The Dictionary, Page Nine

Creation, is it.  When all I want to do is to write about forgiveness, and it is Creation that claims page nine of the dictionary.  Ah well.  So be it.

I have been looking forward to this post for a long time.  I thought it would never come.  I thought it would always elude me.  I thought it was for other people, not for me.  "Forgiveness is not something I can describe," they told me.  "It is letting go," others said.  "It is not letting them win," still others told me.  I could say the same about orgasm.  I could say the same about singing in tune.  I could say the same about finally mastering the trumpet.  

But now I can describe forgiveness.  I can describe it, because I feel it.  And I feel it because it is time.

a) It knows when it is time.  You won't control it.  If you control it, it is something else.  Forgiveness comes when it is time, and it's alright if you keep watching out the window.  It's alright if you watch this kettle boil.  In fact, the more you watch for it, the better.

b) It is about letting go -- but letting go of something very specific.  It is about letting go of a false sense of responsibility.  Yours, or theirs, or someone's -- you know which.  It knows which.  And it is an abandoning of a weight that has anchored you to a false sense of who you are.  This is why it's alright to keep watching for it.  Studying other people.  Whether or not they have a good sense of who they are, or whether they are still controlled by the anchor of "other."  If you tell people it is about letting go, make sure they realize: it is about letting go of something about yourself.  Something useless, now.

c) "But how can you forgive and never forget?"  Well, this will be meaningful someday, but for now you can have an intellectual answer to that question.  Intellectually, the forgiveness comes first.  Then, the choice of whether to forget or not.  But you're getting ahead of yourself.  Make sure you keep things in the right order.  Don't stop asking; but don't put your cart before your horse.

d) Forgiveness comes when you're in a safe room all by yourself.  And you're talking.  (Yes, talking.)  And you find yourself saying something kind and generous to that person you're trying to forgive.  You say, "Wow, I was nice to you there, did you see that?"  And in your head they say back, "I deserved nothing less!"  And out loud, you say to them, "Well, you crazy loon, I will be the judge of that, seeing as this is my room and all."  And then, the forgiveness happens:  you burst out laughing.

e) Yes.  Forgiveness is laughing.  Laughter is the truth.  Laughter is the fluttering of wings that takes it all away; the fluttering of wings that take flight and vanishes.  

SO...  I laughed.  I watched the thing dissolve.  I said to myself, I feel lighter.  It's alright, now.  I don't care what they think.   I don't care how they make decisions.   I don't care whether they condemn me.   I don't care whether they know I have forgiven them.   

Will I forget what they have done?  It doesn't matter!  I do not care!  Maybe I will.  All I need to remember, really, is to stay away from them.  Keep myself out of harm's way.  That is the part that lingers.  Forgive, yes, but say out of harm's way forever after.  There is no need to do it all again.  They don't get to break you twice.

All of this has been building up to that.   Now, I know my limits.  Now, I know my personal power.  Now, I know for sure.

Tasdron has been offering me opportunities to re-create myself.  We have re-created our world together.  We have re-created the safe place.  The experimental, negotiated place.  The before-care.  The after-care.  The ritual cleansing.  The ritual invocation.  The ritual exclamation.  

Now that I know what I needed to know, I can begin a new exploration and learn something new.  Learn how to live in a world forgiven.  With Tasdron's help, I will begin the act of creation -- he and I will create something new.

Pain and forgiveness

Forgiveness redux.  The task is not complete.  We did a ritual of red markings upon my body, and that begins a journey I did not anticipate.  The paint has faded but I remember my task, and the pain is changing.  Pain and Paint are words I link, now, and things make sense to me.  I do not know if you intended this link, but it has happened anyway.  Painted pain fading.  At least, changing.

And this book has done things that we will need to talk about, also.  This is the picture in my mind when I imagine the book, and how you will always come for me.

* * *
Inigo could not stop his sudden tears.
"Now you are watching him fall.  Look -- look at him -- watch Domingo die --"
Inigo began sobbing out of all control.
"Tell me what you feel --"
Inigo was barely able to speak the word:  "Pain."
"Yes, right, of course, pain, killing pain.  That is what you should want more than anything, an end to your pain."
"...yes..."
"That pain is with you, every moment of every day?"
"...yes..."
"If you think of ending your pain, you will kill the six-fingered man.  But if you only think of revenge, he will kill you, because he has already taken the thing on earth you treasured most, and he will know that, and when you battle he will say things, he will taunt you, he will talk about your pathetic father and he will laugh at your love for a failure like Domingo, and you will scream in rage and your revenge will take control and you will attack blindly -- and then he will cut you to pieces."

* * *
When I am not imagining love and connection, I imagine ending pain.  But not really.  When I am not imagining love and connection, I imagine changing pain, a transformation.  Another metamorphosis, another pretty butterfly wing emerging.  A different pain.  I imagine feeling something different, something reserved, something never yet experienced.  Putting pain somewhere on my body and letting it feel what it is like to split open and bleed.  And then, deriving pleasure from it.  I would say, a well-earned pleasure.  Time enough.

Not every day.  My submission is not characterized by this.  I am more love than agonizing.  But, for a special treat, the agonizing must flow.

I know now what I must do.  I knew we would figure it out.

Transcendence

What have I learned in my study of the D/s lifestyle?  I've been a student here for over six months and, in that time, what has made it a worthwhile endeavour?  My whole blog is filled with learnings and personal achievements, and at the risk of under-privileging other very important lessons that I would gift to any seeker in the lifestyle, I do privilege one lesson above the rest and that is learning how to forgive yourself.  Nevermind the rest of the people who inevitably require it in life -- the self is more important and (though I did not realize it) cries out for it the hardest.  Thank you.

More than that, I understand what it actually means to forgive myself: and that it's not just words to repeat in a mantra each morning or affirmations to bring sweet dreams each night.  There is something to do and it is very important.  Forgive yourself for wanting to be loved means saying, "I want to be loved," and then saying, "Okay, me?  Good."  And then making it a part of my character.  "I am someone who wants to be loved," then, and after another little while, "This will only work if I feel loved because that's who I am."  As time passes, I take it for granted about me.  I am forgiven the selfishness of it by making it part of my true self without apology.

Forgive yourself for feeling so sure, for feeling so certain, and for being so wrong sometimes.  And for taking responsibility and feeling the burden of other people's responsibility (NOT a submissive vantage point, another reason why it feels so unnatural and heavy).  That means saying, "I am wrong, and I'm not sure," which opens me to enlightenment, and it is not tied to my ego to be unsure, and it is not a reflection of my character to be wrong.  I am forgiven the character flaw by making it my character to be open to enlightenment without certainty.

Forgive yourself for valuing perfection and for aspiring to it, and the shroud that thickens this:  forgive the illusions and pedestals and plinths that crumble when perfection shows what it looks like in the morning before coffee and lipstick.  And so I say, "I really enjoy the striving.  I'm going to keep striving.  I'll try a little harder to be satisfied, though."  And the coffee tastes pretty good today, thank you for that also.

Forgiveness and Ritual

I've explored how confession is one part of forgiveness.  I've explored how speaking some deeply, darkly buried truths is another part of forgiveness.  Also, there is a third part to the forgiving that comes from the safety and the sanctity of ritual.  To carve out a space sacred to one thing.  To wait until the right time.  To take the right amount of time and focus, dedicate to one task.  To confine oneself to one purpose and shut out the chattering noise of doubt and fear and anxiety.  To retreat from everything, just for a little while, and explore this sacred space made special because of the love that built the walls to keep love in and keep fear out.  In this space, during this time, focused and intent upon a single point, it is possible (if one is in the company of a true Master) to see into the darkness and to understand what cannot otherwise be understood.  I love to believe that people are capable of achieving monumental acts of courage in a relationship, and in fact that such is what relationships are for.  To be stronger together than the sum-potential of two separate souls.  People can help other people to forgive in a ritual space.  A Master is the architect of this ritual space and the navigator of these terrible waters, terrible only at sunset but not at the sunrise.  When I imagine an ideal relationship between a Master and his submissive, this is what I imagine it to be -- this sum potential of two souls, these willing architects whose pillars elevate each other to new seeing.

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.

To forgive, to absolve, to let go

I'm working on forgiveness.  Like "Jealousy" and like "Shame" it is a very large, very baggy and convoluted idea.  And of course, it involves many people's differing opinions and advice.  When I talk about forgiveness with people, we all seem to have different ideas about what the word really means.  Often people imagine "absolution" or "forgetting" or "letting go" or "re-inventing" or "erasing" when they imagine the process of how they forgive.  But what is it, actually "to forgive"?

The best way for me to look at it is through a Christian lens.  To forgive is to hear a confession of absolute responsibility; to understand without a doubt that the person feels responsible and feels remorse; and then to feel satisfied that the person's sense of responsibility and remorse will prevent any future and similar behaviour.  Forgiveness in that sense takes two people.  The one must confess in a real and meaningful way; and the other must understand that the confession is real.  Which is great if it happens like that.

What if one is required to forgive someone who does not believe he has done anything wrong?  I believe there is no forgiveness in that sense since forgiveness requires two people, but there is the solitary version of it: absolution.  Another Christian term, but applied without any religious fervour.  A person may choose to absolve another human being of any harm he has inflicted, if a person wishes to. That is what Christ does when he offers the other cheek for slapping.  When someone slaps your cheek, offer the other cheek too, he says; don't slap in revenge.  (I'm not really a Christian, thank heavens, so I can slap whoever I want.)

In either case, whether to forgive or to absolve is the tension, the end result is a "letting go," by all accounts.  It is peace.  It is a new level of serenity.  Or, at least, that is my mental picture.  Really, what it means is, if I forgive this person once, I have to keep forgiving this person every day of my life.  Doing it once means I'll definitely have to do it twice, and thrice, ad infinitum.  At least, that is my great fear.

On the other hand, I suppose that it is possible -- it is possible -- that the person in question already self-punishes and self-loathes as a result of past and recent behaviours.  It is possible.  I will never know for sure.  Therefore, it is possible that I do not necessarily need to "keep score" and keep the wound fresh and alive for the rest of my days as an act of "being true to me."  Absolution, private and without fanfare, may be the only solution.  Honestly, the whole situation is simply exhausting... Not like my pretty picture of a dock at sunset and calm water.  My happy, peaceful, forgiving place.  Sometimes I am amazed at how realistic Second Life photography can be.   My second life needs no absolution!  It is such a pretty place!

And More Punishment

In my previous post, I advance the argument that punishment (inflicted by the Dom upon the submissive) is not warranted except for under extreme circumstances:  circumstances that, for one reason or another, prevent the forgiveness process naturally.  My argument is that I can understand and expect the daily occurrence of correction; and I can anticipate and understand the Dom's requirement (and even enjoyment of) regular discipline of my mind and body.  But I do not expect there would be much call for punishment given a) I do not typically do things worthy of punishment, and b) whatever mistakes I have made can be rectified via the correction and discipline methods.  Punishment need never enter into it unless there is an extreme circumstance -- a circumstance under which I cannot forgive myself or, worse, my Dom cannot otherwise forgive me without meting out punishment as a cleansing process, a purgative process.  And in order for that to succeed, my Dom would have to know precisely (because I know precisely, and I have told him) what it is that would feel like punishment for me.

Now, what happens if, under some extreme circumstance that nobody could anticipate, it is not the submissive who screwed up so badly that she cannot be forgiven, but it is the Dom who screws up so badly that he cannot be forgiven?  Cannot be forgiven with the usual methods, like caring and adult conversation from heart to heart, trying to sort it out.  Because caring and adult conversation from heart to heart usually fixes things, right?  Usually.  And sometimes, it does not.  Sometimes, one party remains wounded from whatever it was that went wrong.  And if it is the submissive who remains wounded from the Dom's big-bad mistake, and if the healing process cannot proceed without a punishment-equivalent (in the same way that punishment would have cleansed the way if meted out by the Dom to the sub), then the only way forward that I can see would be for the submissive to remove her consent.  In other words, for the submissive to remove herself.  Remove her person.  Remove her consent from the "safe, sane, consensual" dynamic.  To hit the road and get some distance.

I got this idea from Sir RB whose punishment of choice (when punishment is required) is to remove himself from attending to his submissive.  Removing himself -- withholding attention -- is that which would pain his sub the most.  In similar fashion, I would argue that it is the submissive's duty to remove herself from a situation so severe that nothing short of that would begin the healing process.  Instead of "punishment," mind you, it would likely fall under the category of "preservation."   I read recently words that make perfect sense here:  a submissive (or a slave) is a human being "with the obligation of right action toward themselves and toward others.  ALWAYS."  Thank you Sir Al.  The obligation of right action towards themselves means, when the time for forgiveness is at hand but it cannot happen in the usual fashion (i.e. the heart to heart adult conversation that must, must, must happen because you respect each other and were friends first, before the shit hit the fan), then it is incumbent upon the submissive to effect a safe, sane removal of her consent.  In my opinion.

The image above, incidentally, is from another art installation which is available for experiencing on LEA6, art by Fae Varriale.  I call it an image of power, but whatever other people call it is equally valid.  I realize that in my very narrowly-focused viewpoint about punishment and relationships, the vast spectrum of power dynamics at play in every single human relationship out there in the world is beyond the scope of the point I'm trying to make.  I realize, too, that I look at D/s relationships (certainly my future one with You, Sir, whenever You propose it is time) as a form of justice, when that is not a necessary condition of human relations.  Right action speaks volumes to me.  Right reason.  Right and wrong.  To me, not necessarily to others.  And, sometimes, it's not about right and wrong... sometimes it is the very definition of "arousing" for a Master to use his power simply because he can.  Sometimes.  Maybe it's not about right and wrong.  Maybe it's just about power.  And power is exchanged somehow:  it is never destroyed.

Punishment

A few months ago (it feels like a lifetime ago) I listened to an excellent Dominant expound on his feelings about discipline and punishment.  They are separate issues, to discipline and to punish.  Very often, a dom does not feel good about punishment, and yet he may easily perform almost the very same activity on his submissive in discipline and feel terrific about it.  (I beg my three readers to forgive my use of the default "Him" when referencing a Dominant, here.  I have a man in mind when I recall this moment.)  I would imagine the sentiment is simliar from a submissive's perspective -- or at least, I can imagine it would be the same for me.  To be spanked in punishment would feel differently, to me, than to be spanked for disciplining /  training / conditioning / pleasure.  Not 100% different, but different enough to derive less pleasure from the act.  I haven't given much thought to punishment since that moment when I listened to Sir Dwight talk about it.  I'm generally a person who neither seeks nor welcomes punishment because, frankly, I don't deserve it or ask for it.  I do not believe the mistakes that I have made, so far, merit punishing as much as they might merit correction, and by all means I welcome correction as I hope anybody would if there is unintentional inaccuracy or inconsistency.  (Protected Precious's sweet ass is not perfect!)  But it's come up a few times, now, today.  And I will defend punishment for one very good reason that I can think of, besides what Sir Dwight had said earlier.

At the D/s Academy in Second Life (which my mentor is a part of, incidentally) there is a notecard entitled LOG 201 sub's resp. - D/s academy LECTURE, back from 2010.  In it, the note details a very detailed lecture about the submissive's responsibilities.  And one of those responsibilities -- and this resonates with me big time -- is to know yourself so well that you know what it is in this life that brings pleasure and what it is that you would consider punishment.  The first is often easier than the second.  To know oneself so well that one can understand what would be considered punishment is a very powerful knowledge.  And to tell one's dom or Master that information renders one vulnerable as hell.  That is how one feels vulnerable:  to admit one's weakness before another.  Weakness in pleasure and weakness in punishment: a dom needs to know both, of course.  In my opinion, a submissive who does not share with her dom these two very important character traits of hers has not submitted.

One reason I believe in this so strongly is because there will inevitably come a time when a submissive makes a terrible mistake; a costly mistake, a mistake that causes undue pain.  And, to think the good of everyone first, such a mistake would certainly be accidental rather than deliberate.  When the full force of the mistake, and all of its effects, come home to the submissive and she finally begins to feel the dread, there is nothing she can do (perhaps) to make amends.  There is nothing she can do to "undo" that mistake.  That is a horrifying feeling to me, not being able to repair something.  So how does one forgive?  How does one get past it and move into the future together?  Punishment, genuine and true.  That which the submissive knows to be punishment -- not pleasure, not disguise, not half-heartedly meted out.  Punishment, I do believe, should be reserved for such instances: when nothing else will do.  When the forgiveness is too hard to come by, otherwise.  Because punishment is cleansing.  After enduring the sentence, the cleansing is complete.  Meting out the punishment is cleansing; and receiving the punishment is cleansing.  It is as symbolic as any other practice within the lifestyle, and it should not be abused or misunderstood.  (But what, pray, happens when the dom is at fault and finds it impossible to forgive himself?  Ooh.)