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.

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. That 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.

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