And today is better

I have no way of knowing how many read here. Some, I know find at least some of my inner storminess disturbing, and for the very best of reasons want to "save" me from the winds and waves that wash across my spirit by times...

I still struggle with this place. Struggle to maintain this format as different in intent and context from the listserv style fora where I also participate and write. There, I expect to interact, to share what I experience, to ask questions, to receive and offer feedback. Here, although I welcome the comments of those of you who read, I write for me, and for Master. My intent here is to give voice to what comes inside -- to examine and unravel the twisted tangled yarn of my thinking and mental meanderings. Or, if not to untangle it, at the very least to put it outside my head, where it can be laid in the light and not jabber away at me in the dark corners of my mind. Here, I don't actually expect to get "fixes" for the issues, questions, or dilemmas. I'm just talking. It's a journal -- a diary. On-line and open to your eyes if you are curious, but a journal just the same.

So yesterday was a shriek, mental emotional nuttiness that ended up here because I'm better at putting that sort of stuff down in writing than I am at getting it out in spoken words. When I couldn't find a way to tell Master how frightened and needful of His hands on me I was "out loud," or even in IM, I finally put it here. The shrieking grimness came from whatever sources: the sense of exhaustion, the new toy, the hormonal tides of approaching menopause, the inevitable insanities that always accompany the ending of a school year, the mounting stressors... Whatever... Doesn't matter. I knew I was in trouble, and not able to just smile my way through it anymore. The one person on the planet who can fix that for me right now, is the one who owns me... He knows what is needed to calm me, to center me, to focus me. When I told Him that what I was feeling was on the blog, He read, and told me that we would work it out. I was told to have my collar on when He got home...the collar I so seldom wear unless I put it on myself. To put it on at His command is, for me, a great symbolic act.
I didn't know what to expect from Him. Driving home, my cell phone rang and it was T, asking if I was OK. Tearfully, I admitted that "no, I really wasn't..., and no, I didn't know why." She told me to go home and take a nap. I figured I had chores to do at home, but when I got there, I did put on the collar and went to lie down for what I meant to be just a few minutes. I was still asleep, deeply, when Master arrived home. He snuggled with me for a long while, holding me and soothing me, telling me how lovely my collar looked, assuring me that I was "His." I fell asleep again in His arms. The next I knew, T was waking me up telling me that dinner was ready. It was 7:30. I'd been asleep for almost 3 hours. We ate dinner. We laughed. We spent some time, watched some baseball on the television. Went to bed nestled in each others arms. Still I had my collar on.

This morning, He and I talked some. He declared that I would be paddled with the new paddle -- the one that caused me such panic, and then also tied to the end of the futon and strapped with the rubber strap because I'd questioned if He intended to release me (that was at one panicky point yesterday when I was receiving no response from Him to my IM's -- turns out He was busy with work related phone calls). He intends that I will someday understand that "always" means ALWAYS. I was, at first, just wordless in the face of these pronouncements. Trying to breathe through the gut level response that they created in me. He held me and stroked me, but was implacable.

Eventually, the time came for what was to be the "pleasurable" spanking. The paddling with the new paddle -- leather and very heavy. Over the bed pillows I went. Restrained at the ankles, knees, and wrists. He stroked me and soothed me, and proceeded to paddle me quite soundly, after insisting that I kiss the paddle and ask Him to please paddle me, as is our custom. I cried and sobbed, but I stayed in place and made it through. We would have made love at that point, but just then T arrived for snuggling and some spanking of Himself (hehehehehe) -- a rather complex mutual collaring arrangement the two of them have. Then we decided to head off to breakfast.

After breakfast, T headed of for some shopping, and He and I headed back to bed. I was still dreading the "discipline" I knew was coming for wondering about whether He would release me. When it came up and He asked me if I understood why I was being disciplined, I told Him (honestly) I didn't think it was fair, but that it was His decision, and I accepted that. To my surprise, He relented, asked me if I had learned that no matter what, He would never release me, never abandon me, never leave me? Asked if that lesson had been learned even without the strapping? I told Him, "Yes, Sir." And so I did not have to endure the rubber strapping that I so dreaded.

We did make love then. That part of our life has been improving. We've found the rhythm that works for Him and helps Him achieve release. It pleases us both to find our way to that place. For me, it is trickier. I am slower now that the hormonal weirdnesses are upon me.

We took a bit of a nap, and then I tried to see if I couldn't find my way to orgasm with my vibrator. No dice. Then He offered to fist me. We haven't successfully managed that in months and months. I've been too "dry" or too "inflexible" or something. It just hasn't gone well. And it used to be a source of the most amazing and glorious joy for us both, but especially for me. I have mourned the loss of it terribly, and simultaneously been afraid to try again -- fisting gone bad is a miserable experience.

So when the offer came, I was amazed, and a little intimidated, and still oh so willing to try. It was like offering steak and lobster to someone who has been living on dry bread for a very long time.

You can't fist someone who won't help. I have to go along to make it work. It is scary knowing that it is coming and it requires the ultimate in submission -- open up, relax those muscles, give Him the access. We made it. Not easy at first. Not the simplest and most radical session we've ever had, but we were there and I was there. Together.

Master knew. T knew. We knew. What to do to weather the storms.

Today is better. I am held closer. Collared. Spanked soundly. Fisted stupid.

There will be storms again. Of this I am sure. Sunshine, too. I will always know where I can go to find safe harbor and secure anchor. Always.

swan

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Grim

I'm depressed.
I'm sad.
I'm lost.
It feels as if the grayness that is outside on this cold and rainy day is inside of me as well.
I know that part of it is the unending string of trouble and difficulty and crises that seem to dog us, one after the other. Still, the rational, logical part of my brain says that we are together and lucky to be so. No one has died or is about to. Still, I am worn out, and grumpy, and pissed off.
And, if you read here for spanking stuff, you don't get much. That's because we don't do it much. But even if we did, the fact is that I SUCK at it. I've just flat gotten wimpy. So, He doesn't play with me. Why would He? I'm no fun. Not for someone who wants a real bottom to play with sadistically. He loves me, so He keeps on trying to make do, but He also keeps edging toward wishing for someone who could go where I used to be able to go...
I am heartbroken and terrified...
There's a new paddle. Came in the mail yesterday. He ordered it. Scares the shit out of me. I saw it when it came out of the box. Couldn't look at it. Went into a house-cleaning frenzy so I didn't have to think about it and so He couldn't see my face or my terror. And today I am scared out of my mind and nuts.
And we are as far apart as we have ever been. The weekend is coming and I don't even want to go home.
Everything is upside down. Everything is broken. I am broken.

swan

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Feral Submission

We are coming back together slowly. Finding our way into one another's rhythms and patterns again after what seems like a very long time apart together...

We spanked some this last weekend, even though we didn't either of us feel well, and we managed to make love with some level of success, although I feel as if I've forgotten even the simple rhythms of that... Awkward and clumsy was how I felt.

Deeper though is the sense, in me at least, that we are out of touch with one another.

Long ago, long before we came together, I was told by someone that "submissives submit." That simple bit of advice or wisdom or whatever, lodged in my mind and heart, and has guided much of my path ever since. I took it to mean that, whatever comes from without in terms of Dominance, the one who seeks to live as submissive finds the way to submit. Submission, in my view, is not something that is "taken" from me, forced, dragged, demanded, or otherwise coerced. Ideally, it is my calling and my goal to find what pleases and what is needed and desired by my Master -- and to do that, be that, give that...with as near perfect grace as I can manage. When I attain "perfect" submission, He would move His hand and whatever He most wanted or needed would be there already; whatever was desired would be supplied by me without His even needing to ask or think of it... My submission would be, from His perspective, nearly transparent...

That is the "ideal." Intellectually, it is what I strive for. Especially, in times like these last few months, when things have been difficult and stressful, that sort of ideal comes into play. Master has no time or energy to draw my submission from me with games and rituals and assorted erotic gambits. It has been up to me to submit with or without the active stimuli of BIG "D" Dominance. I've soothed myself; maintained my submission; acted to keep our home and lives on an even keel as best I could; answered to His needs and desires; and practiced to be as "transparent" as it was possible for me to be without the need for Him to think or act in regard to my submission generally. That part of our lives has been, as it should be, assumed.

The tricky thing about that is that I've gotten rather feral in my submission... A lot in my head. Out there on my own. Without the touch of His hand on my head, at my neck... without that restraint; without a collar to remind me to whom I belong. I've not forgotten. Not for a moment. But I've not practiced it in real time for a very long time. I've gotten skittish and shy and wildish. Our first coming together this weekend showed the marks of that. The voice in my head these days is mine -- not His. And that makes the time together all of the sudden very weird.

Feral submission. Odd state of affairs. Time to come in from the dark places. Time to come back to the fire and settle again. Time for some safety and security again...

swan

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Farewell to a Warrior Woman

Andrea Dworkin died April 9. She was among the first wave of radical feminists of the late 1960's, and one of the most difficult for many of us to embrace. I remember reading her work along with that of others during my coming awake, and while I never was able to go as far as she would have wanted, she was a voice in my head as I grew to awareness. Her contention that all intercourse was "male colonization of the female;" that "seduction meant that the rapist sometimes bothered to bring a bottle of wine;" "that pornography was training for rapists;" and in the later years, her more frustrated, and perhaps tired refrain that maybe "women needed their own country," left me always unsettled and thinking. As an anti-war activist and women's rights activist, she never gave up and she never gave in. She was an enigma and a challenge to the system she took on, and to the movement that she was a part of. I found her abrasive and too rigid and ultimately, I felt her inability to bend fed the power structure she sought to unseat. Still she framed an argument that needed to be made, and before her, there was no one who would even take it on... She would not have approved of my life, as a woman who chooses to surrender my personal power to a man, anymore than she would approve of the young women to whom her work and the work of others like her gave power and a voice -- women like this:
http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/04/andrea_dworkin_.html
It was rough territory that she and her compatriots forged pathways through, and so today, I give honor to Andrea Dworkin and her bright, tormented, fated journey. I stand on her shoulders. She and I would not see eye to eye, and she would surely disapprove, but she and others like her gave me a place to stand. She let me find my feet, my voice, and ultimately, my wings.

swan

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Happy Birthday, Sir

Yesterday was The Heretic's birthday. :-D

Unfortunately, none of us is particularly well, and our plans to celebrate got sort of waylaid with whatever the heck intestinal malady it is that has captured Clan Heron this weekend. And it is a nasty one.

Still, when we weren't busy feeling just miserable, we did look at each other and remember that four years ago it would have seemed like a wonderful and bright and glorious dream to be able to be together for this day -- even feeling sick and puny... That reminder is often enough to pull us out of whatever sad and gloomy place we might find ourselves lost in.

We are so lucky to have each other; to have had this year together. I am so lucky to have this man to love and to be loved by -- and to have my dear sister heart, T.

Happy Birthday, Sir. Feel better. There is a wonderful year ahead for us.

Love. Yours always and all ways.
swan

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A Minor Clarification

The Swan's Heart
This is "The Heretic." I want to clarify a couple of details in swan's previous post "The Punishment Question" which might lead some readers to misperceive our relationship. First of all, swan has never taken psychotropic medication. I make this point not because there is anything wrong with taking psychotropic medications to treat appropriate medical conditions, but just for the sake of accuracy. She did however, over a year ago begin a treatment regimen with a neurolyptic anti-epileptic med to control migraine headaches. The transition to this new drug was indeed difficult and emotionally
tempestuous. During this struggle to learn to live life within the context of a new "neuro-chemical phenomenological frame" we continued to play sado-masochistically. On two separate occasions, during mutually consensual spanking sessions (with swan as bottom) swan became enraged and tried to beat the hell out of her Master. Fortuantely she lacks the physical where with all to over power me or to seriously batter me. These were serious enough breaches of spanking protocal that in each case they resulted in her being quite severely whipped as a consequence---as will any further such behavior. I just wanted to clarify she was not punished directly becasue she was adjusting to a new medication.

I want to thank all of you who read here for potentiating this forum as a place for us to discuss our life and views and to
receive your comments, feedback, ideas, and experiences.

Too, I want to thank swan for following my direction to create this blog and for doing it so artfully and articulately. It takes courage to openly journal what you have here. I know you are learning that everyone has struggles and fears and triumphs and joys just as we do. You are not alone my love.

Now I think, that my having been so praising and sweet, there should be absolutely no thought of giving me any sort of birthday spanking this weekend. Actually that tradition that Masters switch with their slaves on their birthdays is an urban myth thought up by the religious right.

All the best:)

Raheretic

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

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The punishment question

My gateway into BDSM was through domestic discipline -- what some would call the watered down, sanitized, vanilla-cized version of the lifestyle that can be done safely in the confines of your own home, without ever having to admit that you are one of "them." Only, it didn't take me long to find my way into the deeper waters and know that I was, in fact, one of them, and love being so...

It also didn't take me long to come to be puzzled by the rule / failure / punishment dynamic that is usually so central to DD. I just never could, after the first little flush of gee whizness, "get" how one could go on breaking the rules time after time, and keep getting punished for essentially the same stuff over and over again. Within a matter of a very few weeks of starting DD, all the behaviors and issues that we had targeted for change HAD changed, and all the reasons to spank disciplinarily had evaporated into the mist never to be seen again. Even now, in a much more intense M/s relationship, punishment seldom comes into the picture. I know what is expected, and I do it. To fail to meet His requirements and expectations would mortify me to the point that I'd be devastated. So I just don't go there. On the very few occasions that I've merited punishment in the last couple of years, it has almost always been because of some emotional outburst indicative of extreme mental duress -- at least one or two of those episodes were, in fact, driven by adjustments to fairly potent psychotropic medication.

The simple fact is, in my view at least, that adults who are mentally competent, do what they are supposed to do; what they commit to do; what is required of them within the framework of their relationships. They do this without being continually supervised and without the threat of adverse consequences for failure to perform. So I've never understood the basic premise for much of DD... It always seems a construct designed to extract attention and the sense of "control" and feeling of being "dominated" without having to admit to that or ask for it.

However... Lately... Been being good a lot all by myself... And missing the hand that pulls me to Him and tells me that I am owned and His...

Maybe I do understand why one would be bad. Sometimes.

swan

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Just an odd bit of space

It is odd how it goes between us these days. We are wrapped up in each other physically, and yet prohibited from any sort of intensity -- no sex for another week yet. We don't really talk about it, but it seems, to me at least, that there is tacit agreement between us that we'll do nothing to turn up the sexual heat...

So we have snuggled in and hugged one another close and tightly, but not spanked, and well, banked the flames to the point that whatever heat there might be there is pretty well imperceptible.

I know that He is indulging in self-gratification that might very well fall outside the limits set by the doctor for this post operative period. I tried in the first few days to discourage that, but it was made clear that He was not going to hear any of that from me or anyone else, so... I know where my lines are.

For me, trying not to up the ante means I am mostly doing without. Late at night, on a couple of occasions, after He's fallen asleep, I've tried to reach orgasm by myself, but I am too distracted and too wired up to find my way through the swirling thoughts in my head. We've been in this enforced "doing without" mode for way too long between my surgeries and now this. My focus is not sufficiently "focused."

My dreams are, however, intently focused. Increasingly luridly full of SM imagery, of being tightly bound and severely beaten -- unable to move, unable to scream, unable to change or control any of it. I know, rationally, that what I am dreaming up is beyond my capacity to endure in real time. Still, hunger is a funny thing...

What I know is that the road ahead of us looks not a whole lot less bumpy than the one we've recently traversed; that there are likely to be many more weeks and months ahead when we will survive on the slim rations of smiles, and tender looks, and clasped hands, and shared caresses. I know that there will be days ahead when I will surely be utterly grateful for the blessings of those gifts and I do not want to piss off the good spirits of the universe who pass out the goodies, but oh today, I am finding it hard to be satisfied...

swan

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Wow!!!

His heart is perfect! No blockages anywhere. No sign of any disease anywhere...

Apparently, in rare cases, with barrel chested men (and Master is indeed barrel-chested) sometimes the radioactive stress tests give a false positive. This has been the case with The Heretic.

T and I have Him home with us. He is recovering from the procedure and being an absolute pain in the neck -- fussing and fuming about the restrictions that have been placed upon Him because of the procedure. It is a good thing that she and I are still giddy over the good news and that the needs of the recovery period preclude Him being beaten... ;-)

So... twice in a month, the medical tests have put us through a bit of worry and then let us off the hook. Would it be presumptuous to ask for one more???

The next hurdle now is the set of biopsies that need to be scheduled again... prostate and bladder. Now that the heart has been cleared, we can do that. We have a month before He sees the cardiologist for a final clearance from this and then we'll begin the next round. For now, we will rest in this quiet harbor maybe.

swan

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Whistling in the Dark

I need to write. Need words. Need to not be alone in my head today. Need to not have empty spaces that can feel up with dark scary monsters in the corners of my mind...

We sat at dinner last night and talked of lots of things. We've all been trying hard to not be scared with each other. We are the "brave" family. It is clear that each one of us has decided that letting our fears show makes it harder on each of the other two. So there are happy faces all around. If you don't look too close. And we don't. None of us peer into the depths of the eyes where the little scared furry critters skitter in the underbrush of the mind. Each of us politely ignore that tightness around the lips and the eyes... We're all trying hard to take care of one another the best we know how, and that includes not ratcheting up the general level of anxiety in the household.

So I was just a little taken by surprise when He looked at me and said, "I am not feeling very dominant these last few weeks -- I just feel weak and vulnerable."

I sat there and tried to take in the vibration of those sounds. Not the meaning of the words so much as the feeling of them; what they did in the air between us... Because it is true that the rhythms of our M/s have shifted these last weeks. Been softer and more subtle. I've lain in His arms in the dark nights and early mornings and felt my bonds made not of leather or rope, but of heartbeats and breaths, and something even more ethereal and more powerful than that. It is true that, physically, we've been less inclined to the obvious, outward displays of power exchange, and yet I've known myself more deeply bound to Him in these weeks than in any of the previous months or years. He senses that He is less able to protect, less able to compel, less able to "take" my compliance. All this at the same moment that I am so deeply aware that He has become my very lifeblood; that the heart that will be the subject of attention this day pounds out the rhythms of my life as much as it does His...

How interesting that He senses a diminishment when the diminishment has etched the bonds more deeply into my soul.

We are indeed different -- Dominants and submissives.

swan

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Blue Heron Totem

As long as we've been together, we've been accompanied by Great Blue Herons. Whenever momentous things have been brewing between us or for us, the Herons have come and stood watching over us, or simply, stood watching us. Sometimes, when it seems things are less complex, or we simply need a reminder, they make a flyover visit.

When we first were getting to know each other, developing the foundations of friendship, visiting back and forth across the 1200 miles that separated Cincinnati and Denver, no visit ever passed without the blessing of the Heron. Quite often we would awaken on the first morning that we were all together and find the Heron standing calmly outside, looking in the windows, as if waiting for us to notice. And most often, once seen, the stately bird would lift into flight. Mission accomplished. Job changes, crises of one sort or another, shifts in relating to one another, new discoveries... each new challenge or event came heralded by a blue gray, feathered messenger. We came to believe that the Heron was our totem, our guide, our friend -- a powerful symbol of our family and the bond between us. So it was that, over time we adopted for ourselves the name of Heron Clan. Each of us wears a heron medallion on a chain around our necks. It is a simple token to remind us of yet another bond between us.

Actually, Herons are marvellous critters; strong and independent. One of the best places we've found to learn about the Great Blue Heron as a totem bird is this website: http://wolfs_moon.tripod.com/BlueHeronTotem.html

It has been a cold, bitter winter here in Cincinnati. The herons have been elsewhere all winter and we've not seen a one. It is late. Usually they are back long before now, but spring has been slow to arrive here this year. Yesterday, finally, was warm and sunny, and I got home before Master and T and thought maybe we could actually enjoy dinner on the patio. So, I set up the grill and prepared to make some of our favorite grilled chicken. I cleaned the winter's grime off the table, sauteed some vegetables and poured a nice wine. We sat and enjoyed a pleasant dinner just off the pond. It was a joy to finally be free of the confines of the house. Just as we were finishing up, the first heron of the season came flying across the pond and directly over where we sat. They are back! Spring has arrived and our Clan has survived another long and dreary winter.

Friday is coming

Friday is coming.

On that day, Master will undergo cardiac catheterization, and I will not be there. At least, I will not be there when He goes to the hospital and they prep Him and take Him for the procedure.

T will go with Him and be with Him. I will be at school.
I have no personal days left because of my surgery last month. Because I am not "legally" His wife, not technically anything but a friend and neighbor as far as anyone knows, I have no legitimate reason to be there. If I were "wife," or even a some other kind of relative, I would, of course be given the time off to be there... But neighbors and friends just worry from afar...

The effect of being hidden; the effect of having no public status; is that my Love will go into this major procedure while I am miles away in a classroom full of adolescents, trying to act as if there is nothing at all going on.

I'll leave school about a half hour after the whole thing is scheduled to begin, and go flying across town just as fast as I possibly can. I'll get to Him as quickly as I can. Most likely, by then, He'll be already in the cath lab, and things will be in progress. I'll get there in time to sit with T, and wait to hear from the doctor.

There are times when I hardly notice the strictures that being the "other" in this poly arrangement place on my role. Certainly, within our family, I have no sense of being "other" or "less" or in anyway limited by the lack of "legal" status as "wife." This week though, I am finding that those who would argue that marriage ought to be limited to "one man and one woman" because that is the right and moral way -- because that STRENGTHENS families, are people who are just ignorant, who must just not get it. Or else they are just mean. Our family is not strengthened by not being able to wrap up in each other in the moments leading up to this -- we will be strong and we will get through this, but the fact that we cannot hold one another's hands because we must remember to keep the secret is just wicked. Damn all those who make that so!!!

swan

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Polyamory

As the move to further codify and calcify the legal strictures against alternative "marriage" structures like ours gains steam, it gets scarier and scarier to BE poly. The ACLU, who fights for just about everybody, won't touch us. They figure it is a lost cause. And just everybody - EVERYBODY, and their dog is out there spouting the mantra, "Marriage is one man and one woman. So it is refreshing and heartening to find this...

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=506242

an excellent legal brief on polyamory...

swan

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Some changes

Obviously it looks a little different here...
I needed a template that would let me add links and this one does that.
And in the last couple of days, I've set it up so that The Heretic and T can both start writing here along with me if they choose to. I don't know if they will, but they can now I think. So the voices may blend some. That will be interesting. Maybe our family will make a different sort of sound here.

swan

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Needing

It has seemed that in the last few days, I've ached more and been more tender and just felt like this last bit of healing is interminable... and I have felt so needy. For all the endless and whiney carrying on that I am prone to about spanking, I have just been needing...

So, yesterday morning, when I couldn't do it again, and really couldn't sustain the physical jostling needed for our lovemaking either, and was up and about after breakfast feeling empty and hungry and useless and lost... I tried so hard to remember that slaves focus on the Master. So I ironed... Shirts and trousers all neat and crisp and pressed and hung neatly in the closet. And then I got myself all cleaned up and spiffed up and kissed Him sweetly and headed off for my doctor's appointment without ever mentioning to Him how really worried I was about this ache and pain that has been going on in my shoulder since before Christmas...

And then after that to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned.

Not home until almost 5:30, and by then I had a raging headache. But there was dinner to be made and put on the table.

I make a wicked crabcake. Acorn squash. Fresh broccoli. Sourdough bread. A nice white wine. I could barely eat, I was so sick. By all reports, it was a very good meal. I managed to get the table cleared and the most critical kitchen clean up done.

Staggered blindly off to bed and to sleep by 7 PM. Still so needy.

But then this morning, I woke from dreaming of spanking, and in my still sleepy, warm, nuzzly, happy softness, I told Him what I needed. He asked if it would be really OK, and I told Him, honestly, that I didn't really know, but... that I needed. And please, Sir, I need your hand -- please?

Ask, and you shall receive. Rolled over, onto my belly, hand spanked, and the Hanson paddle (which has not been out since before the appendix came out almost a month ago), and then the rattan cane. A real spanking! I moaned and groaned and sweated and sobbed and squirmed and gasped and panted and, when it was done, I lie on the mattress, spent and happy, tears in my eyes, gathered in His arms. Ahhhhhh...

swan