Fantasy, anticipation, emanation

Whilst I have never before had much interest in Astrology, my dabble into that field lately has shown up such synchronicity that it is now impossible for me to dismiss it.

It is believed, according to the day and time I was born, in a particular location on this planet, that my challenge was destined to be 'fantasy'. To try to put that into my own words and based on what I have read, I have been a seeker of experiences of joy, but perhaps looking in the wrong places. 

I have had experiences, wanted more experiences like those experiences and I have done this because I saw, or shall we say 'felt' a connection between those experiences and the divine. To put that another way, those experiences expressed themselves to me as attaining the nothingness with which we come into the world and the nothingness with which we leave the world.

I completely resonate with this 'truth'. I had an experience early on in my adulthood. The Earth stood still as I orgasmed. The sense of nothingness, of emptiness, of ecstatic joy were all rolled together in my mind. Once I had had that experience, I wanted more.

For some astrological thinkers, this is the 'challenge' of living through fantasy, and most particularly sexual fantasy. For others, it's called 'dissatisfaction'. I am, it is said, chasing joy, interfering with the natural processes by trying to create the thing I think will bring joy.

From my end, I know such experiences have brought me great joy, but I also know that they can't be relied upon, because those attempts don't consider the needs of my surroundings - that being that my husband is far less into those experiences than me and I cannot attain those experiences without him. They come but they come spasmodically. His mind is busy and it's really hard for him to turn it off such as to focus on consistent great sexual experiences that honestly bring us both great joy when they do happen.

In the literature I have read, I don't need to be burdened by the fact that I have been born with this challenge, otherwise known as a feminine core wound. I can find my vitality and power in other ways. I can achieve that sense of emptiness; that void that comes to me when my body sings, in other ways.

Of course, I am willing to explore this. A correspondent on tumblr once told me that sexuality was not my spiritual path but just one path to the Highest Path. That was years and years ago and it seems he was right.

With a rather good understanding now of what that means, of course I am willing to learn the lessons in an even deeper way.

Alas, I am also aware that neither my body nor my mind will willingly sacrifice the 'fantasy' of high sexual charge; of being reduced to nothingness; no-one; nobody. It's been in my wiring for a very long time. 

It is written that the power of Grace will ensure that all my dreams will ultimately come true, but only when I understand what my highest dreams really are.

I understand the words. I know I have seen glimpses of my highest dreams in sexual experiences, and I know there is a higher purpose behind those desires.  I perhaps underestimated the power and value of other forms of the present moment, those experiences I can achieve on my own, where the end returns us back to the start. I have experienced those states too, and very recently so. I will try to put those experiences down soon.

I believe that my 'fantasy' was for my Highest Good - equanimity - but perhaps the vehicle for the ride requires revisiting, given the lack of compatibility with my environment. Perhaps, it is thought, I need to include the Highest good of other people. I admit I have felt this in my bones for some time. When I am not leading a meditation group, I yearn for those opportunities to assist others.

I'm told Venus holds more information for me. Happy to learn. I will return when I know more.

Mind states

 I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, as one does, when I came across a post about empaths, not out of the ordinary for me since my Instagram feed is full of psychology, spirituality, fashion advice, minimalism advice, gardening advice or interior design. Oh yes, lots of dance and recipes too.

The post made the point that empaths will find themselves drawing away from people and circumstances that induce in them a sense of lack of authenticity. That's so true. I feel like I can spot a lie a mile away, since it registers in my body like the clang of a symbol made at the wrong time of a symphony. It's impossible to miss.

It's tricky though because if one were to call these statements or moments out, life would get very uncomfortable, for me and the person being inauthentic. Invariably, I remain quiet, as if I hadn't noticed. Sometimes, this quietude can be self-recriminating. Why didn't you say you didn't believe him/her? I will ask myself, knowing the answer: that it's more than the other person can take. 

I think Bali has changed me in a way, a deepening of the desire for quietude and solitude. I listened this morning to a podcast about people who can pay to live in a little hobbit cave for a period of, usually, 3-5 days, in complete solitude, in the dark.

The man who runs this facility talked about a woman who was struggling. Whilst it wasn't described in detail, I think there is an opportunity to call or press a button or something if you need help. I think he can talk to her without being with her. He asked her about her struggle, and she said that she feared that this, this experience, would go on forever.

He said to her, then you have a choice. You can resist it or lean into it. He talked to her the next day, and he reported to the listeners that she had gone into a much quieter and more comfortable space and was happy to proceed.

There's a teaching there, I believe. We all struggle against something, sometime. I don't think anyone isn't struggling with something. These emotions and feelings come up for the most rich and creative and externally successful of people. 

So, what can we do? Do we resist the feeling, the emotion? Or do we lean into it?

There's a part of my personality that wants to achieve, to move forward; to fix what is broken, and I mean that literally. I like well running things. I am married to someone less troubled by his external environment. Yes, he has the intention to do something, but it can wait. 

Do I resist this or lean into it? The truth is I have needed to learn new skills and not just patience. You can be patient for the rest of your life, but the fact is each individual needs to manifest something. That is the starting point. It might be a stronger body or a renovated house or a family. It all starts with an intention and then to see that intention through.

So, patience, yes. For some people, starting something and then ending it, is the hard part. Manifestation in the mind is not necessarily compromised, but actionable steps are. So, although I still believe there's a submissive aspect to my personality, there's also an action-oriented aspect too, and I am just not happy with a static environment for a prolonged time. I like to create.

This is not to say that I don't adore doing nothing, the opposite of creation. When I am at my mother's house, not occupied by anyone, I prefer to not have any external stimulus. I like to sit on a bench in the garden and watch the gum trees in front of me. That's my kind of bliss: silence.

But I have been on silent retreats and my mind eventually goes to something I can do. Whilst I love to just be, there's a doing part of me that can only rest for so long.

I once attended a presentation, a sort of soundscape, down in the old Sailor's Guild at the edge of my city, near the water, and when I returned to the street to go back to the car, I suddenly realized that our city is awash with the sounds of seagulls. It hit me; a realization only available to me when my senses had become attuned to their cry against all the other sounds of the city.

I can only imagine that after one exits the silent, dark bunker that life is aglow with an energy of which we can barely conceive. I remember distinctly being in Colorado, high in the mountains and feeling so alive my chest was thumping with an exuberant energy. I felt like John Denver on steroids. 

Nothing would delight me more than to be around people with these sorts of interests: to explore different states of consciousness. I came across one American in Bali and he was going back to the US peremptorily because he had landed a spot in a sacred plant medicine retreat. I was incredibly jealous, but delighted to have had the opportunity to chat.

I am extraordinarily grateful for the inventions of my time. To have access to people who create podcasts about these states is a beautiful addition and contribution to humanity.

New and old frontiers

 I did a short course over the weekend on Sound Healing. In there, I became a little curious about astrology and the Gene Keys. So, I plugged in my birthdate and a few other details and up came my profile. 

Some of the material I related to. Other bits of information didn't resonate with me. The sentence that I found most confusing was one wherein I was told I am at my best when a leader and when working with a group.

I can't help but wonder where the connection in my mind between 'slavery' and 'eroticism' came from. Did I see 'The Story of O' when I was impressionably young? 

I also did some research into the Feminine Core Wound and this material brought up that I need to tap into my inner vitality; that my feminine core wound was dissatisfaction.

It's interesting to me that in my life I have sought the assistance of three mental health professionals. The two men discarded my thought that perhaps I should be achieving something out in the wider world. The female psychologist got me doing academic work that would lead to endeavors, possibly with other people but probably not.

There is, however, a common thread through all this material: that I should seek to be a positive influence on as many people as possible, through whatever field.

I can feel deep within me, and have done so for months now, a yearning to launch into something, but you know what comes up and has been coming up for some time? To go find a dance studio. My deepest desire is to move.

Somewhere in my Gene Keys profile I read that I was ahead of my time. I am meant, it was written, to offer the world something new and fresh; something that it hadn't seen before. Man, the responsibility!

It was also written somewhere that I needed to be aware of beauty. Now you are talking my language. I had a strong desire for many years to have a store with the name 'Beautiful things'. It was felt that in filling a store with all things I found beautiful, it may not lead to commercial success necessarily. Beauty is after all, in the eye of the beholder.

It's all a bit confusing right now. I can say this. The soundscape I was sent to heal my feminine core wound was wonderful. I immediately fell to sleep for two and half hours in a profoundly transformative way. I woke heavy and almost, but not quite, touched on the moment of my conception. I know that sounds weird but sound therapy is a weird and most wonderful thing. More on that soon.

I am left with the mystery of it all. A sense of mystery is a good thing and maybe as close as we can get to what lies beyond.

Feeling owned

 On a podcast I once listened to, the man made the statement that a woman's orgasm has the potential to be so much more profound than the best male orgasm; that a clitoral orgasm is more like a male orgasm, over fast.

A dominant partner, perhaps more than most people in more vanilla relationships, has the ability to induce a significantly more profound orgasm. To call it an orgasm isn't really correct since it's more like a long body of sensation. I am aware personally than the orgasm can last minutes but believed the podcaster when he reported that the pleasure response can go on for hours.

This sort of orgasmic, intense pleasure response is only available to me when I submit. I have to feel some 'do as you are told' dominance over me, and I have to melt into that dominance. For me, and I suspect of a multitude of women, some measure of pain induces that sense of submission. It's a voluntary thing, one let's go, and in that letting go into some pain, some part of the brain is prepared for a total release of intense, even over-the-top sensation. All power is given over to the dominant to induce the intense pleasure response and for as long as it pleases him to do so. It ends when he says it ends and knowing this, the brain and body just keep responding in the same way.

When I was younger, I could give myself a pretty intense orgasm; nothing like one that is given to me. However, when fully involved in my fantasy life, my body could be relieved of the buildup of desire.

Now, I am completely reliant on the dominant giving me the gift of an intense vaginal orgasm. If there were no other reason to submit and obey, this fact of the matter would be more than enough.

When we were on holiday recently, I asked someone showing us various sites if there was a place he could take us to look at silver jewelry. My husband was keen to procure for me a 'slave bracelet'. Our new friend very kindly drove us to a store filled with thousands of items, but I do have some skills in discarding everything except that which piques my interest and I fairly quickly identified a bracelet that would suit our needs. It was to be my ownership bracelet; one worn every day to mark the agreement between us and so it needed to be selected carefully.

It is silver, with three bars of 18 carat gold in the design allowing me to wear it with any other piece of jewelry.  It fits quite snugly on my wrist and has a solid closing. This was important to me because I didn't want to be worrying about the possibility it might fall off my wrist.

Since it was a piece from a store well out of the way of shops in an Asian country, the price was quite affordable at the same as the quality was high. My husband wanted to be sure this was the bracelet for me, and I wanted to be sure he loved it as much as I did. That's all either of us wished to know.

Rules don't come easily to my husband. He's a preoccupied person and I think he doesn't care to supervise me. To be sure, he lets me know if he isn't pleased with me, but close supervision of me just isn't his thing. Speaking respectfully, and keeping our lives running smoothly is expected, but nothing is front and center of his mind to demand of me on a daily basis. 

So, to wear this bracelet every day is especially significant to me. I haven't given up on including more into our dynamic, but this is a lovely addition, and I am noticing that as I navigate the world outside the house, it is providing me with a grounded presence.

Dominance

From time to time, I have read about a woman in a D/s style relationship who has lost her dominant, as in he died, or once or twice I have read about a dominant who has lost his submissive. I remember once telling a dominant friend that I was a little fearful of the dynamic because of the fear of just that - my dominant dying before I did, and the huge hole I imagined that would create in my life.

My husband, who has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer isn't your typical cancer patient and he is doing so many of the right things. He honors his intuition, is deeply engaged with the healing process, has released many of his repressed emotions through hypnosis and floods his body with positive emotions. He must go for treatment each month and each and every time he is praised for his attitude. They see him as one out of the box and wish all their other patients had such a strong life force. So, most of the time, I am engaged with his strong life force and certainly not someone who has dug himself a pit of negativity or any sort of resignation.

It's part and parcel of the way we have lived together, for nearly 50 years now. Something very difficult happens, maybe an investment goes pear shaped, or a child or a grandchild has an issue. He is subject to the normal ups and downs of this but ultimately, he rallies. He says something akin to, 'don't worry, we will rise from the ashes and rebuild'. It's our whole lives together that has been a training ground, like a dharma strengthening of character, so that when a heavy-duty dose of courage is required, one is conditioned in that virtue.

I think about our dynamic as one where, as Brene Brown says, it's not 50:50. Sometimes, I might be a 10 and sometimes I am a 90. When he is caught up in fear, letting his imagination run a bit wild, I feel that I can't and shouldn't rely on him for strength or leadership.

This happened late last night when I could see his imagination running wild, and without information that allowed me to decipher whether what he was saying was a major concern, or not, I knew that the best thing for me was to go to silence. This morning provided greater informed detail, and the issue brings with it, a need for careful monitoring, possibly a second opinion, but nothing that seems abnormal under the circumstances. 

My daughter in law, who is carrying their first child, who needs to get married fast (there is an Asian mother to satisfy) and who needs to find a house fast before the baby arrives, said to me on the weekend that she is close to overwhelm. I get it.

In my ideal fantasy world, it's the Dominant one who settles me down, assures me everything will be all right, and enables me to feel safe and secure. I read this blog, I don't particularly want to say which one because it is sorta extreme, and he has the talent of allowing his wife (I am assuming from his writing) to feel so very secure in his dominance. 

She knows the rules. She knows the expectations. She understands that the rules are for her good, and for the good of the marriage and the family. He punishes when she deviates from the good order his rules impose and by all accounts, she responds to the punishment well in that she seems perfectly happy more or less immediately thereafter. 

Of course, it's him writing, not her, and so maybe, like me, she has to sometimes settle him; put things into perspective; give her reading of the things that happen in their lives. Maybe he gets dispirited, or negative, or over-worrying and she has to be the one to pick up the pieces for him on a given day. It's the tango that all couples dance, isn't it?!

In my fantasy world, in my aroused state, it's all so completely set in stone, like in the blog. I read that blog because I like that world he writes about, where he has created this fantastic sense of safety and calm, and putting things right should they go off course. She doesn't, or has learned not to, let's say, argue the point but rather accepts that her ass will bear the brunt of her misalignments of his vision for them. It's just life, their life; the way things go in that household.

For a time, it was like that for us. Pretty close. My husband got sick, and things changed, and I remember how unsafe I felt. That's when I went looking for other ways to feel calm - meditation and breathing techniques and self-compassion exercises and such. 

Here's the thing: For me, nothing cures a sense of anxiety, of worry, or overwhelm, faster than experiencing dominance. It's an act of kindness really, though maybe not in the moment. It makes me feel safe, secure, calm, at peace. It is, I have to think, some deeply invested sense of femininity left over from the stone age that lodged in my body long before there was a body. It's the only explanation.

Anxiety

I am most grateful to have a place by the sea where I can go, sometimes alone, as I am now. I acknowledge that I can become anxious and the opportunity to be alone, and to garden at will, is both comforting and healing for me.

It's well known now that anxious types tend to have had a rather chaotic childhood, and then repeat that sort of situation in the partner they choose. That's certainly what happened to me. So, with plenty of drama and emotional expression swirling around me, my anxiety will rise. 

There comes a point when I know that, rather than just a yoga class or two, I need silence. I need to be completely alone. 

Everything becomes very simple. I buy the simplest of ingredients - fish for my dinners, salad, a potato or two; granola, yoghurt and dates for breakfast, and maybe something like a can of sardines on toast for lunch; a couple of apples.

I don't listen or watch media, although I did bring my lap top, and I felt moved this morning to try to figure out my state by writing something about my inner world.

Which leads me to say that anxiety is a somatic experience, primarily, and so one does need to relate to the body as soon as possible. For me, it's a fluttering feeling, between the neck and the heart; like butterflies all aflutter; restless.

Dr Russ (the Anxiety Doctor) encourages the anxious person, himself included, to look around for signs of safety. Here, they are abundant. The trees, the wind, the view of the sea which I created with much hard work and ingenuity, the birds, the plants in flower, all remind me I am quite safe.

That leads me to say that recently I have felt unsafe; possibly quite erroneously, but not entirely. It can be hard to get across to my husband some ideas that most people take for granted. I don't know why this is so, but perhaps it is his age; the era in which he grew up. I tried to explain that, given his cancer diagnosis, it seemed especially important that I know what to do in his absence. Where were the documents of our lives? What did we have, what did we owe? 

Being the very strong man that he is, I think he has it in mind to be here for a long time, so it doesn't seem something that needs to be on the top of his list. But I hear my friends say that they accompany their husbands to the accountant, and I think to myself, do we even have an accountant?

Whilst my husband can manage risk and is actually as comfortable with high risk as anyone out there, I am, and was brought up to be, a 'term deposit' girl, as was my brother. So, the investments that make up our eventual inheritance are as safe as investments can be. This makes us feel safe.

I think what I am trying to say is that everyone has a different level of sense of safety, in built. I happened to marry a man who can ride the financial roller coaster without a sense of alarm, whereas for me, it makes me pretty queasy.

I do wonder, something not talked about a lot when it comes to anxiety, if we anxious types look for a sense of control; feel centered when there is a sense of control about things. I have noticed myself being triggered by a friend whose husband is all about a sense of safety, which has enabled them in these later years to have more fun. The finances are not extensive, but they are sorted.

There's some sort of lesson here for me - some sort of letting go into the unknown. At the same time, it's the sense of personal agency in the past year or so that feels so good; an individual sense of agency where I can make some decisions for myself that feels so good to me.

I completely agree with the belief that before there can be a power dynamic there must be agreement, and it has to be said that my husband and I don't, and have never, come into agreement about how much risk one should take. Some marriage experts believe that there are areas of life in which a couple will never come into agreement. Maybe that's the lesson: to accept that, on this issue, we will continue to hold our own opinions, and we each need to respect the other's point of view.

Hunter types

 I see an acupuncturist around ten times a year and so over the last couple of years we have come to know quite a lot about one another. I have no expectation the work will be done in silence and it's surprising to me that this works for me because when I initially went to see him, that's the way I expected it to go. I prefer silence as a general rule.

We both like one another, that's clear. Although we come from very different places (he's American Chinese) there's so much we find to talk about.

Bit by bit, I revealed that I was experiencing some sort of transition stage in my life that was a struggle for me. This was no surprise to him since my pulses suggested a blockage (an emotional blockage) in the spleen/kidney/gall bladder area. He had said it so often and focused my acupuncture for those areas of my body that it just made sense to explain more about the confusion I was experiencing.

Interesting, that yesterday he told me the story - again - of one client who had transitioned from her banking profession to the healing world and was enjoying her studies. It was a subtle nudge to get creative about the next (final) stage of my life.

I am no stranger to the visualization of sitting on a mountain and looking onto an endless vista - a visualization he asked me to do at the end of our session last month. There's close to nothing another person can do for you in these transition stages of one's life. I know this, although I also know that the empathic practitioner will attempt to do so. The answer will come from deep within when it is ready to come and when there is but one and only one answer.

It was probably best that I didn't know the situation of my life at the time, over the many years, as I do now. After a great deal of investigation, I now understand that, without doubt, my husband has what some people refer to as a Hunter brain, and other people refer to as ADHD.

I mean, really, that's not news. It was a likely diagnosis in my mind for many many years, but I hadn't quite embraced it as fact; the repercussions of that kind of brain on a marriage, and in my marriage, being a woman with an innate slave mentality. 

If there is one characteristic required of a Dominant in a consensual power exchange, I would say it is consistency. Yet, for the ADHD brain, consistency is maybe the hardest thing. This kind of brain with inadequate dopamine receptors, requires spontaneity and ways to kick up the dopamine supply - in my husband's case, that would be news about the wider world, Trump, Putin, the Ukraine, the entire economic system of the world, information about the body.  Each article or video gives him a little hit of dopamine. Consistency, say, of addressing our Agreement, does not do this for him. His brain is expert at hyperfocus on the issue at hand, primarily a business issue.

In my reading, deep research into his condition, time for Hunter types is clearly a very big difference to the neurotypical brain, sometimes called the Farmer brain. We set up a weekend whereby on Fridays I ask for a couple of things to happen sometime over the weekend. But it didn't take long to realize that this a timeframe that offered too much variability and opportunity for the whole thing to be missed.

The only way this was going to work was for me to take the responsibility of making it work - looking out for a good time and suggesting it, or even saying something along the lines of 'would 7 pm this evening work for you?' and then reminding him at 7 pm that we had an appointment at this time.

Would I love it if I didn't have to do this? Sure. But what I am learning is that this is the only way a D/s exchange is going to be consistently present in our lives. Maybe, just maybe, it can be something else over time, but I certainly cannot rely on this. 

And only time will tell, if he actually wants this at all, if it is the ADHD condition that is preventing success, or if it is that combined with his prostate cancer and treatment, which means that his sexual desire has come to an end.

Two of my sons have a diagnosis of ADHD, but they were both gifted with a delightful sense of humor. It didn't weigh at all heavily on them in the main, mostly, I think, because they didn't fight the diagnosis in any way and played to their strengths. It's the denial that can make life tough, rather than seeing how immensely creative this type of brain is; the huge gifts this brain brings with it. People of my husband's age, of course, were not treated well, and this early conditioning is difficult to fix.

The therapist we have both spoken to, separately, being at a loss, did suggest to me that I open a dialogue with my husband about getting my needs met elsewhere. He was happy to help me through this situation. I can't see it myself. I think it would be endlessly hurtful and thus would lead to unhappiness and sorrow. I just can't go down that road; not after a lifetime together.

Do I sometimes say to myself, 'This is too hard, I give up'. Of course, I do. It's a mismatch of gigantic proportions. But then, there's the love, you see. I can't deny the love. And so, I go on.