I'm feeling writerly this morning, tinkering with the start of a new story. There's something about this cold weather that makes me want to write in the mornings, and curl up with books in the evenings.
Just finished:
- Jack Rinella, Partners in Power and The Master's Manual. When Jack was on his recent book tour, I bought every book he had. I haven't been at all disappointed. He mentioned something to me about publishers who wanted him to write to a lower reading level, but I'm glad he's not. Partners is dense and chewy, as philosophical as practical. It's definitely up for a re-read soon. The Manual is also very good, not least because it's actually about what it claims to be about - domininance. I've been very disappointed by other books claiming to be about D/s, when in actuality they are mostly about S/m technique. Master's Manual actually talks about that sticky wicket of power, and exchanging it, and it's written by a very serious top who wholly owns his own adventures in bottoming. I loved reading it.
- Lavinia Plonka, What Are You Afraid Of? A body/mind guide to courageous living. I've actually been working through this since T. Thorn Coyle recommended it over a year ago, and finally took the plunge to finish it this week. Plonka is a Feldenkrais teacher, and writes about fear from a bodyworker's perspective, with diagnostics and exercizes to identify and conquer common anxieties. Not all of the bodywork spoke to me, but I should probably pay more attention there. The positions we create in rope work could easily trigger mind/body issues, and it's better to be conscious about that than not.
- Milan Kundera, Identity. I love Kundera. I know it's not fair, but I prefer his Czech works to his French ones, even though I read both in English. It's not just the use of language, which goes a bit less dense in the French. It's the themes, which get unmoored from detail and go veering into philosophy and ideas. Still, I read and re-read him. And these little French novels are a quick read.
And of course I'm reading a lot at the same time . . .
- David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. I'm re-reading this now in preparation for a class I co-teach on magick and urbanism. When we last taught the class, we integrated permaculture principles into the work as a heuristic, and I'm trying to find ways to further smooth that out for the next time we teach. I'm a huge proponent of permaculture, and tend to use it as a general systems theory, not just for plants. Polyamory, personal scheduling, house organization? Why not? For an introduction to the topic, this is probably one of the best out there, mostly because it goes well beyond landscaping and food growing to these larger ideas.
- Leonard Shlain, Sex, Time, and Power. This is the same author who wrote The Alphabet versus the Goddess, which surprisingly I haven't read yet. It's basically about human evolution, and looks at how women's sexual power grew as we moved toward bipedalism and more difficult labors and away from estrus and its obvious sexual cues. In future chapters, he's going to link this up with some of the ways human sexuality is quite different from the rest of the animal kingdom, including those pleasure-seeking bonobos. I don't know that I agree with all of Shlain's points, but it definitely gets me thinking.
- Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy, The New Topping Book. I try to re-read these books (this one and The New Bottoming Book) every couple of years or so. Like Jack Rinella, Hardy and Easton speak to the part of me that is looking for more power exchange and less tech. (Not that they don't have excellent things to say about tech!) Concepts like "the forever place" and tips on how to manage negotiation without breaking scene have deeply informed the way I approach scening. Most importantly, they approach BDSM with a basic assumption that tops are caring and compassionate people under the scary exterior and speak to important things like the emotional landscape of BDSM, including self-care and personal work for tops. I honestly don't know how I'd approach this work without them, but I'd be poorer for it.
- Ivo Dominguez, Jr., Of Spirits: The Book of Rowan. Speaking of navigating liminal spaces! This book is billed as a "guide to understanding the nature of discarnate beings". It's a fairly advanced book of tech for magickal practioners wanting to do work with ancestors, faery work, astral work, invoking, channelling or other similar practices. Personally, I'm with Crowley on this: I really don't care when it comes down to it if I am really working with discarnate beings, or aspects of my own psyche. Perhaps this work is even more important if what we are really doing is contacting disconnected aspects of Self. This slim little book gives a guide to doing the Work (more) safely and effectively: a guide to risk-aware consensual divine contact.
Ladies in waiting:
- Jack Rinella, The Compleat Slave and Philosophy in the Dungeon. If these are half as good as the other books, I can't wait to dig into them. I'm saving Philosophy for last, but I'm really excited about it.
- Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, The New Bottoming Book and The Ethical Slut (and probably Radical Ecstasy, if I can figure out what happened to my copy!). These are definitely work a re-read now and again.
- Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark, Truth or Dare and The Earth Path. I've read Dreaming and Truth before, but they're up for a re-read. I haven't read The Earth Path now, but am looking forward to it. Much of Starhawk's personal work is around permaculture these days, so I'm very interested to see how that informs and is informed by her magickal work. I'm not sure if The Earth Path speaks to this, but I'd think it would.
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