Myths and Metawhores

Someone once told me I had lost my way, not my soul. Sometimes I wonder if that is the other way round. Despite bruising, I am at heart, brilliant with innocence, but too pale. I crave colour, deep blood berry red hues seduce me.

I am famished, my furtive dreams rob, and charm me. It is the essence I desire and this generates passion, excess.

We love whom we serve. We feed on what nourishes us, even if the devil’s banquet is sweet with venom.

Are you there God?
It’s me, Magdelena.

Thank you for calling God’s answering service. Prayers may be recorded for training and legal purposes. We are currenty experiencing a high demand on our service but please hold and an angel will answer as soon as they become available. Your prayer is in a queue……

***

For all it’s religious connotations, it has always amused me that the term ‘faithful’ is usually applied to lovers and/or spouses. I suppose on a gradation of intimacy, our partner is or should be our most trusted friend, our confidante, our strong shoulder of support and warm embrace. We expect a tremendous amount from those around us and sometimes, frankly our expectations are unrealistic. I think by extension we expect too much from our conceptions of the sacred. Faith becomes a passive gesture, a given, not something we work on, are challenged by, struggle with and finally surrender to.

There’s a peculiar misconception surrounding surrender, in both its spiritual and sexual contexts (although I think this division arbitrary; in my mind they are sacred, one and the same). Surrender is viewed as a passive, last ditch, feeble collapse to the will and whim of another. It’s not this at all, in truth it’s a very active, questioning and demanding journey characterised as much by dark nights as ecstatic highs, but mostly it occupies a finely balanced middle ground.

Faith is a rare and beautiful thing.
I have faith.
I know there is more, and beyond this I see how faith aligns us to qualities that expand and elevate the human experience.

Recent events have given me cause for self reflection. I think this natural for having invested so much time in this space and these writings, sensing their loss brought issues into sharp focus. I reached the point where I was prepared to let it all go, by this I mean in my heart I stopped fighting and stopped hurting. Yes, I was melancholic for a time but that dark energy has a gentle depth and within those inky folds I reconnected to humility, kindness and compassion.

I think it is literally virtually impossible to spend hours online and come away feeling good. In a very real sense computers strangle the life from us, and to quote Dr. Ali

“Computers will become a noose around the neck of human kind - literally”.

Allow me to quote from his ‘Ultimate Back Book’:

The damage it causes to the neck and the complications that arise out of that are unbelievable…..Staring at a screen in a fixed position contradicts the very principle of the existance of the neck. Nature has given the neck the extraordinary function to move in all directions and that is why it is structured differently from the rest of the body. The neck is meant to move and not be fixed.”

People are meant to move and not be fixed but I think every one of us can observe how cold, closed down and quite simply inept our people are becoming due to their reliance on technology. It isn’t flexible enough and its remote nature means we never see/hear/feel the consequences of our actions. Put your hand up if you’ve had a bad experience with a call centre or online customer care division this week. It’s become a fact of modern life and more than I hate the cost cutting principles it’s based upon, I am seriously vexed by the piss poor excuses these drones offer. ‘I’m only doing my job’ is an appauling defence not the least because of the rank incompetancy displayed. Tick box mentality meets the cold heart of technology: welcome to hell.

Dr. Ali is something of an advocate of doing the opposite. I met him once and asked what belly dancers should do for the low back ache that can accompany early or vigourous training. He advised massaging the pelvis. It’s a principle he carries into many healing areas and so I thought it interesting to apply this to neck problems. On the other side, the soft side we have the throat. An area of acute vulnerabilty and tenderness, the place where our lifeblood pulses.

In mystical terms it is the fifth chakra and stored within this wheel is the energy of Will, quite literally willpower. The Sacrament of Confession is allied with this chakra and when plotted on the Tree of Life, it is aligned with the Sefirot of Gevurah and Hesed representing the qualities of judgement and mercy. Please don’t labour over these mystical aspects because the interesting thing is that the fifth chakra is the bridge between the fourth and sixth chakras, namely the heart and the mind. Too often these two are seperate and isolated yet they are united by the power of will.

The question is, where do we invest our will power?
When we are not strong enough to think wisely and act with love, our will is susceptible to hijacking and we will invest it foolishly. There are so many addictions yet perhaps one of the most intriguing is the contemporary addiction to cyberlife. It seduces us, sucks us in and before we know it hours have slipped by. It’s quite a terrifying thought but dare you even admit how much time you spend online? I’m not pointing fingers, I’m really not the smart arse in the room because I’m writing this with a neck problem. But the antidote is in the venom and pain is true and our finest teacher. For me the lesson is to spend less time sitting before the screen and spend more time moving, living and loving.

I’m not by any means suggesting that the community we have created and spend time in is in any way wrong, not at all. I am simply saying that we should treat time as the precious commodity it is and time spent online should be judicious. We should spend it wisely in the company of friends and use it for the good.

In a beautiful demonstration of this I have to say thank you to my Yakuza bitch. This site is here, hale and hearty because two blog angels heard my prayers and came to my rescue. Nina and Jeff devoted the morning on the eve of their Honeymoon to helping me. Yes, you read that right. When they could be forgiven for wanting to attend to the necessaries of packing and preparing, they devoted their time to me and to making sure all was well before they left. Kindness like that makes me catch my breath, it’s so rare. Thank you nina and Jeff for taking such good care of my baby metawhore. She’s as cute as a button now.

Warm hugs and thanks to

Vanessa for her help and sensual inspiration. Vanessa, your podcasts are orgasmically electric. Is there anything more exquisite than hearing a woman come?

Thanks also to Kochanie who held my hand and offered soothing words.
To Beau for braving the darkness to carry me out, and to all of you for your comments and mail, for your love and tender thoughts when I was decidedly down. You held my faith for me and for that I am grateful.

I’d like to especially thank N who may blush at seeing herself mentioned here but whose mail was exquisite. She reminded me that Muslims are currently celebrating Ramadan and that this is a time to connect with Divinity. It’s a time of cleansing, of purification and of connecting to the sacred self. The energy in her mail was magnificent and it inspired a soft devotion in me, a turn back to contemplation, to silence and simply being.

After reading her mail, I turned off the computer and made to leave. As I walked passed the mirror my eyes were drawn to the beads of a broken rosary looped across the top. It was a gift from the daughter of a former lover and it means a lot to me. I don’t actually know how one prays with a rosary but I’d like to.

I think whatever your faith, knowing that someone cares enough to pray for you is a blessing and a gift and unlike calls to carelines, they truly are answered. Not always in the way we expect but music, laughter and love are the backbone of the universe and God is nothing if not a cosmic joker.

(Image courtesy of Tales from the 1001 Nights. )

***

“I want to tell you a story about dreams” said the alchemist.

Paulo Coelho The Alchemist.

Like a handful of my blogging friends, this week sees this journal mark its first year. I opened the account in March and completely forgot about it for four months before breathing life back in with the Naked Truth. I had no comprehension then of how transformative those twelve months would be, and how documenting them in such a public and dynamic fashion, would accelerate my erotic evolution.

This week marks another anniversary, one more private but which I will raise from its beautiful shadow to honour momentarily free of its tender charms. One year ago today I wrote my first letter to my Lictor, and this is important not only because of the rich relationship that came from that but because it was the first completely erotically honest expression I ever made. Before then, my sexual life had revolved around other people’s desires in a gross corruption of my submissive needs. Like many women, I didn’t fully understand this energy for a long time and so I bastardised it, existing as a kaleidoscope of corrupted fantasies. Perhaps this is why I shun role play now, for I feel I spent long enough in that make believe world.

The backend of those years saw my sexual character turn increasingly towards D/s consciously, and yet still the experience lacked integrity for me. Approximations of your erotic needs are only that and I accepted this as one more compromise, another facet of disappointment that life delivers in spades. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some exquisite and very special moments along the way but to fuse with ecstasy I needed to connect with a darker place, a private world behind my eyes that excluded the person I was with. That erotic disconnect left me crying into pillows after love making more times than I care to remember.

This searching played out against a dark background that stained any possibility of reaching a place of perverse authenticity. The miracle mentioned in the preceding link was a flashpoint for me; it was as if having scaled the rock face, the running was now smooth and free. While it feels like I’ve come a long way in a short time, I know how vital those past experiences were, and in honouring them I’m not laying flowers before false Gods (as we tend to do with our past). They are my roots, nurtured with insanity and now flourishing at a lick.

There is an old Turkish proverb which states:

“Our private lives must be walled”

The scene accompanying this writing is so typical of the eroticism we impose on the east. Orientalism allows us to embrace the metaphors and mysteries without ever piercing the stunning veils to see the truth of these golden cages. Illusions preserved at any price, where the guardians of this world were trained assassins; men “whose eardrums had been perforated and tongues slit” - Alev Lytle Croutier in Harem: The World behind the Veil.

We isolate our intimate lives, severing body from soul aching constantly for resolution. We can choose to either be tourists in the sexual land, or worse yet, pirates pillaging and plundering the jewels and beauty of another. But these encounters essentially fit badly and no amount of inner tailoring can compensate for firsthand experiences. The letter I penned one year ago was my full claiming of my sexuality and as I stepped into that sensual sanctuary, I simultaneously pulled down the walls of my private life. My erotic writings began, and perhaps now you understand fully my preference for the term journal, for this truly has been a journey, and ironically it’s been a voyage that’s brought me back home.

Coelho’s tale became a contemporary classic because it describes an eternal truth, a story that before his Andalusian spin spilled from the lips of Scheherazade. It’s a tale of listening to your heart and of following your dreams, and finally learning that all the answers lie safe within you, and always have done.

All my life I wanted a sister, preferably an older sister who would take my tiny hand in hers as we explored and grew together. I wanted to share cosmetics, music, blood mysteries, first crushes, clothes and as we matured, the deeper and more intimate experiences of our lives. I only have brothers and yet I feel haunted by a feminine presence in my life.

My mother had a difficult pregnancy with me. She nearly miscarried me more than once and from those terrible and frightening experiences a deep conviction rooted in her that I was a tenacious little spirit determined to hold on, hold out for the whole 9 months because there was a reason for my being here. Along with this, she believes that I was originally a twin and that she miscarried the other babe while I survived. There are many twins in our family so it’s not that unlikely. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve been pregnant but I didn’t carry to term so I don’t know about the finer points of the feelings and intuitions my mother has about all this. Maybe the mothers reading this have some thoughts they’d care to share about such connections and primal knowledge.

So, I hungered for authentic female contact for years. I was never someone who had a best female friend, I have always prefered the company of men and to this day my very best friend is male. But through dancing and online journaling, I’ve met and made deep connections with some exquisite women, women who are listed in my sidebar with one exception. So this post is for Tess, Tea, Poiesia, orchidea, Noirkat and sweet Goose ( who’s been with me since the start.) Thank you all for the love and kindness you’ve shown me, and for sharing so much about yourselves during our correspondence.

These words are especially for Kochanie, who’s always been a touchstone and has in the last fortnight been simply beautiful and very wise. She feels like the sister I always wanted and for all the compromises our connection endures, she catches me every time I fall. She’s always there and with her, I feel loved.

We all need someone, a woman like this in our lives. A soul sister who embodies the old ways and inspires them in us.

At the close of Women who run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes says:

“The things that have been lost to women for centuries can be found again by following the shadows they cast……

So, if you are on the verge of breaking away, taking a risk - daring to act in proscribed ways, then dig up the deepest bones possible, fructifying the wild and natural aspects of women, of life, of men, of children, of earth. Use your love and good instincts to know when to growl, to pounce, to take a swipe, when to kill, when to retreat, when to bay until dawn. To live as closely as possible to the numinous wild a woman must do more head tossing, more brimming, have more sniffing intuition, more creative life, more ‘get-down-dirty,’ more solitude, more women’s company, more natural life, more fire, more spirit, more cooking of words and ideas… and especially much more canto hondo, much more deep song.

She must shake out her pelt, strut the old pathways, assert her instinctual knowledge. We can all assert membership in the ancient scar clan, proudly bear the battle scars of our time, write our secrets on walls, refuse to be ashamed, lead the way through and out.

What you do today influences your matri-lineal lines in the future. The daughters of your daughters of your daughters are likely to remember you, and most importantly, follow in your tracks.

The ways and means of living with the instinctual nature are many, and the answers to your deepest questions change as you change and the world changes…over my lifetime as I’ve met wolves, I have tried to puzzle out how they live, for the most part, in such harmony. So for peaceable purposes, I would suggest you begin right now with any point on the list. For those who are struggling, it may help greatly to begin with number ten.

General wolf rules for life

1. Eat
2. Rest
3. Rove in between
4. Render loyalty
5. Love the children
6. Cavil in the moonlight
7. Tune your ears
8. Attend to the bones
9. Make love
10. Howl often

It’s not easy at first to find your voice let alone howl. As with so many things, there is that self conscious stumbling and inability to let go and if this is the case, root through your rock collection and put something loud on. I found my voice to Smells like Teen Spirit and to this day I consider it sacred music.

Howl often.
and loud and for as long as you need.

Soul sisters hear that cry, know it well and always close in to embrace you till natural silence falls.

I have a natural affinity and adoration for sensual and submissive women, and the vast majority of the mails I receive are from ladies exploring this aspect of their sexuality and psyche. To that end, I believe it’s vitally important to listen to as many voices as you can for that will help you find the heart of this need.

I’ve been exploring and casting my reading net wider of late. I’ve discovered some wonderful new journals and I’ve linked to them. They are all written by women and embrace variously pure sensuality, submission, D/s or M/s. For convenience I’ll list them here:

Lazy Geisha.
Married Man’s Fucktoy.
Strange Fire.
Finding my way.
Evolution of a fucktoy.
Incorrigible Girl.
Learning to fly.
Must have been the moon.
Twice as Bright.
Under his hand.

If you are a female writer and you think I’d enjoy your site, please don’t be afraid to make contact. While my linking policy is capricious at best, I am always looking for fresh blood and all contact is well received.

And now I must attend to number one on that fine list.

Blessings and love ladies.

Every Bloggers nightmare has happened to me. 48 hours ago someone very dear in my real life discovered this blog and wrote to tell me so. It is the horrible experience you imagine it to be, and I sat with my eyes closed as worlds collided in 4 simple words:

‘I found your blog’.

This piece is not about them so please my darling rest easy. Rather in my typical style, it’s some kind of fusion of personal meets principle, so no bloody corpses or salacious details, no revelations, no masturbatory fodder. This post is for people who know me in real life, whether you’ve declared your presence or otherwise. By extension, it will be appropriate to all bloggers, most especially sexual and erotic writers whose need for anonymity and sensitive consideration is more marked.

You may notice that I’ve reinstated the link to the blogger’s disclaimer in my sidebar. I would ask you to read it and consider carefully all it says. I’d like to particularly draw your attention to this phrase:

‘View weblogs as online journals, no less sacred than a diary hidden between the mattresses.’

Whether you are here by invitation or accident, I need you to understand that this space is sacred to me and that all my words are from the heart. I don’t write for other people’s pleasure, I’m flattered and pleased that people enjoy my words, but I write for myself first and foremost.

So why write online? Why not keep pen and paper journals, or hold the files in a private place?

It’s a valid question, and not one for which I have an easy answer. I believe people start blogging with very different intentions in mind, and generally speaking, that flavour is evident and in part determines the readership. Around these common interests communities grow, friendships are fostered.

I have absolutely no idea how many sexual blogs there are or what percentage of the 40.1 million sites Technorati currently tracks dedicate themselves to sexual content, but I would think it’s pretty high. What are the chances of someone you know stumbling upon you in that colossal cyber sea? Surprisingly high actually, because the blogosphere is a small world and the notion of 6 degrees of separation is a kinky concept come true. Given this exposure, am I naïve to consider my space safe in some senses?

Perhaps hopeful over naïve but in the main the respect I am afforded suggests that such faith rests on firm ground. As cyber relations evolve, etiquette finds itself in the same strange place as intimacy. Which courtesies are to be observed in this online arena?

Many of us write about encounters and people without seeking the consent of those concerned. We change names, essential details, embellish facts not to deny truth but to protect those we care for and play with, whilst affording maximum expression. It’s not always an easy trade but it allows the disclosure we need. And for the record, I’ve seen through the disguise to read about myself online so I have a familiarity with this.

That doesn’t make it ok and it doesn’t mitigate the hurt or surprise I caused. There is a flipside to this, and that is, once you realise you’re reading the words of someone you know, do you continue? Should you continue?

As a teenager, I suspected that my boyfriend was playing around so I did something I’m neither proud of nor have done since. I read his diary and found the confirmation I dreaded. When I finally confronted him, I had to confess how I’d come across the information and he went ballistic. I remember my shock, for in my dumb innocence I’d expected an apology or an explanation. Neither were forthcoming and instead he tore into me for violating his privacy. We were both out of line but it taught me a valuable lesson in how blurred such boundaries can be, especially in erotic situations.

But he was right, and I have a measure of that anger now. Not directed at anyone, more at the situation and at how I could have handled it better to begin with. Here even the wisdom of hindsight fails because I’m not sure what I would do given the chance again. There are 3 choices:

1. The same i.e. write and be damned
2. Don’t write about it at all, or rather don’t post it
3. Seek consent.

Number three is the pivotal one really, because let’s just assume consent is given, what you’re also doing is offering an invitation into your inner world. Are you happy with your erotic playmates reading everything about you? And anyway, it isn’t that simple because while we don’t play in a vacuum, we don’t necessarily tell each other everything. Perhaps we *should*.

I’m also angry because I don’t wish to temper my voice. I was mute for years and years about my sexuality and it was only through online exploration that I came to realise and finally embrace my submissive self. If it hadn’t been for those raw and painfully honest writings I’m sure I’d still be as confused now. As it is there is much about this aspect of my nature I struggle with.

And here’s another thing, through writing about this I’ve come into contact with kindred spirits and while protecting the parameters of our private lives, we’ve transcended the details to probe the soul of this sexual need. Before Metawhores I starved for that communion whereas now I have many amazing friendships. I wouldn’t trade my contact with you for the world and in so many ways my writing is a dedication to you all.

In a comment on my last post, my dear friend Tea states: ‘There are two things that I can honestly say have saved my life - one is writing, and the other is… dancing from my belly.’ And the exact same holds for me.

When I stopped dancing I literally lost my mind. My Mum believes I had a nervous breakdown and that may be so, and I’m eternally grateful for her kindness during those days. I certainly entered one of the blackest depressions of my life and took anti-depressants at the insistence of my Doctor. The loss was unbearable and you must forgive me for not disclosing the details here, the nature of which still makes me weep. In real time, I have a friend I refer to as a guardian angel because she held my faith and reinvested it when the time was right, and thanks to her I started dancing again.

On that bridge from the dark times to now, I discovered writing. I’m doing it again, I’m omitting essential details. I didn’t just stop dancing, that same year my heart was broken clean in two and the combination near killed me. So writing was a way out, a way back. That is no exaggeration and you can all happily accept the part you played in that healing. I’m sure it’s evident but I think I’ve changed a lot from the woman I was, from the creature who created this Blogger account and fucked up the name thus ending up with Delta of Venus and not Myths and Metawhores as the URL.

While I’m still as technically incompetent, I’m growing in other ways. Blogging is very organic and the interactive nature promotes and suggests quite fascinating developments. And fuck ups.

*sighs*

The shock of discovery has diminished, the potential catastrophe eclipsed by hopeful feelings that dance between optimism and relief. Yesterday I was in company and plastered a smile on my face, this morning I cried my heart out. Having released that sadness, I feel calmer and hope this post communicates my intentions.

I accept my responsibilities here and am genuinely sorry for the hurt I caused, I shall be more mindful in future. But I have a request to make of the people who know me, who read me.

For all the flaws and foibles of this medium, my interaction with it and the people who come here, this is my space, my sanctum sanctorum. You read in full consciousness that such truth means you’re on hallowed ground. I can’t and won’t censor myself to pacify or assuage your sensibilities or preconceptions of who you think I am.

I actually detest the word blog. It’s ugly, clumpy and totally fails to capture the essence of the writings contained within. I prefer journal, be it online or otherwise. Journaling has more honourable connotations and is often likened to a mirror, only in this context, the reflection speaks back.

Looking glass, crucible, art.

“Art is neither complete rejection nor complete acceptance of what is. It is simultaneously rejection and acceptance, and this is why it must be perpetually renewed wrenching apart. The artist constantly lives in such a state of ambiguity.”

Albert Camus

Take my hand. Dance with me. The erotic is the most exquisite dance of all, and I remain your secret partner and friend.

I’m 34, and it’s an age I’m very comfortable with. I’m also very comfortable and at home in my flesh, and these two truths fused together in a very simple conversation over the weekend. I was at a dance workshop with people I’d not seen in a while. There was some discussion of a troupe I had once belonged to, where being relatively young and supple, I’d executed certain moves that were visually striking and physically demanding.

During a quick break, I heard one lady complain that her heels hurt and I nodded in agreement. She looked surprised and said ‘but you used to do such amazing things,’ which I did, although they were always challenging and painful truth be told. Then she asked me if I missed that, and I had to say, in all honesty I didn’t. And that was quite a revelation and a relief because it liberated a different sense and story. Relinquishing my place on the front line has enabled me to embrace a more nurturing role, based on community over competition. I’m way out of the main loop but have a circle all of my own. We break rules, challenge assumptions and dance from our heart whilst maintaining a deep respect and hunger for the cultures that kept these dances alive.

Having not danced at such a demanding level for over two years, my body has changed a lot. When I stopped dancing I was physically damaged and emotionally broken, I’d paid a high price and needed healing time away. I didn’t dance at all for a long time and instead cultivated a passion for food. I went from skinny, scrawny and muscular to voluptuous and soft. It’s funny but every time I tell someone how much I loved putting on weight, they smile. It’s such a direct violation of the brainwashing and body fascism endemic in our culture.

This is one of the reasons I adore Middle Eastern Dance so much; it celebrates curves and the wisdom of the body. Middle Eastern Dance also honours maturity, understanding that feminity matures in the body through each phase of the sacred cycle, fostering a choice between wisdom and woe. Many women struggle with the fight between head and flesh. It’s virtually impossible not to internalise visual images of apparent perfection and in so doing, we cut ourselves off from our beauty. It’s so horrible that we carve, starve and hate ourselves in the bartering of illusions and acceptance.

In his excellent essay Beautiful Scars, my friend Chris says:

‘the things that I find important in a lover’s body, are all the things that make her different; the small marks, scratches, scars, freckles, and discolorations that establish a physical history….

…But our bodies are real, and if not for them, nothing else in our lives would be real. They are the only way we have of experiencing the world around us, and thus shape the imaginations and the souls that are placed in such high esteem. It’s the body that manufactures tears when you’re hurting, sends adrenaline pumping through your veins when you’re angry, and makes your cock or clit engorged with blood at the thought of a lover. All these experiences are enhanced, not degraged by the body.’

I urge you to read this piece for I found it deeply moving and very healing. I’ve written before on the multi-lingual nature of the body, the way cells hold memories and touch can free a story. Attuning to this visceral depth, slicing and searching beneath the skin, breathing deeply and allowing emotions to flow creates a primal sanctuary.

Specifically, the moves and motions of belly dance take you deep into the core of your body. Over the years, the devotion to discipline and technique insists that deeper and deeper muscles are recruited; the dance becomes internalised. This happens not only physically, but for many women, on a very intimate level too. This is a profound and very sensual joy that reminds me so much of sex; it’s an abandon born from depth, a freedom from superficial concerns.

When I was 11 years old, I remember a games lesson at school and this visual is forever seared in memory. I was wearing regulation kit; a white top with the school house badge resting on my flat chest and horribly tight navy blue shorts, I hated that outfit. I looked down and for the first time realised that I had a curvy tummy. I looked at the other girls and they were flat stomached, and a wave of self consciousness hit me. That feeling lived with me for over 20 years, until one summer when the power of belly dance met with the sweet words of a lover.

One warm day, after making love, he lay next to me and rested his head on my tummy and said ‘ you know baby, I love your tummy. I never realised how sexy that little pillow could be’. Throughout our relationship, he’d rest gentle fingers on my tummy in a nurturing and protective gesture that reminded me of the way a woman instinctively lays her hand on her belly when pregnant. It’s a soft sign of reverence for the life inside, a soothing connection that’s purely instinctive. To experience it in a different context woke something special in me.

Belly dancing bestows a similar gift and a reminder that our bodies are sacred vessels of creation. I didn’t carry my child to term so I cannot claim to fully understand the sensation or sacrifices that entails but I do bear a slender silvery white streak of pregnancy on my lower abdomen. My tummy button has a teeny, tiny scar from when I was briefly pierced, but I sleep on my stomach and got fed up with the jewel catching. You’d only see these things if you were close to me, and should you rest your head there, I’d execute a cheeky butterfly flutter, a muscular stomach shimmy that would make you bounce gently. The connection with the stomach is so very grounding and I have to say, I absolutely adore soft bellies. A taut torso is fine but I like something that shimmies when you laugh.

Our world puts youth on a pedestal, and so unwittingly perhaps confuses inexperience with perfection. Freeze framing bodies in time condemns life and I feel for those girls, the models, the actresses who inhabit streamlined cadavers, skeletal not only in appearance but feeling. Being naturally slim or athletic in build is one thing, and that’s a beauty of it’s own, but punishing your body to satisfy some collective neurosis is terribly sad. As is ironing out, covering up and concealing the secret histories of your flesh. Some body stories are sad or sentimental, others sensual or sexual, or sacred in some way. I think the beauty lies in loving the differences, the flaws and imperfections.

I love my body. I love that it’s imperfect, more cherub than cover girl. I love that it knows secrets and stories whispered only to certain souls, some of which I share with you my dear readers. And if we were together, my fingers would seek out your scars, or those places where you feel shame and I’d kiss you better.

A few of you have noticed this personal quality stated within my sidebar, and I think realise it’s not simply some cute turn of phrase. I truly am possessed with both these energies and currently, the Hermit holds sway. It’s a common call in these spiritually indulgent times to seek time away on retreats with other weekend warriors, to be with kindred spirits who are also seeking themselves and a higher truth. Indeed, my friends yoga teacher has made the classic trip to India to ‘find himself.’ Fucking idiot. If it’s a holiday, call it by name. If you’re running away, have the integrity to say so. Life can be scary, noisy and way too busy and there’s nothing wrong with calling time and taking a break; if anything that’s the smart move assuming you can afford it. But my patience falls shy with these lightweight lightseekers, yogis who don’t know their metaphysical arse from their elbow.

In the early days, way back when I invested some time in these foolish crusades myself, I quickly discovered that many of these workshops and retreats thinly veil an excuse to run rampage (free your inner slut) or indulge in fey philosophising that would see you dead in the water in the marketplace of real life. Recently a dear friend invited me to their birthday celebration where someone had made a huge cake. After the ritual lighting and blowing out of candles, everyone just looked at it. ‘Have some cake’ my friend urged the crowd, and was met with a whinny of ‘I can’t, I’m on a gluten free/sugar free/taste free/food free diet…’ This provoked my inner minx and I scooped up a handful of the chocolate goo and devoured it with relish, smearing sauce and crumbs everywhere. Affronted by both my lack of decorum and spiritual discipline, one fuzzy headed flash of purple and beads huffed off. If I hadn’t had a gob full of cake, I may have called ‘Frizz Ease’ to her departing bush; any woman with wild hair knows that answers to prayers come in unlikely packages.

So when I have one of my ‘Nun attacks’ the last thing I want is the company of these fools. To clarify, my friend renamed my contemplative calls Nun attacks, it has nothing to do with clobbering Brides of Christ. For me, there’s a certain call to silence and stillness that’s completely compelling. I go to ground, invariably to nature and my garden. I thrive in my own company, and my garden is the hermitage to which I withdraw. In doing this, I’m not seeking solace from a mad world or the crazy people around me, I have that urge too and know it’s a very different one. Everyone needs space in this way but I’m not so sure everyone experiences a pull to solitude and silence in the way I do.

I have a great capacity for solitude, finding it not only deeply restorative but also insightful and an invaluable counterbalance and compliment to intimacy. Recently I spoke with my brother on this subject and he expressed a fairly common response, he said he found the thought of being alone and quiet absolutely horrendous. Why? I probed. He visibly shuddered, and replied ‘the very thought terrifies me. I couldn’t bear to be alone with myself, I’d go insane, get bored and need distracting’ and he shuddered again. I have a friend who regularly picks men up in bars despite the fact he’s in a fairly long term relationship. After blaming the gay scene, and then running circles around explanations such as sex, stimulation, the thrill of the new and so forth, they conceded that while all these were aspects, they didn’t represent the whole truth. Hand on heart, they were lonely and for a time, sweaty sex with a stranger allowed them to lose themselves and that empty feeling.

In my 20’s I had my fair share of such encounters and remember well how awkward and fundamentally unsatisfying they can be. When you don’t know yourself, when your own interior frightens you so much you run and lose yourself in your addiction of choice, it’s impossible to connect with any depth or meaning with someone else. And it means you will always look outside, to others for validation and verification of your worth. I think it takes personal strength and acute self knowledge to not only accept yourself, but to also be an individual. I think this is what vexes me so much about religion and popular spirituality, I find that mass consciousness and pseudo intimacy troubling. It’s just another way of carving up the self and conforming to type.

Being alone strips those comforts away as we discover that solitude is nothing more than intimacy with ourself. From here, we are able to nurture and deepen intimacy with others. And as grand as that sounds and as rich as it undeniably is, there are many moments of disillusionment, distress and disappointment along the way.

Solitude and springtime edging into summer are energies I adore, not the least because they inspire soul deep changes and I love a revamp as much as the next person. I just need it to run deeper than cutting my caffiene levels and changing my clothes.

I love this quote from Caroline Myss:
‘The task is to spiritually renovate, to become a spirit, a soul of such stamina that you know how to walk in your world and empower it with a level of grace that absolutely renovates the very structure and backbone of the world you live in.’

I had the luxury of some time with her at a workshop last year (irony of opening statements not lost,) and then she suggested rather than destroying the life you’re in, instead flood it with grace. And for grace, you must substitute the word that feels best for you, maybe love, authenticity or some such. For me, one essential aspect of grace is intimacy and how that happily settles with time alone. At first glance, the hedonist and hermit appear diametrically opposed and very uneasy bedfellows but in truth they rest easy with, and nurture the other.

Some years ago I worked as an artist’s model. I’m aware of the erotic images that must stir but the reality is sadly a lot less romantic and uncomfortable. I posed for young students in an underprivileged area; truly they possessed little other than their creative desires and aspirations. I loved them for their lack of pretensions and salt of the earth crass humour. They would spill into class noisy and boisterous as puppies, dragging easels from one side of the room to the other, bickering over who would set up where; it was frantic. I’d sit back and smile at their harried teacher, who would simply roll his eyes and shake his head while attempting to cajole them into silence. Finally they would settle and the class could begin.

Their teacher, Patrick, was a fascinating man and I enjoyed listening to him speak. I’d recline sphinx-like, draped in a deep bottle green robe waiting for the request to shed the satin skin. Patrick adored the fabrics colour and contrast against my ivory flesh, so I always let it slip down and puddle around my body. I’d move slowly, finding a pose that aesthetically pleased while being gentle on my muscles. (You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to hold certain positions without shaking violently before collapsing with cramps.) He would watch me intently, head cocked ever so slightly to one side until he liked what he saw, then his head would snap up and he’d shout ‘yes, there’. And he’d scurry over to rearrange the robe like waves around a mermaid. Stepping back, he always asked ‘are you warm enough Lena?’ and then would crouch to redirect the fan heater ensuring the hot breeze was directed precisely at my body. Smiling, he’d fall back to the edge of the room and from here, he’d softly call out points to note, or facts relevant to the lesson.

People often ask if I felt embarrassed. Only the first time, when for a few long seconds I seriously debated running from the room. After that it was really ok, and if anything became a soothing and healing experience. I think we’re so used to feeling judged when naked, be that comparison one we internally generate or perceive from outside, that shrugging it was a relief. Posing nude is certainly erotic is some senses, but it is in no way sexual and that’s very relaxing. It allows you to simply be in your body.

Artists have the kindest of eyes; they see what others miss. It’s a peculiar kind of love making where the model meets the gaze and interiority of the artist in a powerful liaison. I have to emphasise that I worked with fine art students and sculptors, people who invested time in their craft. We would spend hours together, mutually exploring the mysteries of the human body in a curiously meditative state. Each of us sinking deeper, being drawn farther into the creation of slow, deep and flawed beauty.

In some ways, the studio became a sensual sanctuary; a place of ease and tension, smoothness and grain, comfort and excruciating pain. I would break from posing to stretch out and walk around, and I never ceased to marvel at their creations. Remember these were adolescents, and for some I was the first naked woman they had ever seen. They betrayed this by their vivid crimson blush and stumbling as I approached their work. Others were more grounded and relaxed with nudity and typically these were the better artists, easily allowing my curves to meet their consciousness to produce something quite beautiful. They pulled something from their heart that stirred elements of hope and bright passion.

My sculpture students were mature people embracing creativity on the decline. These people weren’t carving out a career; they were contacting something deeper, darker and more primal. Perhaps this is why they elected to work with material as messy, tangible and dirty as clay. In this studio, the air felt thick and heavy with grit and dust, and no sunlight flooded the room. Some days the contrast shook me and I felt like a linking object, a messenger between worlds.

Sculpting is a profoundly sensual act and compelling to observe. As with the body, the figure starts life with a skeleton but of wire not bone. Calloused hands heaped damp clay on frames, knives hacked, fingers smoothed. It’s a slow and painful creation demanding loyalty and dedication. As a model, it’s very challenging to continually return to the same pose week in, week out. For the artist, there is the possibility that their efforts are rewarded with loss. More than one piece was destroyed during firing, or fell one night or was accidentally knocked to the ground. Pathos stalked that room, those people and their tired, old souls.

Posing is such a rich, vital stillness. A creative, complicit contemplation and a seductive voice that calls me still, promising to fragment the shell of neglected beauty and grace. Increasingly, I listen to the whispers inviting my return.

“Ok, let me see if I got this straight:
in order to get grounded,
I’ve got to be crazy,
and I must be crazy to keep flying,
but if I ask to be grounded,
that means I’m not crazy anymore
and I have to keep flying?”

“You got it,
that’s Catch-22.”

Heller, Catch-22.

I’ve been carrying this post in my head for a while and now’s as good a time as any to lift it gently from headspace to page. Blogging is a strange pastime and curious process, not unlike a relationship actually. In some ways and senses, it’s exactly that but a relationship with reflected parts of yourself. And these selected, edited aspects shine back crafting a sensation as close to discombobulation as I can imagine.

A gorgeous man very recently said to me: ‘Relationships are bound by swathes of ignorance.’ We were discussing the secret and oh so private world of the lover, a place our regular life and friends have no immediate access to or awareness of. Evidentally it’s primarily this shadow side that erotic bloggers share, and for the most part the equation is reversed, so their mundane life is the protected secret. It’s clean, sensible and makes for dirty reading.

Some bloggers, like me, transcend the purely erotic layer and plunge deep into the soul and feeling. Naturally that leads to a more contemplative take, one with increased emotional exposure for me. I’ve put my heart into these writings and I know that many of you have appreciated that. I receive the most amazing letters, where the honesty and passion of disclosure leave me humbled. I’m deeply touched that I reach people in such a way, it tells me that beyond the need for immediately jackable writings, there’s a place where we need to reflect and integrate our sexual needs and desires with the life we actually have.

I know only too well the perils of fusing fantasy with reality. The initial thrust is thrilling, the release from the shackles of taboo exhilerating and the pleasure is immense. But it must settle, and as the new circuits establish themselves into a more routine function (simply by virtue of the fact they are now alive and operating in your erotic life,) your feelings change. The relationships in which the dynamic manifests change, as you slip from horny headspace to grass roots reality.

D’jaevle said in a recent comment:
‘Yes, involving more than one person in a relationship can make things more complicated - but it does have some advantages. I’ve yet to find someone for whom a single person can meet all of their needs. Most are willing to sacrifice parts of themselves for a relationship; some pretend to do so and simply covertly look elsewhere.’

There was a flare recently when Roper bravely shared his story. I neither condone or condemn his choice, but I completely understand him. He received criticism, which as I said in private mail to him, was born from hurt of the betrayed, the wound being so apparent. I felt for Roper, as I feel for everyone who walks that fine line between personal truth and protection of loved ones. So many people fall in love and create lives before their sexuality stakes its claim on them. In part I suspect the internet is responsible, because for the first time our sexual desires are no longer individual demons to be hidden in dark corners. Instead these corners are illuminated and we learn that there are millions who feel and are aroused by the same things we are. To learn this 10 or 20 or 30 years into a marriage generates a conflict that cannot easily be shrugged off.

And so we spin into the web of deception, of self and of others, as we explore our sexuality. Do we nourish our fantasy and deny reality? As children, learning to lie is an important stage in self development and self protection, and child psychologists reckon we start lying from about the age of 3 or 4. While most lies are self serving, many are compassionate, told to protect the feelings of someone we care about. In the sexual arena, both of these reasons play out.

People bleat about truth telling and honesty as if it were the highest of all virtues. I don’t think people realise in the main how much they lie and it’s an interesting exercise to heighten your own awareness of the bullshit that falls from your lips or becomes words on a page. Honesty is for the most part an operational prerogative and one exercised on superficial levels.

In the foreward to Brad Blanton’s book ‘Radical Honesty,’ Neale Donald Walsh says this:

“Don’t look now, but the human race is incredibly unhappy. Oh, not you, of course. You’re fine. It’s the rest of us that have bungled it……We have sentenced ourselves to lives of quiet desperation in punishment for the violence we have done to our souls.
We have done this violence by the simple expediance of lying. We meant nothing by it, of course. We were only trying to get through the moment. Yet by making a lifestyle, we have missed the moment. And the next moment. And the next. In this way, we humans have missed most of our lives. Worse yet, our cumulative lies have cost others….It all started innocently enough. The Little White Lies of Childhood. White lies we learned from our parents, and from the world around us. Untruths masquerading as social etiquette.

Oh Neale stop it, you’re making too much of this. You’re going on and on.

Really? Look around you.
Our governments lie. Our politicians lie. Our economists lie. Our police lie - sometimes on the witness stand. Our educators lie. Our religions lie. Our parents lie. And nobody admits it…

How do we change things? We adopt radical honesty as our new lifestyle.”

Radical Honesty is a terrifying concept, as indeed anything ultimately liberating is and has to be. So unless we are fortunate enough to be in a loving relationship with someone who shares our sexual predilictions, we have an uncomfortable choice to make. Deny our desire, feed it only and endlessly fantasy and enjoy it alone, as emotion free self pleasure never seeing the light of day. Or we can seek and connect with sexual kindred spirits and work through the complications that coupling generates. For some that necessitates levels of lying if only by degrees of omission. It’s easy to judge, to wag your finger and claim the bogus right of the self righteous. But what if you are beckoned by a world of fire and passion, a call so loud you cannot ignore or smother it? What if you try to assimilate your worlds? How well could you blend your partners desires if they were completely different to your own? Could you graciously shoe horn your erotic energy into their need and make it work despite the fact you are sexually diconnected.

Let’s say you are by nature dominant. So is your partner. Could you be submissive for them? Could you be all that entails? And vice versa, could you dominate them knowing that they wish they were the one wielding the whip? Could you bless them meeting another, a natural submissive so that they may experience the integrity of that pleasure? Could you carry the potential of their emotional pain if you sought satisfaction elsewhere? Such expression has many, clumsy emotional connotations.

In the Author’s preface to Radical Honesty, Blanton says:

“many people believe that it is possible for them to love more than one person, and that they shouldn’t. People often do love more than one person, however, even though married and in a monogamous relationship. If both married people tell the truth to each other, they encounter difficulty loving their partner who is also loving a third party. In most cases, this type of love requires more personal growth than either of them can stand, particularly if sexual involvment with another person arises as a possibility…. We can go places with our minds that our psyches can’t yet reach.”

We can go places with our minds that our psyches can’t yet reach.

Or our bodies. This is one of the beauties of erotic blogging specifically, of all erotic writing in general. It’s a highly charged, exciting rush through furtive pleasures and wild imaginings. Of course there are many, many experiences that we are happy to know only vicariously. We don’t desire to live through it, it’s enough to read or watch it play out, to temporarily put ourselves in the characters position until climax, and then we can put it away again. It’s delightfully disposable and convenient. But there are some things that we have to know, to feel, to see, to hear and taste. These scenes haunt us.

Many of us (all of us?) are haunted by something. Childhood experience, the life we *should* have had, broken hearts, broken minds, sometimes broken bodies. So many people are in therapy because of this, because someone hurt them, some people are in therapy because you damaged them in some way. Countless more people choose not to unravel before another and elect to take medication, righting the chemical inbalances that trigger such isolating feelings. I’m no stranger to depression and have in my past had times when meds were the order of the day. The following is only true for me, I make no assumptions about any one else.

I no longer want to medicate or mediate my way through these feelings, I simply want to feel better to my core. And that entails clearing out the mess, the emotional entangements, the seperation of masturbatory desire from the bliss of actual experience, of ‘being in love’ from ‘loving’, my truth from my lies.

On this page I share so much of myself, such an intimate and private aspect but it’s not all of me. These sexual fragments I divulge stand apart from all that I am and sometimes I find it bizarre that a piece of me has its own life on the page. Occassionally I have the impulse to take it back, reintegrate it fully and save it from its lonely existance. To this end, I am vehemently opposed to Bacchus and his thoughts on Internet Vandalism. I think if your blogging has a very personal baseline, you make yourself vulnerable because you give so much of yourself away. From the outside, from the safe vantage point of the reader or the non-intimate blogger, that may seem a strange assertion but I can assure you it’s not always an easy place to be. To write in such a way demands lowering your personal boundaries and letting strangers in. It can emotionally demanding, draining even.

There are other factors too. The actual people in my actual life, the ones I don’t write about by mutual consent and respect. They have a vote too even if they are invisible and unspoken. And for them and for myself, I refuse to play the martyr for the big blog cause. On balance, between my life and your archives, there is no choice. There is no blogger hell or heaven, there is simply the sharing of experience.

At the moment I am very uncomfortable with the extent to which I’ve lowered my boundaries. It’s time for me to take a step back from blogging in order to reaccess and re-establish these most personal demarcations. I won’t be gone for long and actually this decision dovetails nicely with my annual alone time. Every year I go away for a few days on my own. It’s an opportunity to rest and relax, to stalk clarity, to make wise decisions based on insight and to simply be. So I’ll be gone for a week, off the mainland, offline and incommunicado.

When I return I hope to have a better idea of where to go with blogging and with this next chapter of my life.

With special love and thanks to my blogging friends Figleaf and orchidea. Both of you have been incredibly supportive and understanding and I genuinely appreciate our communications. Love also to my dear friend Kochanie for her ongoing faith and encouragement, you have been truly golden.

I love blogging but right now I’m exhausted and a little frayed from sharing so much. Blogging may be a great online unfolding car wreck but I don’t want it to be a plane crash for me. So I’m grounding myself temporarily. I’ll see you on the other side of the full moon.

Blessings and love,

Magdelena.

Someone asked me today what my experience of polyamory is. It’s no easy answer, not the least because such a way of living and loving has no rules, we forge and force the parameters as we go along. Paradigms of polyamory are fine and I read them with a hedonists hunger but there is always a shortfall for me. Somewhere between page and practicality, life asserts itself and I am actually quite cheered by this obstruction. It keeps me sharp and responsive.

I seem to be dogged by an undeserved reputation. As a sexual woman I am used to the erroneous judgements of the morally righteous and sexually repressed but it disappoints me when friends fall into this pit, for I am actually a ferociously loyal and true lover. Given my age and opportunity, I have not had many lovers, favouring relationships over hit and run encounters.

I like the expression lover, it embraces not only my essential energy but also conveys my feelings. This isn’t to suggest I’m a hopeless romantic with dreams of damsels and knights, not at all, this Queen likes her own castle. I am a gentle soul though, and I do care about the people I’m with. I wouldn’t make love with you otherwise. Love on the run is a cold experience and I’ll never be indifferent enough to be indifferent. I expect nothing from you beyond the connection we share when together and the friendship which holds it safe in times apart.

Love for all or love for none?
Love for you.
Does that answer your question?