Returning

There are many ways to return to daily life after time off.

But a blackened ass is, perhaps, the perfect accessory.

Annie B: Not a novice any more

I went to a caning workshop at my friendly neighborhood play space this evening, and I realized, with some startlement, about halfway through the lecture portion of the presentation that I already knew almost everything that the presenter was talking about. It was lovely to see her enthusiasm for her topic, and some of the toys she passed around were exciting or wicked or both (a cane made out of a real rose stem, thorns and all? Ow!). But I didn't need to keep the handout, because it didn't tell me much that I didn't already know, other than that one can make canes out of a great many natural materials, such as apple tree shoots or forsythia branches. Or bull horn, which is what I think she said the big scary solid thing was. Or a foot-long, inch-wide cylinder of solid rubber, if you can even call that a cane and not just an implement of ow.

My very first toy that got any consistent use was a cane, or at least a stick that I called a cane for lack of a less generic description. One of the very first demos I ever saw at a kinky con was a caning demo that left bleeding welts on the thighs and ass of the very happy demo bottom. I think I've gone to at least one caning demo at every kinky con I've attended since. At this point I can rattle off a great deal of theory about cane care, and about playing safely with said toys, and how the rules can be gently bent if you both know exactly what you're doing. And so, on the one hand, I agreed with the smartass top who joked that you can cane any part of the body, because in theory you can indeed do so, if you put no force behind the strike and don't use an innately painful object as your cane (cf. the thorny rose stem). On the other hand, I wanted to grab him by his ill-fitting (and ugly, IMbiasedO) fetish wear and smack him upside the head for hijacking the presentation for even a short discussion of why it is, no seriously it is, you smartass, a bad idea to cane someone's hands using force. (I happened to be sitting right behind the smartass top in question, and I was momentarily tempted to smack him on the head or neck with the little cane that I was holding and see what he thought of his own statement. Of course, I did not. But I was tempted.)

All that being said, I know I have a great deal more in the way of technique to learn. But I'm not new to this any more, and I've reached a point where I'm refining certain skills, rather than newly acquiring them. And that, somehow, still surprises me. I feel about the same as I did when I went to my second year of Witchcamp, or my second year of home-grown co-created rituals. "I'm still relatively new to this -- but I'm not a 'baby witch' any more."

I think it's all too easy to lose sight of the vast middle ground between "novice" and "expert." There's a long way between me and the famous names in either witchery or kink, but if I had been doing what those folks have been doing for as long as they've been doing it, and had been doing it as well as they have been, I'd be pretty damn good at what I was doing, too. And, at this point I'm still under 30. I hope to have a very long time in which to become that good.

And yet, despite the experience I do have, I sometimes compare myself with the leading lights of the witchy or kinky worlds and think, "Gosh, I'm nowhere close to being that good. Therefore, I must not be good at this at all." This is clearly false; I wouldn't even need to ask my dear partner for confirmation of that any more. But it's as if that middle ground temporarily vanishes, and since I'm not an expert, therefore I must be a novice.

And so I leave you with this piece of unsolicited advice, dear reader: Do what I say, not what I do. Embrace the middle ground, for it is truly a vast place, and there is much good company therein.

Bonus paragraph: I would love to make a direct connection between the above statement and the Iron Pentacle, because I feel like these things go together in some obvious way. However, it's late, so I will leave that as an exercise for anyone who feels like taking it on.

And, canes

The black and blue marks are still working their ways out of my butt and thighs.

Why yes, I do switch, thankyouverymuch. And gods I've missed the dirty end of a cane. Nasty things, those.

Nope, that radio silence has not been do to a lack of play. No, ma'am.

Kink permaculture

A friend came up to me excitedly last night. "Oh, Miriam, I have something for you." The something turned out to be several lengths of bamboo that he'd salvaged from an art project, and thought I could turn into canes or whatnot.

I honestly don't know if they'll make good canes, although I'm chasing up some articles on cane making to see. I'm concerned that they're regular bamboo and not specifically rattan. This other site suggests that because bamboo is hollow, it's only a good choice for very light or medium play, and that hard play might split the cane and create instant and razor-sharp edges. Given that I have broken some of the canes on my birch bundles over asses, this might not be a good idea for me . . .

If they won't work for that, I'll probably cut them to lengths for use in rope play. One of my friends and mentors does amazing things with bamboo, creating extra columns, bamboo bit gags, and other toys that look just gorgeous with rope. And I hope to see him today. So perhaps that's the better way to go. We'll see.

So, I don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I love that my friend thought of me. Another friend may gift me with her (rather large) dog crate when her dog outgrows it. Neither of these folks are in the scene, but they're my friends and they're supportive.

Out of the blue yesterday, I got an amazing and touching gift. A friend who demo bottomed for me at the auction last month hand crafted a magickal oil for me to say thanks.

I started this entry to talk about the canes, but the more I write the more I touch on something else. And that's the value of being open.

It's a fine line I walk. I want to be open and honest about my life, and I don't want to squick anyone.

My friend with the puppy cage is an excellent barometer. I think I've erred on the side of TMI in the past, and also wrestled with the temptation to give too little information - so little information that she might not understand the landscape of my life and relationships. Slowly I've learned to give her a broad overview. She can know that I'm negotiating with a service submissive without knowing the details of our contract. She can know what's going on with Pyrate Lass without having to know exactly how we play. And she gets the really good stories, the ones I can tell without too much squickage and play for laughs.

In my magickal community, I really can't talk about my magickal practice without talking about rope. Rope is in part something I am working with as a magickal tool. And so I try to push my edges, and my community's edges, gently. I can show off my rope work making art projects, or helping ease a donated refrigerator down a ramp. And when it was appropriate I did use my chest-tying powers for good at auction, pushing the envelope just enough and I think safely for everyone. But this is part of being seen.

There are places where I really feel no need to be out of the closet. I can't see a benefit of speaking about these things at work, for example. (The tradeoff, of course, is that I don't have close friends from work, either.) But mostly, I need to be seen to make connection. Rope, play and D/s are major parts of my life, and aspects that are pretty important to really knowing me. They're not all of my life -- you get fair amounts of magick and gardening and music geekery, too -- but they're also not just side interests.

And the gifts of that are that you make real friends and real connections. Sometimes those gifts are very tangible. It's Earth Day - reuse, reduce and recycle, and all that. In the garden, I am always taking on things that would otherwise be trash -- newspapers, cardboard, coffee grounds -- and turning them into productive garden beds. These gifts are the same to me, a little kink permaculture. That bamboo, that puppy cage? Both would otherwise have been trash or garage junk to someone. But to me, they are both useful and also signifiers that my practice itself has value in my friends' eyes, and that they recognize kink as important to me in the same sense my gardening is. That's no small thing.