheels. I saw the wheel coming for my neck (vivid memory of this) and twisted. I broke 4 verterbrae and crushed 3 and the surgeon told me I missed becoming quadrapalegic by a whisper. We didn't even tell my aunt (who was away as my uncle was in hospital sick) for three days as I was afraid my cousins would get in trouble. (A Sub-Fact - I have an EXTREMELY high pain tolerance - a sadist's dream!)

Selkie Fact 3 - I have an undergrad degree in English and Classics and a Masters in Communications (speciality Journalism). I worked for 14 years in the media field - from journalist to editor to various other things. I gave it up for typing at night when I had my first child. No regrets (and ended up having 4 kids in less than 6 years - another Sub-Fact - I never do things in halves).

Selkie Fact 4 - D. was my first lover in every respect - intercourse, anal, oral, you name it.

Selkie - Fact 5 - I was threatened with jail and almost kicked out of university when doing my Undergrad. I discovered the University President was making illegal deals and exposed it in our student newspaper. It was stressful but I hung tough, never revealed my source and the President resigned.

Selkie - Fact 6 - I am SERIOUSLY craftily-challenged - I mean I am HORRIFIC at doing anything "crafty" - and detest them. I tortured myself on and off over the years before I embraced my lack of fine motor skills and accepted it. My friend Sally would do the stupid crafty things my kids were required to do at school and bring them over in a bag and the kids and I would glue them on the banners and stuff. I love Sally.

Selkie - Fact 7 - I don't panic - ever. I can keep my head in really stressful situations. I keep calm when situations are falling apart and do what needs doing. I only fall to pieces when I'm by myself and where no one can see me. I also stand up and do what needs doing rather than sit back and wait for someone else to do it. This makes me either a pushy broad or extremely capable.