To know and to love

This is a picture of my journey.  I wish the sim were still open, where I had taken this photograph.  Interesting to note that there was nothing to change about it.  I added a frame, my name, and called it pretty. (Sometimes the photographs that I take in Second Life are just perfect on their own.  Sometimes I feel like a good photographer, not just a good digital artist.)   I have been waiting to see what to do with this image: and now I realize, this is a picture of my submission.  I walk an unfamiliar landscape: unfamiliar, even alien-looking to what I am used to on Earth.  Some of the planks are rickety and old (values that are worn-out and under-examined for their relevance today); and some of the planks are strong and sturdy (lessons, fresh thinking, and small victories along the way that prop up the process).  In the top right quadrant, I wander.  I am in no hurry.  I look at what is around me and I learn.  Bottom right quadrant: the butterflies, the metamorphosis.  The change.  The beauty that awaits.  The bottom left quadrant: green foliage, green space, organic growth that represents life and living and the symbiosis of relationships.  Upper left quadrant:  the elegant, elaborate, carefully-constructed screen that follows me -- blocks my view of certain things, shields me from certain things, protects me from foul winds, or reveals things to me slowly at the right pace.  That shield is valuable.  It is not a hindrance.  That shield is human-constructed and elegant.

This is also a picture of my journey.   It is a picture of contemplation, experimentation, and tests.  (The toes in the water test like no other test...)  The crossed arms love like no other love.  The reflection in the water shows myself to me.  And I have learned in the last 48 hours to love, love, love the good person looking back.

Most of my journey is intellectual.  A little bit -- more and more -- is emotional.  When I began the journey, I had no idea what scope, what vast acreage of landscape, there would be to learn and explore in the D/s lifestyle.  I had no idea it was more than kneeling, devotion, and prayer that I would "be enough."  I had no idea the fulfillment would be so intense; nor the emptinesses that become more pronounced.  I had no idea that, when I finally asked, I would finally receive.  I've been told -- and it's been proven -- that I'm allowed to ask, and I'm allowed to receive, and that it's more than okay:  it's gratifying.