Resolute

Happy new year! Again. Being Jewish and pagan, I've had two since fall, but who's counting?

I'm looking forward to 2007. I have a lot of opportunities and fun ahead in the kinky and pagan fronts. In just the first half of the year, I'll be at the pagan conference Pantheacon, a local witchcamp, a Feri intensive, and Shibaricon. I'll be teaching a (non-kink) pagan class. I also look forward to more time in my rope SIGs and doing more private play. I shall be a busy little rigger, which is generally how I like it.

If I have a challenge for myself this year, it's about integrating all the different parts of my life. That means things like packing rope for Pantheacon and pagan tools for Shibaricon. It means trying to use more rope ties in my non-kink life: in my garden, for example, or for non-kink spellwork. It means writing in more public pagan and kink forums about what it is that I do. Look to see lots more rants over this way.

But first: packing. There are parties to attend! Boots, check. Cincher, check. Tube o' canes? Double check.

Happy New Year's to all, and to all a good bite.

Speaking of cool-sounding books

I just got the press release for upcoming book-release events down here in the dirty South. I hadn't heard of this book, but sounds up our alleys . . .

Philosophy in the Dungeon: The Magic of Sex & Spirit approaches spirituality with Jack [Rinella]'s uniquely kinky perspective, including historically, psychologically, and yes, physically. Jack's system is holistic, based on extensive study, his most intimate experiences, and common sense. He approaches topics such as prayer, magic, and faith with modest confidence and rescues these concepts from their usual stereotypical meaning and misunderstood dogmatism. He encourages those looking for more significance in their kinky lifestyle to embrace an individualized spiritual path and to shed dogmatic approaches to spirituality that have only too often shamed people into denying their authentic selves.

Interesting. Naturally, I've cleared my slate to go hear his talk next weekend, and will have more to say then!

Poly pioneers, self-knowledge, and courage

Sometimes you just see the right thing on waking.

I've been giving a lot of thought to polyamory lately. The thing about poly is that there simply is no rulebook. Certainly there are pioneers who try to write about their journeys. And, some of those pioneers being actual relationship therapists, they have useful things to say. Deborah Anapol's Love without Limits is one I read early. Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy's The Ethical Slut is quite a good one. There's a newer rant called Redefining our Relationships by Wendy-o Matik which I have to say is one of my favorites right now (probably because it reminds me of my early rants on the topic).

Polyamorous folks are in the early stages of a very new kind of relationship. Which means that all of these pioneers can really only map out their own routes, and those of their tribes, and try to make sense of it all. The best route depends on the weather, the people, whom you're travelling with, your supplies, your navigator. So I worry about those folks who start holding up The Ethical Slut like it's a rulebook rather than a navigation tool. I worry about what will happen when they get lost on the path and find that Dossie is not in fact going to fly in and play judge and arbiter. Nope, only true consensus is going to serve any relationship.

One friend is fond of saying that there is no substitute for clear and open communication in the moment. And so I tend to think that statements like, "I'm queer," or "I'm poly" or "I'm kinky" should start discussions rather than end them.

But if there are no rules, there are still adages. Those pioneers come back with some crazy Zen wisdom in their forays. A friend in an open marriage once said to me, "There are no rules, Miriam! Only agreements!" (I think he was actually talking about drumming, but who am I to turn down a useful saying?) For most of the last year I've been chewing on that one like a Zen riddle, slowly teasing out more and more of it. Every once in a while I light up in a smile thinking I might have it, but it's a slippery little koan.

Today, Monk shares another quote from a poly person that lands for me:

She was talking about poly, about doing the more difficult things involved with being poly. She said to me, “The thing about courage is that it is not about the absence of fear, rather it is about committing to something in spite of your fears.”

Interestingly enough, T. Thorn Coyle hits almost exactly the same notes yesterday about the task of self-knowledge.

Different topics? I'm thinking not so much. In Thorn's article, the task of self knowledge happens within the context of love, the "fabric of all". This task of seeing and being seen is difficult work. Among all the other challenges polyamory brings up is more opportunities for being seen, all at the same time. That can feel like liberation, and it can feel like claustrophobia. Which it feels like at any moment has a lot more to do with my personal practice than it does with my lovers.

And this week I am reminded again, by those around me and myself - personality does not go away because insight has arrived. Personality is still danced with, laughed with, struggled with, loved and hated. "Know thyself" means this, too. The knowing does not make things disappear, no, it makes things appear more clearly. And sometimes that doesn't feel good at all.

But we see ourselves. Not wholly good, not wholly bad. We just are. One little piece in the web of life. And that, too, is perfection.

Tying one on for the New Year takes on a whole new meaning . . .

In other news, New Year's Eve is coming! There will be a party, and there will be play. And hopefully there will be a Pyrate Lass.

Which means that all daydreaming for the next few days will be spent figuring out what to do with this confluence. I have a few ideas already . . .

Life is good.

For the eels among us

One of my friends is discovering talents as an eel - someone who gets into ropes for the challenge of working back out again. He's a top, as a general rule, but a curious top. He's also all kinds of double-jointed, which makes for interesting (if dangerous-looking) play.

I get a kick out of watching him in ropes. It's not quite my thing - it's fascinating, but the psychology of it never quite makes sense to me. For most of the folks I tie, the ropes and the submission go together, at least a bit. For myself, I tend not to submit in ropes these days (and more's the pity . . . ), but I do have that part of my brain that adores the rope aesthetically as well as the other "track" in which I'm learning ties by being tied. In both scenarios, getting out of the ropes is usually the disappointing part. None of which helps make sense of the eel phenomenon.

So as I've got this on the brain, this lovely article from Graydancer on Ropes and Submission couldn't have come at a better time.

But not only was there never a time when I felt like submitting, but there was never really even a time when I felt vulnerable. I’m a big fan of leg sweeps and kicks and knees and head butts; I also, from lots of dance experience, am comfortable on the floor, or using other’s bodies as bases, and so there was never a moment when I felt that frisson of "what are they going to do to me?" And it makes me wonder more at that little psychological switch that seems to be in some of us, and not in others; the difference between surrendering and constantly evaluating the options to figure out what you can do next.

Hmm. I think that makes sense. And, as a contrasting backdrop, I think it helps me better understand what I'm looking for as a rope top. Which is probably the subject of another entry . . .

Riders

For those of you expecting an entry on pony play, my apologies for the misdirect.

No, today I'm thinking about the other kinds of riders. Those long lists on which big named rock stars spell out all their desires for a show: M&Ms with all the brown ones picked out, or day lilies, or local barbecue.

This morning, doing something as mundane as plucking my eyebrows, I realized that I have a set of riders for play.

Mine are quite nearly arbitrary, but strangely essential. A great many of them have to do with my mane.

• My hair must be well-kempt (at least to start). I wear my hair up so much for topping that on the days I wear it fully up otherwise I find myself being saucy and sly all day.
  
• Well shaven, natch.
  
• Eyebrows plucked or waxed. (If I cannot at least have ruly eyebrows, how on earth am I going to manage a bottom? I mean, really . . . )
  
• And, fizzy water. Perrier, or the like. That's the rider bit. It's not that I must have it; I'll take a pickup scene where I can get it, and I'm not a water fetishist. But the reverse isn't true. I almost never drink the stuff except when I'm scening. And so having it is a signal to self to go into scene space. Grabbing that nice cold bottle on the way into the playspace or bedroom? Mmmm. That itself gets me a little excited; my reptile brain knows exactly what's coming.
  
• I'm a sucker for robes, and blankets at the ready.
  
• And of course there's the little detail of choosing my toys to take on a party or out of town trip.

A little less formal than, say, using magick to get into scene space. But no less ritual. Some of these things get me in the mood hours or days before a play date. I pluck my eyebrows today because of things to come days from now. I am preparing myself, and that means that by the time play comes, I've got all of myself on board and ready.

And I have to say: I definitely suggest it. In my life right now, my play dates tend to be planned out weeks or sometimes months in advance. If I were waiting on an arbitrary "mood" to arrive (or not) I'd be lost in the water for a lot of it. Having these little keys to remembrance helps me bring myself fully to play in a way that is subtle, slips past all my guards, and is amazingly effective.

Make your own training adventures

Most days I tend to approach writing here with some calm and well formed thoughts. This morning, I'm feeling . . . not frustrated, but antsy maybe.

I want a dojo. I want a studio. I want somewhere I can go on a more regular basis to practice rigging. I want mentors.

I am blessed with the perfect rope bottom. (Who lives three hours away.) I have willing victims - er, volunteers - locally, but haven't been able to swing the time. It looks like it's have to be weeknights given my schedule. I already do two monthly SIGs. I have a wealth of riches. I feel almost ungrateful to have these longings at all, thinking back on how good I have it.

And yet. There's a yoga studio in my city where there are classes all day, all night - all levels. I wish I had something like that for rigging, where I could just make time to drop in and take a class, repeating it until I reach competancy and then getting on to the next one. There are days I want it to be that easy, or that challenging.

Thankfully, I've been doing this witch thing long enough that I know a bit about make-your-own-class adventures. I just finished helping to coordinate and priestess a local ritual that many of us also used as a catalyst for our Work in the last several weeks. Running up to Hallowe'en, I did the same thing kinkwise before a play party -- spending a couple of weeks really thinking about and practicing to do my best at a corset on a very attractive lass.

So: this is the point of suck it up. This is the time when I get past the holidays and start scheduling my own time in the dojo, even if it's on weekdays and even if I end up practicing mostly on myself. (Which, if I schedule right, I won't.) This is when I start figuring out what it takes for me to graduate to the next level, and reconfirm my committment to this art.

In any training, if I am doing it right, I hit a plateau of frustration about once a month or so. I'm there again. I want it to be easy, and it won't be. I want mentors that I don't necessarily have. So the important thing is that I continue the committment to teach myself, and that it's worthwhile. (It is.)

Supreme nerdiness

Uh oh. I've gotten out the glasses.

Nope, it's not for rope ties or caning. (Although I've had bottoms say they love me putting on my glasses to see better for those.)

Nope, it's far nerdier. It's RopeWiki.

Yep, I've been spending my coffee breaks this weekend playing secretary and nerd girl, trying to add what I can in the service of rope. There's something really fun and at the same time terrifying about joining a new Web project this early in its progress, but I have to say one of the best parts is that there's lots to do for a relative novice like me. No article yet on EMT shears? Hell, anyone can write that.

Wheee!

Yule

My first thought was to write about gift giving this morning. A couple of problems with that. First, I don't want to out to anyone that reads this what kinky presents are in the works for them! And also I've sworn so many times that I don't want presents it would be truly bad form to start pining over canes or whatnot now. (And goddess knows that anything I can eat is truly off the menu. The more pics I get back from the SIG last week, the more I swear I am getting back in Pilates, stat.)

So, instead I'm thinking about rituals of the season. Here are a few things I'd love to do as kink rituals in the dark of the year . . .

Mummifications. There's something about Yule that gets me in a mind for very floaty, passive trance. Also, it seems the time of year for very long rituals; many communities do all night vigils. So a nice mummification seems perfect. Also: you really can't do a mummification in the summer in the South. Not. Going. To Happen. (And finally that part of me that wants to lose a few pounds thinks all that Saran Wrap can't hurt!)

Fire play. What better way to honor the festival of lights but with some lovely blue fire dancing across the body? How festive!

Rope play. Well, of course. I'll probably find a reason to put rope play on my list for every other holiday for some reason, too, because - well, rope. But think of all that lovely wrapping, and unwrapping, and wrapping again. It's just a lovely way to celebrate objects of great value through even further decoration. Mmm, rope.

And last, but not least:

Pony play. Because who never wanted a pony for Christmas?

Documentation

I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of documentation.

A lover once told me, "I feel like as you go through your day you're also writing about it in your head." She seemed a bit concerned by this: not concerned that I'd write about her, but that I might somehow not be fully living my life because my writer's brain never turns off.

And I have to say, at least in part: guilty as charged. I think of myself as a poet and a writer at least as much as I'm a witch. I have published in print and electronically under five names, put out two 'zines, helped produce three others, have run two Web sites, and currently have more blogs than I can count on one hand. Granted I'm no Ana Voog, but I've done a pretty good job of documenting my life, with more or less artistic license.

And, that changes how I look at the world.

The first change is somewhat passive. I constantly collect images for poems. I sometimes think of pithy phrases for my blogs as I go through my day. I am constantly scribbling down ideas for blogs or articles or books. So that's true.

More than that, there's something about documentation that makes me actively push myself into a different life than I might otherwise have. To write on a topic -- and I have a few I write on -- I need to keep up at least a bit on that topic. To write about magick and power exchange means that I have an extra incentive to keep honing my knowledge about two of my favorite things. I am generally not content to have a boring day; that gives me nothing to write about. (Yes, I realize Plath could wax rhapsodic about picking her nose. But please, let's not make her an example.)

It's not just writing. When I was a teenager, I desperately wanted to be Andy Warhol - not to be famous as an artist in my own right as much as for touching and connecting others' fifteen minutes of fame. In my twenties, I created and hosted salons and played yenta to other artists. I wanted, and still want, to lead my life as art. And so I've always surrounded myself by creative people, and so I tend to watch what they do as well: visual arts, performance arts, songwriting. I have no skills in those arts, but have a deep appreciation for them. I can only manage a good camera well enough to photograph well behaved subjects like artifacts and museum pieces, so of course I'm amazed at how these artists capture everything from gorgeous landscapes to writhing bondage babes. I've been intrigued by photography for most of my adult life, at least as long as I've been writing. Self-photography intrigues me. Little image blogs. Large installations. But I tend to watch it, not do it. And I'm okay with that -- the photography has other uses for me.

The community whose SIG I attended last week has both a bondage SIG and a photography SIG, and there seems to be a solid overlap. And so, as I found myself tied six ways to Sunday, there were also flash bulbs going off in all directions, photographers setting up shots, and the lively interplay of artists between the photographers, riggers and bottoms, who in turn seemed to keep switching roles. Naturally, I loved it.

And now suddenly I find myself with hundreds of shots piling up. In a few short months I've gone from the girl with the "don't photograph me" band on her arm to a massively documented bona fide rope slut. Just like with my writing, the representation is not the experience. (And I've been a postmodernist long enough to never expect it to.) And yet the representation is its own thing: a reminder, a testament, and ideally a dialogue with the experience. I find myself wondering, along with: what affect will this tie have on my bottom? also: what will this look like? what is the symmetry or deliberate asymmetry? how will this look at thus and such angle? Along with: how does this rope feel to be in? or: how can I do some yoga and dancing in this suspension? a bit of: how can I vamp to the camera? A physicist or post-modernist might call this observer theory: the camera does not merely document an event, but changes its very nature.

Perhaps that's what my lover was getting at. And I have to cop to it. And, I can't say I see it as a bad thing.

The SIG was going at a much higher level than I've seen before for demo and teaching work. Was it just the nature of the community (which has a lot of very good riggers)? Perhaps. But I like to think there's something else at play here. Rope is an art form which is beautiful in part because it's ephemeral. But photography changes that dynamic a bit. The ropes aren't just ephemeral and dynamic. They're also processual - the process is the product, and the documentation helps retain that. And of course the photograph takes the rope a step further into a tool for product: the finished photograph. So now we have three levels of art going on at the same time, at least: the ephemeral feeling of rope on body and power exchanged, the process of the tying and untying, the product of the photograph.

There have long been days I've wanted to play Kiki to someone's Man Ray, so perhaps it's no surprise I seem to be surrounded by photographers. There's something erotic about the dynamic when artists of different media come together: dancers and musicians, riggers and photographers, visual artists and writers. The dance between arts has an erotic charge as hot as sex: the orgasm that starts between the ears. If I recall correctly, the Thoth deck has art as alchemy, and that's it exactly: the third being that emerges when two creative beings collide.

On Going Sideways

"There's the road to heaven
And the road to hell,
And there -
There's the road to Faerie."

I'm giving a lot of thought lately to third roads and other pathways: queering the categories, genderfuck, switching. Paradoxes and in-between spaces.

Should I start by saying that there's no "better than"? Do I need to? If I do, let me say: there is nothing wrong with being straight or gay, being top or bottom, being gendered, being firm in one place. But also - there is nothing less than in being where I am, which is a place where none of these distinctions hold much meaning other than providing points of frission for play.

Even when you get to recognizing switching in the scene, there's a whole mode of discourse on switching that less and less resembles who I am or how I play. The discourse seems defined by a set of either/ors that don't fit my life. The local scene is actually pretty "accepting" of switches, but still there are groups that are open to "tops, or switches in top mode," or "bottoms, or switches who are in bottom mode."

First, you have to get there. You have to get beyond the question "Are you a top or a bottom?" Please don't ask me who I am, at least not by providing a set of binary checkboxes. Instead, ask me what I do. Asking, "Do you top or bottom?" would at least be a first step. Asking "Do you top? Do you bottom?" expecting an answer for each not contingient on the other would get us even further there. But not quite. Not for me anymore.

Top mode. Bottom mode. I used to think I knew that that meant. I had a lover once with an icon that had a little picture of a light switch on it, and said: "I do switch. Do you?" And I loved that icon. I was just starting my adventures in topping at that point, and the idea delighted me. Yes, of course I did! And I felt a lot like that light switch. Up position: now I am topping! Down position: now I am bottoming!

And at first, I'd get frustrated. Why couldn't I hold myself to one of those perfect boxes? As a bottom, I began to find myself noticing exactly what my tops did, taking notes. Did that make me a "bad" bottom? As a top, I found myself wanting to please. Did that make me one of those terrible service tops I kept hearing so many bad things about?

And yet, there was already something compelling about switching. That lover with the light switch was the one who growled to me, taking me down for the first time after a short history of bottoming to me, "There's a reason that I'm usually the bottom, and it's not that I'm the nice one . . . " And I kept finding it over and over to be true, and delighted in it. By accident or design, I found that to a one the masochists that topped me played me much harder than any top ever had, and I loved it. I quickly grew to expand my capacity even more as a pain slut under these vicious players than I had in years of (just) bottoming to (just) tops. These days, I get the same feedback about my own play; I take people harder than they might otherwise go, because I've been there, and I know the way.

I think it was my priestess training that actually began to change things for me. The concept of dual awareness began to really sink in, and seep over into my play. Ah, yes. I can top, and still be open and vulnerable. I can be tied up, and maintain enough dual awareness to also learn the ties I'm in and plan to use them later.

But it's more than that. There's a kind of alchemy that I'm just starting to explore. A place where I'm not either/or but both/and, and I honestly can't tell what parts of me are running top or bottom energies or why that distinction would be relevant. There are moments when it's all just life force - my life force connecting with the life force of someone else, and becoming a new entity. The ferocity of getting back to my early days of incredible rough sex before anyone ever thought to ask me what team I was playing for. Getting back to just life force.

Ironically, or maybe not, this is coming at the first time in my life that I'm also gaining a serious interest in D/s.

I had an amusing moment the other day at the SIG. I was in a partial suspension, lazily swinging in a completely comfortable chest harness, one leg in the air, slowly working my way from a half moon up into standing again. One of the local riggers said, "I could have sworn when I met you at ARS you were a top." I just smiled and said "I am . . . !" And there's no paradox for me there for me any more.

I am still dropping the last vestiges of worrying about being seen as a top or a bottom, and I'm happy with that. It's a process. Mostly it's not my ego that makes me not want to lose "cred"; it's my desire to keep finding bottoms who will play with me. And I find as I give in and trust the process that it still happens, pretty much in the way I need. I love that surprise of folks that mostly see me in one mode suddenly seeing me in the other. Even more, I love those that can see and honor both of them in me at once. Something as simple as my calling in a sweet submissive who's never met me to do a quick act of service for me while I'm in suspension: beautiful.

There's a great moment from the SIG last week caught on tape. I'm dressed already, have my glasses on, but Pyrate Lass is still in a full katana. I'm testing her breasts for sensitivity, "all in the service of photography". She's in the rope, but she's standing, I'm kneeling. I'm doing, she's receiving. But she's beaming. I come back from it, and one of the photographers orders, "Do it again." And Pyrate Lass beams "And she does!" as I do. Who is topping here? Who is bottoming? Does it matter?

Like most things in my life, this is a work and play in progress. I don't think I've figured out an ending point. It seems more likely I am just beginning to queer these categories.

RopeWiki

I was pondering tonight what I'd write. I had a fantastic weekend with Pyrate Lass, and a great time at the SIG.

And, as is usual after these events, I have so much to say that I have no earthly idea where to start. I'm buzzing with ideas, and feeling inspired but nothing's quite cogent yet. So I figured I'd do a cop out post and post tutorial links to a couple of the ties we were ostensibly there to learn before things got more complex.

Then, in the course of looking up the "Foole's Cuff", I found Rope Wiki, a little "wikipedia" of shibari stuff. How cool is that?

So, that can keep you busy till I find time to write about shibari knots, predicament bondage, thoughts on documentation, and the fine art of going sideways . . .

For those with a tweed jacket fetish

Before I head out, I'd like to share the delightful Bondage University.

Lots of techniques, tips, and thoughts from riggers and bottoms, an online version of Jay Wiseman's infamous negotiation checklist, Q&A pages and more. It's fun, and I look forward to catching up reading it when I get a chance.

Be warned: the navigation is not very intuitive, and so there's more than there appears at first sight; check the bottom of the linked pages for more sublinks.

SIG SIG Sputnik!

Off for a weekend of roping with Pyrate Lass, including attending a new SIG.

I always get this feeling before going to a new class or SIG. Will they like me? Will I get to play with the cool kids? Will my Rope Slut shirt fit in, or be passe? There's a feeling about it -- a mix of excitement and slight intimidation -- that I've come to associate with most of the worthwhile and life-changing events in my life.

Besides which, I can't stay too nervous because the other thought in my mind is, mmmm, Pyrate Lass . . .

Severity and mercy, via ropes

Tight ropes feel safe and comforting. Ropes too loose feel . . . off somehow. Not very trustworthy.

The leg that shows the ligature marks an hour from now is the one that will make me feel happy and safe right now.

The other powers of the imagination

When I was younger, I didn't have a very powerful feel for the senses in trancework. Several years of practice (and some new conceptual models) later, I am able to see, hear and feel in trance fairly well, and smell and taste a little.

Which can sometimes lead to very interesting moments. Like last night, when I was practicing trance for a public ritual with a good friend and co-priestess. We were doing pairs trance, and when we created the anchor cord between ourselves for me to go back, she said to create a "cord . . . or a rope". Good call! Yes, great imagery for me. And I decided to very quickly imagine an energetic rope harness to use for the work.

"And you are falling back, into warm supportive water."

At which my first thought was, "Oh fuck! Hemp rope!" and I could actually feel the rope tightening for a moment, before I decided: "Nylon! It's nylon rope."

My friend must have seen the quick look of panic on my face; we had a great laugh about it later. "Next time, I'll watch for the water ahead," she said. Maybe, "It might be nylon rope . . . "

Speaking of Pentacles . . . !

Lovely rope witches, check out this lovely star tie in Graydancer's GloRoMo pics. Oh, oh, oh! I'd been thinking of trying ties like that, or a full rope dress tree of life. Inspiring.

(I'm bypassing the usual entry, so here's your initiation. Over 18? Ready for pics that aren't work safe? Okay, we trust you.)

Service

Sacred service is the path of honoring what the Other needs, in the form it appears to them. Yet it is doing so without losing the essence of Self that the Other called into service. It is never second guessing, but it is often looking ahead of and beyond what is asked.

It's a paradox.

(If you think by service I mean bottoming, or service topping, then you probably have never seen me go sideways yet. Hierodules and priestesses R us.)

A Rite of Unbinding

In the Reclaiming and Feri traditions (and probably others) rites of unbinding are used to free up life force that might be tied up with unnecessary neuroses, events or distractions.

For obvious reasons, I'm intrigued by the language here. What if the rite of unbinding involved literal rope?

I think there would be a number of ways to approach this. Hence this post is "a" rite of unbinding, not "the" rite. This rite uses the same basic tech as a chaos magick sigil, in which the explicit aim is to encode the will into the spell, forget its conscious construction, and then release it to allow the unconscious to do its work.

A rite of unbinding

First - formulate your Will and determination to perform the ritual.

It is very important (for reasons beyond the scope of this entry) to formulate your will in the positive. For example, if you are doing a spell to have a cleaner house, avoid: "I will not leave the messy dishes in the sink for two days," in favor of "I will live in a clean and pleasant house." There are a couple of very simple reasons for this - mostly one of focus. The magickal self latches onto images, and couldn't care less about qualifiers like "not." If the shiny image in your sentence is "messy house" that's where the energy goes. If the shiny image is "clean house," likewise. (In theory, one could do a different rite of unbinding that literaly binds one with the bad juju and creates a means for escape, but that seems a longer and much more dangerous spell.)

If you decide to proceed, be sure to get tools and some safety equipment to hand - EMT shears, rope, water. Like lighting candles for your rituals? Not unless you have a priestess around, my friend.

If a priest/top is facilitating the spell, she should be made aware of the intention and should set it actively when binding the ropes.

Then, do the binding, deliberately setting your Will into the ropes as they go on. A priest/top can made the bondage as straightforward or elaborate as desired. For solo rituals, I find that crossing the legs and binding them with a simple two-column (or even one-column) tie at the ankles works just fine.

A period of meditation may be desired, but I offer a cautionary note - don't try to figure out what actualizing your Will "looks like" right now. In our example about the clean house - sure, you might get better at cleaning. You might suddenly come into enough money to afford a regular maid service. You could find the perfect service submissive. You could win a contest for a new house. You just don't know. Try not to get attached to how things will actualize, and let the Universe surprise you.

Raise energy. Sensation play is good for this - pain and pleasure can both be used to feed the spell. If you are doing the spell on your own, masturbation is probably the best way to raise energy (and also is a good way to honor the chaos magick roots of the spell). When the energy peaks, send it off with a breath to actualize your Work.

Rest a moment.

As you remove the ropes or have them removed, imagine that the spell is literally lifting away from you to work in its own mysterious ways. Feel your energy unbind from what had previously concerned you, knowing that change is on the way.

Snarky thought of the day

Deliberate humiliation scenes? Fair enough, if that's what you're into.

Trying to diminish someone who didn't negotiate for it, just because they're bottoming and you are a Great and Almighty Top (tm)? Not on my watch, you don't.

After a while, that kind of thing makes you look like you have something to prove, and no means to do so. I'm not impressed.

Rope

I desperately needed some downtime and reflection last night. My mundane brain said: "Watch a movie!" But the temple called louder.

So, I took the rope I'd been magickally processing last week and decided to do more with it.

I ran it through the washer on hot, and hung it to dry for just a couple of hours, then re-burnished it. With the ropes still damp, I could spend much more time on each spot to singe it without risk of burning through. I spent a long, meditative time reburnishing each rope twice through. And then I crocheted the rope again, still damp but sooty, and ran it through the washer again on hot. And then I did something I almost never do and ran the rope through the dryer until it was nearly dry, hoping to soften the fibers a bit more.

And - it seems to have worked! The rope smells like cut grass, not soot. It hasn't been oiled yet, but already it's soft. And most importantly, I can run it along the tender skin along the inside of my arm and it doesn't make me itch at all.

I'll oil it this afternoon, but already I am pleased with it. Which is good. I have 175 more feet of rope ready to be next.

Things I've learned

Well, I learned a few things tonight in re-processing the hemp rope I've been working on.

1. This thing about hemp rope not playing nicely with water? True!

2. Knots in hemp subjected to water? I might as well forget about ever getting them out.

3. My EMT shears work, even on stubborn water-logged rope.

Learning these lessons experientially without a submissive in the ropes? Priceless.

I probably needed a couple of 15 foot lengths of the 6mm anyway. But next time I'll take the damned midpoint knots out and crochet the rope properly before running it through the washer. Sheesh.

In other news, tonight I did my burnishing with the rope still damp and that worked out nicely: I was able to burnish each section longer without risk of burning through. Good to know, now that I've bought another 65 feet of 4mm and 95 feet of 8mm that needs processing . . .

Yoga for Rope Enthusiasts: Gomukhasana

The upper part of Gomukhasana, or Cow Faced Pose, is excellent for creating more flexibility in the arms, and the range of the arms behind the back. See where I'm going with this?

This shot shows more of the back piece of the asana, and helpfully cautions to have a belt nearby if necessary. Indeed!

Seriously, though -- beginners can use straps as a stopgap until they can get their hands to touch behind the back. No yoga strap? Well, if you have some rope handy . . .