To forgive, to absolve, to let go 2

Forgiveness is a part of people's consciousness and people do talk about it.  I was looking at another blog here that offers a post on the matter from a man's perspective in his own family.

He says, "I decided that what was really missing here was my forgiveness, not my apology - so I forgave her in the car."

Was that some kind of gestalt exercise where one looks at the empty passenger seat, pretending there is a person there, and saying out loud, "You're forgiven, by me, for whatever you have done, you silly silly person."  It's not clear what he means by forgiving her in the car but, for cryin' out loud, that's what I'm trying to find -- that elusive magic instruction that tells me "this is how you do it."  What, do I have to get in the car?  Do I?  Is that all it takes?

Is that what Clint Eastwood tried to do with Obama-In-Absentia, the empty chair at the RNC last week -- forgive the president for making us take care of each other by talking to an empty chair pretending he was there?

Actually... there is a beautiful movie called Scorchers.  The main character, Splendid, has just married the man she loves, Dolan.  But she is afraid to have sex with him.  She just can't do it.  So, Splendid's father gets to the root of the problem.  And the root of the problem is complicated.  Splendid's mom died during childbirth, died when Splendid was being born.  She feels guilty, our Splendid does, for even being alive, nevermind for being freshly married and so pretty and lucky enough to look like her mom.  And now it is time to complete the circle and to have a husband of her own and to make a new family for the next generation -- and Splendid just can't do it.  So, her dad makes her talk to an empty chair.

Put your mama in that chair and talk to her, he says to our Splendid.  Tell her everything.  Tell her how it is.

It is powerful and beautiful, how the movie unfolds thereafter.  There is forgiveness there; and it is not possible to put into words how it happens.  That elusive magic instruction that says "this is how you do it" is really not possible to articulate because, oh well, it's going to be different for everybody.  The only common thing they share, I suppose, is that it involves speaking that deep dark truth that was hiding in the shadows for a long time.

But what can I give?

"Explain her submission," the assignment begins.  This task is a special one, for me, on many levels.  The basic level:  my mentor gave me this assignment conspicuously close to a declaration I made, which means she can hear me and she understands my quiet terrors.  I understand submission in the general sense; my logical mind can parse a sentence and process the meaning of words.  But my gooey mind still suffered (at the time) from a destabilizing conversation I'd had with someone who kept asking me, philosophically, "Why?  Why submit?  Why dominate?  What's in it for me?  What's in it for you?"  (Let me emphasize, it was a philosophical discussion, not crisis or grief.)

Which was fine, at the beginning.  But afterwards, I began to wonder, myself.  Why?  And then, as is my wont, I doubted myself, my gifts, whatever it is I have to offer a Dominant when the time comes to offer to him.  Why would he want me?  What could I give?I begin as a plain girl.  I begin as a girl who dreams of something beyond what I have.  What I have is good; what I have is polished and fine in the real world.  But it is insufficient.  What I have means I can take care of the basic needs of survival in my life: it means I can feed and clothe myself, nurture myself, strengthen myself with experience and learning, discipline myself with chore and duty.  I have and know love.   I have these things.  I know these things.  I practice these things as a matter of regular, vanilla ritual and living.  I know who I am in real life.  I know where I'm going in real life.  I know where I've been in real life.  I'm even beginning to know what it is I want from my fantasies; what my needs are.  And how I can best express them.  I begin to transform; I begin to learn.

In my dreams I am more.  In my dreams, I see more; and I feel more.  I interrogate what I have always known as certainty until there are no more certainties, and it is destabilizing and thrilling and... insecure-making.  I used to believe that pain was to be feared, avoided.  Now, my skin itches to feel something rough against it.  Something sharp strike it.  Something virile push it.  In my dreams, there is a world of experience that I cannot begin to imagine without the guiding hand of a careful man who understands the difference between a hard limit and an inexperienced barrier composed of fear.  Who understands the role of a Master, not just a Dominant.  Who understands the ideal and the real, and the concept of striving.  There is a world to explore on my knees, and I need to know those dreams and explorations.  I began as a plain girl; and I emerge as a dreamer under a very careful mentorship at the moment.  This is why I recommend being mentored in the beginning:

Because when I feel insecure and confused, and I honestly state what it is that shakes my foundations, my mentor gives me a task that answers my anxieties with my own words and my own thinking.  "What do I have to give, after all?" I ask in despair, and my mentor's answer is "Look at the picture of the girl, and explain to me her submission."  And then I explain it.   And my own words come.  And the assignment shapes as it will, and that's very gratifying...  But the crux:  I begin to understand that what I have to give is an excruciatingly-tender heart that never forgets beauty.  I forget the ache of agony and loneliness and waste; but I remember beauty.  I hold up a mirror to Your face, a mirror that is my eyes, and I show You Yourself as the exquisite apparition, the bright and blinding Divine light as You appear to me.  I find beauty.  I find it, and I keep it, and I protect it, and I give it to You when You demand.  It is why I collect songs and stories; musical instruments; images perfected by my own hands; jewels and trinkets of adornment.  I collect; I keep; I then adorn and display for You, so that You are transported from the muck of this world into a realm of my own making to be enjoyed only by You.  Because, in my eyes, You are the most important being there ever has been.  And my God, how important it is not to give this away to just anybody.  It must be to You, when You come.  To none other.

This is what submission looks like to me.  And when You come, finally, I am going to savour, for a long long time, explaining my submission to You.

Connection: Leashing Across Vast Distance

Today was a day of connections.  I have spoken to my favourite people today, and very good work is accomplished.  (I do work, in fact, a great deal in Second Life.  It is not all shopping and gossip!  I work hard.  I meet with people.  I focus my attention on things bigger than myself.)  It was a day of connections today.  Among the chief pleasures is to know that my application at J2D is moving forward (in only 24 hours!).  I have said the name Klaudia in recent writing, but I would like to credit her with more than just a pretty vision: she writes a thoughtful and inspirational blog.  Vulnerable is a valuable read.  I link especially to my favourite post, wherein she writes about her mare, Mimi.  Klaudia said to me, today, that I "give meaning to ordinary things" which is precisely what I love about her own blog.  D/s as a lifestyle comes alive for me when I see things through her lens.  It makes me want to feel, also.

And feel I did.  I confessed something important, and something that makes me vulnerable, today to another of my favourite people.  I took a deep breath and confessed the thing I had not spoken before.  And then "the thing" became "a few things" and I had to reel it in before I got carried away.  But I confessed to someone safe, someone protective.  I confessed something that made me realize:  there is an invisible leash, and it is called confession.

Anxieties, sadness, confusion.  The storm and fire in my mind, a maelstrom inside me that I cannot tell anybody. Skies fire and smoke, orange and black, above me.  But, this connection -- this confession -- to somebody safe, somebody protective, somebody who understands (or if not, at least takes the time to listen and try to understand...) it is a gentle, still hammock, blanketed and tied securely.  Built for two, strong enough to hold.  "I miss the leash," I moaned, the heart of the matter.  I missed the connection.  And then I learned, at that very moment, that the leash is simply a visual metaphor for the connection of vulnerability between one soul and another soul.  The leash is a really awesome visual metaphor... I do miss it. But after my heartfelt confession; after the tornado of feelings in my head and in my heart funnelled into a focused and coherent expression of my need; after I felt like I was heard...  Oh the peace.  When I bared my soul, and when I made myself vulnerable, I felt connected.

(Please note: it works only when you're with somebody safe, sane, and wholly awesome.)

We are separated by continents, all of us at J2D (and at The Gateway to BDSM, where I took this incredible picture).  We have such great physical distance between us that it would be impossible if not for art and electricity to connect as we do.  The connection is powerful and I feel, now, under the great swirling, fiery sky, in the sweet comfort of a rocking hammock, part of something wonderful.