Crash Landing

I've been on the go since I got back from the workshop. Not a day to myself until today. But the unraveling process couldn't wait until I had a peaceful day off. No. I've been unraveling since I "crash" landed home. I had to go to work that same day, and the next day, and the day after that. Then, on Saturday we got up early and went to the pride parade and did fun things all day. Sunday I went to church and then cooked for four freaking hours for Dana's surprise birthday party (which went off with nary a hitch!). Yesterday I had to work, and then Dana kinda had it out over Crave. A lot of it had to do with misunderstandings, and some of it has to do with the fact that we are still fairly new to one another and we are still cultivating a sense of security with one another. It was hard.

This morning, though. She said, "I'm sorry you miss Crave" (as in, "I'm sorry it hurts") and she said "I'm sorry she doesn't feel the same way for you as you feel for her" (as in, again, "I'm sorry it hurts") -- It's true. It's hurting a lot.

Today I am in hot pursuit of change. I had a massage from Crave last Monday and something snapped inside me. For several years I've had a tentative plan to attend massage school. This time with Crave, I understood that the healing power of massage can have so much to do with emotions, spirit, and mind. Before, it had always been about the physical. To get me started in the right direction, I bought a massage textbook to work through over the next few months, and I also started looking up different massage schools. If I stay in Florida I'll have to do 600 hours of class. If I go to New York state, I'll have to do 1000 hours, but I'll be able to practice anywhere. NY will also offer me the change of scenery that I need. I don't have to stay there forever, but I could use that as a runway to someplace else.

My fluttering Gemini heart needs change to survive, and I've been doing the same damn thing for way too long. (Funny. A year seems like such a long time. One day I'll really have to settle down.)

Crave, in Jersey this time

Well, kids, my plane going into Georgia from Newark was delayed by two full hours so I had to miss my connection to Florida and sleep overnight in the airport. Not a fun thing. If nothing else, though, that gave me plenty of time to process. The journal I've been working on has been slow going but I think I wrote about ten pages. My visit with Crave was overall very good. I met her at work on Sunday night, bleary eyed and floating outside my body. We grabbed some supper at a diner in Jersey and went back to her place. It was overall a pleasant evening. We relaxed and spent some time watching a video about affirmations and positive thought. It dawned on my that this what I spend so much of my time trying to drill into people. When you speak, things happen, so choose your words precisely with that in mind.

Dana was a bit worried on Sunday night because she knows how much Crave had affected me on our last visit, but you know you can't predict the future from the past. We were very content to keep a friendly physical distance.

Crave, to me, is a kindred spirit, she is a bosom friend from another lifetime, lord knows how long ago. Crave is precious to me.

Since she's an MT, I had a massage the night before I left her, mostly to work out the knots from just having been tied-up-and-dragged-around-on-the-floor at the workshop Sunday. But she incorporated some energy healing into the massage - a welcome practise. As she worked on my back, it felt like she had opened up holes, drains in my back to release a lot of stuff I've been hanging onto. When I turned over they closed back up again. I was fine, I was doing great until she left the room so I could get up and it happened again. A wash of healing tears fell out of me and I melted. I guess I wasn't really upset with anything i particular, but she somehow locates my stuck places exactly and knows how to open them.

No one makes me cry like that. No one. I am not one to be crying at the drop of a hat, but I feel so free to be vulnerable around Crave. She invites healing and I guess that's how my body heals.

There's more to write but I gatta run to work. I'm back in my body, but I still feel upside down in it. I need some quiet time.

advancement

As we started the workshop on Friday, I listened to the facilitator talk about how it is an advanced workshop. Miss Avarice, so recently deflowered, so inexperienced and green, sitting amongst all these grown up women who have had many a partner, and many of whom are sex workers themselves (pro dommes, sexological bodyworkers, etcetera). And there's little old me, Miss Avarice, anonymous sexuality blogger, quaking in my panties and wondering whether or not I were truly prepared for the experiences that were forthcoming.

Turns out, I was totally ready.

In fact, I didn't find that it was altogether very difficult. Some parts were very revealing, I exposed so much of myself. But it is such a very special, such a very quiet and safe place to do so. I already knew and trust so many of the women there, who had participated in my very first Body Electric School workshop. I knew and trusted the staff, the facilitator, and the space. Every exercise that we practised, I was able to gain new confidence in my self. I feared nothing.

Yesterday was kinda hard. My spirit was still kinda floating outside my body, trying to fit itself within the borders of my skin (think Peter Pan trying to get his shadow reattached). Today though, I am reintegrated and feeling so ready.

I can't wait to get home, and start planning or Dana's birthday!

prayers

This morning, on the day of worship, we gave up a time of sharing ourselves, baring our truths and learning to express our simplest nature. I offered up a prayer, a plea.

I have so much love inside of me. It's... it's uncontainable. It oozes out the cracks, and sometimes my heart springs a leak. I want people to be grateful for my love because I'm giving it to them, because I fashioned it specifically for them. I want to be able to spread my love around, to unfurl it like a blanket. I want my love to be taken seriously, even though it is portioned out for others.

I harbor more love than I can contain. Sometimes, my heart is even too big for my chest, and I have to grow to make more room for it. It's hard to carry, love is not light or easy. Love is a burden. I want to give it all away for the freedom and lightness of others.

But just because I love so many, and so much, the degree to which I live the individuals (as well as the whole) is not diminished. Perhaps it is strengthened. I so appreciate the people who have honored me by allowing me to give a little bit of love, to share a heap of compassion.

Workshop preparations

In about sixteen hours I'll be on my way to the airport to make another pilgrimage to the Center of the Universe (a.k.a. New York City!). So freaking excited.

I'll be staying in a hotel in the Financial District for the first two nights, and then for the rest of the time I'll be in Jersey with Crave. Say what? Crave? Yep. I'm super excited to see her and I've been talking things over with Dana and we both seem to feel fairly settled about it. At least Dana says she's glad to have me spend more time with Crave. I hesitate to believe her, but she's convinced me so far.

Getting to see Crave brings up so many emotions for me. I'm afraid that I'll just feel like crying when I see her. I'm afraid that the connection we forged in January will have faded by now, with time and distance between us. But at the same time Crave seems just as eager to see me as I am to see her. I'll be meeting up with her Sunday evening after the workshop ends. I'm hoping she'll be up for a late supper.

As far as the Power, Surrender and Intimacy workshop goes, I'm a bit apprehensive, yet totally flipped out with excitement. I want to be ready for anything, but things don't always work out that way. I wish bravery could be automatic, but it's not always. I'm afraid of being nude in front of even such open and generous women.

Mostly I'm afraid of fear.

But I'll have several familar faces there. Sinclair and the coordinator, the workshop facilitator Alex Jade. Perhaps there will be others. So I'm planning on tasting divinity and witnessing miracles. I plan on being a beam of clean white light. I plan on being fierce.



In other news, I've settled on the fact that although I love to get people off, my resting state of energy is indeed the bottom. I crave to draw desire and dominance from lovers and others. I delight in the moment where they lunge toward me, overcome by want.

Women's PSI - I'm bound for NYC

Women's Power, Surrender & Intimacy in New York City, June 20-22

After an absence of several years this powerful exploration into the nature of trust, exquisite attention and heightened sensations returns. Join with like-minded women who are ready to go beyond the life ordinary.

In a grounded, respectful container discover and clarify edges of liberation, empowerment and embodiment. Learn to recognize aspects of yourself that are continually engaged in power dynamics, and hence become more choiceful about how you can share power with compassion and skill. Led by Alex Jade.

I am absolutely thrilled to be going to the Body Electric School's course on Power, Surrender and Intimacy! I've been searching for a plane ticket and sorting things out at work and at home - It's time to hit the road again. Of course you will all be aware of my true need for travel and adventure and this weekend trip hits the spot - a sexuality workshop that promises to take me "beyond the life ordinary."

I have work off, and I don't have to come back until Tuesday night so I have all day Monday to gallavant around town! Hoorah! I'm truly excited to exercise my bottomy tendencies and explore the power of give-and-take, and that delicate balance of consent. Wahoo!

expanding and contracting

Since the beginning of the year I've been expanding. Growing. Spiritually, like a rubber band, i've been expanding, stretching, expanding, stretching.

At the CBE we talked about expanding and contracting. Sometimes you endure so much growth and then something hits you, some reality check snaps your tension and you contract back to where you started. Or maybe not all the way back, but you lose some of the tension...

And that's what's been happening to me. I had expanded so much because of my experiences with Autumn, Crave and Erin and I didn't give myself much space in between to recover. I'm not going to lie, you have to understand that before 2008, I only had one other sexual experience which involved anyone besides myself...

I don't know what made my tension go loose, but it has. Perhaps all the pressure of my mother being ill, locating suitable housing, trying and failing to keep up in school, switching to a new work schedule... It just seems like it's either all or nothing. Either life is peaceful or chaotic - can't find a manageable middle ground... I know I'll regain my elasticity, but I'm feeling deflated.

sometimes it's impossible to fully prepare

I honestly do not have words to tell you people how important and relevant the Celebrating the Body Erotic workshop was for me in October. But one thing is certain, I was not prepared for it. I thought I was, but when it came down to it, I felt so very new, green to everything. And I've decided that it is not something that you can ever fully prepare yourself for. At least not the first time... You just have swallow your pride and do it. I know it sounds like a lot of money, but it is worth it. I didn't think I would be ready again so soon, but with all the physical processing (Autumn, Crave, Erin) I am feeling very steady. With any luck, I will also cherish Delilah's very fine company - she's a very brave soul who always has my full undivided attention whenever I am in her presence. I'm sure she will enrich the experience.

Body Electric School 2008 Spring Programs, NYC

Safe, playful and profound workshops for women of all ages and sexual orientations
Taught by two very gifted teachers

newly updated
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
March 29-30, NYC, Sat-Sunday 9am-7pm
with Isa Magdalena
(back teaching at Body Electric after many years)

• Feel comfortable in your body
• Improve your body image and self-esteem
• Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath,
movement, touch, and communication
• Release fear, shame and old patterns that hold you back
• Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
• Learn to give and receive without losing yourself
• Explore the power of sexual energy / ibido / life force / kundalini
• Learn from your own and others' experience
• Enjoy sex more
• Have more fun

Isa Magdalena was the first woman teacher at Body Electric (1993-98). She teaches sexological bodywork at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, is author of Libido: Where Sex, Science Spirit Meet (2006). Isa is featured in several sex education videos from the New School of Erotic Touch, is a practitioner and leads classes in Taos, New Mexico. For fuller information, visit www.xtasia.info

first time in many years
Power, Surrender and Intimacy for Women
June 20-22, NYC, Friday 7-10pm, Sat-Sunday 9am-7pm
with Alex Jade

• Learn BDSM techniques and develop skills
• Discover and clarify issues of empowerment and liberation
  
• Recognize how you engage in power dynamics in your everyday life and exercise more conscious choice
• Heighten awareness of your body's capacity for sensation
• Explore power and sensation games for fun and healing
• Experience the joy of surrender and trust

Presequisite for this workshop is Celebrating the Body Erotic

Alex Jade has been a leading teacher at Body Electric for a decade and has developed several courses for the School. She is a gender-fluid sex activist, community organizer, shadow explorer and body-based therapist living in Seattle. She uses her training as a massage therapist, movement therapist and masters degree in social work to teach experiential sexual education classes and has a private healing practice.

Both Isa and Alex are profiled in Reclaiming Eros, Suzanne Blackburn and Margaret Wade, editors (2007).

Tuition: $395 per workshop. Recent CBE grads receive $50 discount on repeat workshops. Early registration discount of $35 until March 1st, full price thereafter.
Register with minimum $100 deposit. Full tuition is due three weeks before start of workshops.
Contact Debi Soler, NYC coordinator, 212-726-0679
passionjustice@gmail.com
http://www.thebodyelectricschool.com

and another thing

I'm so thankful for all of you who left your well wishes for my talk with T. It's so very affirming to know that people who are merely strangers can affect the outcomes of various situations in your life in a few simple words. I especially thank those of you who can relate to my struggle for integration of sexuality and spirituality. It takes a long time to come to that place of oneness and I wish you all smooth, safe journey.

On that note, remember the Body Electric workshop that I attended with Sinclair in October? The beginning course, "Celebrating the Body Erotic" is coming around again in NYC this March, and later, in June, NYC will also host "Power, Surrender, and Intimacy." I can't explain to you enough how important the CBE was in helping me integrate sexuality and spirituality and I think that anyone who is on a similar path as mine - anyone, for that matter - should seriously and carefully consider participating in CBE at the very least.

Hop on over to Sugarbutch.net for more information on both of these workshops. My sight is set on the PSI, which has not been offered in quite some time. So! If you'd like to meet Miss Avarice, start packing your bags!

shut-eye

I just tried to close my eyes and go to sleep. My homework for this paper that I have to write has been bogging me down and I had an awful day at work. Awful. And for some reason all I could think about was the CBE workshop.

I really have not processed that thing, either I haven't had time or I haven't found space or I haven't had the appropriate set of ears. I'm feeling several different categories of processing that need to occur. The whole 5 days was a major roller-coaster of experiences - traveling! brave big city! OMGWTF THE SUBWAY, body image? weird hippie energy?? NAKED!? excuse me "cave" WHAT? *flip out* this subway is a piece of cake. wait, that's it? it's over! BUT!

Then I flew home and drove directly to school upon arriving at home to give a lecture, after which I crashed.

First: Emotional
I've done a little bit of this with Ray the other night. Which reminds me it's been like four years now since we had that little shin-dig on the hood of my car where too many tears fell over too many cheeks. It was the first week of November, I flipped a coin to decide whether I should say anything or not, the coin was in favor. Anyway. I think there are still some tears left that didn't get cried out, there are still some issues with my body that haven't been smoothed out on a purely emotional level. Some of these emotions will only come out in the physical processing....

Second: Spiritual
This is no surprise, I have neglect spiritual processing and meditation quite a bit this semester because I have been engrossed in school, work and extra-curricular studies. Working, reading, writing, thinking, dreaming and the like. This I can do by myself. Must do by myself. I want sit on my Dad's lap and tell Him what I learned, asked Him what I might've missed, overlooked.

Third: Physical
It seems to me that there is a significant amount of processing that I will only be able to do with someone else at hand. Learning to ask for what I want, but also learning to give what someone else has asked for. I think I need to lean into someone else and cry. I need to be naked with someone else again just so I can be sure that I'm really okay and it wasn't a dream. I need to learn the curves of someone else's body. The smells, the textures, the pace... the sounds. I feel like the workshop put me into an alternate universe of which I am not part - in reality, it's the world of sexual activity. It is a foreign place where inhabitants speak a body language other than the one I know and speak. And I have no one at the moment to whom I can speak these brave words. I cannot practice saying new words like touch, more, less, here, there, now, later, good, better, best, yeah. I have never felt more grounded than when I am skin to skin, (or, nevermind skin) body to body with another person. I feel lost, and I know that not all who wander are lost, but I feel that way.

And I feel like I have not grieved for someone or something that has died. Was it me, at the workshop, or part of me? Yes, by not working this stuff out - particularly the physical processing - I feel like I am clinging to an old grief that has been yellow and crumbling for a long time. Why can't I let it go?

I want to make it out to the "Advanced" CBE but if I still haven't processed the first one, come January, I think it would be a very unwise decision. I can't build on a foundation that is still mushy and wet, can I?

poetries

I have some recordings of my poetry that I wish I could share with you. Collective, you. And there are many new poems that haven't been recorded, haven't been tied down to tape, grabado. I have some ways to simply record them but it's not going to sound so great. But I think poetry takes on a different texture and character when spoken aloud and perhaps they communicate most fully and roundly with sound.

Apparently there may be an advanced workshop like the one I'm still recovering from. Perhaps as early as January. But I haven't really been able to lay beside anyone to process what I learned and felt and saw and accomplished. I've still been lying naked next to myself asking myself if it were a dream, you know? I think January will be too soon for me to tear open that wound again. Can't imagine what they must mean by "advanced".

But I almost don't think I can escape the lure of the warmth. I need to buy postage stamps and send love and tenderness to the women I met.

My body aches for touch, haunted by memories of smooth strokes spanning vast miles across the highways of my legs, my thighs, the way she pressed her palms into mine as I lay there, supine, needing to feel the struggle, needing to know that she would not let me escape even if I tried because I knew that escaping wasn't what I wanted.

The weirdest thing about the whole workshop is that when I was deliciously enveloped in touch, I wanted so much to kiss the fair muses who had their hands all over me. I wanted to feel lips on my breasts and shoulders and hands. But I felt like I couldn't ask for that. I didn't think that would have been okay, so I didn't... I felt like ask for what you want didn't apply in that moment. Because a kiss would have made it too intimate maybe? I don't really know... Something to think about.

ritual

The taste of strawberries
lingering on my tongue
swirling, mixing with a
bite of chocolate...

I was clutching my pearl
necklace in my left hand
and my piece of chocolate
in my right hand. smiling.

Who knew muses could be so strong?
I should have know the hands of
the graces could so eloquently
cradle, protect what is delicate.

I was holding an image in my hands.
A sprite strolling beside a deer.
Inviting me to explore the trees.
Encouraging me to unfold myself.

Oh the hips, the petals, the stamen, the nectar.
Where I wear moonbeams. Where I am breathless.

Don't worry, I've been breathing.
Oh, have I been breathing.

CBE for the sophisticated lady

I walked around tonight giggling about how I've already requested time off at work to attend this:

The Body Electric School Announces
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women

October 5-7, 2007, New York City
...Join in a circle of women for an opportunity to explore, discover and celebrate empowered sexuality, self-defined eroticism, spiritually integrated eros. You will feel welcomed into a safe, serious, and playful space where we respectfully honor boundaries and experience ourselves as powerful, expressive and sacred.

Firstly, I'm going to see grand, big, glittering New York City, and you might, just might get me back on the plane for my return flight. Secondly, I have been guaranteed nakedness - hope your word is good! Thirdly I have been needing to get away for a little while, to satisfy my hunger for travel and adventure.

I do a little dance inside, just thinking about it!

Oh dear God. What am I going to wear!!!