Cages

It was a while ago when morningstar wrote about the challenges of making sometimes sudden transitions from working "out in the world" as a professional, competent, in charge, assertive adult, to the "at home" slave on call without any (or much) control or choice about one's personal time or life or comfort. She pointed to and then proceeded to discuss the complexity and emotional "whiplash" that making that shift can sometimes entail.

She went on to write (not a lot later) about needing to make that transition pretty much on her own -- because her Master, like mine, tends to have the expectation that she will simply "be there" when He calls upon her in that fashion. **Knowing nods** around the circle of those who "do it" this way, and then we shall move on... Every variant of this dynamic has its challenges. We all know this, and there is no intent here to dismiss, disrespect, judge or belittle anybody who does anything differently than we do -- I am merely identifying a significant break in reality.

Anyway, I think the business of needing to go out regularly brings with it a sort of "tight-rope walker" kind of need to maintain one's balance and sense of internal identity that is sometimes particularly challenging. To me it sometimes brings me back to the memories of my earliest experiences with significant bondage.

When we first ventured into "real" bondage, I had great difficulty. I found that, in spite of my fantasies about it, the reality put me into full on panic. The knowledge that I could not escape terrified me at first and I would rage and hyperventilate and throw myself against the restraints until I'd fall into a state of total exhaustion. It took a good deal of time for me to come to understand that restraints could provide me with some security and comfort, and actually lessen the level of responsibility that fell on my shoulders to "stay put" and actually manage whatever else might happen -- with the bondage, I had no choice and could simply go with whatever came along. I began to sometimes ask for the restraints, and to welcome them.

Likewise, I have long read about those who use "cages" of various kinds, and simply not understood what it is about exactly. Here lately, though, as I have struggled with my own emotional stability, as I have struggled with a small, but insistent internal voice that comes in the midst of my darkest moments and urges me to get in the car and drive and drive and drive until the road runs out, I am beginning to understand the comfort and security of the cage. I know I will not listen to the nagging, small voice. I know there is no shining road for me; that my place -- always and all ways -- is here. Still the only "cage" that holds the swan is the one that I erect out of will and heart and committment. How easy it would be, sometimes, to know that the bars were strong and secure and the lock would hold fast, even when I was too tired and too scared and too lonely to be entirely sane...

swan