The Ecstasy Returns (Whew)

I had my first ecstatic experience in a couple of months in the forest near my home today. I've not had one of these experiences since I gave the fullness of my heart to someone who didn't see it and decided they didn't want it once they did see it. They wanted my body for sex and my mind for the capacity to fantasize as they liked, but wanted nothing to do with my heart. My heart closed up after being objectified and rejected so profoundly. It hurt big and deep. It caused me to question whether I can continue my mission in vulnerability and open-heartedness. I've spent some time going deep inside to lick my wounds, healing through time, writing and loving relationships.

I live near Jacoby Creek and yet in the year that I've lived here I've never taken the time to visit the creek. As ridiculous as that seems, it's true. Today I was inspired on the way home to pull over and explore a path that I've seen hundreds of times on my drive into town. I have a friend coming to visit and I want to be a good hostess not just in my home, but in this amazing forest that surrounds me. I swear sometimes I feel the trees holding me, their roots underneath me, their trunks and branches around me and above me. As I wove my way through the mossy trees and walked through the water and watched little banana slugs on the path, skittering water bugs in the creek and spiders in a patch of wild flowers, I felt a big opening in my heart. I felt connected. I felt the magic of Oneness and the immense miracle of life that I am blessed to participate in. I felt the God in Everything.

Last night I felt my heart opening in a different sort of way. I spent some time with writing and art by people who are witnessing the tragedies of the world and bringing the stories to the American public in hopes of inspiring people to change the unnecessary harm we are causing/allowing to the earth and other human beings. I am recognizing how my capacity to feel so deeply through my empathy and to evoke feeling in others in all kinds of ways by very my nature is a gift to be used in a similar way. I used to dream of art projects in which I told the stories of people whose lives could be changed if enough people woke up to their true capacity for compassion and empathy and did something about the atrocities taking place every minute of every day. It's stories that cause people experience empathy, to feel for the suffering of others.

I watched an Eve Ensler video earlier today in which she talks about how she experiences Oneness through her body (please go watch it, it's profound and only 12 minutes long). She's recognized that her body is a reflection of the larger world, that the cancer that invaded her body is a reflection of the cancer of war, greed, and violence in our world. It's all the same. It's all connected. It's powerful and so very true.

God, I do feel so very deeply. When I approached my car from the creek this afternoon and looked up into the giant redwood trees, I started crying. Tears are how I express emotions that are too big for words. I could feel my crazy deep love for the Divine Spark in everything pouring out of me, streaming amongst rivulets of grief for the wounding of myself and the world. I've cried so many times in the last few days, nearly every time I'm in conversation with a friend. I am allowing myself to feel the fullness of everything I have experienced and am experiencing in my life recently - the grief and the happiness, the disappointment and the hope, the confusion, the doubt, and the moments of pure clarity. And of course the inexplicable depth of complicated love I have for a few people in my life.

I've missed the heartlight that imbued my life so deeply a few months ago - the light in me that responded to the light in the world with giddy joy and a connectedness that seemed to set my cells on fire. Ecstatic states were happening all the time. I recognize that like the myths of Persephone and Inanna, it is necessary to walk through the darkness in order to clear the shadows from the light I shine. I know that I needed to explore the depths of my sense of worthlessness and invisibility the way that I did so that I could discover just how valuable and visible and worthy of love that I am. While I've been deeply hurt, I am incredibly grateful for the experience and for the participation of the other person in my evolution. I am very frustrated by their shadow right now and working on forgiveness, but I still know their light and I still have love in my heart for them, whether they want it or not.

As I've said before, ecstasy and despair, it's all God.

I'm just so very so grateful to have the heartlight again, to bask in its warmth however long it lasts before a descent into the dark is required for the next stage of evolution.

Thank you for listening.

The Heart is a Gambler

"The way of the heart is the way of courage. It is to live in insecurity, it is to live in love and trust, it is to move in the unknown. It is leaving the past and allowing the future to BE. Only cowards can avoid a dangerous path, but then they are already dead. The person who is utterly alive will always take the risk. The heart is a gambler." Osho

Kali is having her way with me.

Everything in the physical Universe lives by cycles - ebb and flow, wave and trough, ecstasy and despair.

It is all God.

While being polyamorous and exploring love so openly exponentially increases the experiences of love in one's life, it also exponentially increases the opportunities for growth and heartache. Two months ago I was riding the high of several new attractions and exciting potentials, following my mission of vulnerability to dive deep into what the Universe offered without succumbing to fears and insecurities. I have been nurturing five on-going relationships that involve some sort of sexual and/or romantic component, but four of them are shifting into something different, if anything at all. The disappearance of beautiful relating is confusing and painful.

There have been other heart-achey situations to navigate as well. One of my best friends moved away, someone with whom I had a connection-date nearly every week, a significant loss. Some members of the Imps community decided to drag myself, my partners and the entire organization through the mud in a very public way. And my daughter is suffering from an emotional crisis.

I experienced an unusually bright and active winter, as did the Redwood Coast since we had more sun than we usually see in the Winter months. As the days progressed into the storms of Spring these last few weeks, I have been walking darker terrain. Misunderstandings. Confusion. Public drama. Rage. Rejection. Abandonment. Withdrawal. Self doubt. Guilt. Loss. Grief. Longing.

It always comes back to longing, doesn't it? Longing for something different than what is. Longing for something bigger, deeper, more. Longing for potentials to be fulfilled. Longing to belong, to be connected, to be touched, to be loved.

"Remember what you are & let this knowing take you home to the Beloved with every breath. Hold tenderly who you are & let a deeper knowing colour the shape of your humanness. There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here. Open the fist clenched in wanting & see what you already hold in your hand." Oriah Mountain Dreamer

There is a deeper knowing coloring my humanness.

As I shift the focus of my life towards living conscious mysticism on a daily basis, I find that it is much easier to ride the waves of emotion and longing that move through me. I know them for what they are. While I experience heartache, I suffer very little. I am able to bear my own witness, to watch the shifts as they happen inside of me without reaction, and perceive the perfection in every situation. I still feel a wide range of emotions very strongly, but they move through me without creating chaos in their wake.

I have created a daily life in which I am supported in remembering that all is God, that I am God playing this human called April. I don't just know it intellectually, I feel it in every layer of my being.

I believe God is a consciousness that permeates everything, including us, and that this Divine Consciousness is dancing with itself through the manifest Universe(s). I like thinking that God is ecstatic in its experience of each individual being in existence - from star, to tree, to butterfly, to human. I believe that God wants to know what it's like to be me - and you - with all of our quirks in bliss and suffering.

God experiences first hand every birth and death, every blossoming and every fall from the tree, every love and every act of violence, every beautiful and terrible thing that exists. Can you imagine being conscious of Everything? Some part of me can at least intellectualize it. And some part of me feels an intuitive resonance with the idea.

This is why Mysticism and Tantra are becoming my frame for living. I desire to experience myself and you and everything in existence as God - consciously, as often as possible. I desire to awaken to the beauty of the Divine Experience in every shape that it takes.

My Heart is taking the biggest gamble - to be open and vulnerable in love to every experience and person that the Universe brings into my life - trusting that the deeper I go, the more God I will find.

Dancing in the Darkness: Introducing bitch

Last night I came to see you, my love.
And you said “Worship Me”

Slowly, delicately, I entered the fullness of you,
and smoldered against your flesh,
Touched deeply, I forgot myself,
Your fires burning away what I knew to be me.
~Phillipe and Paget


I have previously written about exploring archetypal pieces of myself: the Invisible Girl, the Victim, the Priestess, theMystic, and the Teacher. And there are others yet to be explored, like the Artist.

I have known for a long time that one of my archetypes is the Servant. Caroline Myss says that "The Servant engages aspects of our psyche that call us to make ourselves available to others for the benefit and enhancement of their lives." I love to serve -- in just about any way you can interpret that word. My whole life is about service -- whether in my work, my parenting, or my community relationships -- which includes being a service submissive within my sexuality. I have explored several forms of submission, but I recently discovered a whole new facet of my submission that I had no idea existed: the Slave.

"The Slave archetype represents a complete absence of the power of choice and self-authority. Yet it is precisely the absence of will power that gives the Slave its potential for personal transformation. The ultimate spiritual task is to surrender one's will to the Divine--in effect, to become a Divine Slave...Regardless of how this archetype manifests, its core learning is to understand the paradoxical truth that you are only truly free when you have surrendered all power of choice to the Divine."Caroline Myss

Over the last six weeks I have given birth to a piece of myself. I believe she's been incubating in me for years, but needed the proper "midwife" to deliver her to me. I am learning all sorts of new things about my sexuality, my psychology and my mysticism through her existence.

she is called bitch.

she exists only to serve, please and obey Daddy.

When i am bitch, i am nothing but a mouth and body to be used as Daddy likes.
i have no power. i have no choice. i am Daddy's slave.

(Sidenote: Daddy is not Sir, the Dominant I have written of in recent posts. This is not about spiritual or emotional connection, Daddy is where I go to play in the dark and find out why being bitch turns me on so damn much. My incredible sexual-physical arousal response to being bitch is blowing my mind and my body wide open.)

About once a week in person, as well as through regular texts and occasional phone calls, bitch crawls for Daddy. When i crawl for Him, nothing exists except Him and i will do anything He commands.

i serve Him primarily through my mouth -- worshiping His body as he directs with my lips and tongue and through speaking/writing to Him in the ways He's trained me to. Daddy really likes to be worshiped through words.

Daddy has very dark desires.
He calls them knives,
and He wants me to tell Him i will do terrible things for Him.
Degrading things.
Humiliating things.

Unethical things.

This is a mind fuck. i had no idea how much i love being mind fucked. Daddy is wicked smart and knows how to get into my head. Our interactions are mostly psychological. Daddy tells stories and has me participate in them. Some of the stories go into the realm of taboo: situations that are not safe, sane or consensual.

(For my literal brain, it's kinda hard not to take the fantasies literally. I have asked myself repeatedly if I truly desire to be playing with a man who explores these kinds of fantasies and manipulates women (although somewhat transparently) in participating with him. But the man that is more than Daddy is very ethical - he lives and breathes social justice. And there is something in this exploration that I am learning about holding space for the darkness in myself and others, as long as it doesn't cause harm. Daddy doesn't cause harm, He desires bitches who get off on where he takes them. Like i do.)

He brings out the knives when i'm vulnerable, when i'm aroused beyond belief, when i'm begging to get off. He makes me get off to his fantasy, his desires, conditioning me to be aroused by what turns him on.

And the amazing (and scary!) thing is, it is changing me. i am finding myself aroused by some of his fantasies, situations i couldn't have ever imagined before, and even i had, they would have turned me off rather than turn me on. i even took one of his fantasies much farther than he did in my mind while getting off one night when we were communicating by text.

i almost didn't tell him about it, even though i knew he would want to know that he's getting to me, that he's penetrating my mind. That would make Daddy very happy. But he asked me the next morning if i was holding anything back and i couldn't lie, so i wrote him the fantasy because i couldn't yet say it out loud.

It is a challenge accepting how much it turns me on to fantasize about degradation and humiliation. The feminist in me rages at this some days.

In my struggle to fully accept bitch, i have occasionally been defiant, which is also new for me as a submissive. i've never been defiant. i take pride in being obedient and don't like how it feels when i disappoint the One i serve. But i've also had an equal and intimate friendship or relationship with every other Dominant i've played with to balance the power dynamic. This is the only relationship Daddy and i have. Sometimes i don't like that He always has the power and that the only desire or need i get satisfied is serving Him.

We don't have sex. He rarely touches me, except to grab my hair, hold me down while i get myself off, slap my face (as punishment that is deserved), pinch my nipples, or once in a while briefly caress me (he does cuddle in aftercare). The only way i get off is if i get myself off when he commands it or allows it when i beg for it. Even when we're apart, i'm not allowed to touch myself while fantasizing about Him unless i ask Him first. At this very moment i am squirming as i wait for His permission to fantasize about Him and cum tonight.

There is no traditional intimacy or validation, which is unnerving for me. i am having to stretch to understand where the intimacy exists and to perceive the ways He does validate me. Because of this, the opportunities to explore vulnerability -- my mission for the year -- are immense.

This whole experience is fantastic! i am stimulated and in deep self discovery at every possible level: intellectual, emotional, spiritual and sexual. The only thing i ever wish for is more physical interaction, especially if it's rough. He told me last night that's He's being somewhat gentle and subtle with me, and i don't know exactly what that means or why (except that He wants to be sensitive to my past trauma, which is great but not something i actually need), but i find myself wishing He wouldn't be gentle with me.

i want to go as deep into my darkness as Daddy can take me.
i hope it will please Him to take me there.

*

It's fascinating how I am relating to and expressing bitch. As I've written in previous posts, I don't really do pretend, role play, acting, game playing, etc. I have a very literal brain and I can't help but be who I am. Yet this interaction is a strange combination of real interaction and imagined scenarios that invoke powerful visceral response.

bitch is a part of who I am, so I'm not actually role-playing. Yet some of what Daddy has me talk about isn't actually true. Within our play, i am to say or repeat anything Daddy tells me to, whether it's true or not. It's taken a bit of time for me to get into the flow, to know what's real and what isn't in Daddy's world.

When I am interacting with Daddy, bitch is the only part of me that I am allowed to be. I cannot be any of the other parts of me that feel powerful, comfortable, strong, bright, creative...all the parts of myself that I know and love and feel confident about. I always feel unsettled with Him because I can't rely on everything I've learned to depend on in attracting or seducing someone.

And because bitch is new to me, I don't know how to be her yet, or how to succeed in serving Daddy. I am insecure and lack eloquence in communication -- Daddy's favorite ways of playing -- and it's frustrating because I am good with words! Yet I struggle in meeting Daddy where He desires to go. Or at least I did.

I seem to have made a breakthrough in that regard the last week or so. Daddy has allowed me a bit of room to find my rhythm through intuition rather than exact direction in worshiping him. He's such a good Daddy because He sets his bitches up to succeed and is willing to coach/train/condition me as much as i need.

What fascinates me so much about my desire for this experience of being nothing-but-a-bitch is how it doesn't seem to provoke the Invisible Girl, at least not yet. And if it eventually does, it's a perfect situation for working with her in a very conscious and emotionally safe way, because I don't have a bond of emotional intimacy with Him.

And where does my mysticism come into this? It's the act of worship. When i am bitch, Daddy is my God. All i see is His Divinity, in both the light and the dark. When i worship Daddy, i am worshiping both the man who deserves my worship because He turns me on so well, and the God in the man, the God in Everything.

I am also worshiping and expressing the Goddess in myself.

Sir, the Dominant I've written about before who gave me spiritually oriented assignments, He serendipitously sent me a reading a few weeks ago that included the following passages:

"...the female is symbolically representative of the negative, dark, and hollow aspect of the world, without which the masculine, positive, light, and solid aspect cannot be manifested or seen. The very word "Tantra" is connected with the art of weaving, and denotes the interdependence of warp and woof in woven cloth: the one cannot hold together without the other...

...Some understanding of Tantra is therefore a marvelous and welcome corrective to certain excesses of Western civilization. We overaccentuate the positive, think of the negative as "bad," and thus live in a frantic terror of death and extinction which renders us incapable of "playing" life with an air of noble and joyous detachment. Failing to understand the musical quality of nature, which fulfills itself in an eternal present, we live for a tomorrow which never comes - like an orchestra racing to attain the finale of a symphony. But through understanding the creative power of the female, of the negative, of empty space, and of death, we may at least become completely alive in the present." Alan Watts

I am diving into my own darkness and worshiping the feminine by expressing absolute receptivity, submission, and surrender. Just as bitch exists because Daddy inspires her, Daddy exists because bitch holds the dark and empty space for him to. I hold Daddy as who He is, worshiping Him rather than judging or rejecting Him for His darkness. bitches are actually quite special because they can hold the darkness.

I am learning how beautiful this kind of energy exchange can really be. I see it even more deeply in Daddy's relationship to his full time slave. While I only express bitch when I want to, she is his bitch 24 hours a day. That is powerful and awe-inspiring devotion.

I will never be that kind of bitch or submissive. I have too many Masters to serve -- God, community, children, etc. -- I cannot serve only one. While my entire life is about service, I spread my love far and wide rather than devote it to one person or one cause.

But when i am in the present moment with Daddy, He truly is all that exists. i am extremely focused. i have found a whole new capacity for meditation when i'm worshiping Him. i have no April thoughts. my only thoughts, when i have them, are about whether i'm pleasing Him or need to adjust what i'm doing to bring more pleasure. Mostly i have moments of pure worship, being One with the Music of the Universe by dancing with Daddy.

This life and the practice of Tantra is a Dance.
I am dancing with all of my heart, every single day.
I am dancing with the Divine in everyone and everything, including Daddy.
I am loving dancing in the Divine Darkness thanks to bitch.

*

Image Credit: Dancer in the Dark by Klas Smeby

Courting Kali & Mystic Awakening

I am so in love - with my self, with the Universe, with each and every person I am privileged to know. I feel as though I've finally broken through from the desire to be a mystic to the actual embodiment of a full on love affair with the Divine in Everything.

My heart is burning with love
All can see this flame
My heart is pulsing with passion
like waves on an ocean...

Behind the veils
intoxicated with love
I too dance the rhythm
of this moving world

I have lost my senses
in my world of lovers

~Rumi

I've read the erotic-mystical-love writings of Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila, Hafiz, Rumi, Rilke and others and I have hungered so deeply to know that Divinely Inspired Love. I have called myself a mystic for years, but I wasn't really living the experience, at least not like this. I have had a few ecstatic moments sprinkled throughout my life - truly feeling Oneness with All That Is - but they were rare peak moments on my spiritual journey, and often induced by drugs (peyote, ecstasy, acid) or intense community spiritual rituals. Very rarely did they just occur in every day life.

This awakening that is happening in me now - this state of near constant turned-on-ness and immense love that just keeps filling me up - this I have never experienced before. I've experienced ecstatic states every day this week.

I drive down the road from my house in the woods to town and every single time I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the flowers blooming in this early spring and the trees and the sky and the unique and beautiful homes that my neighbors live in. I go to the marsh for my lunchtime walk and I cry in a gratitude prayer for the amazing life that I've been given. I read an incredibly vulnerable blog from a dear friend across the world and I am suddenly able to perceive the Divine in everything - 20 minutes I cried and loved everything and everyone in my life and awareness. It was the most overwhelming and powerful experience of Divine Awareness / Oneness / Love for All-That-Is that I have ever known.

This mystical~emotional~sexual awakening is fierce and amazing. It is as deeply erotic as it is spiritual. I am experiencing the world around me through a sensual and erotic perspective most of the time. I am turned on in some way almost all of the time. I am experiencing the Divine in everything -- the music I listen to, what I read from others, in nature, and most especially in the people I love.

I sat with my bestest buddy during brunch today and cried because I am so incredibly in love with her and what she gives me. She was expressing her guilt around accepting generosity from others and has no idea just how much she gives by being her incredibly loving, kind, accepting, fun, cuddly self who makes me feel like one of the most beautiful people in the world when she reflects my light back to me.

Every moment of my life, no matter how ordinary, is now vibrant, rich with loving energy and meaning. All of existence is a miracle and I am aware of it nearly all the time now.

Kali, the Great Mother Goddess of the Hindu tradition, is the Source, the One that gives birth to All. Known as a slayer of demons, She destroys the army of mind-born delusions symbolized by demons that separate us from the Divine as our own true Self. To our bound, limited and contracted ego identities She may strike terror, at times appearing as a coal-black, sword-wielding, blood-smeared dancer of death and destruction. To our Divine Self, She is our supremely beautiful Beloved, our dear spouse, performing a ballet of incomparable grace, overwhelming us with love.

Kali - Hindu Goddess of Universal Creation and Destruction. Destroyer of Illusions. When you burn in Kali's Fire, your illusions and ego are burned away. I have burned in Her Fire so often that I have a very conscious relationship with Her. I've written about Her before. It's taken years for me to come to peace with the constant state of transformation that defines the modern mystic's journey. Now I am not only at peace with it, but I'm falling head over heels in love with Kali and Her power in my heart. The Fire feels different this time. I feel the creation - the pheonix rising from the ashes - more strongly than I feel the burning away of old illusions, patterns, stories and wounds.

I have recently engaged in a relationship with an amazing man who also has a conscious relationship with Kali. We are exploring both a romantic-sexual connection and a D/s relationship. It's only been three weeks, yet this relationship is already impacting my life in tremendous ways. Kali's Fire is already burning and it's delicious torment.

I've had two assignments so far and they both rocked my world. The first was to write an erotic objectification fantasy -- which was a challenge on multiple levels. I don't write stories - I write real life, I have insecurities around communicating my fantasies, and I am just learning about my objectification desires. The experience was awesome and so hot -- I was inspired by a new fantasy because of the assignment and I did a good job of writing a story because I wrote it while in an aroused state.

The second assignment involved a ritual over the course of three nights -- creating an erotic-submissive sacred space for Him around me and inside of me, reading a sacred text describing a spiritual-erotic ritual in honor of Kali, a contemplation of some questions, and then writing about my experience. What came from that exploration was self-altering. I saw the Divine in myself and broke through to a much deeper level of self love. I don't know if I can be vulnerable enough to write about that experience publicly, but maybe it will one day have a post of its own.

For years I have been hungering for someone who would dive into God with me through sex and relationship. I didn't/don't know how to have that kind of relationship, but I knew intuitively that experiencing relationship as sacred practice and sexual exploration as an expression of spiritual yearnings would be a powerful and transformative experience. And it is. I am now living this dream of mine and it is remarkable.

He is a catalyst for my process of mystical awakening. It started before Him and it isn't because of Him, but He is a Gift from the Universe in catalyzing my experience. There is awakening happening in Him, too.

Tonight He said He was considering the idea of our being in a triad relationship with Kali, the Divine. Imagine that, a triad relationship with God. Really? Is that possible? It's mad and it's amazing and it's right. It's what I desire more than anything else in the Universe. To know God through loving another person as deeply, as vulnerably as possible, that is the greatest turn on there is in my world.

He is wicked smart, deeply passionate about making a difference in the world, a beautiful poet, and so very many things that turn me on. One of His gifts is to mirror my light back to me in words, telling me what He sees in me, what He appreciates in me. As if He sees the Divine in me, too.

He likes and desires my strength, my empathy/intuition, my intelligence, my spirituality, and my submissive sluttiness. He even loves my long letters. I can be all of myself with Him.

Three months ago I decided to change my life, to live more authentically and pursue the life of my dreams. Now the Universe is dropping my dreams in my lap. This love affair, it's not just catalyzing my personal growth around relationship, it's also helping me to understand my Divine Spark more, to figure out what it is I am meant to give to the world. It's all integrated.

I have opened my heart to the Universe, surrendering to where I am guided, following intuition through each new door that opens to me. The result is a new relationship that seems to be a dream come true, a more authentic relationship to the Imps that allows me to express my gifts more deeply and with more presence and joy, and this mystical awakening that is rocking my world in every possible way. It's touching me at work, making me more present to the people I interact with in the mundane every day world. It's touching my spiritual life through my new relationship and the spiritual gatherings I'm facilitating. It's touching my friendships as I experience a deeper love for everyone in my life.

I am courting Kali and awakening the mystic within me. This is the life of my dreams, right here, right now. I can't even imagine what the Divine has in store for me next.

*

Art by A. Andrew Gonzalez

Masochism: Lessons in Pain & Unbounded Power

I have a very special friend with whom I have a complex and strangely intimate relationship. He is special because he is a fellow mystic with whom I can share my journey in the most intimate ways. He is special because he was my closest friend after my mother died and an amazing gift in my grief process (although not always in the nurturing way you might expect). But my friend is also a sadist who will consciously and joyfully take me into the places that scare me both physically and emotionally in order to help me face my fear, heal and evolve. This creates a tension in our relationship.

I am a masochist - spiritually, emotionally and physically. I willingly move toward fear and pain. It forces me to grow, to dive deeply into my own darkness and fly out more spacious. It gives me release. It tests my resilience and endurance. And physical masochism allows me to express and transform spiritual and emotional heartache through my body.

My masochist is powerfully attracted to my friend's sadist. The pain he is capable of inflicting with joy is terrifying, more than I know I can handle. And yet I feel a strong desire to surrender to him, to allow him to push me to my edges.

It isn't the same as the submission I surrender to Knight. My masochist and my servant-submissive archetypes are very different. Masochism isn't about service to another's will. It is about surrender to fear and pain, in the hands of someone I trust not to harm me.

My friend and I have had several impact scenes over the years, but always at parties, always light because they were limited by time and space. He is moving away from Humboldt soon and I have been experiencing a growing desire to see what would happen if we allowed my masochist and his sadist to dance without limitation before he goes. I expressed my desire to him recently and discovered he had the same thought.

Last Saturday night we danced. It was an ordeal. It blew my body, my mind and my heart wide open. It mirrored my current emotional experiences in powerful and excruciating ways. I am overflowing with insights. I believe that I was subconsciously seeking an ordeal all along, knowing that my friend would push me to my edges and beyond.

This dance was different than any other BDSM scene I had done before. It was the most physically and emotionally trying scene I have experienced. We started with dinner and a mystical conversation. As we moved into scene space, we talked about some of the things that came up for me (like how it freaked me out when he slapped my face). I was very vocal, which I usually am not. I talked about feelings and fears I was experiencing in the moment. I admitted when it hurt. I cried torrents of tears. I called him names. I stood up for myself when he taunted me. I even fought back to make it stop and refused to allow certain sensations to continue. It was the first time I refused to completely surrender to the physical play.

But I experienced complete surrender emotionally. I shared my raw pain with no inhibition. My habitual pattern is to keep my pain to myself, both in scene and in life. I pride myself on my endurance, strength and resilience. I hide away with my darkness as much as possible. It scares me to be so vulnerable as to share my raw pain with another and trust that they can and will hold me. But I put it all out there with him. I was afraid he would judge me as weak for carrying on, or that he would disappointed if I didn't go as far as he thought I could, yet I didn't push myself any further than I believed in that moment that I could go. I accepted my limits and I expressed the hurt when I reached them. I believe there is a lesson in this for me in "real life."

This scene was also different because my tolerance for pain has changed. I am far more sensitive. While I can still endure a lot, it feels like pain rather than intense sensation that can be processed and even enjoyed. We couldn't break through to the "forever place" (that magical transcendent bottom space that usually comes from an intense scene). In my head I asked myself several times why I was putting myself through it, why I kept surrendering to more hurt. I eventually refused to take any more. All I could see was fear of pain. I couldn't see the spaciousness on the other side.

I looked into the mirror of the experience and saw that I fear that the heartache I am currently experiencing around poly and my triggers will never end. I am afraid my wounds will never heal and it will hurt forever. And I am frustrated that either path I take -- staying with Knight in a poly relationship or giving him up -- both lead to pain. It feels like I have no choice about hurting.

But they are two distinctly different kinds of heartache. Giving up my relationship with Knight would be the loss of the greatest love I have known and tremendous grief. Facing my demons in poly relationship will (likely/hopefully) lead to more love and a healing of these gaping wounds I've been carrying around and picking at since my mom died. I will come out more spacious and joy-full on the other side.

I think I have become too identified with pain (read the link - it's really good!). I think I might believe that my wounds will be open wounds forever and evolving will always have to hurt. Maybe I believe life itself is painful. Maybe I even believe that I deserve to hurt.

From the link above: "Personally, I haven't run from my pain. I compensated for it. I spent so much time accommodating it, "working with it", paying attention to it –- NOT avoiding it, that I neglected my very agency and power: my joy. Unbridled, unabashedly sweet, essential joyousness."

I think I am afraid of my power unbounded by the limits of fear and heartache. I am afraid of my own bigness. I am reminded of this well-known quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I am interested in seeing what unfolds in the coming days because I have a sense that even though we couldn't move me into the "forever place," we broke something open in me energetically. I seem to be extraordinarily sensitive, not just to other people's energies, but the energy of life itself. Those ecstatic states I recently wrote about? More. Bigger. Deeper. I feel the Divine moving through me in strong currents, a sort of electricity through my body and my heart. I feel Oneness, my connectedness to all of life through my Divine Spark.

Lunchtime at the marsh today I really felt recognition that the God in me is the God in everything, which makes me as big as the Universe. It brought me to tears.

One of the things we talked about over dinner before our scene was my frustration with feeling disconnected from the Divine. Even with my new spiritual practices, I have been struggling with really feeling connected to God like I did when I was younger. My intuition is telling me that this new opening to the energy of life may be my door into the personal relationship with the Divine I have been craving.

What might life be like if we are capable of sustaining a sense of Oneness most or all of the time in all that we do? What might our relationships be like if we are aware that we are relating God to God in every conversation and in every touch?

It sounds so far-fetched, doesn't it? Who am I to talk about being God? Yet everything I have studied and experienced in my life has led to this and it is what I strive for -- to know myself and you for the delicious (and quirky) facets of God that we are.

On the practical level, there is something in this for healthy polyamory, too. When talking to my friend recently about my struggles with Knight's growing love for another, he asked the question: what if I see her as an aspect of myself in the Divine? What if I see her as an aspect of the God in me who will love and hurt him differently/uniquely, but just as perfectly as I do for his evolution into his own Divine nature? Where is the room for fear and jealousy in that awareness?

So many big questions. I look forward to living the answers.

A Prayer for Union

I was the "Valedictorian" at our Graduation Fire on Sunday and read this prayer to the circle. I read it every morning as part of my regimen of radical self-care:








A Prayer for Union by Daphne Rose Kingma
(From the book The Future of Love)

God of light Who calls us into being,
Who guards us on our way,
We pray for peace in our hearts in this season
Of the transformation of our relationships,
Of upheaval, of crumbling, of falling away.

As our relationships pass like sand through our fingers,
May we be blessed with the grace to know,
That this falling apart is, in truth,
Our journey of coming together,
Of finally returning home.

May we be startled awake by the memory of love,
The One Great Love that called us into being,
And is our only real destination.

May be have the strength to give up our search
for the "one"
Because, all together, we are The One,
And You are the True Beloved,
The ever-awaiting One,
Who allows us to move from love to love,
Knowing that You, our true selves,
Will always be there to meet us.

May we be released from the agony
Of wanting, hoping, dreaming, expecting.
May we instead be brought into the present moment
Of acceptance, grace, and simplicity,
Knowing that the sweet breath of love we breathe
In each relationship
Is the breath of the One Great Love.

Allow us to see that love is eternal,
Show us again and again
That love is larger than all its forms.
And may we go through these seasons of change,
In a state of surrender, of joy,
With the exact and perfect trust
That every step is ordained for a beautiful reason.

God of light Who calls us into being,
We pray for joy, for wisdom and compassion
In the relationships that we do have.
We pray for the willingness to grow,
For we want to be grander than we already are.

We pray for the sacred water of the One,
For our baptism, for our cleansing,
And our healing,
For our melting, for our joining.

We pray for light, for both inner and outer
illumination,
For the brilliance to see, to know, and to feel,
To imagine and to remember
That You are with us each step of the way,
That we are not alone.

We pray for appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness
Of all the steps, and missteps, and sidesteps
That we have taken on the long journey
That will bring us to our sweet reunion,
That will finally carry us back home.

Speaking the Truth & The Work of My Heart

Ronna Detrik, who writes insightfully about women and truth-telling, shared this last night...

"I’m going to do the work that I know I need to do, that I must do, that I’ve been waiting my whole life to do, without waiting for an audience...I’m not going to care anymore whether people like me when I speak my truth. I’m never going to ask for permission again. As Eve Ensler said, “I am going to hold who I am in the face of anything.”" Patti Digh

Wow!

I feel the power in those words. I feel it from the the heat in my heart and flutter in my chest to the goosebumps moving across my skin. I am feeling the call to do the work I've been waiting my whole life to do.

Tonight I had dinner with someone who spoke of her need to stop making herself small, and how she has always felt like her heart is bigger than her body can hold. I know this feeling. It's time to stop making myself small because it's too sissy-woo-woo, hippy dippy to be vocal about my passion for living a sacred and conscious life. It's time to stop being afraid that people will find me ridiculous if I share what is meaningful to me. It's time to stop being so damn quiet and timid.

How is this for ridiculous? I have been feeling embarrassed for how passionate and big I feel about this transformation that I am going through. I'm talking about the shift in my relationship to Knight, but I'm not really talking about the other significant shifts happening for me. I feel embarrassed when I am around my friends that I am blissed out for reasons I can't put into words other than I am so incredibly in love (with everything). I am having mystical experiences, but I am not fully trusting them or myself. When I am on my own I am often big and expansive, but when around others I make myself small again. I am afraid to talk about my excitement for this process. I haven't been telling anyone how I think that sitting down with this blog every night is helping me create the life of my dreams and that through my commitment to speaking my truth I am going to find My People and the work of my heart. This is BIG, EXCITING stuff and I have been too afraid to trust it or myself enough to share it, and afraid to trust my tribe to hold space for it it.

Havi talks a lot about finding "your people." Your people are the people who resonate with you, who believe in you and your ideas, and who like whatever it is you offer from your most authentic and quirky self. Today I found one of my people. Someone who jives with what I'm sharing here in my blog. Someone who is excited by the fact that I identify as a mystic. Someone whose life is touched by my story and who is touching my life with hers. I need to trust my relationships can hold me, and if it turns out we don't resonate anymore, I need to trust my people are on their way to me.

Today Kelly Diels came out with the work of her heart and she is inspiring me in ways bigger than words can describe, especially since there are commonalities in what turns us on. Ronna and Havi also inspire me. They have created the work of their heart and they each radiate love through their work in their unique and quirky ways.

You must lead with your strengths. You must choose the things that light you up so that you can light the way for yourself, and for others. Kelly Diels

This is my bliss: Relationship. Intimacy. Connection. Empathy. Sharing our stories. Learning and evolving together. Creating together. This is what I want to be doing all the time, relating to people who resonate with me, both personally and professionally -- through writing, through art, through working with people one-on-one and in small groups, and through community leadership.

I believe that my work with the Imps has been leading me toward recognizing my bliss work is intentionally working with people around sacred and conscious relationship. When I pull all the threads of my life together, it all leads to sacred and conscious relationship...with my children, my partners, my friends, my community, my world. Growing towards deeper, richer, and more consistent experiences of love is my passion. I love Love. I love to love. I desire to be a walking embodiment of love, every minute of every day with every being that I interact with. That's what makes me a mystic. I am in love with all of existence. I focus that love in my relationships to other people. I see and feel the Divine Spark in others and I desire to get closer to it, to feel the warmth and bask in the brightness of light that each person has to share with me. I facilitate events so that people can feel free and open to express their Divine Spark through their creativity, sexuality and relationship. I build community because I know that we feel safest in expressing our Divine Spark when we're with people who support us. Mysticism is the driving force behind my work with the Imps and yet I've been hiding it in the closet as much as possible.

The pieces are coming together. The Universe is talking to me through all of these amazing women (and many other teachers) and I am listening. I am finally beginning to see what the work of my heart looks like and I am finding the courage to speak my truth as the ultimate act of love.

For more inspiration, check this out...




***Image source aussiegall

i thank you god

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~ e. e. cummings

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong -- or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying "this is where I stand."
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.

~ David Whyte ~

(Fire in the Earth)