Essays & Sutras of Soul – Page 2

Archive by category "Essays & Sutras of Soul" (Page 2)

How We Respond to D/S Breakups

Today I had the pleasure of talking with a beautifully powerful woman about submission and the pain felt after ending power exchange dynamics. She had contacted me because of a post I had written about Cords, Collaring and Uncollaring. It is a piece I decided to share online from my book Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond. She pointed out that there is not a whole lot written on the topic, and wished there were more. Thus, though I will be sharing some thoughts here, I also ask that if thoughtful resources have been written by others,…

Plays of Theatre and Playground

In the world of kinky sex, the word “play” gets tossed around a lot. It gets used for the types of activities we are in to – knife play for example being a way to describe safe, consensual engagement with sharp objects as a form of sensation, power exchange, or to leave specific marks. It gets also gets used to describe a specific encounter, connection, or time period of interaction. Outside of kink, “play” evokes two different categories of interaction, and I think this ends up effecting the ways that the word play is used within the erotic encounters we…

Fair Energetic Exchange: Destigmatizing the Needs of Community Leaders, Presenters and Volunteers

On Saturday, April 13th,I was honored to give the afternoon keynote speech at the Kink LINCS Conference in Seattle, WA. This 3-day leadership conference for kink, leather, and other alternative sexual communities covered a range of topics, all of whom boiled down to LINCS: Lead – Inspire – Network – Connect – Succeed. Though writing the keynote was a challenge, getting on stage before the audience was even harder. I was speaking to people who had been leaders within these populations for years long before I ever walked into my first party 15+ years ago. But I steadied my nerves,…

Cords, Collaring and Uncollaring

The following is the essay on detaching cords/spiritual bonds at the end of a relationship. It was a tiny slice of my book “Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond” that came out a few years ago. I recently posted it in an online group, so I figure, why not post it here 🙂 I think that the bonds we create are something that need considered: Cords, Collaring and Uncollaring So let me get this straight. In the vanilla world we are expected to meet, greet, and fall in love. We court, dance, and romance. We get to…

Digging Into Love: Transformation and Foundations

Falling in love is a powerful force. That moment when we see ourselves reflected in the eyes of another, when we are seen, fully seen… it can be a transcendent experience. Heart to heart, mind to mind, spirit to spirit, we lift each other up in a frenzy, a whirlwind. See me, see me, and we are seen. Or are we? What we see reflected in their eyes is not always the entirety of our truth. It is a truth better and more refined, more stylized than who we are. And why is that? It is because they see the…

Finding My Slash

…and I don’t mean slash fiction. I have been slowly meandering my way through Brené Brown’s book “The Gifts Of Imperfection” for the past four months. The book makes me think, has me chewing on my own spirit and my own perceptions of reality. I find myself asking “what is this thing called life I am living” and “why do I do what I do.” You know, easy stuff. There has been chewing, butt kicking, and the occasional moment of “uh huh.” There are exclamation points and stars etched in the edges, brackets and circles. This is a book I…

Let the Lines Run Deep

Epiphany can be intoxicating. It can feel like an aha, strike on high from the Gods, a lightbulb being turned on and shining light into the shadows of a fearful existence. Wake me up, slap across the face… but what do you do about it in the morning? Time and time again I see individuals, myself included, have these amazing moments… and then do little with them. Catharsis junkies attending the same shamanism or tantra 101 weekend year after year, having the same realization about their intrinsic sacred value, only to come back the next year to “wake up” again…

Listening to my Exhaustion

Our bodies have profound wisdom. This skin suit we have is so full of information, capacity, knowledge… it picks up things we could never hear, never see. It understands things our conscious mind is never aware of. I am blessed by my body, blessed for my body. And yet, how often have I not listened? I work contract projects. I get hired to come in, do a thing, and leave. And yet, to teach that class, run that ritual, facilitate that discussion, drive that intensive… there is hours, days, weeks or even months of work in advance. A 2 hour…

Mental Health and Sacred Kink

This morning I got an email asking why I singled out folk with mental illness as something to “watch out for,” when it comes to working with Sacred Kink, in my book “Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond.” I speed-responded to the individual, then went back to the manuscript and made sure I was citing myself properly. They meant the following segment However, not everyone heeds that call. Some individuals get so caught up in what they are doing that their connection with a partner in a Sacred Kink arrangement can go from being mutually beneficial for…

Why?

“Why is the sky blue?” “Why are people starving in the world?” “Why did they die?” The child mind wants to know and understand the world. Why, why, why? Tell me more, let me absorb knowledge, let me understand. And yet, when the adult mind hears the question Why, it seems as if it triggers an egoic reaction. If we do not know Why, to whatever the Why is, we can feel ignorant, uninformed, or as if there was some sort of cheating that took place in the world. “I don’t know why the sky is blue” the mind says,…