Trust Those First Instincts!

Well, once again the wisdom of trusting my first instincts is proven. I’ve sent this information and other details to local friends, and made a few phone calls.

I met that guy I mentioned in my last post, after he replied to 3 CL ads and I said, “No thank you.”  We had 30 minutes at coffee at Dragonfly last week. Then some emails with some really good stuff and some incredibly impatient stuff indicating he wanted physical intimacy immediately. I indicated I was neither willing nor interested in that right now, that I wanted to get to know him.

I also rescheduled this evening from being chatting at my place to tea at the Huckleberry, partly because I have been sick all week.

Predictably, he either misunderstood or chose to misunderstand. I called his place at 6:05 and he “had just left.” We were meeting at 6. So I waited. I’ll give anybody 30 minutes At 6:25 he calls and says he’s been at my place. I reminded him I asked to meet at The Huckleberry. I told him where it was. (I had wondered why he had not asked for directions, but he has rehearsals in that area, and I thought maybe he had been there before.)

He did show up. When I told him I didn’t feel well and did not want to get up and give him a hug, and asked him to have a seat opposite me in the booth, he stood there a moment, then said, “I don’t want to hang out with you. Enjoy your tea.”

Trust me, I did!!!

I called Stephan on my way home and asked him to wait while I checked the house to make sure no one had entered. Seems okay. Stephan & Aubrey have the guy’s email and phone number in case he gets weird, but I imagine he’ll just go away.

Back to the ol’ drawing board!

Thank you for “listening.”

Still praying, Ann

Doms, Gurus and Multiple Surrenders

Deep, deep inside me I crave surrender.

I think every woman does if you look deep enough.

(Every man, too, although perhaps the subjective experience is different.  I’d love to see Comments on that.)

Categorizing this blog, I was surprised to see all the topics that I had not yet put in the list, used or written about. I did a quick review of my last 30 posts or so, out of about 85 and didn’t find anything about Ds or surrender, really. Maybe I just haven’t gotten around to it and the first ones aren’t yet categorized. Some of this could be there.

I was really surprised that I didn’t have David Deida in the Categories list. Well, he’s there now. Welcome, David. I didn’t find Marianne Williamson there, either. Welcome, Marianne.

I touched on a lot of this in the post just before this one, and in small ways all through this blog. Remember when the title was “Grateful for Incest? Yes!”  No, most of you probably don’t. I changed it because it was bothering people, particularly my mother. I don’t promise not to publish a book with that title, or change it back or use it in some way. But for now, it didn’t seem attractive enough. I’m not trying to turn people off. I’m trying to turn you on.

The whole point of these writings is very close to the subject of power exchange and surrender. I’m almost overwhelmed to state that. My mind travels to so many, many places on this idea.

Surrender to God comes first. 

Every surrender is surrender to God.

I surrender to write, eat, drink, bathe, defecate, read, learn, teach, make love. What is not, in its essence, a form of surrender?

Let me make it clearer, just in case.

In writing I surrender to words flowing through me.

Eating and drinking I take God into my body and surrender to the changes.

Bathing.

Sing hey! For the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away
A loon is he that will not sing
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

                 – JRR Tolkien

Bear with me, this is going to be a very musical blog.

Defecation is a classic symbol of surrender, letting go. Anal sex is the same way. Might be part of why I like that so much.

Reading, learning and teaching all change us, whether we want them to or not. We cannot hear something new and not be changed by the knowledge of it. No way.

In teaching, ideally, I get out of the way and let Spirit flow through me.

Making Love

Ah, now we are getting somewhere!

Let me define a couple of terms first.

God – In most religious mythologies, including the Christian one, God is the Creator.

According to me, Heinlein, and many other mystics, in my own words, “God is the Whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Sex – What is sex for?

Even the Christian churches say sex is for . . . CREATION.

I may not have sex in order to create babies (ever) but the potential is there and sex is a very creative act of surrender. Male or female. We let go or we do not come. The more we let go and surrender, the more blissful the experience.

I should interject here with some discussion of whether or not we can “cause” this surrender. No. Not really.

A Zen master said that enlightenment is an accident. Meditation just makes us accident prone.

Same thing with any blissful experience. Which experience is not blissful? I can’t find any. I’ve been blissed out on so many things and see the possibility in every single moment.

While I must surrender, I cannot actually cause surrender or control the depth of it, really. All I can do is practice and become … hmm… surrender prone.

What does this have to do with Doms & Gurus?

Well, quite a bit. I am submissive sexually. It’s not my only sexual expression. In fact, I can Domme when I choose, although I rarely choose to anymore. I got kind of burned out on that dating male-to-female submissive crossdressers. Four years of that left me wanting deeply to be the girl and the submissive. I enjoy vanilla sex, too. Although, I’m not quite sure what that would really be for me. I’m not even vanilla in missionary position. I have references.

Back to Doms and Gurus.

Last Friday morning, I spent a couple of really good hours crying at Jared’s place. He has turned the office into a temple room. It’s beautiful. So, sitting there with Christ and about a dozen other enlightened masters as my witnesses, I cried about the longing to surrender, and how to best do that.

I used to live there. Jared was going to sell the place, so I moved out and into Joy’s place. Then he changed his mind and I realized I had moved out of the ashram. I, who crave spiritual community, living with like-minded others, had just moved out of the seed of one. I still don’t quite get that. Oh, alright, his place is the “men’s house.” But there is more to it than this.

Jared swore brahmacharya vows to Swami Vishwananda in London in October. I wanted very badly to be there. I could have, practically speaking, but I was not seeing the open path. I’m sure there were reasons for that. I just couldn’t seem to find it at the time. I was so close, again. I was in Cork, Ireland just two weeks before. That story is blogged elsewhere.

What does it mean to take brahmacharya vows?

Everything. Total surrender. He vowed celibacy and obedience.

I’m a little jealous. I love Swami Vishwananda. I was there when Jared met him. We sat next to each other. Jared was crying his eyes out. I started, as I usually do, laughing hysterically.

There was a moment when I saw Swami hug someone.

The next coherent thought I had, and there was some measurable pause between thoughts, was something like, “I want to be loved like that.” I fell in love with Swami Vishwananda in that instant. I can never ever go back. We are responsible to what we know. I know love. I know surrender. I know what life and love can be. I cannot pretend I don’t. And yes, I’ve had similar experiences in a variety of contexts.

At the same time, I do not feel called, at this time, anyway, to swear celibacy and be a vegetarian, etc. Obedience? I’ve already sworn that in my heart.

When I saw Swami a second time, no, a third time, I saw him in Boulder in December, and chose not to wait in line for a personal darshan, but waited until the third time in Santa Fe with Joy.

“Well, I’ve got Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, down in my heart.”

Sorry, Joy. Couldn’t be helped.   eg  I know you understand.

I knelt before Swami in Santa Fe with prayers in my mind. I had the thought, “I could surrender to this guru” followed immediately with, “I already have.” I knew this to be true. I have.

No, not at the expense of my own connection to God, not at all.

So far, it has done nothing but enhance that. I have been talking to Lena Phoenix, author of The Heart of a Cult (see previous blog) and her husband, Steven Sashen, author of The Anti-Guru Blog (see link to the right) about this. Swami is new. He’s 27. It is yet to be seen how he handles this power.

I told Jared that I don’t care how he handles his power. That’s his life. I cannot even get upset at the allegations of other gurus having sex with their devotees or at Rajneesh/Osho’s fleet of Rolls Royces.

Who cares???

It’s all good. And I know whereof I speak. If you are new to this blog, review the links on the right where I’ve done The Work of Byron Katie on incest. That may help you to understand. That’s what this whole thing is for. Do The Work on judgments of gurus and see what comes up, if you’re curious.

I want to share the inner peace, the joy, the gratitude that I have for surrendering to what is. What is, in my history, is that I went down on my father for several years. He penetrated me when I was an infant. A friend of his fucked me in the ass when I was 11.

So? 

It was not the end of the world, but the beginning. Ann, if a prelude to Anastacia, means “resurrection.” (see the Rise Again blog)

Back to Doms now. Where do Doms come in?

Well, that, children is a very good question.

It reminds me of the way Tom Robbins wrote about sex in Jitterbug Perfume. He says something about sex enters the picture, and goes off on a description of all the possible ways sex might enter the picture. Read the book. It’s juicy both spiritually and sexually, which is why he is one of my favorite authors.

I want to know where Doms come in. I want to know if I can hold the space of surrendering sexually, emotionally, physically, and more to a Dom who understands my need and my heart, who knows my spirituality and supports it.

Is there a context for this? Or would I be trying to serve 2 Masters?

I am sure that there will be doubts, challenges, stupidity, lessons, failures, experiences and resistances for me to go through. I will test and test and test again. I want to know my spiritual truth is supported by this additional surrender to a man, a human being, a lover and a Dom. If it isn’t, I’m outta there.

But not so fast. One step at a time. I may have met a man, a Dom, a spiritual heart who could potentially share this with me. It was the first and only time in my life that a man sent me something about David Deida before I sent it to him. Blew my mind. And I think he knows it.

Let us pray.

Amen, Ann

 ”Sweet Surrender”

 by the immortal John Denver

Long may he live!

(with thanks to Jan Marszalek, my NLP teacher,

who ended every “12 Hour” workshop with a meditation and this tune)

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Travelled by many remembered by few
Lookin’ for something that i can believe in
Lookin’ for something that i’d like to do with my life

There’s nothin’ behind me and nothin’ that ties me
To somethin’ that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more
Than enough to just be there today

And i don’t know what the future is holdin’ in store
I don’t know where i’m goin’, i’m not sure where i’ve been
There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin’, i don’t need to see the end

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Travelled by many remembered by few
Lookin’ for something that i can believe in
Lookin’ for something that i’d like to do with my life

There’s nothin’ behind me and nothin’ that ties me
To somethin’ that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more
Than enough to just be there today

And i don’t know what the future is holdin’ in store
I don’t know where i’m goin’, i’m not sure where i’ve been
There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin’, i don’t need to see the end

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air

Community, Churches, Cults and Spirituality

After reading the *PHENOMENAL* Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein & Spider Robinson, two of the great immortals of science fiction, I started doing a bit of a Heinlein review. I admit I find some of his older works harder to wander through, not at all like his flowing and polished later works, but there were so many references and allusions in Variable Star that I wanted to check back into Heinlein before I re-read Variable Star to see what else I can catch that I missed the first time. Re-read? Yes, just think of it as multiple orgasms. I kid you not, nor do I exaggerate.

I tried a set of short stories and lost my interest a bit. I had just finished JOB: A Comedy of Justice, a later and more polished tale, and in that odd way that my life resembles the fiction I am currently reading, I met a man who calls himself a “new Christian,” having had a spiritual awakening and, in my opinion, having no other framework in which to interpret it. That, plus the fact that he had just been to see a pastor and was told to pray when his heartfelt prayer led him to a genuine spiritual experience.

Naturally, he assumed his mystical experience was Christian in nature. I do not.

Not in the sense of fundamentalist literal Bible interpretation one-way-ism. Not at all.

In the sense of Jesus as Christ, which in Greek, cristos means “light,”making Jesus one . . . of many . . . enlightened Ones who all came to a state of awareness that is as natural to any one of us as breathing, yes. It was Christic, a term often used to indicate “of Christ” as differentiated from “of the Christian church.”

Got all that?

Then yesterday I attended a tea given by the lovely Lena Phoenix, author of The Heart of a Cult.” After a quiet beginning where the author discussed, in anonymous terms, some of her experience with cults, the group got into some lively discussion.

We talked about how cults try to be the authority in our lives, denying us our inner knowing. There are checklists on the web that help one identify the characteristics of a cult. Not surprisingly, many of them apply to fundamentalist Christian churches.

For example, see:  http://www.rickross.com/warningsigns.html

I admitted that I was there, both to support the author and the book, and to see what I might learn to help my own questions of where and how to teach, as well as where and how to find a community of people to live with and work with. We did not get any farther with that than to acknowledge that a lot of us were feeling that lack of community.

And of course, here I am reading about water brothers grokking in fullness one of the truest statements ever penned, “Thou Art God.”

It makes me wistful for that. At the same time, I have to admit that I have found it, over and over, it just happens that my last spiritual community kind of disbanded a couple of years ago, as they often do, and has not yet been replaced by anything else. Two years has been “a long cold lonely winter. Little darlin’.”

Of course, I spoke to Steven Sashen one day on the phone about feeling “lonely,” and his reply was “What is your proof?” In about 3 sentences I couldn’t find a lonely bone in my body! Funny stuff, truth.

Further, I had just re-read the best discussion of jealousy I’ve ever, ever seen, preserved for posterity on the net by Eric Francis at

                     http://www.planetwaves.net/jealousy. 

Read that.

Then re-read it.

And when you’re done, read it again.

No, I’m not kidding. It’s that good, that deep, that important and that true.

So, here I am brain the size of a planet… sigh.  No, I won’t quite go as far as Marvin on this, but I wonder whether all this grokking is getting me anywhere. I’m still struggling for rent and spend my days alone in a room looking for a place to be my best self that serves others … and me!

I definitely do not want to be cult-ish or church-ish, exactly, but in a sense what I really, really want is something very much like the Nest of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. I read that somewhere around 1973 when I was 13 years old. I knew it for my own. I knew I was reading something that touched a core of belonging in me. 33 years ago.

Where is that?

Since I am still asking that question, and all answers come from within, I’ll conclude with a prayer from A Course in Miracles, in the form of the final 5 lessons:

Final Lessons 361-365

“This holy instant would I give to You.

Be You in charge. For I would follow You,

Certain that Your direction gives me peace.

And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me. If I need a thought, that will He also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him. He is in charge by my request. And He will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.”

Amen, Ann

Teaching About This

Hi y’all,

I am wondering where and how I can guide others to the kinds of insights I have had about incest, the subject of this blog. Now that I am adding categories, the hit counter is up and I know this is being read. A few people are leaving encouraging comments.

Maybe a few of you remember that my original banner was “Grateful for Incest? Yes!” 

I was getting a lot of concerned emails and comments from friends who were afraid this would be misinterpreted. Well, yes, but read one single entry and you can’t hold on to the misinterpretation. Note the widget on the right that suggests counseling and you cannot hold onto a mistaken view of what I am presenting here. I do the best I can. It’s an uncommon view of an all too common subject.

I’ve looked into volunteering with local women’s shelters and women’s groups. Maybe it’s my preconception, but I have met with these women. The counselors and facilitators are still so angry themselves, that they do not feel open to my lightness and joy. I am not out to change them. I don’t have the energy for some kind of uphill struggle about it. It’s really very simple if you look into what is.

I know there are many tools out there. I need a geek to help me. I’d love for people to be able to subscribe to this blog, maybe have a teleconference some day, a class, something, and of course, the book, in memoir, fiction and children’s tale forms.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Love, Ann 

Holy Jesus! Another Epiphany

This time about sex.

I have a very sudden sense of the clarity and peace I was asking for in the previous post. It’s like a puzzle piece clicked into place and I am flooded with Spirit.

Peace begins at home . . . in our own mind.

I had just sent a text message to the long haired god I mentioned before in the one about “Sex is One of the Most Powerful Drugs There Is.” I asked him to pray with me for clarity and peace. I didn’t tell him what it was about.

Two Bible quotes come to mind:

   1.  When two or more are gathered, there am I also in there midst. 

   2.  You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.

So, here is what I wanted clarity and peace *about*.  I have been asking these questions almost my whole life and it has been a source of stress and conflict. I feel like I will look back at today and feel so much love and gratitude for how this beautiful healer has helped me with this.

I have been perplexed about why I think it’s okay to have sex before marriage because when I do I end up crying and obsessive.  I seem to cry because I am with someone who is not in love with me, dating me and wanting to move toward a lasting marriage with me. Of course, my childhood contributed to my confusion. (as anyone’s sexual abuse and abandonment . . . and the conclusions or thoughts we drew from it . . . can.)

In addition, I have felt that I am still not clear enough to write my book as thorougly as I wanted to. This is a big piece of why I did not feel clear. I still have too much stress and confusion that I have not cleared in myself and cannot help others with yet. I just know I can do better. So I keep writing and working on it.

Okay, so the clarity I got is this: 

If I am having sex just to enjoy sex, that’s fine with me. But I rarely, if ever, do.

I have sex manipulatively, hoping that I will get some part or all of what I want, … ie, a joyous, spirit-centered marriage with a man whose life is also God-centered, someone who can join with me in asking God what to do and then do it with me as their partner every day.

When I give sex, love, time, attention, whatever, in order to get something back, it is not God-centered. It is not unconditional love. It is really kind of ugly. Obviously, I cannot manipulate my way to having that. I receive it through what many would call God’s Grace. Actually, I call it that, too. I also call it the Mystery.

I apologize right now to every man I ever manipulated in this way. You deserve an honest woman who loves and supports you.

I am noticing the irony that this clarity did indeed come to me through and with a man who believes every word of the Bible is true. I don’t think it means I should believe that, too.

There would be a falsehood in the logic there. I just don’t know which one. Camille was telling me that the Mormons pray with people and tell them that if they have a spiritual experience then it means that Mormonism is true. That is how they hook people into joining their church. Many churches do this. Prayer itself brought on the spiritual experience, not the Mormon church telling them to pray.

Oh wait!  I know which logical fallacy it is!!!  It’s called “post hoc ergo propter hoc.”  That is the lie that because Event B happens *after* Event A, that Event A caused Event B.

That would be like saying that because the Sun came up this morning, then the Sun coming up caused me to be typing this blog simply because it happened first.

They say that insight is the booby prize.

I pray to remember the insight (re-member… bring it back into my body) and allow it to change me, and not to run out and try to recreate that old familiar sense of self, the self I was before I real-ized that I have been out of integrity. I pray to live in integrity.

Love and Amen, Ann

Sex is One of the Most Powerful Drugs There Is

It’s supposed to be. Life and death of the human race seems to depend on it.

So, twice a month I become a hormonally drenched raving nymphomaniac with decidedly kinky tendencies and a very liberal attitude about sex.

My mother always said I was very Victorian. At first, I didn’t get it. Then she explained that Victorians seem all prim and proper on the surface, but they aren’t, at least not in the bedroom. All that pent up energy has to go somewhere and that era produced a fair amount of erotic literature.

It’s really annoying when I’m not in a relationship, too. I can have 30 orgasms and still be horny because self-love, while fantastic and intimate, is not what my body is craving. It just doesn’t do it. Hmm, is that true? Something’s off there. Well sometimes it’s enough or adequate. Sometimes it’s great. I just notice the times it isn’t enough in this context.

Okay, I figured it out. Self-sexing is plenty and I can get just as high on that as on sex with another *and* I still want to get married to someone who wants to share sex and life with me. I don’t want that because what I can do alone isn’t enough. The two are just different. I just want it. Period.

That’s part of why I’m writing this. I’ve got some thoughts to unravel here.

I’m not always happy with how I handle this energy. Sometimes I get a little crazy. Oh, alright, sometimes I get a *lot* crazy. About twice a month when I’m ovulating and before & during my period.

I had an insight yesterday that was useful for where I was and might be of some value to others with incest in their history.

It seems that sometimes I am attracted to men who are ambivalent or morally conflicted about whether or not to have sex with me. I carry some of that ambivalence myself. My father was very conflicted about it and did not handle the adult authority he might have had.

He always told me, “Now if you think what we are doing is wrong, you let me know.”  Great. I was 11 to 15 years old during that time.  

It’s a sticky issue for me, too, if you enjoy puns. I do.

I truly want a monogamous marriage with a man who shares my spiritual life, and will be the man in the relationship. I want someone who has long dark hair and certain other less definable characteristics that would be too much of a sidetrack for this note. I definitely want someone who enjoys conversation as much as I do.

In the meantime, I’m a woman with a ridiculously high sex drive.

I don’t have any moral objections to having sex. What two consenting adults do sexually is always fine with me.

I do tend to get very attached to someone I am having sex with.

Ah, there’s the rub!

There’s a joke about me. “What happens when you give Ann orgasms?” Answer: “She wants more orgasms.” Seriously. Now there are times and types of orgasm where that’s not the case.

I practice that when I can, and it is like enlightenment – unpredictable like that story Steven tells about the Zen master who said that enligtenment is an accident, and meditation makes us accident prone.

I don’t really have any conclusions on this one. I just met the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. There is some mutual interest and a lot of conflict that neither of us has totally figured out. Neither of us seems to have internal peace about it. (I do not know his experience, only what he has told me.)

I am looking for some answers.

Love, Ann