Knives

One of the things I love most about my D/s relationships are the ways they suffuse the rest of my life. When I admire the sparkling floor, or look down at my hennaed feet, I get something more out of them than their inherent pleasure. They also function as forms of connection.

My girl has taken on keeping my knives sharp as a piece of her Work, as of the last time she was here. There was a bit of sneakiness involved, I'll admit. I was planning to get her a set of good knives for her birthday, and wanted her to take on maintaining them as sacred work. And, of course, it gives her something to do while I make dinner.

I still can't get over the pleasure I feel every time I take those knives to garden-fresh produce, and effortlessly slice them through.

And so I find myself looking very carefully at the homework I give her, and give my service submissive. On the one hand, it seems a waste to do something too prosaic. But there's something else, too. Reportedly, someone once criticized Feri witch Cora Anderson for cutting an apple with her athame, and she replied that she wasn't desecrating the knife, she was consecrating the apple. And that's how it feels to choose this work.

Even mopping the floors is sacred Work, if you make it so.

Floors and Foundations

Or, Witch/apprentice as the new D/s paradigm?

So, I've recently returned to a kabbalistic project of mine, poring through medieval and modern texts on kabbalah, cabala and qabala to learn as broad a perspective as I can, using the sephirot as a structure. Having recently returned to this, I'm starting over at the bottom, reviewing and researching the bottom two spheres of Malkuth (Kingdom) and Yesod (Foundation), as well as adding to the pile new books that I hadn't covered in my previous research. So, that was my planned magickal work of the evening during my service session.

Coincidentally or not, I decided that yesterday's session would be about my floors. I hate doing floors. Hate, hate, hate sweeping them. Hate, hate, hate mopping them. I probably would have chosen that service regardless, but the magickal parallelism was too great to ignore.

And so it was that I opened my session again this week by talking about the magickal work I had planned for the night, and how my submissive's work would feed into that. I gave him just a very rough overview of the work, and asked him to pay special attention to the floors in three spots in my house, and then set him to work.

Other magickal stuff uncovered itself, as it will. In order to clean the kitchen floor, he had to move the coins and offerings I had to Legba behind the door. As he was putting things to rights again, I asked where the coins had gone and briefly explained why they'd been there, and why he had to be the one to put them back and how to do so. I explained that he can, in making those offerings, ask for assistance at any crossroads in his life.

Later, when we were having our chat at the end of the session, he mentioned that he is at a lot of metaphoric crossroads right now, and seemed amazed that I had keyed into this for him. "Well, darling, that's what happens when you choose a witch for your dom." We talked a bit about how Legba might be able to help with his choices, and about how to build that relationship. I added extra attention at real and metaphoric crossroads to the between-class homework, and we made plans for our weekend session.

I'm very pleased at the direction this is taking.

Unsurprisingly, I got to my email afterward to find that the Pyrate Lass, who knows next to nothing about the kabbalistic work I'm doing, had sent me a painting she worked on last night. It is completely filled with colors, symbols and objects that I associate with Malkuth and Yesod. Life is very funny that way sometimes.

Kinky calendar, and more on service

Big week ahead. Service session Thursday, my girl comes to visit for the weekend Friday, another service session (getting my lawn did) Saturday. All that, plus fitting in my D/s relationships in a non-kinky event setting Sunday, which should prove amusing.

I was fairly solitary for the long weekend, bummed out at not going to Shibaricon after all but also happy with what I accomplished here. I was amused to realize toward the end of the weekend that I no longer have that strange sense of resentment to do my own housework when I need to. I used to go around grumbling, "I need a service sub." Well, now I have one. Which changes everything, reinstating my feeling of choice in what I do. (After all, I choose what makes it to my 'to do' pile, and what makes it to my service submissive's, and what makes it to my girl's.) That psychic freedom may in the long run pay far more dividends than my satisfaction in the actual work (which is not inconsiderable).

Yard

Not only did I have a perfect weekend (more about which in another post), but I pulled into my driveway yesterday to find a perfectly trimmed and edged lawn. I am very pleased.

Service

The first service session went very well. My new submissive has history as a woodworker, and so it felt right to have him sand and oil my wooden kitchen island as a first task. Given that I also treat my kitchen island very much as an altar for kitchen witchery, this was also a way to test our ability to integrate magick and service.

I set to my own homework for the night (reading a new magickal book), never lacking for hot chai. The boy got to work in the kitchen, doing far more than I expected. By the time he was done, the island was smooth and well oiled, the floor clean, the compost and trash removed, the compost bin rinsed in the garden, and my book was very nearly done.

It's all about intention: not the sanding and oiling of the wood, but the act of devotion behind it, the way that sanding and oiling is in service to me and the powers I serve using that space. And it's on that level that I'm most satisfied with last night: the way that the boy clearly paid attention (as asked) to things on an energetic level. I set some homework on that, accepted the gift of an extra session to tend my yard when I'm next out of town, and went to bed feeling like I do after good magickal Work.

I think this is going to work out just fine . . .

On Finding Good Help, pt. 2

So, one of my sweeties hopped over to the blog the other morning to see how the interview went.

I'm not sure I have a lot to say, at least not publically. The interview went well, and we are going to move forward into an initial service engagement with an option for his earning a collar and more responsibilities down the road. Mostly we negotiated, sipping tea at the wobbly kitchen table and working out some terms and concerns. Toward the end, I gave him a tour of the house and garden and a few high points.

He has skills I knew I was looking for and several I'd never considered, such as being able to teach me to play the guitar I own but can't play. His carpentry skills are much more advanced than I'd realized; I've played on some dungeon furniture he built without having any idea it was his work.

And, I feel like I have a lot that I can teach. He knows landscaping, for example, but nothing about permaculture. Over time, that might be a place he can apprentice.

I came out of our meeting excited and inspired. I gave him a bit of homework, and we'll be setting up a proper session soon.

And, oh yeah. My kitchen table no longer wobbles. I think this is going to work out just fine.

On Finding Good Help

Sometimes the hardest thing about getting what you want is actually realizing that:

a. you've been asking for something
b. the Universe (sometimes in the form of other people) has been listening
c. you're getting it
d. figuring out what the hell to do now

And so it is with my recent adventures in finding a service submissive.

I've been joking so long that "I need a service submissive," that I'm not sure I was even really hearing myself. But someone was. And so it was that from the most unexpected quarter, I found a very capable and service-oriented gentleman offering his services.

And so I did what I normally do in such situations. I stalled like hell.

To be fair to myself, I was on a retreat when I had the offer, and I have a policy to make no major life changes until a month after my retreat. Which I am, now. I sat with the decision for a couple of weeks, ran it by my lovers, sat with it some more, and then sent out the application. Which has now come back to me with enough "extras" to really delight me. (As it turns out, my applicant has experience as a landscaper!)

And, I feel like I'm pushing myself a bit every step of the way, through my own inertia. I know that this doesn't make me sound much like a domly dom, but it's true.

And I know what the inertia is about, because it's something that you hear about all the time in the professional world as well. "It will take longer to train someone else to do this than it does to do it myself." That's my reticence to start explaining what it is that I do (or don't do): how to fold and put away the laundry, how to clean the floors, how to deal with my composting and greywater systems, how to tell the deliberate weeds from the noxious ones, how to deal with my cranky old cat. And in a very real way I would like the house to be already perfect when we have this talk, which may or may not happen and is frankly a bit silly.

At least, that's part of the inertia. Another very real part is scheduling, which is the reason I've had a couple of lovely lasses offer to rope bottom to me for months now, and haven't managed to make time to set up sessions. Lately my schedule is clear for the first time in months, and I am very reluctant to pencil anyone in beyond my "short list" of very close friends and lovers.

And again, that's a trap. In the long run, retaining a service submissive will -- like any well planned new endeavor -- save me time and free up my energy. Ideally, it will help with my lower two tiers on Maslow's pyramid so that I can focus more time higher up the chain (on things like, say, having those girls over to tie up). It's always getting through the short run that's trouble.

So, I did what I do when I'm finally ready for something. I just made the appointment. I don't feel "ready," but if I wait till I feel ready, it will never happen. No, I set the appointment and that will give me extra incentive to be ready.

And so it begins.

Yes, I have an incredible girl. And no, she's not going anywhere, at least if I can help it! But while she is many things to me -- the perfect 105-pound rope slut, a sweet and attentive friend, giver of fantastic pedicures, amazing lover, and all around darling girl -- she is not and simply isn't going to be a service submissive. Which, as I've said before, is just fine with me. I think we get far more out of working with a bottom's inherent skills and performance capacity than we get from a one size fits all solution.