5 Minutes to Deep Peace on Thursday 9/13

You will be entertained at the very least and enlightenment is an option.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Thursday, 9/13, there is a teleconference call where you can learn more about this. There will be sample meditations and a chance at a free gift worth $400.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310 

Trust me. You want to try this. The IAM Meditations are the product of the fertile mind of Steven Sashen who is also responsible for much of the Shampoo Method we talk about here every day.

It’s completely safe. I’d trust this guy with my life.

This feeling, this is what we have all been looking for our whole lives. It’s like coming home.

Love, Ann  

May is National Masturbation Month

For today’s blog, we’re going to take a Field Trip.

Literally.

Eric Francis has posted pictures of . . . well, fields . . . and he wrote the most yummy thing on masturbation.

http://planetwavesweekly.com/resources/pw_monthly_may2007.html

Masturbation Month was apparently declared by Good Vibrations. I do recommend them as the number one place to buy sex toys.

 http://www.goodvibes.com/index.aspx

Be sure to follow the link to Eric’s article on self love near the end.

http://www.sexuality.org/authors/francis/howtobe.html

I’m pretty sure I wrote about this last year, too. You can check the May Archive over there on the right.

Happy Masturbation Month!

Love, Ann

Cowgirl Interlude – The Bad Touch (The Discovery Channel song)

The Bad Touch

 – The Bloodhound Gang

Ha ha
Well now we call this the act of mating but…
There are several other very important differences
Between human beings and anmials you should know about

I’d appreciate your input

Sweat baby sweat baby sex
is a Texas drought
Me and you do the kind of stuff
that only Prince would sing about
So put your hands down my pants
and I’ll bet you’ll feel nuts
Yes I’m Siskel yes I’m Ebert
and you’re getting two thumbs up
You’ve had enough of two-hand
touch you want it rough you’re out of bounds
I want you smothered want you
covered like my Waffle House hashbrowns
Cum quicker than FedEx never reach an
apex like Coca-Cola stock you are inclined
To make me rise an hour early
just like Daylight Savings Time

(do it now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the
Discovery Channel”

(do it again now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel” (Get horny now)
Love the kind you clean
up with a mop and bucket
Like the lost catacombs of
Egypt only God knows where we stuck it
Hieroglyphics? Let me be Pacific
I wanna be down in your South Seas
But I got this notion that the motion
of your ocean means “Small Craft Advisory”
So if I capsize on your thighs high
tide B-5 you sunk my battleship
Please turn me on I’m Mister
Coffee with an automatic drip
So show me yours I’ll show you
mine “Tool Time” you’ll Lovett just like Lyle
And then we’ll do it doggy style
so we can both watch “X-Files”

(do it now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the
Discovery Channel”

(do it again now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel” (Get horny now)
———

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the
Discovery Channel”

(do it again now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel”

(do it now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the
Discovery Channel”

(do it again now)

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so lets do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel”(Get horny now)
 
Love, Ann

Ginger in Dark Chocolate

I sent a set of music to a local radio station a couple of weeks ago. I knew that they select some of these sets to play at the noon hour. I didn’t realize they also awarded prizes when yours is chosen.

So, imagine my surprise when I answered the phone at a quarter till noon today and it’s Ginger, saying, “I’ll be playing your Select-A-Set at Noon today. It will be the second set at about 12:10, and you’ve won two concert tickets and a $50 gift certificate to a camera shop. Is there a story with this?”

I told her a little bit about Russ. She asked how she should announce the set. I suggested she make it in memoriam. So, she announced it “In memory of a recent relationship.”  

I picked up the tickets & gift certificate this afternoon, and left a thank-you note and some Chocolove Ginger in Dark Chocolate for her at the station for playing my songs.

Well, well, well.

Jupiter in Sagittarius, conjunct my natal Jupiter. Isn’t that fun?

The funniest part is that I nearly didn’t send the set. I thought it up while thinking about the aborted relationship with Russ a while back. Remember?

Here is the set, in the order it was played, and the lyrics:

Think I’m In Love
        – Beck

I really think I better get a hold of myself
Don’t wanna let the night get ahead of myself
Whisperin’ her love through a smoke ring smile
She doesn’t know what happens when she’s around

I think I’m in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so
I think I’m in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so

Doodododododooodoo

Probably lay my head on a wooden floor
Tell her I was tired from working the store
Counting all the cash from an old shoebox
Saving up to buy her something she wants

I think I’m in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so
I think I’m in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so

What if it’s wrong?
What if it’s wrong
To pray in vain?
What does it mean
To fake your death?
To wake up tainted?

Take a little picture in a photobooth
Keep it in a locket and I think of you
Both of our pictures, face to face
Take off your necklace and throw it away

I think I’m in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so
I think I’m in love
But it makes me kinda nervous to say so

Really think I better get a hold of myself
Don’t wanna let the night get ahead of myself
Whisperin’ her love through a smoke ring smile
She doesn’t know what happens when she’s around

I think I’m in love
Think I’m in love
Think I’m in love
Think I’m in love
Think I’m in love
Think I’m in love
Think I’m in love
Think I’m in love

Please Don’t Tell Her I Love Her
    – Big Head Todd & the Monsters

I always leave her waiting
I always leave her down
If she should come my way
I always turn around,
Please don’t tell her I love her.
Please don’t tell her I love her.

I always keep her out
I never let her in
If she should come my way weeping
I greet her with a gin
Please don’t tell her I love her.
Please don’t tell her I love her.

If she should discover the colors of my love,
She will fly, fly away
Now you can try tenderness,
You can try to hang around,
Oh, but I’m sure she’ll love you less,
I’m sure she’ll bring you down.
Please don’t tell her I love her

Wicked Game
   – Chris Isaak

The world was on fire
No one could save me but you.
Strange what desire will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you
And I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you

No, I don’t want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
No, I don’t want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you

What a wicked game you play
To make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
To let me dream of you
What a wicked thing to say
You never felt this way
What a wicked thing to do
To make me dream of you
v And I don’t wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
And I don’t want to fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]

{World was on fire
No one could save me but you
Strange what desire will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I’d love somebody like you
I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you

No I don’t wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart
No I don’t wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you

Nobody loves no one.

I have to wonder what their story is. Sad, isn’t it?

I also have the thought that some people don’t have enough ways to love. 

I am certainly an all or nothing girl in many ways. At the same time, I have a lot of ways to love someone. I had a serious moment of doubt a couple of weeks ago. I was having the thought, “I can’t do a Middle Ground Relationship,” and I got a definite contraction telling me I was lying to myself!

Oh no! 

I’d just writen a whole blog, a whole explanation about how I wasn’t doing that and I was going into some abstinence to kind of clear the boards and all, and then I find this lie! What gives?

I even sent Russ a message about it. I thought maybe he could see something I wasn’t seeing. But before he replied (I am not sure whether he would have, anyway), but before he did, I realized what was going on.

There is a world of difference between “I can’t do a Middle Ground Relationship” and “I don’t want a Middle Ground Relatinship.” Two totally different concepts!

I am completely capable of a Middle Ground Relationship.

That’s why I answered Russ’s ad for “Sexual Healing.” I’ve spent my entire life studying and practicing that. I have vast experience in loving the one I’m with until the One For Me shows up. Sure, I cry sometimes. Why not? I’m going to cry about something, especially once a month.

When I realized that, I also realized it was safe to call Cricket. I was so clear there were no tears this time. I cannot say there never will be. But not if I’m living in the present moment, enjoying the attention of a man who loves me dearly and knows my body (or even one who wants to learn.)

Of course, I’m willing for my partner to set boundaries on time. For Heaven’s sake, Cricket has two other girlfriends. One spends every weekend with him and the other seems to have Monday nights tied down. Or, well, more likely the other way ’round. Monday nights Cricket has her tied down. The ropes are in the eyehooks on his bed, and I’m not much for bondage. I like to be manhandled and thrown around on the bed.

To say he is not as verbal as Russ is like saying that a drop of water isn’t Niagra Falls.

So, naturally, I craved Russ for conversation and email more than I did Cricket. Cricket simply didn’t have it in him. Russ did. But if someone as highly sexually charged as I am can find a middle ground for sex, I can do so for verbal communication, as well. And, if and when it feels right, I damn well will until the man shows up who wants to really go for all we can with each other, the one who wants to experience spiritual sexual emotional union and melt into bliss with me.  I want someone who can embrace paradox and know the many in the one, me.

Meditation is a given. Someone with at least a Priest secondary or primary creative energy is likely to be important for this to work, and now that I’ve experienced someone with a love language of words, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be a given, too.

My experience of him has, as I said, changed. I can feel him as if he is here. It’s merely a matter of time.

I hope he has long hair.

Blessings, Ann

All I Want

     – Joni Mitchell

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want – do you want – do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause – life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see – do you see – do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
Its the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free

Oh Goddess! It’s Beltane. Don’t! Stop! Don’t stop!

The Moon is in Sagittarius, too, which conjuncts 5 points in my chart. Wow.

So far, I’ve sent at least 50 people off to make bouncy bouncy in honor of Beltane, not to mention all the email lists I’ve posted to. I’ve tentatively offered my body to 3 or 4 people and I’m wondering whether this will be a solo or duo or um… group holy day for me. There’s a poly Beltane celebration that I might go to. I would be participating in group tantric breathing

I don’t know yet. And Eric Francis www.planetwaves.net and Jonathan Cainer www.cainer.com are both telling Sagitarians to trust. We seem like the trusting types, don’t we? But we’ve had some serious Pluto knocks for over a decade now and we just aren’t sure what is going on. I’ve had some Neptune and Uranus transits, too, still do, so God only knows. Isn’t that always the case?

Anyway, what I thought I’d do today is post some poetry and song lyrics in the spirit of the day. How’s that?

Okay. Nine Inch Nails, anyone?

Closer

You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you
Help me I broke apart my insides, help me Ive got no
Soul to tell
Help me the only thing that works for me, help me get
Away from myself
I want to f**k you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to f**k you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to god
You can have my isolation, you can have the hate that
It brings
You can have my absence of faith, you can have my
Everything
Help me tear down my reason, help me its your sex i
Can smell
Help me you make me perfect, help me become somebody
Else
I want to f**k you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to f**k you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to god
Through every forest, above the trees
Within my stomach, scraped off my knees
I drink the honey inside your hive
You are the reason I stay alive

and how about . . .

 WITH NO SIN

         – TingZen, Impossible Objects
Licking your soul
Protective hairs lying flat
Your hands held back in ecstacy
A sensual arch in your back
A yearning for everything
A world held with no sin
Our innocence is blessed
A gift that comes when least expected

With no sin
We lie in innocence
With no sin
We bask in blessedness
With no sin
We lie in innocence
With no sin

When science and art
No longer split apart
Then we can accept these gifts
That are meant for us
The long road coalescing
In a constellation bright
With reason and the unexpected

The final outcome
Greater than all the dreams
Sin absorbed in maturity
Innocence is redeemed

Love, Ann

“Cha robh dithis riamh a’ fadadh teine nach do las eatarra.”

“Two do not kindle a fire between them, but it ignites itself.”

Shampoo Series – For Things to Be Perfect, Something Has to Go Wrong

I stopped for coffee this morning after a night of Cricket – not the sport, though he is definitely a sport!

Everyone needs someone they can call and say, “Hey Baby, wanna play?” and have them 9 times out of 10 say “yes,” and welcome you in. He is the epitome of the Heinlein quote, “What the world needs is more loving: sweaty, friendly, unashamed.” In fact, Cricket has read most of Heinlein. He plays very well with others and shares his toys. His toys share him, too. (Thank you!) Usually, I drop my clothes at the door and we head for the shower before we get dirty. 

Okay, so, anyways, I was telling a fellow at the coffee shop this morning, who said I looked familiar (yes, this happens a lot), and struck up a long conversation with me, that perfect isn’t quite what we think it is.

I use the yin yang symbol to demonstrate. You know the one. It’s actually 3 dimensional. Kind of 2 teardrop shapes intertwined. The tail of each teardrop penetrates the head of the other.

His reply was excellent and quotable. I can’t find it in a Google search or on Wikipedia yet, but he says that Navajo weavers leave one end of the rug open because for things to be perfect, one thing has to go wrong. I got chills when he said that.

After I wrote this, Joy sent me a couple of links to some possible back up for this idea.

From the foreward of a book on Navajo rugs:

http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=shop&second=books&third=Woven

“… Harry Walters uses it: “To make something that is perfect means there is no more room for improvement. . . . If a weaver weaves a perfect rug, . . . she makes a little mistake on purpose—an imperfection. Often we see a little line, which the Navajo call a spirit line, that extends to the edge of a rug through the border. This line is added by the weaver so the rug will not be perfect.” This wonderful attitude toward human acts of creation, so antithetical to typical Western notions, is not only characteristic of, but crucial to, the way Native people think about what we call “art.” As beautiful and masterful as are the Navajo textiles you will see and read about in Woven by the Grandmothers, it is not so much the works themselves that are significant, but rather the process that led to their creation. In the Native universe, the object has always been a secondary consideration to the primacy of the ritual process itself.”

It makes total sense.

Here is another reference in a knitting article on the Grace Cathedral web site. Grace Cathedral is home to Reverend Lauren Artress, who has revitalized the practice of walking labyrinths, one of my favorite spiritual practices. But this is about knitting and makes mention of the Navajo spirit line and Persian carpets:

Back to the perfection idea of approaching a craft…You spent some time on a Navajo reservation and one of the things you observed with the Navajo women weaving is that they would intentionally weave an imperfection into the cloth called the “spirit path.”

Yes. [Navajo women] weave a line that doesn’t belong in the design. It’s called a “spirit path” because on that line, the spirit of the weaver can travel out the blanket so that [she] can go on to weave more. It’s a very common thing. In Pueblo pottery, [the artisans] won’t make a line that completely encircles the pot because it’s thought that anything too perfect will trap the spirit. The pots are made, especially the ceremonial pots, to hold spirit. It’s the empty part of them. It’s the most useful part. And so it’s thought that if you trap the spirit inside with a completely encircled line, the spirit will break the pot trying to get out.

Is the intentional imperfection also an attempt to not rival the gods with the creation of a perfect object?

I’ve heard that more in terms of the Persian carpets. The rug makers would weave an imperfection into the carpet because only Allah is perfect.”
 

I think that yes, Allah or God, is perfect.

What we sometimes have trouble reconciling is the fact that All That Is is God and that means everything is perfect, including the things we judge to be imperfect!

I have definitely had some things seem to go “wrong” and then turn out perfect.

Somehow, this wisdom from the rug felt like exactly what I needed to hear.

I don’t know why, specifically, but I have a sense of it. Like, I have some days where it feels like nothing is going quite right, and then others where I can’t believe what a lucky girl I am! That’s today. I admit I’m having trouble sitting down, and I’m a bit sore in all the right places, but God, I’m a lucky girl!

I also have plans for a phenomenal weekend, and hope to meet two or three new people for various parties and chanting and Beltane activities, not to mention my regular Church of Brunch.

So, what’s the one thing that went wrong so that things could be perfect?

Well, I’m not sure yet, but it appears I may have lost a friend I never had.

Sometimes my rhythms and another’s just don’t match up. We seem to want the same things, conversation is stimulating, then we try to get together, hang out, do things, and at some point, it gets skrunchy and nothing quite works. Gears grind and tailpipes backfire.

Maybe the vehicle of our friendship just needs a tune-up. I don’t know. But something is going on and the flow isn’t quite flowing. We’ve hit some rocks and rapids and it’s taking some skill to navigate the rapids.

So, I essentially blew up, let off steam in an email and called Cricket because he was just what I needed. God bless him. It was an amazing night. I hadn’t seen him in weeks and weeks, and on top of that I’ve been celibate for 2 months, and you know how good that can be for guaranteeing someone is happy to see you when you return.

I’d give my life, literally everything I am and everything I have, for an ongoing intimate loving relationship with a man who wants me, wants to share my heart and my soul, who can be all that I’ve been blogging about lately, whom I can serve and nurture and adore for possibly the rest of my life.

In the meantime, thank God for friends!

Love, Ann

“This is how God is showing up.”

                          – Steven Sashen

One Woman’s Beltane

“All women are she,”
Mykonos once told me.

“Treat each woman as the Goddess,
because she is.

Women are built to reveal openness –
they are nature’s mechanism of surrender –
and they wait for a man they could trust
with their utterly surrendered heart.

Few women ever meet such a man,
so most women suffer terribly, longing their entire lives.”

– David Deida, Wild Nights

Some of yesterday’s quotes, being from David Deida’s Wild Nights, were from the masculine perspective. You know, I appreciate what Deida says to men and I want any man that I’m involved with to know those experiences from the inside, and understand what it is to pierce and penetrate my heart (not just my pussy).

Today I want to think about this from my feminine perspective, though. For that Deida wrote Dear Lover and his books for both genders include some great ideas, as well.

From what I read, from a man’s perspective, the fear is of being engulfed, swallowed or smothered by a woman. But from a women’s perspective, my fear is of being pierced, penetrated, or wounded by a man.

Very biologically correct, hmm?

Both genders fear surrender to God, letting go, dying into God’s bliss, being lived and breathed by Spirit.

Deida refers to the “Him shaped space” that most feminine women have.

I know exactly what he is talking about.

I do long to be filled. There is space for a man inside me and I want that.

My roommate is surprised when I fold her sheets and wash blankets  for her, put away dishes and boils water for her tea for her before she wakes up. I explained to her that my nurturing energy has to go somewhere and until He comes along, she is elected recipient of some of that.

It feels hard to hold that space open, not try to fill it with whoever and whatever shows up next.

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.

– Richard Bach, Illusions

Naturally, I have opportunities to do that and I long to be filled.

Sometimes that is the healthy, kind thing to do for myself. It seems very stressful to me to wait, to hold that emptiness. Well, so it seems. Chances are good that it is my thoughts about holding that space that are actually the stressful part. I’m looking for those, checking them when I find them (often in my blog writing, thanks guys) and finding that Whole Place beyond peace/stress, right/wrong, empty/full as much as I can.

That’s the same temptation, for me, to surrender to Swami Vishwananda. I imagine that he can fill that space fairly well as a spiritual partner, without sex, without a traditional relationship. I was trying to explain that yesterday to Taylor. Taylor has no experience with the California type spiritual path of gurus, chanting, meditation, etc. although he’s lived here all his life. It’s a foreign world to him.

At the same time, I can feel his search. Taylor ran across me, so I figure he must be open to hearing some of this. Every man I meet seems to be. I talk with them, send them to the blog, to web sites, books, whatever comes up. Some of them hang around to become friends. Some don’t.

I’ve been doing Steven’s Goal-Free Goal Setting meditation nearly every day for a month now. I think I missed one day. And for nearly 30 days, the Goal is the same, maybe a slightly different aspect of it, but it’s the same.

About 4 or 5 times in each meditation, the instructions say, “Now, check and see if you still want that goal. Maybe yes, maybe no. Either way. See how wanting is different now.”

I do. And it is.

Yes, I still want to be married to a man who can fuck me straight to God.

With or without sex, by the way.

Yes, I can do that myself. Can and do.

And when I check, I still want a man to penetrate me, take me, teach with me, talk with me, sing with me, make love with me. Make love in our home, in our community, in our world, through opening to each other, through teaching, writing, singing, traveling.

I started to write that the picture gets clearer every day. At the same time it gets more open and more vague. There’s more space, too. Does that make sense? Can you feel what that would mean? (If not, try Goal-Goal Setting for 30 days and I’m pretty sure you’ll have some kind of similar experience. It’s one of the IAM meditations, the last one, because it includes several others.)

I’ll be teaching Goal-Free Goal Setting to a class in a government office in a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to that and I’d love to do more of it.

I just keep doing what I do, being who I am, and in the process I am bound to meet a man who’s doing some of the same stuff and looking for a woman to play with him.

I want to say that I have a little trouble with where Deida’s writing seems to come from. He talks about yearning, which is wanting, which is stressful. It puts me in a pretty nasty place, very masculine, going out to hunt for what I want. When I don’t find it, I feel stressed, angry, tense. 

That isn’t the clarity I’ve learned from IAM meditations and Quantum . . . well, Steven teaches Quantum Wealth, but I tend to take Quantum Relationships by my own personal focus during the class.  

The last few days I’ve had a very clear sense that this man is already inside me.

Literally.

Think about it.

My definition of God is “the whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.” It is like Matthew Fox’s panentheism – God in all things. Or Steven Sashen’s “All That Is.” (The title of one of his best IAM meditations.)

If I am part of that Whole, and what else is there?

By definition, that’s All There Is.

So, He is part of that, too, and we are already part of each other. All that remains is to look into each other’s eyes and find what we already know.

Well, that’s my Beltane fire. I think it’s time to have some chocolate coffee.

Love, Ann

“Look with your understanding.
Find out what you already know.
And you’ll see the way to fly.”

– Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Beltane Celebration

“I wanted refuge, not chaos.

I wanted peace, not passion.

I was trapped in my little room of sanctity, in my meditative stillness and solitude.

This wasn’t true freedom. Nor was it love.

As Mykonos pointed out, I wasn’t penetrating the world

with my love and opening “her” into bliss.

Rather, I was pulling back. I was obsessed with myself.”

– David Deida, Wild Nights

 

Beltane, depending on whom you ask, is yesterday, today or even Saturday.

What is Beltane?

It is the holy day (holiday) of fertility . . . Holy Daze of Fertility, Batman!

Plain and simple.

Agriculural communities celebrated Spring and fertility, supposedly having mass orgies & dancing around Beltane fires in order to insure good crops (and probably because sex is just plain fun.) Rumor has it that couples handfasted for “a year and a day” at this time. I’d consider that. In fact, that was kind of what I have been looking for since December. On the other hand, maybe not. I am of at least two minds on that one.

Might as well be. We are not necessarily meant to be sane around this time of year.

Spring Fever? Rutting passions? You know.

May 1, the Full Moon or an astrological degree, that according to one site, is when the Pleiades is on the horizon, which seems to be Saturday and the markers I’ve found for the timing.

Good grief. See what happens when popes muck about with good agrarian timing?

I decided that Beltane is all week, through Sunday!

In fact, if I keep enjoying it as much as I have so far, I may just declare the whole month or even the whole year Beltane. Why not? It’s all pretty arbitrary.

I did Steven Sashen’s Goal-Free Goal Setting meditation last night on the “goal” of having someone intimate to talk to. I found someone a couple of months ago that totally lit that fire and then dropped out. I’m still smoldering. More than that, really.

He left me aching and hungry. I went into sexual abstinence, thinking that Qi Gong classes would support me in this. They did not. Not needing to do their 100 days, I decided not to spend half the summer in abstinence. I noticed that Beltane was coming up.

Beltane has many traditions, some may be New Age fluff, some may be vaguely real. Tom Robbins makes use of some of the Beltane ideas in one of my favorite books of all time, Jitterbug Perfume. Highly recommended reading. See Amazon for excerpts.

Here are some Beltane links for you, if you’re interested:

http://www.cyberwitch.com/wychwood/Temple/beltane.htm

 and http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7280/beltane.html

from  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7280/ which has all the holy days.

You’ll find it on Wikipedia, too. 

So, here I am, ravenous as usual, and wondering what to do with myself (or with anyone else.)

“You know what it’s like to take the Great One

so far into you that there’s nothing left to do

but give it all up to the Lord, don’t you?

Maybe you’ve never done it.

But you know what it would be like.

You can feel it. You know you want it.

You want to be fucked into God, don’t you?

Do you know what I mean, ma?”

– David Deida, Wild Nights

This is what happens when I read David Deida. I stayed up reading almost half of Wild Nights last night. I had an orgasm, found myself thinking of someone I miss, cried, put the vibrator down and the phone rang.

First, Joy called. We’re arranging for me to visit her.

30 seconds later Sean called. He was going to go, but backed out, and is helping me make the trip.

30 seconds after that Taylor called. I hadn’t talked with him in a couple of weeks.

Nice to get what we ask for, isn’t it?

I tied up my conversation with Joy. I called Sean back. I told Taylor we could talk today at a more human hour. I was already an hour past my bedtime (sundown).

Now I’ve been up since sunrise (around 5:15 am), working out some of the details of several projects I need to get on with now that I’m done with some required bill paying activities that will hopefully leave me free for a month to do these other projects like teach, start a goddess center, work on the book this blog is writing and other fun stuff like that there.

Orgasms.

I have not yet had any orgasms this morning.

Why?

Well, I don’t know. I have this tendency to jump out of bed, do some busywork and email, then when all that is off my mind, at least an hour later, go back to the sheets for a while. My bath water is hot. Maybe I’ll play in there.

I think I’ll just leave you wondering.

Love, Ann

“What this world needs more of is loving:  friendly and unashamed.”

– Robert A. Heinlein
To Sail Beyond The Sunset

 

 “He is afraid to fuck. He is afraid to dance with the lady, ma.

He wants to stand back and watch, like a scientist.

He’s afraid to leave his room, to lose his purity

that he has worked so hard to attain.

He’s afraid to lose his precious stillness.

He’s afraid of the wildness of woman.

Everything has to be all tidy for him.

He wants the pussy, but he doesn’t want the slop.

He wants the tit, but not the tooth.

Oh, he is a good man, alright. Look at the light in his eyes.

The light has guided his entire life.

This boy might just make it.

But not until he learns to embrace the lady, ma.”

…

“And I’m not talking about him

wiggling his pecker in her pussy, you know?

I’m talking about the heart.”

– David Deida, Wild Nights

 

Ancient Holy Days

by Astrological Degree

0 degrees Aries  – Vernal Equinox
15 degrees Taurus – Beltane
0 degrees Cancer – Summer Solstice
15 degrees – Leo – Lammas
0 degrees Libra – Autumnal Equinox
15 degrees Scorpio Samhain
0 degrees Capricorn Winter Solstice
15 degrees Aquarius – Imbolc

 

Shampoo Series – Aligning Sexual Preferences

My Muse asked me, “If you knew your partner liked being spanked during sex, would you do that for them, knowing it turns them on so much?”

Ah, Grasshopper, good question.

Aligning sexual preferences with another person can be very interesting!

I used to think that my fetish was fulfilling other people’s fantasies. Maybe for many years, it was. I have witnesses. I have fulfilled more fantasies than most people have ever heard of. Why? I don’t know. I’m just very willing to try most anything sexual – twice.

Why twice?

Because it might be an acquired taste.

The first question I always asked a new lover was: What is your favorite unfulfilled fantasy?

99% of the time when you ask a man that the answer is “two women.” Well, that’s easy. I am bisexual. It can be arranged. I admit it was kinda cool when I got in with a group of Ds people for whom the two women thing was fulfilled long ago. I tried everything in that arena that I was remotely interested in (see the negotiation forms in Jay Wiseman’s book, SM 101,) and some things I was not remotely interested in. Just to see.

Honestly, though, I finished that exploration stuff about 7 years ago. There is nothing at all wrong with exploring every single fantasy you have with a willing partner in a safe way. I say do it. That’s part of how Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, found enlightenment. He tried everything, sexual fulfillment, wealth fulfillment, he did it all. And when none of it brought the illumination he was seeking, legend has it that he sat down under a bodhi tree and found God, and was finally fulfilled. Hermann Hesse tells the story beautifully in his book, Siddhartha.

But the Buddha did not get there just by sitting and letting all his desires go unexplored, not without trying everything else first. So go for it!

Now for me, if someone tells me they want to “explore” sexuality I tell them to find someone else. I know what I like. I know what I don’t like. It takes a lot to surprise me. And I don’t like surprises. I like familiarity and comfort mostly. But most of all I want a man who connects deeply and spiritually with me through his eyes, his words and his touch. Someone whose lead I want to follow.

I used to identify as a bisexual polyamorous switch.

That means that I enjoyed sex with men and women, had open relationships with more than one partner at a time, and I had sex as both the Dominant and submissive partner.

The height of all of that was two male-to-female submissive crossdressers I dated, right in a row. Yes, men who liked dressing as women and being submissive. Well, I wanted to give men their fantasies, and it is hard for those men to find women who are interested. So, why not? I was open to it. For about 3 or 4 years, I tried.

When does doing something for your partner go against some kind of boundary of your own? When does it cause you more stress? How do you decide what to do?

Those are the details hidden in my Muse’s question above. He couldn’t see any harm in doing something your partner wants if it really turns them on. He’s Dominant in bed. Very. One of the best. But for someone else? Is there anything wrong with spanking your partner? Well, yes and no.

What if giving a spanking feels harsh, rough or simply unnatural to the person being asked to do that? Many people feel that way about spankings. Some people were spanked as children and hated it. They don’t want to make it part of their sex lives. Or maybe they just aren’t interested. Maybe they are more the submissive type.

I was cuddling with my friend, Terry, a couple of weekends ago.

He was objecting to the way women find him feminine. He said that wasn’t true. He is a man and he can prove it. I can vouch for that. All the parts are there. He has his masculine traits, definitely. But I also see why women say he is feminine.

His first alternate idea was “giver” for the stereotypical masculine role, and “taker” or maybe “receiver,” for the stereotypical feminine role. I am good with that. It’s very much like Deida’s active/receptive polarity that I love so much.

But Terry went one better. Giver and taker both have negative connotations in some ways. Terry and I both like to dance. He switched to a dance analogy and came up with “leader” and “follower.” I can go with those, too. Those terms also have some baggage, but if you’re thinking of dancing, well, you can’t both lead and you can’t both follow. You have to have one of each or it simply doesn’t work.

Polarity is true “chemistry.” But for most people, chemistry occurs when they meet someone who is the same creative energy as their opposite gender parent.

Try this: get a picture of your opposite gender parent and put it side by side with a picture of the people you’ve had long term relationships with. See if you can get a sense of whether they are energetically similar. Look beyond the physical. Do look at the eyes. That’s where you really find the Creative Energy.

Most people never get beyond finding partners who are a bit of an improvement on either their mother or father, but very much the same. People who will relate to them in the familiar ways their mother or father did. Rarely do we go for someone outside this box, and more rarely still do we go for someone who is our same Creative Energy, unless of course, one of our parents was that. That’s not chemistry. That’s not a healthy attraction of magnetic polar opposites. That’s Imprinting. If you want to know more about Imprinting, read the April 24 blog.

So what about the woman who said that her husband would never consider spanking her, even if she really wanted it? She may have had several reasons for thinking so. Here are some of the possibilities:

1.  Her husband considers spanking abusive, and even in the face of his wife’s moans of delight cannot get past the idea that he is hurting her.

2.  Her husband was spanked as a child and swore never to do that to anyone, and cannot rethink it in a sexual context.

3. Maybe her husband thinks it is weird or unnatural, repulsive even.

4.  Or maybe, her husband is not a leader. Leaders spank. Followers generally don’t. Or, put another way, Dominants spank, submissives generally don’t. It is totally contrary to their sexual preferences and sexual desires.

I came face to face with that in myself.

I am submissive, feminine, responsive, receptive and more of a follower than a leader in my romantic relationships.

I can just barely manage to do a tenuous, remotely acceptable impersonation of someone who will spank and dominate if I am told to do so. Then I’m following and I can almost do a credible job of it. Nearly. But I’m not fooling anyone. Not me, not the person who wants to be Dominated and spanked, not nobody.

It is worth noting that some people distinguish between Dominant/submissive and Top/bottom relationships. Dom/sub relationships tend toward more emotional mental, even spiritual roles. Not necessarily role playing, because I fail miserably at acting, but at fulfilling the need to take and be taken sexually. Top/bottom relationships, so I understand, are more about the physical. They aren’t needing the kinds of mental/emotional/spiritual input. They simply want to spank and be spanked (or other activities appropriate to such play).

I’m a submissive. I am not remotely a bottom. Not at all. Not interested. Doesn’t do a thing for me. I am neither a sadist nor a masochist. I am a hedonist. Well, was. I’m not sure what you would call me now. A deeply spiritual lover, maybe. Hedonism isn’t enough. I did that one with Cricket, and it quickly amounted to nothing with Russ.

For a psychological player, like myself, it ruins the whole experience to try to play at something I am not, and most of my partners have been psychological players, too. And now I can’t even “play” unless I mean it. There is something beyond the duality even of the active/receptive or leader/follower duality. There is a place where we are Love loving.

What I really desire most now is someone who wants to be intimate. Intimate in conversation, in time together, in email, in friendship, in companionship, in sharing music together, in dancing, in cuddling, in sharing meals, and yes, in sex. Deeply, spiritually, present and intimate in all areas of our lives. Someone who can be Love loving with me, who can help lead me to surrender totally, through him, but not so much to him, as to God, All That Is, that Life that lives through us.

What about Creative Energy and Imprinting?

My first husband was the same Creative Energy as my father. He was the last Sage Artisan that I know of, except for one man I had sex with once, because we were just very attracted to each other and wanted to know what it would be like. I considered that healing that I was not repulsed by my father’s type.

From then until about 2 years ago, I dated Artisan Scholars like my mother. That often happens. We switch to desiring the same gender parental archetype.

However, beginning about 2 years ago, all of the men I attracted were Artisan Priests. They are the quirkiest! I could find a Priest type of inspirational sharing with them that I enjoyed, but none of the three turned out to be more than temporary partners. I dated two Priest Artisans, as well; again, short term things where we both quickly decided this wasn’t what we wanted.

Do I think I have to have a Priest Scholar like myself? No, not necessarily. I might enjoy that, and yet I also know that I have come far enough to let another person be themselves without requiring that they be just like me. It’s still challenging, yes, but I’m ready for the challenge of deep intimacy with a man “who can fuck me straight to God,” as David Deida says in Dear Lover.

I want someone who wants to give time and energy to this, to go as deep as we can with one another. Nothing less.

And for anyone who is interested, I’m still in sexual abstinence. This is my 40th day.

After today, I don’t care one way or the other. I would love to have someone to break my abstinence with, someone capable of connecting deeply who is interested in doing that with me. I considered finding a surrogate, someone who wanted to ceremonially break my abstinence with me whether or not we became long term partners. That isn’t totally out of the question, but it may be unlikely. Or, I may wait a while longer just to see who shows up. Nature does abhor a vacuum, she wrote, grinning mischeivously. Why do you think I went into the abstinence in the first place?

I may also spend an entire day Saturday, maybe this weekend, maybe next weekend, playing by myself sexually, fantasizing about the partner who can meet me here and go to sleep dreaming of him. Then when I wake up Sunday morning (I am a Morning Person, remember? Although sex is good at any or many times of the day!) so, possibly what I may do is when I wake up Sunday morning, I will bring myself to orgasm, over and over again, invoking that energy to bring the man who desires me as much as I desire him to me.

It has worked for me twice before. Both times I got even more than what I imagined.

Cricket was amazing, but lacked the verbal and spiritual components. Russ was closer still. He is my Muse. I have written every single day since 2 days after we met. His first Love Language is words, just like mine. He has inspired more and better writing than I’ve done in my entire life. But he did not want a full time or romantic relationship of any sort. Nothing wrong with either of them. That choice is theirs to make. They are who they are. I love them both and always will. I simply wasn’t completely clear on wanting just one man to share the rest of my life with me. I was still holding back.

Let’s see how I’m doing now, shall we?

Love, Ann

“Romance can be a holy place, dedicated to the experience of Heaven on Earth.  But that can only occur if the perception of our mutual innocence is a sacred commitment.”

                    – Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love

Cowgirl Interlude – Kahlil Gibran on Love

A new client mentioned Kahlil Gibran today and he came up in conversation about intimacy with a friend last week, so I thought I’d put this up since it is so poetic and beautiful. Remember, he is not saying to be a masochist in love. He is pointing out that there is a unity beyond duality, and that is love.

You can find the entire book, The Prophet at http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibtable.html 

On Love

Then said Almitra, “Speak to us of Love.”

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, I am in the heart of God.”

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Love, Ann