In the sunshine.
And yes, I am exactly that fuzzy! Sheesh!
swan
12/31/2007
As Promised...
Here they are... hot off the presses (as it were). Pictures! This is me, sunny-side up, strapped down on the "Christmas" massage table, and freshly spanked.
In the sunshine.
And yes, I am exactly that fuzzy! Sheesh!
swan
In the sunshine.
And yes, I am exactly that fuzzy! Sheesh!
swan
12/29/2007
Massage Table
For just forever now, He has been wishing He could have a massage table. He has "lusted" after massage tables at places like Costco for ages, and He has made T and I just nuts over the darned things.
So...
As the holiday approached and we contemplated the giving of gifts, we tracked down a very nice massage table, and bought it for Him for Christmas. T even managed to wrap the absolutely enormous box that the beast was shipped in.
It looks like this. 
I've been on it. I've not had a massage yet. He hasn't either. Pictures are supposedly coming. Stand by.
That ought to keep some of you checking back in here. ;-)
swan
12/26/2007
BDSM and Domestic Discipline -- Questions
I have found myself involved in an e-mail dialog that is ranging across a breadth of topics. Recent exchanges, however, have focused on a rather off-hand comment I made that, in my experience, many BDSM'ers find the practice of Domestic Discipline appalling. That throwaway comment of mine brought a whole series of questions back, and led me to write the following (slightly edited for form) piece in response:
In response to your questions and comments about the differences and similarities between DD and BDSM, and the perceptions (about one another) in the two "camps," lets be clear that speaking for all BDSM'ers or all DD'ers is, by definition, an exercise in talking in HUGE generalities, and therefore questionable by its very nature. Still, there is, in my experience, a sense of bewilderment/bemusement in the BDSM community when they encounter Domestic Discipline. It really does seem that their response is the counterpart to the lack of understanding that I find in the DD community for BDSM practices.
It is probably fair to ask why some BDSMers find DD appalling?
Because of my history, I cross the lines between the two groups. I was a "DD'er" before I was a full-fledged "BDSM'er." I found my way into spanking through the gateway marked "Domestic Discipline." It is where I started out. I came to BDSM, and my eventual self-identification as submissive/slave, and masochist, later. What I knew/learned when I first began to explore my desire for spanking and control inside of my intimate relationships, I learned in the Domestic Discipline realm. So, that was my earliest exposure and vocabulary. To me, it made a kind of sense - at least in the beginning. My struggle with it was that I am submissive enough that if the rules were put in place to be and do (or not do) certain things in certain ways, then I worked intently and consistently to implement that. For me, that was about integrity and relational honesty. Very quickly, the need for discipline evaporated in my life - although my need for spanking didn't. Hence, the eventual move to explore other aspects of BDSM.
The simple truth for me is that I AM this way. It isn't something I do for fun or thrills (although there is certainly some element of fun and sexual excitement in what we do). It is my belief that there are all kinds of people who find their way into BDSM, but that, if we talk about experienced, sincere, serious BDSM practitioners, then most of those people are going to have some understanding that what drives their practice is something essential to their identity, and an elemental part of their sexual and erotic orientation. They understand that the kinds of relational dynamics that are found within the context of BDSM are connective, personally empowering (even when there may be control ceded for some individuals), and life enhancing.
I think that what causes some BDSM practitioners to be troubled by Domestic Discipline is the perception that it is a model that is founded in a cycle of establishing rules which are intended to be broken such that there can be repeated cycles of punishment. Honestly, the entire cycle is perceived as grim and damaging. Either that, or it is viewed as a bizarre sort of game aimed at creating a spanking environment without really acknowledging that as the goal. In that event, it seems a bit disingenuous (at the very least). Even among those who "play" with disciplinary-based scenarios, or who (like us) incorporate discipline within our dynamics, there is generally an assumption that true discipline is a sometimes necessary but rare, emotionally difficult, and the least enjoyable aspect of our relating to one another.
I realize that some of those (BDSM community) judgments may be erroneous and based on misperceptions and a lack of experience with real, functioning, healthy DD relationships. In that regard, those in the BDSM community who look askance at Domestic Discipline make the same mistakes about their evaluation of it as a relationship dynamic as the folks on the DD side of the spectrum so often do with regard to their BDSM brothers and sisters.
I always find that lack of basic understanding between these two "factions" interesting, because it seems so clear to me that they are related. It seems so obvious to me that Domestic Discipline is simply a "subset" of BDSM -- one of many variations. Still, over and over, I've been asked why I feel that way. The answer to that question begins simply, and then gets a little deeper...
At the most prosaic level, the letters in the acronym "BDSM" stand for a range of erotic/sexual/relational behaviors or practices: Bondage - Discipline - Dominance - Submission - Sadism - Masochism. I know of only a very few people within the lifestyle who actually participate in all the various parts of that list. I do know a whole lot of people who do some of those things within the context of their power exchange based relationships. In my view, the common thread is always that we all practice deliberate forms of relational power exchange. Some of us incorporate bondage but not sadomasochism. Some of us favor discipline dynamics without particular reference to dominance or submission. Others are "into" sadomasochistic eroticism and do not focus on the discipline aspect. There are relationships that are primarily service oriented but have no bondage or sadomasochistic elements. The point is 
that it is ALL BDSM. You do not have to do it all to be doing it. I've never found anyone who specializes in the very lovely practice of Shibari rope bondage that will claim that they are not into BDSM. They know that they are practicing out on one of the corners of the lifestyle, and that is all fine and good. It seems that it is only the Domestic Discipline wing of the family that insists that they are not "us." I've been through that discussion more times than I can count; been kicked off more than one online discussion forum precisely because I dared to give voice to the ultimate heresy: that DD is just a subset of BDSM. It does seem to make a certain segment of the DD world a bit crazy. I think it is entirely due to the image that we BDSM'ers have - that leathered up, fetished out, whip and chain-toting bunch of perverts that no sane, healthy, reasonable, responsible, "nice" person wants to be connected with. Never mind that many of those overheated images are directly from the porn industry, and have next to nothing to do with the real lifestyle; I am not ever going to convince the "Susie-Housewife-who-just-wants-her-HOH-to-spank-her" that it really isn't like that. To tell you the truth, I don't care what anyone wants to think about it all. Denying that DD is a subset of BDSM is (as Himself would say) like claiming that a Chevrolet is not an automobile. It is just silly.
that it is ALL BDSM. You do not have to do it all to be doing it. I've never found anyone who specializes in the very lovely practice of Shibari rope bondage that will claim that they are not into BDSM. They know that they are practicing out on one of the corners of the lifestyle, and that is all fine and good. It seems that it is only the Domestic Discipline wing of the family that insists that they are not "us." I've been through that discussion more times than I can count; been kicked off more than one online discussion forum precisely because I dared to give voice to the ultimate heresy: that DD is just a subset of BDSM. It does seem to make a certain segment of the DD world a bit crazy. I think it is entirely due to the image that we BDSM'ers have - that leathered up, fetished out, whip and chain-toting bunch of perverts that no sane, healthy, reasonable, responsible, "nice" person wants to be connected with. Never mind that many of those overheated images are directly from the porn industry, and have next to nothing to do with the real lifestyle; I am not ever going to convince the "Susie-Housewife-who-just-wants-her-HOH-to-spank-her" that it really isn't like that. To tell you the truth, I don't care what anyone wants to think about it all. Denying that DD is a subset of BDSM is (as Himself would say) like claiming that a Chevrolet is not an automobile. It is just silly.No matter what kind of label you try to hang on your flavor of BDSM, it is about power exchange. Period.What different people then DO within the power exchange is as unique as the people who do it. It doesn't require a marriage license. It doesn't require a collar. It doesn't require that the partners live together fulltime. It doesn't require spanking, bondage, rules, piercings, boot blacking, service, sex, etc. It might involve just about any of those things -- or a whole list of other practices that I haven't listed -- but there is really only one place where ALL the various practices come together... That is in the realm of consensual, deliberate, intentional power exchange. While all human relationships / interactions involve power dynamics, what we do is done with conscious intent. That requires that there be individuals, aware of their own personal power, choosing to share and exchange that power in some intentional and defined fashion. There are an almost infinite number of structures for how that might be accomplished. Sometimes, that power exchange is very, very temporary, and at other times, it is intended to be permanent with regard to the lifetimes of the partners.
I believe that ALL of the conversations and battles that we get into about who is within the circle of BDSM, and then who is more or better or truer or whatever than anyone else is simply our natural urge to establish a "pecking order" among ourselves. We are, at the heart of it all, social animals. It is almost more than we can do to keep ourselves from that business of trying to establish (even if it is only in our own minds) which of us are further up the hierarchy. So. Yes. DD and BDSM go together, just like Lipton is, of course tea. They aren't the same, but they surely aren't entirely different either
swan
12/23/2007
Slave
It is, as I sometimes forget, language that is challenging. Regardless of the context, it is a stretch, in our modern world, to simply declare that someone is a "slave." The word is evocative and loaded with a great number of connotations, most of them "negative" for the vast majority of people.
So, it is not especially surprising to encounter people who react strongly to the fact that I self-identify as a slave. That is exactly what I have been experiencing in the last several weeks. A variety of strong reactions to that language. The responses have been intense enough and frequent enough to cause me to ponder what it is that there is in my experience and choice that can be given or explained that would make it any more accessible.
I live within a relational power exchange that is commonly called Master/slave (sometimes called TPE, APE, Ownership relationships, etc.). The dynamic is, in simple terms, an agreement between us, that ultimate control is His. I have exactly the level of choice in any given situation that He opts to allow me. It is a power dynamic that is entirely voluntary in the sense that we both entered into this consensually and with a full understanding of what the relationship demanded of each of us.
The issue of consent is crucial if one is to understand how erotic slavery works.
Consider that in any sort of intimate relationship (not just BDSM ones) the issue of "consent" will arise. When we create intimacy with another person, we are continually faced with situations in which we must either choose to give consent or determine whether consent has actually been given. Regardless of whether we are talking about having sex or deciding to attend the opera together, if we are going to create a viable partnership, we must get to the point where we come to know how to give and get consent. Understanding how we arrive at consent, and what the conditions are for that consent to occur, can help to make it easier to move toward an understanding of the foundation for consensual Master/slave relationships as well.
A characteristic of healthy relational intimacy is that it is mutual, uncoerced, and consenting. Consent can be defined as present if four conditions are met. These conditions are not absolutes, but the more they are present, the greater the chance that both parties are consenting.
Condition #1: Both people are fully conscious. That would imply that both parties are in complete possession of their faculties -- not impaired in their ability to make reasonable and informed judgments -- not drunk or under the influence of drugs. Sane ( or mostly so).
Condition #2: Both people are equally free to act. The ability to consent implies that one is free to choose to not consent or to change one’s mind. It is essential, especially in the beginning of a relationship that there be open and clear communication that would forestall the potential for coercive situations to develop prior to full consent being established.
Condition # 3: Both parties have clearly communicated their intent.
Condition#4: Both persons are positive and sincere in their desires. Honesty is the basis of a healthy relationship. Insincerity makes it impossible for the other person to respond with integrity and clarity.
In July of 2002, when He put His blade to my flesh, and cut His initials in my left shoulder, it
was with full consent and full knowledge on both our parts. We knew, insofar as it was possible for us to know, what it was that we were doing on that night. We had clearly communicated our intent to one another, both of us were entirely and utterly conscious, and neither of us were in any sense being coerced. I don't believe any two people have ever been more positive or more sincere in their desires than the two of us were that night. He placed the marks of His ownership on my body, but only revealed what already existed in my heart and mind. The conditions of consent were met -- fully and completely.
Of course, the beginning of a Master/slave relationship is only ... the beginning. Beginnings of things are often the easiest. I am held within the most benevolent of control dynamics. There are very few that I know, who claim the title "slave," who have the degree of latitude that I enjoy. Still, the reality is that I have no control that is not "given" to me. I sometimes bump up against that reality at the most inopportune times -- and I almost never fail to be surprised by those bumps. Whatever degree of latitude that is normally mine, if it is suddenly reduced, I find that exceptionally difficult. Imagine!
Because, I do. Still. Years later. I still must, cope with my reactions and responses to having my wants and desires thwarted, when that occasionally happens. I must still accommodate having my proud nature challenged. I must still remember and remind myself that I am His -- no longer my own. The move to the other is very quick and very much ingrained. It is a conscious thing to remain where I declared (on that July night) that it was my intent and desire to be.
Which leads me to consider the difference between "intent and desire" and "aspiration." It was my intent and desire to become His. I had no aspiration to somehow achieve a particular status within the lifestyle. And make no mistake about it, there are those who aspire to "super-slavehood." For some, becoming the quintessential "fantasy" or maybe "literary" BDSM slave is a goal toward which they strive, and for which they yearn. It fires their erotic imaginations and drives their seeking. They long for rules and flourishes and rituals that will announce and manifest their "slavery" to all who behold them. That was never what I looked to create in joining my life to His.
The slavery which I embrace is centered and focused on being and becoming what He would have me be. It does not "look" like what I read about in the BDSM stories. It has Him at its heart and center. So. There are very few rules; hardly any protocols; none of the fancy do-dads that the dreamers imagine slavery gets made of. It is about making a life with Him and for Him -- because that is the point. When I am at my best, as His property, He and I are utterly in tune with one another, and my slavery serves Him and enhances His life and brings us both a kind of peace and contentment that is simple and straightforward and fulfilling.
More and more, as we both age, as life and living make the kinds of demands on our time and energy that they do, I ponder how close we have seemed to veered toward the "vanilla" side of things. Except that I absolutely know that there is no truth in that. Our roots are deep nowadays. The seasons of our life flow from day to day and month to month, and there are surely ebbs and flows in the outward manifestations of our M/s dynamic. Structurally, though, we are solid with one another. We find out way to the touchstones that connect us, even in the midst of busy and difficult days. We take simple pleasure in knowing that there are secure understandings and absolute assurance between us. These things give us strength so that we can work together to make our lives work and be ready, whenever there is space for it, to tumble into the joyful celebration of our full identities with one another. Then, oh then, the whips and paddles come out, and I joyfully wear my collar, and the marks that He makes in my flesh speak of the truth that we build through all the other days, when the work of being for one another is far less sexy or flashy, but lays down the foundation upon which we stand in those glorious moments when we can simply soar away together.
swan
So, it is not especially surprising to encounter people who react strongly to the fact that I self-identify as a slave. That is exactly what I have been experiencing in the last several weeks. A variety of strong reactions to that language. The responses have been intense enough and frequent enough to cause me to ponder what it is that there is in my experience and choice that can be given or explained that would make it any more accessible.
I live within a relational power exchange that is commonly called Master/slave (sometimes called TPE, APE, Ownership relationships, etc.). The dynamic is, in simple terms, an agreement between us, that ultimate control is His. I have exactly the level of choice in any given situation that He opts to allow me. It is a power dynamic that is entirely voluntary in the sense that we both entered into this consensually and with a full understanding of what the relationship demanded of each of us.
The issue of consent is crucial if one is to understand how erotic slavery works.
Consider that in any sort of intimate relationship (not just BDSM ones) the issue of "consent" will arise. When we create intimacy with another person, we are continually faced with situations in which we must either choose to give consent or determine whether consent has actually been given. Regardless of whether we are talking about having sex or deciding to attend the opera together, if we are going to create a viable partnership, we must get to the point where we come to know how to give and get consent. Understanding how we arrive at consent, and what the conditions are for that consent to occur, can help to make it easier to move toward an understanding of the foundation for consensual Master/slave relationships as well.
A characteristic of healthy relational intimacy is that it is mutual, uncoerced, and consenting. Consent can be defined as present if four conditions are met. These conditions are not absolutes, but the more they are present, the greater the chance that both parties are consenting.
Condition #1: Both people are fully conscious. That would imply that both parties are in complete possession of their faculties -- not impaired in their ability to make reasonable and informed judgments -- not drunk or under the influence of drugs. Sane ( or mostly so).
Condition #2: Both people are equally free to act. The ability to consent implies that one is free to choose to not consent or to change one’s mind. It is essential, especially in the beginning of a relationship that there be open and clear communication that would forestall the potential for coercive situations to develop prior to full consent being established.
Condition # 3: Both parties have clearly communicated their intent.
Condition#4: Both persons are positive and sincere in their desires. Honesty is the basis of a healthy relationship. Insincerity makes it impossible for the other person to respond with integrity and clarity.
In July of 2002, when He put His blade to my flesh, and cut His initials in my left shoulder, it
was with full consent and full knowledge on both our parts. We knew, insofar as it was possible for us to know, what it was that we were doing on that night. We had clearly communicated our intent to one another, both of us were entirely and utterly conscious, and neither of us were in any sense being coerced. I don't believe any two people have ever been more positive or more sincere in their desires than the two of us were that night. He placed the marks of His ownership on my body, but only revealed what already existed in my heart and mind. The conditions of consent were met -- fully and completely.Of course, the beginning of a Master/slave relationship is only ... the beginning. Beginnings of things are often the easiest. I am held within the most benevolent of control dynamics. There are very few that I know, who claim the title "slave," who have the degree of latitude that I enjoy. Still, the reality is that I have no control that is not "given" to me. I sometimes bump up against that reality at the most inopportune times -- and I almost never fail to be surprised by those bumps. Whatever degree of latitude that is normally mine, if it is suddenly reduced, I find that exceptionally difficult. Imagine!
Because, I do. Still. Years later. I still must, cope with my reactions and responses to having my wants and desires thwarted, when that occasionally happens. I must still accommodate having my proud nature challenged. I must still remember and remind myself that I am His -- no longer my own. The move to the other is very quick and very much ingrained. It is a conscious thing to remain where I declared (on that July night) that it was my intent and desire to be.
Which leads me to consider the difference between "intent and desire" and "aspiration." It was my intent and desire to become His. I had no aspiration to somehow achieve a particular status within the lifestyle. And make no mistake about it, there are those who aspire to "super-slavehood." For some, becoming the quintessential "fantasy" or maybe "literary" BDSM slave is a goal toward which they strive, and for which they yearn. It fires their erotic imaginations and drives their seeking. They long for rules and flourishes and rituals that will announce and manifest their "slavery" to all who behold them. That was never what I looked to create in joining my life to His.
The slavery which I embrace is centered and focused on being and becoming what He would have me be. It does not "look" like what I read about in the BDSM stories. It has Him at its heart and center. So. There are very few rules; hardly any protocols; none of the fancy do-dads that the dreamers imagine slavery gets made of. It is about making a life with Him and for Him -- because that is the point. When I am at my best, as His property, He and I are utterly in tune with one another, and my slavery serves Him and enhances His life and brings us both a kind of peace and contentment that is simple and straightforward and fulfilling.
More and more, as we both age, as life and living make the kinds of demands on our time and energy that they do, I ponder how close we have seemed to veered toward the "vanilla" side of things. Except that I absolutely know that there is no truth in that. Our roots are deep nowadays. The seasons of our life flow from day to day and month to month, and there are surely ebbs and flows in the outward manifestations of our M/s dynamic. Structurally, though, we are solid with one another. We find out way to the touchstones that connect us, even in the midst of busy and difficult days. We take simple pleasure in knowing that there are secure understandings and absolute assurance between us. These things give us strength so that we can work together to make our lives work and be ready, whenever there is space for it, to tumble into the joyful celebration of our full identities with one another. Then, oh then, the whips and paddles come out, and I joyfully wear my collar, and the marks that He makes in my flesh speak of the truth that we build through all the other days, when the work of being for one another is far less sexy or flashy, but lays down the foundation upon which we stand in those glorious moments when we can simply soar away together.
swan
12/22/2007
The War on Christmas
It has become quite fashionable in recent years for "Christians" to decry the "War on Christmas." This usually means that Christians have felt that somehow the celebration of Christmas has been separated from its Christian meaning.......or as they would put it its "true Christian meaning." I am here to debunk the true Christian meaning of Christmas and to claim my/our right as a non-Christian to celebrate this fabulous holiday.
It is always quite difficult to make a case about what it is "Christians" do, because whatever it is some Christian faction cites, another opposes and says, "Christians would never do that." There is a Christian BDSM Listserv on the web comprised primarily of Anglican BDSM-ers and if you cite any of the actions of the Fundamentalist right, or of conservative Catholics, etc. they decry those and declare them to be non Christian..........while of course their beleifes are entirely "Christian." Of course the fundamentalists would likewise proclaim these extremely liberal Anglicans to be infidels, etc. So discussing anything as being Christian or not is like trying to capture fog in a grocery bag.
What follows here are quotes from (non-theologian) historians about the origins of the holiday we celebrate today as "Christmas."
"The biblical narrative of Jesus' birth gives no date for the event, though it more likely occurred in spring than in winter. Saint Luke tells us that shepherds were "abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night" -- shepherds guarded their flocks day and night only at lambing time, in the spring; in winter, the animals were kept in corrals, unwatched. The idea of celebrating the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century, a clever move on the part of Church fathers, who wished to eclipse the festivities of a rival pagan religion, Mithraism, which celebrated the birth of their sun god Mithras on December 25, and that threatened the existence of Christianity. It is important to note that for two centuries after Christ's birth, no one knew, and few people cared, exactly when he was born. Birthdays were unimportant; death days counted. Besides, Christ was divine and his natural birth was deliberately played down. In fact, the Church even announced at one point that it was sinful to contemplate observing Christ's birthday "as though He were a King Pharoah." On December 25, pagan Romans, still in the majority, celebrated Natalis Solis Invincti, "Birthday of the Invincible Sun God," Mithras. The Mithras cult originated in Persia and rooted itself in the Roman world in the first century B.C.E. By the year 274 C.E., Mithraism was so popular with the masses that Emperor Aurelian proclaimed it the official state religion. In the early 300s, the cult seriously threatened Christianity, and for a time, it was unclear which faith would emerge victorious. Church fathers debated their options. It was well known that Roman patricians and plebians alike enjoyed festivals of a protacted nature. The Church, then, needed a December celebration. Thus, to offer converts an occasion in which to be pridefully celebratory, the Church officially recognized Christ's birth. And to offer head-on competition to the sun worshipers' popular feast, the Church located the Nativity on December 25. The mode of observance would be characteristically prayerful: a Mass; in fact, Christ's Mass. As one theologian wrote in the 320s: We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it. Although centuries later, social scientists would write of the psychological power of group celebrations -- the unification of ranks, the solidification of collective identity, the reinforcement of common objectives -- the principle had long been intuitively obvious. The celebration of Christmas took permanent hold in the Western world in 337, when the Roman emperor, Constantine was baptized, uniting for the first time the Crown and the Church. Christianity had become the official state religion in 313. And in 354, Bishop Liberius of Rome reiterated the importance of celebrating not only Christ's death but also his birth. "
Prior to the fourth century and the convening of the Council of Nicea in 325 C. E. there was no Christmas, just as there was no virgin birth, Christ being the son of God, resurrection, holy Trinity, Easter, or Christmas. All of these were incorporations of pagan theology and more importantly holidays that were necessary to get the populace of that time to "swallow" a merger between the traditional Roman pagan religion and its newly morphed Christian/pagan hybrid religion. None of these precepts have any basis in any historically valid teachings of Christ, or his apostles. They are all fictional adptations to resolve political conflicts and market the new religion to both factions.
A further description of this process of the 'absorption" of Rome's pagan state religion follows:
"'Put the Christ back in Christmas’, we’re always told. ‘Jesus is the Reason for the Season’ they keep saying. Good people speak these things, earnestly and frequently. Unfortunately for such pious folk, Christmas is related to Christianity in the same limited way as Caesar’s wife is to history: only by marriage. Christ was never really in Christmas. In fact, when you celebrate Christmas by eating too much, drinking too much, feeling up the boss’ wife at the office party, driving the porcelain bus and/or spending a fortune on presents almost, but not quite, entirely unsuitable for the person to whom you gave them, you come rather closer to the real spirit of Christmas.
In the early days of the Church, Jesus Christ got along fine without a birthday. The Gospel writers were as unsure about his birth date as we are now: Matthew tells us that Herod the Great was on the Judæan throne when He was born, and then proceeds to narrate Herod’s massacre of the innocents. Luke, by contrast, times Christ’s birth to coincide with a Roman census. Herod died in 4 BC. Governor Quirinius carried out his census of Judæa in A.D. 6. Considerable interpretive latitude was thus already present in the narrative. No doubt the early Christians knew it and (sensibly) chose to leave well alone. In any case, birthday parties were worldly, pagan affairs, and Christians did not want to associate the good name of their saviour with any of them.
But when Christianity became a faith with claims to universality, the official religion of Constantine’s Empire, this lack of a birthday became something of an embarrassment. Besides, people still expected their twelve days off in December.
Lo! A multitude, handsome and well-dressed, Numerous as those on the benches, makes Its way all along the rows. Some carry basketsWith breads and napkins and luxurious fare,Others serve languorous wine in plenty…
Rome’s Saturnalia was a curious mixture of ancient fertility rite and social event. It celebrated the winter solstice, a time when people believed, perhaps, that they needed to make themselves a warm place. It also recalled - for all Romans - a mythical golden age in the distant past when the world was truly merry, a world without war, slavery or hunger.
Romans decorated their doorposts with holly and kissed under the mistletoe. Shops and businesses closed and people greeted one another in the street with shouts of Io Saturnalia! On one day of the twelve, masters waited on their slaves at table while, in the legions, officers served the ranks. A rose was hung from the ceiling in banqueting rooms, and anything said or done sub rosa went no further than the front door. That banqueting could get out of hand is attested to by Seneca, who tells of slaves detailed especially to clean up the spew. The government - in both Rome and the provinces - often laid on free public feasts. In the poem by Statius, we’re told how the emperor Domitian held one such feast in the colosseum, somehow combining (and the organisation can only be marvelled at) vast quantities of food with entertainment. The Romans, I should add, had no weekend, no useless and unproductive Saturdays and Sundays, so they looked forward to their sanguinary feriae with considerable relish. The festival of Saturnalia was a time, too, for family dinners, for parties, for amours, for socialising, for wishing others well.
And, of course, the Romans also did something for which the proprietors of department stores the world over should be eternally grateful. They exchanged gifts. Originally (before Rome’s citizens acquired great wealth) these were small earthenware statuettes known as sigillaria. By the end of the first century, however, Martial provides a list of such gifts - with accompanying decorations in verse - that reads for all the world like the David Jones Christmas catalogue: backscratchers, socks, medicine chests, comforters, woolly slippers, board-games, gold-inlaid dishes, jewellery - among other things.
That the commercial aspects of Christmas are Roman in origin should not cause surprise. ‘No one in Gaul ever does business without the involvement of a Roman citizen,’ boasts leading lawyer (and later politician) Cicero in one of his defence speeches, ‘there is not a denarius jingling in Gaul which has not been recorded in the account books of Roman citizens’. Set into the mosaic floors of a number of homes in Pompeii are the phrases Hello Profit! and Profit is Happiness! The Romans were probably history’s first unregenerate capitalists.
Now, as the shade of night steals on
What song heralds the scattering of largess!
Here are young women stirred to lust, easily bought;
Here is all that wins favour with skill and beauty
Buxom Lydians, cymbals of Cádiz, shouting Syrians…
Statius’ picture is a beguiling one, and it is easy to forget that these same Romans could also be rather correct, formal people, militaristic and bloody-minded all at once. Saturnalia, like Christmas, was a time of licence, when people would wink indulgently at each other’s foibles or look the other way. We’ve all heard horror stories about somebody’s brother’s friend’s office Christmas party where the brother’s friend hopes that the boss, his accountant, the head of department, the fellow from the tax office - whoever - will have as little memory of the insults they received as the person who did the insulting.
Christmas is a venerable pagan festival, on a sort of permanent loan from Ancient Rome, and is, perhaps, the very antithesis of Christianity in the lines of its pagan decent. Some of the churches know this, and have left Christmas to the revellers, appalled as much by the Teutonic Christmas tree (which has its origins in Germanic and Norse tree worship) as by the libidinous connotations of too much wine and too little thought, and by the merry jingle of all those cash registers (well, merry beeping these days. The good old capitalistic bell of yore has gone, it seems, the way of the blue suede shoe).
How many years shall this festival abide?Age will not destroy so sacred a season!While the hills of Latium remain,While Father Tiber flows, while Rome standsWith the Capitol you have made ."
I have no problem with Christians celebrating Christmas as they choose. While it would likely be more historically correct for me to celebrate Christmas as Saturnalia, the reality of this culture is that what we celebrate is Christmas. I do however believe I have no reason to have to celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday. It is estimated that the celebration of December 25 as the ultimate annual holiday goes back 8 to 10 centuries before Christ. It was celebrated with feasting, drinking and evergreens and red berries, and gifts, singing songs naked in the streets, and, yes, bachanalian orgies, including the flagellation of women (an exceptionally fine Christmas tradition.:)
I claim Christmas as my favorite holiday and decry Christ's birth as anything more than an entertaining myth. I love the music and the food and drink, and fully intend to resurrect flogging as a tremendously potent aspect of commemorating the season.
There has been a war on Christmas, or more correctly a war an Saturnalia, which has been mounted by Christianity for the last 1682 years. Christmas is not the true holiday tradition at all but a bastardization of pagan winter solstice festivities to market a new hybrid religion to heal a politically threatening scism that was occurring in the first quarter of the fourth century between adherents to the old traditional Roman (previoulsy Greek, previously Egyptian, previously Mesopotamian) pagan religion and the upstart but rapidly growing Christian cultists that was threatening the empire under Emperor Constantine.
Merry Christmas to those of you who are traditionally Christian. Congratulations on yet another celebration of the birth of your saviour and blessed Emmanuel.
To the rest of us. Do not let the Christians, in their presumptious arrogance, steal this holiday from us once again. As they stole this holiday 1682 years ago and perverted its puposes and beliefs, there is no reason we should not be able to return the favor. IO SATURNALIA!!!! Let the feasting and licentiousness begin:)
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
It is always quite difficult to make a case about what it is "Christians" do, because whatever it is some Christian faction cites, another opposes and says, "Christians would never do that." There is a Christian BDSM Listserv on the web comprised primarily of Anglican BDSM-ers and if you cite any of the actions of the Fundamentalist right, or of conservative Catholics, etc. they decry those and declare them to be non Christian..........while of course their beleifes are entirely "Christian." Of course the fundamentalists would likewise proclaim these extremely liberal Anglicans to be infidels, etc. So discussing anything as being Christian or not is like trying to capture fog in a grocery bag.
What follows here are quotes from (non-theologian) historians about the origins of the holiday we celebrate today as "Christmas."
"The biblical narrative of Jesus' birth gives no date for the event, though it more likely occurred in spring than in winter. Saint Luke tells us that shepherds were "abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night" -- shepherds guarded their flocks day and night only at lambing time, in the spring; in winter, the animals were kept in corrals, unwatched. The idea of celebrating the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century, a clever move on the part of Church fathers, who wished to eclipse the festivities of a rival pagan religion, Mithraism, which celebrated the birth of their sun god Mithras on December 25, and that threatened the existence of Christianity. It is important to note that for two centuries after Christ's birth, no one knew, and few people cared, exactly when he was born. Birthdays were unimportant; death days counted. Besides, Christ was divine and his natural birth was deliberately played down. In fact, the Church even announced at one point that it was sinful to contemplate observing Christ's birthday "as though He were a King Pharoah." On December 25, pagan Romans, still in the majority, celebrated Natalis Solis Invincti, "Birthday of the Invincible Sun God," Mithras. The Mithras cult originated in Persia and rooted itself in the Roman world in the first century B.C.E. By the year 274 C.E., Mithraism was so popular with the masses that Emperor Aurelian proclaimed it the official state religion. In the early 300s, the cult seriously threatened Christianity, and for a time, it was unclear which faith would emerge victorious. Church fathers debated their options. It was well known that Roman patricians and plebians alike enjoyed festivals of a protacted nature. The Church, then, needed a December celebration. Thus, to offer converts an occasion in which to be pridefully celebratory, the Church officially recognized Christ's birth. And to offer head-on competition to the sun worshipers' popular feast, the Church located the Nativity on December 25. The mode of observance would be characteristically prayerful: a Mass; in fact, Christ's Mass. As one theologian wrote in the 320s: We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it. Although centuries later, social scientists would write of the psychological power of group celebrations -- the unification of ranks, the solidification of collective identity, the reinforcement of common objectives -- the principle had long been intuitively obvious. The celebration of Christmas took permanent hold in the Western world in 337, when the Roman emperor, Constantine was baptized, uniting for the first time the Crown and the Church. Christianity had become the official state religion in 313. And in 354, Bishop Liberius of Rome reiterated the importance of celebrating not only Christ's death but also his birth. "
Prior to the fourth century and the convening of the Council of Nicea in 325 C. E. there was no Christmas, just as there was no virgin birth, Christ being the son of God, resurrection, holy Trinity, Easter, or Christmas. All of these were incorporations of pagan theology and more importantly holidays that were necessary to get the populace of that time to "swallow" a merger between the traditional Roman pagan religion and its newly morphed Christian/pagan hybrid religion. None of these precepts have any basis in any historically valid teachings of Christ, or his apostles. They are all fictional adptations to resolve political conflicts and market the new religion to both factions.
A further description of this process of the 'absorption" of Rome's pagan state religion follows:
"'Put the Christ back in Christmas’, we’re always told. ‘Jesus is the Reason for the Season’ they keep saying. Good people speak these things, earnestly and frequently. Unfortunately for such pious folk, Christmas is related to Christianity in the same limited way as Caesar’s wife is to history: only by marriage. Christ was never really in Christmas. In fact, when you celebrate Christmas by eating too much, drinking too much, feeling up the boss’ wife at the office party, driving the porcelain bus and/or spending a fortune on presents almost, but not quite, entirely unsuitable for the person to whom you gave them, you come rather closer to the real spirit of Christmas.
In the early days of the Church, Jesus Christ got along fine without a birthday. The Gospel writers were as unsure about his birth date as we are now: Matthew tells us that Herod the Great was on the Judæan throne when He was born, and then proceeds to narrate Herod’s massacre of the innocents. Luke, by contrast, times Christ’s birth to coincide with a Roman census. Herod died in 4 BC. Governor Quirinius carried out his census of Judæa in A.D. 6. Considerable interpretive latitude was thus already present in the narrative. No doubt the early Christians knew it and (sensibly) chose to leave well alone. In any case, birthday parties were worldly, pagan affairs, and Christians did not want to associate the good name of their saviour with any of them.
But when Christianity became a faith with claims to universality, the official religion of Constantine’s Empire, this lack of a birthday became something of an embarrassment. Besides, people still expected their twelve days off in December.
Lo! A multitude, handsome and well-dressed, Numerous as those on the benches, makes Its way all along the rows. Some carry basketsWith breads and napkins and luxurious fare,Others serve languorous wine in plenty…
Rome’s Saturnalia was a curious mixture of ancient fertility rite and social event. It celebrated the winter solstice, a time when people believed, perhaps, that they needed to make themselves a warm place. It also recalled - for all Romans - a mythical golden age in the distant past when the world was truly merry, a world without war, slavery or hunger.
Romans decorated their doorposts with holly and kissed under the mistletoe. Shops and businesses closed and people greeted one another in the street with shouts of Io Saturnalia! On one day of the twelve, masters waited on their slaves at table while, in the legions, officers served the ranks. A rose was hung from the ceiling in banqueting rooms, and anything said or done sub rosa went no further than the front door. That banqueting could get out of hand is attested to by Seneca, who tells of slaves detailed especially to clean up the spew. The government - in both Rome and the provinces - often laid on free public feasts. In the poem by Statius, we’re told how the emperor Domitian held one such feast in the colosseum, somehow combining (and the organisation can only be marvelled at) vast quantities of food with entertainment. The Romans, I should add, had no weekend, no useless and unproductive Saturdays and Sundays, so they looked forward to their sanguinary feriae with considerable relish. The festival of Saturnalia was a time, too, for family dinners, for parties, for amours, for socialising, for wishing others well.
And, of course, the Romans also did something for which the proprietors of department stores the world over should be eternally grateful. They exchanged gifts. Originally (before Rome’s citizens acquired great wealth) these were small earthenware statuettes known as sigillaria. By the end of the first century, however, Martial provides a list of such gifts - with accompanying decorations in verse - that reads for all the world like the David Jones Christmas catalogue: backscratchers, socks, medicine chests, comforters, woolly slippers, board-games, gold-inlaid dishes, jewellery - among other things.
That the commercial aspects of Christmas are Roman in origin should not cause surprise. ‘No one in Gaul ever does business without the involvement of a Roman citizen,’ boasts leading lawyer (and later politician) Cicero in one of his defence speeches, ‘there is not a denarius jingling in Gaul which has not been recorded in the account books of Roman citizens’. Set into the mosaic floors of a number of homes in Pompeii are the phrases Hello Profit! and Profit is Happiness! The Romans were probably history’s first unregenerate capitalists.
Now, as the shade of night steals on
What song heralds the scattering of largess!
Here are young women stirred to lust, easily bought;
Here is all that wins favour with skill and beauty
Buxom Lydians, cymbals of Cádiz, shouting Syrians…
Statius’ picture is a beguiling one, and it is easy to forget that these same Romans could also be rather correct, formal people, militaristic and bloody-minded all at once. Saturnalia, like Christmas, was a time of licence, when people would wink indulgently at each other’s foibles or look the other way. We’ve all heard horror stories about somebody’s brother’s friend’s office Christmas party where the brother’s friend hopes that the boss, his accountant, the head of department, the fellow from the tax office - whoever - will have as little memory of the insults they received as the person who did the insulting.
Christmas is a venerable pagan festival, on a sort of permanent loan from Ancient Rome, and is, perhaps, the very antithesis of Christianity in the lines of its pagan decent. Some of the churches know this, and have left Christmas to the revellers, appalled as much by the Teutonic Christmas tree (which has its origins in Germanic and Norse tree worship) as by the libidinous connotations of too much wine and too little thought, and by the merry jingle of all those cash registers (well, merry beeping these days. The good old capitalistic bell of yore has gone, it seems, the way of the blue suede shoe).
How many years shall this festival abide?Age will not destroy so sacred a season!While the hills of Latium remain,While Father Tiber flows, while Rome standsWith the Capitol you have made ."
I have no problem with Christians celebrating Christmas as they choose. While it would likely be more historically correct for me to celebrate Christmas as Saturnalia, the reality of this culture is that what we celebrate is Christmas. I do however believe I have no reason to have to celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday. It is estimated that the celebration of December 25 as the ultimate annual holiday goes back 8 to 10 centuries before Christ. It was celebrated with feasting, drinking and evergreens and red berries, and gifts, singing songs naked in the streets, and, yes, bachanalian orgies, including the flagellation of women (an exceptionally fine Christmas tradition.:)
I claim Christmas as my favorite holiday and decry Christ's birth as anything more than an entertaining myth. I love the music and the food and drink, and fully intend to resurrect flogging as a tremendously potent aspect of commemorating the season.
There has been a war on Christmas, or more correctly a war an Saturnalia, which has been mounted by Christianity for the last 1682 years. Christmas is not the true holiday tradition at all but a bastardization of pagan winter solstice festivities to market a new hybrid religion to heal a politically threatening scism that was occurring in the first quarter of the fourth century between adherents to the old traditional Roman (previoulsy Greek, previously Egyptian, previously Mesopotamian) pagan religion and the upstart but rapidly growing Christian cultists that was threatening the empire under Emperor Constantine.
Merry Christmas to those of you who are traditionally Christian. Congratulations on yet another celebration of the birth of your saviour and blessed Emmanuel.
To the rest of us. Do not let the Christians, in their presumptious arrogance, steal this holiday from us once again. As they stole this holiday 1682 years ago and perverted its puposes and beliefs, there is no reason we should not be able to return the favor. IO SATURNALIA!!!! Let the feasting and licentiousness begin:)
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
12/21/2007
Ecclectic Ponderings of the Season
I have, for as long as I can remember, come to the winter holiday celebration with ambivalence (to put it mildly). For me, it begins in mid-October and then just builds from there until, by the time everyone else is feeling all "merry and bright" I am a full-on humbug -- and generally pretty sincerely hysterical about it in the bargain.
Some of that is wrapped around a mixture of family history that is so cumbersome and complicated and just icky that I don't even want to step into the muck to begin to recount it. Suffice it to say that I don't have a lot of warm fuzzy memories to hang my holiday hat on. Part of my difficulty with the mid-winter celebrating is
that it happens in WINTER. Ewwwww! I am not a snow person. I detest the cold. The dark brings me down emotionally. All I really want to do is curl up under the warm, snuggly blankets and hug and cuddle and sleep -- waking occasionally to make love before drifting back to sleep. I do not ski. I do not ride sleds. I do not ice skate. I do not shovel snow (given any choice). I do not like being out in this nasty, awful, dreadful, miserable winter weather. Period. Warm. Give me warm, sunny days and a patio with a beer or an ice tea -- preferably served by a charming cabana boy... GRIN! Further, I really do feel conflicted about the religious context that pervades the holidays. I am NOT Christian. The whole Jesus thing is a problem for me in terms of "intellectual integrity."I like the pretty pageantry of the whole story -- I was raised with it and I know all the music and I have a serious collection of nativity sets, but the fact is that my personal spirituality is not in line with this very Christian holiday. I don't have anything against people who DO do this path, but it isn't mine, and I know that is the truth for me, so I can get to feeling a little raw, if I pay attention at a certain level. It just doesn't feel honest. And don't even get me started about the commercial drumbeat that pounds out the mantra from way before Halloween with ever increasing urgency -- HAVE YOU BOUGHT ENOUGH; SPENT ENOUGH; PILED THE PILES HIGH ENOUGH? I don't enjoy shopping. Ever. Not for myself, and not for anyone else either. I am never sure what to do about gift giving. Not creative or inventive or sure what is the right thing for anyone on the list. I am easily overwhelmed at almost every single turn in the gift tumble. And I'm no better when it comes to receiving gifts -- I don't like being surprised. I hate that whole wrapped up package scenario. It makes me nervous.
So. I have been a little surprised this year to find myself easing gently and softly through the season with a sense of quiet and calm and simple enjoyment. I've scaled down some of what I might have done in years before. I've chosen what to bring out of the decorative items that I've had in my collection for years -- I've given myself permission to only put out only what I really want out; those things that I most enjoy and really want to see in my environment. I've found I'm enjoying the music that is seasonal as we've played it at home -- simply letting it wash through the place and take us where it will. Some nights, after dinner, we turn out the lights, put on the candles and just sit and listen, or even sing along. Sharing the music that seems to fill the house with a particular kind of warmth and joy. It has been good.
Another set of words that have brought me to a place of thinking this year come from a frankly "Jesus" promoting Christmas song by Kenny Rogers -- "Mary, Did You Know?" The truth is, I like it musically. Beyond that, though, there is something in these words that speaks to me about the whole "virgin birth" thing that is part and parcel of the Christmas story that I was brought up with as part of my Catholic childhood. For those who have not had the Catholic experience, the doctrine of the virginity of Mary is a major article of faith within that tradition. I don't know very many people who come of age within Catholicism who don't struggle with the sheer cognitive looniness of the "virgin birth." Still, I like this song. It celebrates the mystery of motherhood (quite apart from the religious overlay) in terms that I believe any woman who has ever gazed into the eyes of her infant child can understand. There is that wild unknown place when you hold that new, unformed human person in your arms. Surely, EVERY birth is "virgin" in some very real sense. It is territory that cannot be known ahead of time, cannot be understood in any sort of concrete sense short of actually walking through the process.
Mary, did you know
Some of that is wrapped around a mixture of family history that is so cumbersome and complicated and just icky that I don't even want to step into the muck to begin to recount it. Suffice it to say that I don't have a lot of warm fuzzy memories to hang my holiday hat on. Part of my difficulty with the mid-winter celebrating is
that it happens in WINTER. Ewwwww! I am not a snow person. I detest the cold. The dark brings me down emotionally. All I really want to do is curl up under the warm, snuggly blankets and hug and cuddle and sleep -- waking occasionally to make love before drifting back to sleep. I do not ski. I do not ride sleds. I do not ice skate. I do not shovel snow (given any choice). I do not like being out in this nasty, awful, dreadful, miserable winter weather. Period. Warm. Give me warm, sunny days and a patio with a beer or an ice tea -- preferably served by a charming cabana boy... GRIN! Further, I really do feel conflicted about the religious context that pervades the holidays. I am NOT Christian. The whole Jesus thing is a problem for me in terms of "intellectual integrity."I like the pretty pageantry of the whole story -- I was raised with it and I know all the music and I have a serious collection of nativity sets, but the fact is that my personal spirituality is not in line with this very Christian holiday. I don't have anything against people who DO do this path, but it isn't mine, and I know that is the truth for me, so I can get to feeling a little raw, if I pay attention at a certain level. It just doesn't feel honest. And don't even get me started about the commercial drumbeat that pounds out the mantra from way before Halloween with ever increasing urgency -- HAVE YOU BOUGHT ENOUGH; SPENT ENOUGH; PILED THE PILES HIGH ENOUGH? I don't enjoy shopping. Ever. Not for myself, and not for anyone else either. I am never sure what to do about gift giving. Not creative or inventive or sure what is the right thing for anyone on the list. I am easily overwhelmed at almost every single turn in the gift tumble. And I'm no better when it comes to receiving gifts -- I don't like being surprised. I hate that whole wrapped up package scenario. It makes me nervous.So. I have been a little surprised this year to find myself easing gently and softly through the season with a sense of quiet and calm and simple enjoyment. I've scaled down some of what I might have done in years before. I've chosen what to bring out of the decorative items that I've had in my collection for years -- I've given myself permission to only put out only what I really want out; those things that I most enjoy and really want to see in my environment. I've found I'm enjoying the music that is seasonal as we've played it at home -- simply letting it wash through the place and take us where it will. Some nights, after dinner, we turn out the lights, put on the candles and just sit and listen, or even sing along. Sharing the music that seems to fill the house with a particular kind of warmth and joy. It has been good.
I've found I'm pondering and listening to the language of the holiday with some sort of different perspective this year. Not so put off by the Christian nature of the celebrations, I am finding other meanings that are speaking to me in the images, symbols, and traditions. For a celebration that is, after all, deeply rooted in pre-Christian ritual and belief, none of that should probably be surprising. Still, I am glad to find things that can carry me through the pervasive frolicking with some kind of orienting that makes it all seem at least a little bit contextually sane for me.
So, here are some bits and pieces -- shared for the holiday with you --
This first is really not Christmas oriented, or even holiday oriented, but I find it evocative in the context of our world situation, especially as Bethelehem continues to sit at the vortex of so much upheaval in our world. How remarkable that these words, penned at the opening of the First World War seem so applicable to where we find ourselves so many years later. As the seasonal darkness settles down over us all, this is the season for lighting the fires of hospitality and hope in our homes, our hearts, our communities. Wherever ignorance and fear and hatred hold sway, people of g
ood will and good heart must find the courage and the conviction to reach across seemingly impassable boundaries to make common cause. We are, all -- here on this tiny, shining bit of matter in a vast universe, more alike than different.
ood will and good heart must find the courage and the conviction to reach across seemingly impassable boundaries to make common cause. We are, all -- here on this tiny, shining bit of matter in a vast universe, more alike than different. W.B Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!
Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I
That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Another set of words that have brought me to a place of thinking this year come from a frankly "Jesus" promoting Christmas song by Kenny Rogers -- "Mary, Did You Know?" The truth is, I like it musically. Beyond that, though, there is something in these words that speaks to me about the whole "virgin birth" thing that is part and parcel of the Christmas story that I was brought up with as part of my Catholic childhood. For those who have not had the Catholic experience, the doctrine of the virginity of Mary is a major article of faith within that tradition. I don't know very many people who come of age within Catholicism who don't struggle with the sheer cognitive looniness of the "virgin birth." Still, I like this song. It celebrates the mystery of motherhood (quite apart from the religious overlay) in terms that I believe any woman who has ever gazed into the eyes of her infant child can understand. There is that wild unknown place when you hold that new, unformed human person in your arms. Surely, EVERY birth is "virgin" in some very real sense. It is territory that cannot be known ahead of time, cannot be understood in any sort of concrete sense short of actually walking through the process.
Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know,
that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered,
will soon deliver you.
Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know,
that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby,
you've kissed the face of God.
The blind will see
The deaf will hear
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.
Mary, did you know
that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know,
that your baby boy is heaven's perfect lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding,
is the great I AM
Then there is the continued injunction, delivered by angels, if you read the accounts of the birth of Christ, as told in scripture, especially in the Gospel of Mark -- "Do not be afraid." Angels tell Mary not to be afraid when they announce that she has "found favor with God" and will become the mother of the Messiah foretold by the prophets. Angels tell the carpenter, Joseph, not to be afraid to take Mary for his wife, even though she is bearing a child which he knows is not his. 
Angels tell the terrified shepherds not to be afraid, but instead to go and seek out the child which has been laid in a manger... I don't know about the veracity of the whole story, but I do know one thing. Messengers from "god" who tell you not to be afraid -- are actually telling you to hang on to your hat because life is just about to get interesting as hell. I am trying to remember if there was an "angel" the night that Master sat at the end of the sofa, long after everyone else was asleep; looked straight at me, and announced that He loved me... Did I hear some angelic voice steadying my nerves -- assuring me that there was absolutely no reason to be afraid? Maybe so...
Angels tell the terrified shepherds not to be afraid, but instead to go and seek out the child which has been laid in a manger... I don't know about the veracity of the whole story, but I do know one thing. Messengers from "god" who tell you not to be afraid -- are actually telling you to hang on to your hat because life is just about to get interesting as hell. I am trying to remember if there was an "angel" the night that Master sat at the end of the sofa, long after everyone else was asleep; looked straight at me, and announced that He loved me... Did I hear some angelic voice steadying my nerves -- assuring me that there was absolutely no reason to be afraid? Maybe so...Then there is the even deeper, older, more rooted set of traditions to which it all hearkens back... the time of magic and wonder before there was anything but a world ruled by sprites and the wood nymphs and the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses from cultures flung across the globe. In the more innocent and earthy celebrations of the solstice and the turning of the year and the returning of the light, I still find something deep and resonant:
In Russia, there's a Christmas divination that involves candles. A girl would sit in a darkened room, with two lighted candles and two mirrors, pointed so that one reflects the candlelight into the other. The viewer would seek the seventh reflection, then look until her future would be seen.
The Early Germans built a stone altar to Hertha, or Bertha, goddess of domesticity and the home, during winter solstice. With a fire of fir boughs stoked on the altar, Hertha was able to descend through the smoke and guide those who were wise in Saga lore to foretell the fortunes of those at the feast.
In Spain, there's an old custom that is a holdover from Roman days. The urn of fate is a large bowl containing slips of paper on which are written all the names of those at a family get-togehter. The slips of paper are drawn out two at a time. Those whose names are so joined are to be devoted friends for the year. Apparently, there's often a little finagling to help matchmaking along, as well.
In Scandinavia, some families place all their shoes together, as this will cause them to live in harmony throughout the year.
And in many, many cultures, it's considered bad luck for a fire or a candle to go out on Christmas Day. So keep those candles burning!
The Early Germans built a stone altar to Hertha, or Bertha, goddess of domesticity and the home, during winter solstice. With a fire of fir boughs stoked on the altar, Hertha was able to descend through the smoke and guide those who were wise in Saga lore to foretell the fortunes of those at the feast.
In Spain, there's an old custom that is a holdover from Roman days. The urn of fate is a large bowl containing slips of paper on which are written all the names of those at a family get-togehter. The slips of paper are drawn out two at a time. Those whose names are so joined are to be devoted friends for the year. Apparently, there's often a little finagling to help matchmaking along, as well.
In Scandinavia, some families place all their shoes together, as this will cause them to live in harmony throughout the year.
And in many, many cultures, it's considered bad luck for a fire or a candle to go out on Christmas Day. So keep those candles burning!
swan
12/20/2007
Political Rant -- Fair Warning
Mother Jones Magazine reports this week that the new darling of the "social conservative" wing of the Republican party, Mike Huckabee, wrote the following in a book he co-authored in 1998:
It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.
Trying to put some sort of "reasonable" spin on that little gem, Huckabee mouthpiece, Joe Carter sought to clarify its meaning like this:
"He's not equating homosexuality with necrophilia. He's saying there's a range of aberrant behavior. He considers homosexuality aberrant, but that's at one end of the spectrum. Necrophilia is at the other end."
Carter added: "No way is he saying that homosexuality is like having sex with dead people. That's not it at all."
Asked how one measured what rated where on this spectrum of aberrant behavior, Carter said: "He was talking about aberrant sexual behavior. Sado masochism and necrophilia are on the further end of the spectrum."
Well.
Now.
We're a good long way from the point where this all comes down to actual votes getting cast here. I wouldn't ever, ever, ever vote for any of the characters that the Republicans are fielding this go round. That said, I, for one, am going to keep that little piece of information very clearly in mind. I will be very sure to do anything and everything that I can possibly do to ensure that Mike Huckabee never moves into the White House.
swan
12/18/2007
Maestro, Please?
He held the cane in His hand, and directed the music that I am sure I heard. No conductor of any orchestra ever wielded the baton with such grace or such sensuous suppleness. His smooth wand traced the contours of my flesh, awakening the nerve endings as it traveled. By times, there was no actual contact at all, only the teasing promise of a touch as the rattan tickled through the fine down that covers my skin. My breathing followed His lead as He directed my rising emotions and desires. The lightness of the touches only drove me to long for the sharp staccatos that I knew He could deliver if He only would. Those swishing, sweeping, strokes brought my whole mind into the music He was creating until I was writhing and undulating, thrusting my hot ass up to be burned by the score from which He was reading...
And then the dream was over, and the morning came.
The first words out of His mouth, when the C-Pap came off, were of the stocks and a whipping. I found myself plunged, in an instant, into the darkness where I go at the mere mention of the stocks -- where it is an effort to simply breathe without shrieking; where it is all I can do to stay in place and not run; where I hope that my mere quiet will be submission enough until I can be restrained and unable to do anything else.
In the end, He opted for something less -- for a session that was very much like what we'd done on Saturday morning. He began with His hand, but quickly moved to the paddle and the heavy rubber strap, and I don't know what all else. On Saturday, it was grand, but on this morning, I howled and raged and simply made my way through the darkness.
Of course, He did not know of the lovely, lyric dream that was... I never spoke it -- until later. There never seemed an opening, an opportunity. When I did tell Him, He was angry with me. "Why didn't you tell Me?"
But really, it never seemed to me that there had been a place in the rush that was our awakening to say, "but, Sir, I was dreaming that You were teasing, and creating this most delightful heat with Your cane..." Perhaps I should have stopped and made that happen, but I never really saw how... Still, the dream remains, and the memory of the music it evoked in my mind and in my body. I am hoping that with that dreaming, the potential exists for us to create the reality -- perhaps as the holidays bring us the gift of a bit of time.
swan
12/12/2007
Schedules
From late August, until the middle of June each year, our life is driven by a very rigid set of schedules. Our various jobs dictate that our days start with the demands of the alarm clock, and there is a definitive pattern to that. The school year is definitiely not as "relaxed" as the summer schedule can be.
I leave first each day. The alarm clock starts our morning at 5 AM each day, and I am on the road by about 6:45. T follows, leaving the house around 7:30. Master's work is more flexible, and there are many days when He can do some of His work from home, or perhaps, He will drive north to "politic" in the state capitol, or He may have meetings scheduled throughout the day and into the evening. Whatever, He is almost always the last to leave from home.
Our morning routine is a finely tuned dance that gets me up and showered and dressed and fed with lunches packed and all my "teacher crap" loaded into the car. He and I eat breakfast together, and He usually goes to see T and get her launched once I'm on my way. Once we're both out of here, He typically takes care of whatever He needs to do, and gets going on whatever His schedule for the day is.
The problem with all of that is that, He wears His hair long -- He has a pony tail that He prefers to wear braided. He does NOT braid His own hair. That is no problem in the summer time when I am around to handle the hair braiding task for Him, but when the school year begins, He misses having me here to take care of that for Him.
And then, in the last couple of weeks, His schedule has demanded that He be up and out of here early every single morning it seems. So the schedule has shifted. He's been getting up and getting showered before I leave each morning, and I've been able to get His hair braided before I leave for school.
That's the good news. The bad news is that having to get ready like that severely limits the time that He has for ... well it limits the private time He sometimes has had to spare for taking care of all that "wild Man energy." The result of all of that is that the Man is "horny."
Horny isn't necessarily a bad thing. Except that, here lately, when we do have time to be together, He has only one thing on His mind -- and it isn't SM.
There was a time when I'd have been relieved to have Him less focused on spanking and hurting me, but I'm recovering, remember? My "whaterver-you-want-to-call-it" is waking back up. And so we are wrestling with one more irony -- even as I begin to hunger for more spanking, He is focused in another direction. It isn't that I mind the good old fashioned, roll-in-the-hay, "sex" part of this at all. Really, it is just that I thought I might not ever GET back to this itch, and now that I'm here, HE doesn't seem to be at all itchy for that part of who we are. Damn! Isn't that the way it always works?
swan
I leave first each day. The alarm clock starts our morning at 5 AM each day, and I am on the road by about 6:45. T follows, leaving the house around 7:30. Master's work is more flexible, and there are many days when He can do some of His work from home, or perhaps, He will drive north to "politic" in the state capitol, or He may have meetings scheduled throughout the day and into the evening. Whatever, He is almost always the last to leave from home.
Our morning routine is a finely tuned dance that gets me up and showered and dressed and fed with lunches packed and all my "teacher crap" loaded into the car. He and I eat breakfast together, and He usually goes to see T and get her launched once I'm on my way. Once we're both out of here, He typically takes care of whatever He needs to do, and gets going on whatever His schedule for the day is.
The problem with all of that is that, He wears His hair long -- He has a pony tail that He prefers to wear braided. He does NOT braid His own hair. That is no problem in the summer time when I am around to handle the hair braiding task for Him, but when the school year begins, He misses having me here to take care of that for Him.
And then, in the last couple of weeks, His schedule has demanded that He be up and out of here early every single morning it seems. So the schedule has shifted. He's been getting up and getting showered before I leave each morning, and I've been able to get His hair braided before I leave for school.
That's the good news. The bad news is that having to get ready like that severely limits the time that He has for ... well it limits the private time He sometimes has had to spare for taking care of all that "wild Man energy." The result of all of that is that the Man is "horny."
Horny isn't necessarily a bad thing. Except that, here lately, when we do have time to be together, He has only one thing on His mind -- and it isn't SM.
There was a time when I'd have been relieved to have Him less focused on spanking and hurting me, but I'm recovering, remember? My "whaterver-you-want-to-call-it" is waking back up. And so we are wrestling with one more irony -- even as I begin to hunger for more spanking, He is focused in another direction. It isn't that I mind the good old fashioned, roll-in-the-hay, "sex" part of this at all. Really, it is just that I thought I might not ever GET back to this itch, and now that I'm here, HE doesn't seem to be at all itchy for that part of who we are. Damn! Isn't that the way it always works?
swan
Gotta Love These Folks
They are asleep. Crashed! Completely and utterly worn out.
And would you take a look at where they are? Isn't it fabulous? Utterly gorgeous -- that's a view that they probably walked a gazillion miles to get to. Those poor, beknighted fools worked their tails off; planned for days, or weeks, or maybe months for this exact moment to be able to be in this exact spot, at this particular moment, precisely so that they could drink in the glory of that oh-so-spectacular vista... and they are too tired to even care.
You gotta love them, because, unless you are a whole lot younger than I am, you've been there and done that -- worked your ass off to come to the place in your life that you always wanted to be, only to find that you are too darned tired most of the time to give a hoot. "That's lovely, now can I just sleep for a bit, please?"
This is "The Heron Clan" family portrait if you really want to know. All laid out right where we find ourselves. Happy for just a soft place to lay the tired old bones down and rest without a single thought for anything much at all. After all it took us to get here, too!
swan
12/09/2007
Wall
Here is the wall that seems to be keeping me quiet these days -- or at least a pretty good picture of it. I come here, day after day, and sit here looking at my screen, and can't think of a single thing to say.
The temptation to simply write, "The End," and be done with it all, is enormous.
It isn't that I am unhappy, or discontented, or sad, or any of that. All the grand melodrama that has driven the flow of words for the last two and a half years seems to have subsided. I really feel as if I've come through a great period of storm and tempest, when all my emotions and reactions were in an uproar all the time -- when I hardly knew who I was half the time. During all those long, weary months, writing here somehow helped me to keep the warring voices in my mind from driving me completely crazy.
But, now, I feel healed finally. The physical scars seem to have stopped aching. More importantly, the emotional doubts have diminished and faded away to memory. I may wobble a bit now and again, but I don't seem to be continually on the verge of utter and complete emotional collapse. I may not be exactly the woman I was "before," but I'm close -- and I am well and healthy. I usually feel good, and my "interest" in life and love and sex and SM is all coming back with something like its old heat.
"We" struggle, still. The days are so busy. Work demands much of each of us, and we get tired and frustrated and worn out and weary. Sometimes, it is easy to wish that we'd hit the lottery, or magically inherit a fortune, so that we could simply stop reporting to the various jobs each day, and relax just a bit. There are never enough hours, and there are far too many demands on our time and our energies. We live for the precious hours of the weekends -- and we burden those days with so many wishes and expectations. It is far too easy to fall short of what we dream of through the work week.
All in all, though, we are living a life we once only dreamed of -- couldn't even dream of. We'd get younger and richer if we could, I'm sure. We'd lie about each day and never leave the happy confines of our home and beds... But life is good, and I haven't got a darned thing to say here that seems very interesting.
swan
12/02/2007
About that Snapping Turtle
So. Backing up just a little bit.
I can get caught up with vivid images -- and language that evoke those images. The original definition of the slang word, "mojo," that points to a "snapping turtle in a whiskey bottle," just has me mentally rapt. I think that it has "metaphorical" power for me -- that I can take that notion of that turtle inside that bottle, and draw parallels to my own journey to this point that somehow feel -- useful. Even if I haven't been actually drinking the whiskey -- since I'm sure that some of you are wondering about that very thing.
I can get caught up with vivid images -- and language that evoke those images. The original definition of the slang word, "mojo," that points to a "snapping turtle in a whiskey bottle," just has me mentally rapt. I think that it has "metaphorical" power for me -- that I can take that notion of that turtle inside that bottle, and draw parallels to my own journey to this point that somehow feel -- useful. Even if I haven't been actually drinking the whiskey -- since I'm sure that some of you are wondering about that very thing.
To begin with, I think the thing that strikes me is the absolute incongruity of the image. My mind just won't quite encompass the idea that something as large and wild as a snapping turtle could get into a whiskey bottle. I find myself going from the immediate reaction of "IMPOSSIBLE!" to a sort of quiet, pervasive curiosity -- how, exactly did that beast manage to get there?
Of course, that is the exact question that I've had posed to me, either directly or by implication, dozens and dozens of times in the last years -- "what is a woman like you doing living the life you are living -- how the heck did you get there?" So, I am finding what I imagine to be the story of the snapping turtle to be "illustrative."
Here's how I think it probably happens if you are a snapping turtle: Life starts, for you, kind of small. The giant, ferocious beast that you will become is there, all coded deeply in your genes, but you are a little, bitty, mite of a thing in the beginning -- all promise and potential. A baby turtle is probably driven mostly by instinct, but that instinct is likely fueled in the immediate circumstance by some pretty basic needs. T
hat little hard shelled bit of "life on legs" needs to eat, survive, and find its way in the world. Aren't we all the same?
hat little hard shelled bit of "life on legs" needs to eat, survive, and find its way in the world. Aren't we all the same?Baby turtles hatch, along with a whole mess of their turtle siblings, from eggs left buried in the sand. Turtle mothers are, by this time, long gone. The little ones are on their own to stay alive and thrive if they can. So, off they go, heading into their futures with whatever energy and intent they can come up with. I doubt very much that there is much planfull-ness in the whole business.
If, as you crawl along the sand, you encounter that open mouth bottle, AND you are a tiny, little, vulnerable, innocent, brand-new-in-the-world-turtle, that might just look interesting and/or inviting (perfect and safe even). So, TAH DAH, you stroll right on in. Maybe your discovery turns out to be a safe haven (depending on what the inside conditions are), providing cover and shelter and a way to avoid becoming "bird food." Whatever happens in that first few minutes after you enter the whiskey bottle, the fact is that a baby turtle can't live in that whiskey bottle for very long with out some challenges occuring -- because turtles grow and bottles don't.
Being a turtle in a whiskey bottle might be the definition of "mojo," but if that turtle stays in that bottle very long, the odds are it is going to die.
So, what are the connections to the journey into consensual power exchange and M/s?
The beginnings of all of this for me were a good while ago now, but I think that I was "born" into my BDSM life in very much the same state as that baby turtle. Hatched, fully formed, but without any guidance but my own drives and instincts, I was full of potential, but entirely vulnerable, open, and utterly new. On my own to make my way, I went crawling along the beach looking to get my "needs" met -- and I really didn't know exactly what those needs were, only that they felt critical. When I FOUND spanking and BDSM, it was as if I'd discovered the perfect place for me, and I scrambled right into it with a complete sense of abandon and joy that landed me squarely inside my own version of that whiskey bottle. I'd definitely found my "mojo" it seemed.
Except that, just like that baby turtle, I had lots of growing to do. Growth and change are an inevitable fact of being alive. The wonder of that first period of time in the safety and security and personally affirming surroundings of the lifestyle were like food given to someone who had been starving. Still, staying in that place becomes detrimental in time. I've been reluctant to grow past the bounds of the bottle. 
Afraid for the opening out into something wider and less defined. It has felt as if leaving that behind would mean the end of everything good and meaningful and true about my life. That has scared me and made me sad.
Afraid for the opening out into something wider and less defined. It has felt as if leaving that behind would mean the end of everything good and meaningful and true about my life. That has scared me and made me sad. But I'm learning that there is a future that is outside the "bottle" that is still good and real and "safe" and secure. It is simply different. This passage has been one that I have wanted to resist. I have not wanted the changes that maturing brings. I have not wanted the changes that we, together, have had to embrace. I have been convinced that leaving my safe little bottle would mean that I would lose the "mojo," and I just could not stand that idea.
Perhaps it is time to take on another animal totem... time for the heron and swan to follow the path of the turtle into the future.
swan
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