Meditation

One of the things I’ve been working with Jena on a lot lately is the importance of “self-care“. Specifically, I’ve directed her to make sure that she attends to her self as well as attending to the business of daily life and our girl each day.

And you can see from her journal that she has generally done a wonderful job in following those directives.

The idea of self-care is one that has been growing for me over time. And in one of those moments of serendipity that highlight how important it is, the third lecture in Inara and Francesca’s “Sacred Eros” series which I was listening to at the same time I was talking with Jena about this focuses on the importance of “self-care”.

For me, I’ve learned in the past year that a key part of self-care for me is activity that keeps me socially connected and active in my body. When I withdraw from people and into my mind, I start to whither. In the past year, I’ve figured out that, contrary to what I thought, I’m actually an extrovert and so social contact is like oxygen for me: when I lack for it I suffocate.

But, the events of the past six weeks or so have really derailed my self-care. I’ve been sick, dealing with family issues and so generally withdrawn socially and into my mind. A bad thing, overall. And that has compounded a slippage in self-care that happened in February when the wheels came off my good work with my weight training and exercise program because of a series of bad events at work.

In addition to restarting my writing here (and actually intensifying it), I also am working to get my physical and social self-care going once again. I did my first weight training in months on Sunday, which was hard but good. And my wife and I and friends went out on Tuesday, and I’m starting to look at making other plans to get out and be with my friends once more.

So, the self-care train is starting to move for me again.

One thing I’m starting to look at is some yoga/Daoist/zen meditation practices, as I think those will be good supplements to my other self-care work to keep me connected and in my body.

As I’ve said to Jena: one step at a time.

Thanksgiving

It has been a long time since I’ve posted.

A lot has been going on, some good, more bad. But all of it important for growth.

But it’s time to get back on the horse and push forward on writing in this space. Even while I’ve been away (or perhaps because I’ve been away) I’ve been realizing how this space and the topics it represents are increasingly important to me and central in my life.

In the United States, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a secular holiday with commerical origins that is meant (perhaps retroactively, really) to be a day for us to think about the things that we are, well, thankful for. And so, as I try to get myself going once again, some random thoughts on things I’m thankful for.

First, I’m thankful for my wife who has managed to put up with me and share a life together for eighteen and a half years (sixteen of which we’ve been married). She has stood by me and helped me with a lot of the work that I’ve gone through to unwind those things from my childhood and youth that held me back and kept me alienated from myself, most especially some of the hardest, early work. When I look back at who I was when we met, I know that I wouldn’t be nearly the person I am without her. And too, I have to always pause and thank our friend M. who fixed us up all those years ago and brought us both happiness but chose to move on by her own hand not long after. A regret for me will always be that she will never know how much good she did for two people.

Second, I’m thankful for my fiancee, my Exquisite Treasure, Jena, who has helped me to further free myself and unwind other pieces of my past and help me to feel free to grow in new directions. Among other things, she has helped me to understand better how in polyamory different relationships help speak to and express different elements within each of us and how sharing something with someone in one relationship doesn’t detract from or mean there’s a deficiency in another. This is a lesson I still stumble on putting into practice with my wife and her boyfriend, but I do better with it because I can look at what I have with Jena and know it’s not a threat to her.

Next, I am thankful to my dear friend, the Chthonian Goddess of the Sun. While she and I see each other infrequently and on a very irregular schedule, she has been of immeasurable help and support as I took my first steps down the poly path, the sacred sexuality path and now the kink/BDSM path.

Next, I’m thankful for my friend Inara who is a model I admire for good, grounded work in the Sacred Sexuality space and who has been a good and fun friend and correspondent over the years, as well as a very patient teacher and mentor (I promise, I am getting through the backlogged homework!).

Next, my friends Cassandra and PiecesofJade (and here too) who are both wonderful writers/bloggers on similar topics and serve as models and inspiration for the type of work I want to do in this space more. Also, they’re wonderful people to chat with on all manner of topics and so are great online friends (whom I hope to meet in person some day).

Speaking of models and inspiration, some people who have recently also served as models for the type of writing I want to do here but I don’t know so well personally that I’ve found through the magic of the InterTubez: Samantha (aka @nympsam), Sadie Smythe (aka Sexie Sadie), Sarah Estrella, and urban_gypsy. All of them have brought insight, feeling, and honesty (sometimes so brutally that I’m impressed by their courage) to their writing. They have also made me realize there’s little writing like they do from men in this space and so have helped to inspire me to pursue writing here more.

If you live in Seattle and are in any way involved in or interested in sex positivity then you naturally are (or should be) thankful for The Center for Sex Positive Culture (CSPC aka ‘The Wet Spot’). Not only do they provide education and space for BDSM and other sex positive activities, but their presence and work has spawned other quality sex positive spaces such as the Little Red Studio and the Sharma Center. And while CSPC is the work of many people over the years, the executive director, Allena, has truly been instrumental in building it up to what it is today and in turn helping turn Seattle into the ’sex positive capital’ it is today. Beyond that, though, she’s also been a great friend to go out and enjoy the good things in life with (like food and burlesque). And what could be more fun than going to dinner with her, my wife, Jena and us ordering everything off the Tapas menu and then going to the Little Red Studio? That alone is worth being thankful for.

There are many other people and things I’m thankful for. But as I sit here contemplating getting back into (and more actively into) writing on these topics in this space…..these are the things that first come to mind.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and thanks to all my family, friends, and inspiration.

Pagans Celebrate: Film at 11

It’s a mark that paganism is slowly coming of age in terms of acceptance and respectability that MSNBC ran this story about pagans celebrating the Solstice at Stonhenge this year and then linked to it off the front page.

As a communications person, I can say this marks some important progress because the story is matter-of-fact and not overly sensational. And, it certainly completely lacks any hints of “devil worshipers putting children at risk” angles that we might have seen even ten years ago.

I always say, you should celebrate every small victory: well, this is clearly a small victory. We should dance naked in the sun to celebrate!

Technically, it’s a revolution

Those who follow me on Twitter know that I’ve been watching and “retweeting” information about the upheaval in Iran this past week.

Even one who’s as naturally jaded as me can’t help but be moved by what’s going on there. I truly hope for success for them because I think it will have a beneficial and profound impact not just for them but for the entire world. Successful uprisings and revolutions of the people against tyranny always instill a certain hope and optimism that I think the world can use right now.

Another thing that has struck is how important a role Twitter and YouTube have played in this. I think it’s fair to say that without those tools, this uprising wouldn’t have gotten as far as it already has. While it’s easy to overstate things about technology being revolutionary (pun intended), I think there’s some merit here. These technologies have played a critical role in changing the shape of society and that change can’t be undone. They’ve provided a medium of expression that’s clearly nearly impossible to fully control.

In thinking about the impact of these technologies, it strikes me that we’ve actually been undergoing a major revolution for the past ten to fifteen years where technology has been changing and freeing society. It’s just this has been so subtle and quiet that we haven’t really stopped to notice it.

What I mean is that, as someone who’s come more and more into an identity that would’ve been considered “fringe” in the days before the Internet, it occurs to me just how critical a role the Internet has played in enabling both my growth and the growth of the community and others who identify in these groups. If you were kinky, poly, or a pagan, in the days before the Internet, you would have to find other people like yourself, likely engage in a long, slow process of making sure they were safe (and them you) and slowly become part of the community (if you were accepted) over time by going to events. This would take a long time, and you’ve have a small circle in most cases.

Today, you can jump start that process by joining online communities that connect you with others of similar interests all around the world. Instead of being part of a kink community of 100 people in Spokane, say, you can be part of a worldwide kink community of tens of thousands through fetlife.com. Where before you might have to be a solo practioner for sacred sexuality because you could trust no one in your small Ohio town to not persecute you, now you can learn from and trade information and practices with a woman who runs a Temple in Atlanta that you met through Yahoo Groups.

There is a certain overselling going on around “social networking” and so there’s also now a certain, expected backlash that discounts the importance of them. I think this risks failing to understand the profound depth of changes under way. While the Web 1.0 was revolutionary in terms of enabling the greater sharing of knowledge, knowledge is something we as humans simply hold. The Web 2.0 is revolutionay in terms of enabling social connections. And humans are fundamentally social animals. Because of this, Web 2.0 is slowly changing what we are, not just something that we simply hold.

What’s going on in Iran makes clear some of the depths of these changes. But I think if we pause and think about this more, we’ll realize we’ve already changed signifcantly in ways we just haven’t bothered to notice. If you want an exercise in understanding those changes, watch a TV show from the 1970’s and really think about the size, scope and structure of that world as people experienced it then.

I think you’ll find that it’s not just Iran but the world that is getting to be a lot more free and liberated.

And, of course, in my opinion, that’s only a good thing.

Our Lady of Perpetual Love and Suffering

Following on my posting about Inanna and Kushiel this week, I find myself turning over in my mind the ideas of Goddesses, Erotica, Kink, pain, and sex.

In thinking about these all, it occurs to me that if there is a patron Goddess for BDSM and Kink, it should by rights be Inanna because of how she unites both war and sex into her portfolio. That makes her ideally suited to appreciate the blessed suffering that one experiences in some good BDSM scenes.

At least, that’s my experience.

So, when next you go to beat your loved one to show them how truly deeply you love them, give thanks to blessed Inanna and offer their joyous suffering up to her.

If you support the Iranian protestors…

…then you just might be so very 2003. Which is to say you might a “neocon“. Or at least that’s the point that Daniel Finkelstein over at the Times of London made today in his very interesting take on what’s going on in Iran right now.

I find it an interesting and compelling argument myself. I am very open that I consider myself to be a classical liberal or sometimes I’ll say libertarian as that’s better known in the US (even if it’s not wholly accurate).

At the end of the day, I firmly believe that if people want to find the religion, lifestyle, sexual identity, and expression that is most genuine and authentic, it’s imperative that they be able to do so without overt or covert repression  from external institutions like governments and Churches. And so, in that regard, my politics are closely tied to the rest of me and my other beliefs.

We shouldn’t expect that the Iranians will replace their limited democracy with a truly liberal regime if this succeeds. But, one things is for sure, when you look at the pictures here you see the same brave hope for a better, freer future that you saw in Tiananmen in 1989, in eastern Europe and Russia in the early 1990’s and in Lebanon in 2005.

Here’s wishing them the best. Support your local Iranian protestor: Twitter information to enable the protestors to keep feeding information to the outside world.

Kushiel

I first heard of the Kushiel series by seeing some of my poly/sacred sexuality friends mention that they’re reading it through Twitter and Facebook. It didn’t register strongly at the time except to have the name “Kushiel” tagged in my head with these friends.

When I was at the airport last month flying out to see my fiancee in Florida I was killing time in the bookstore at SeaTac and I happened on the Kushiel section in the fantasy/SciFi aisle. I say “section” because there are enough books in the series now and they’re big enough that they took up a decent amount of shelf space. The tagging of the name “Kushiel” from before kicked in and so I paused and started reading the back cover.

It looked interesting but I passed on it then. I think I was worried that it was a bit too romance novel-y for me. I did read up on the series in Wikipedia later and I became concerned as well that while it seemed like it might be sex positive by being a positive story about a courtesan it sounded like it might have a fundamentally Christian basis.

That was that except I stumbled on the book a couple of times after that and found myself drawn to it, wondering. After all, my friends who have read it aren’t Christian at all. And, too, I thought, if it is sex positive, that alone should merit some degree of support, shouldn’t it?

So, two weeks ago I finally relented and decided that, even if I hate it and don’t finish it, it’s worth $8 to support something potentially sex positive.

I’ve started reading it this weekend and I can report so far, it’s rather interesting. It’s a bit like Guy Gavriel Key in that it’s a fantasized alternate history, centered mainly in pseudo-Medieval France. So far, too, it gets high marks for sex positivity and kink, by having the main character be a woman who naturally feels pleasure in pain who is training to be a courtesan. Most importantly, the elements that I thought were Christian really aren’t. If anything, the best analogy I can make is that it’s an interesting fusion of Christianity, Orphism and the cult of Sol Invictus of the later Empire. Of these, the Christianity is the smallest piece.

We shall see how it goes, but it’s at least more interesting so far than I had suspected.

Make Love AND War

I consider my paganism to definitely be eclectic. I don’t follow any one particular god or goddess nor do I follow one particular tradition. I look at all that’s out there and take the ones that speak to me, represent me, or provide a direction that I want to follow and incorporate it into my own personal practice.

At the end of the day, what I do is to live Nietzsche’s dictum that religion should ultimately be life-enhancing.

One of the Goddesses that speaks very deeply and directly to me is Inanna, the Sumerian Goddess of love and war and the first Goddess to establish a practice of sacred sexuality as part of her worship.

I found her as part of my pagan awakening in that most wonderful of pagan cities, San Francisco. I found her as the path of pagan and sexual awakening was began for me. One of my most treasured possessions still is a book of hymns to Inanna and myths about her (Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer).

My wife talks about how she dedicated herself to Dionysios at age 14. For myself, I dedicated myself to Inanna at age 30 and have been all the better for it. There’s something to be said for making love AND war!

The Coming, Quiet Social Revolution?

Despite all the hyperbole, I think it’s fair to say that the credit crisis represents the most serious loss of trust in the finance system since the Great Depression (and maybe even a more serious loss of trust than that).

It is a true “credit” crisis in that the word “credit” comes from the Latin verb “to believe” (credere). Another related word is credible, for instance. And the root of this all is that the system of transparency and oversight failed in regards to mortage backed securities. A whole system of financial checks and balances that exists to enable investors to intelligently manage risk failed to apply here. The net is that when everything unravelled, no one knew (or knows) who to believe and thus who to trust. No one is lending because no one trusts anyone.

As we get further along in this, though, businesses are starting to hobble through and figure out who they can trust “good enough” to get done things that must get done. It’s standard risk assessment: faced with a choice between certain bankruptcy due to no business activity or a gamble that lending money might actually not lose you money, the finance machine is starting to come down on the latter side of the equation.

That’s not all that surprising. It means that life is going to go on in some ways here soon.

But, the bigger loss of confidence has yet to be really remarked on. And that is the loss of confidence by the average investor. Those of us who have done all the things we’ve been told all our lives we should do: save money, put it away, invest it, plan for retirement and then, and only then, do you get to do what you want to do. We have seen years of  work evaporate over the course of a year and a half with no warning and no way of knowing it would happen. We followed the rules and lost for it, really.

Do people think that we will be returning to the status quo ante when things pick up again? Do people think we’ll rebuild the retirement savings machine now that we know that the system can take it all away with no warning and through no fault of our own?

I have my doubts. I know for myself I’ve decided to stop delaying gratification so much. I won’t blow all my money but I’m also not following an obsessive savings path trying to get to a magic number in the future either.

I tend to think that the finance system that comes out of this will be smaller. I also suspect that people will be working less obsessively. Maybe people will be working less and living more. Is that a bad thing? I remember the 1970’s as a time of horrible economics but also a time before the “your work is your life” movement of the 80’s reset the culture. If this is as big a time as the recession of the 70’s – 80’s was, then we should be starting to look for the social impact of this all.

De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace

I have been absent from this space for a bit. A lot has been going on in my life with my personal life and day job that needed sorting out.

But now I find that much of that sorting is done and now it’s primarily a matter of putting those things into practice.

One of the important ways for me of putting things into practice is to start writing again. Writing a lot, really, or at least that’s the goal.

So, as a first step, this blog is coming back on line. This is intended to be my place for analysis and ruminations on more philosophical topics. I am considering writing on other topics like music. If I do, though, they will get their own space for thematic clarity.

In terms of outlook, I don’t think there will be a significant break with older posts, but that is possible. So, I would ask the reader to view this entry as a major chapter heading and be open to the possibility that what I wrote before might not always be what I think now.

The title of this post is from Georges Danton. It has been misattributed to Frederick the Great and Napoleon (including in the movie Patton). It means, “Audacity, and more audacity, and always audacity”. Out of my sorting of late this has emerged as a new ideal for me to strive for. Expect to see it’s results in future postings.