Pain response

I have been exploring my reactions, my relationship to pain recently.  I am speaking about physical pain, not emotional pain; that is an entirely different thing.  Truth be told, I am in pain most of the time.  I don’t think about it much because it is simply a part of living in this body.  It is not debilitating, it is just a fact. 

There are moments when pain is just a part of life.  There is the pain I can remember associated with giving birth, there is the pain that comes from acute physiological dysfunctions, like migraines, there is the pain I experience each day when I test my blood sugar and when I inject my insulin and the pain I feel when I walk for too long in the woods.  These are simple facts. 

Then there is pain that we seek for greater purpose, the pain of receiving a tattoo for instance.  I enjoy the process of receiving a tattoo.  Not simply for the sake of the art but, the process itself.  I enjoy pushing through it, breathing through it.  I enjoy the chemical reactions my body has to the sustained acute pain of my skin being transformed into someone’s canvas for the sake of commemorating profound moments in my life.

One of the things I feel rather odd about is that I also associate that type of pain with sex.  My sexual experiences when I was young, even into my twenties, were painful.    I honestly thought that was the way it was for everyone.  I remember being rather shocked to discover that wasn’t the truth, and the first time I had sex and didn’t experience pain was really quite confusing. 

A friend loaned me a tool recently so that I could safely pursue this idea in a more scientific fashion.  It is a small mat with little plastic spikes that will not pierce the skin but causes a sensation of lying on a “bed of nails” as it were.  The pain is sharp and burns hot for as long as I choose to rest upon it.  It has been very helpful in discovering my body’s reaction to sustained pain stimuli.  It has also been helpful in discovering and pushing past my body’s “pain threshold”. 

The chemical reactions my body has to tattooing seem to be replicated by this particular practice, and one of those reactions may indeed be sexual.   This is yet another situation where my mind tells me that this isn’t “normal”.  But discovering the truth about myself is more important to me that being “normal”.

exploring the dreams...

There was a moment during my second degree initiation ritual when the Dark God, the Sage, placed his hands around my neck.  He held me there, for what seemed like forever.  Thinking back on it now, it may have been the only time during most of the ritual when I was in contact with anyone but the house. 

The reason I mention this is, that moment caused some unexpected reactions.  It was intended to frighten me, to elicit an adrenaline spike, to heighten my senses.  Adrenaline can become any emotion that a human being is capable of experiencing.  That was the intended result.  And it was successful in that it did result in the release of adrenaline; it did heighten my perceptions. 

But that was not the only result.  I also became sexually aroused.  I have only spoken about this with one other person until now because, I find it rather disturbing.  My mind tells me that reaction was inappropriate.  There was nothing inherently sexual about the ritual.  That I reacted that way is confusing to me, being someone for whom sexual arousal is a rather rare occurrence, at least until recently.

But my body keeps reminding my mind of that moment, of that reaction.  I keep coming back to that moment and to that feeling.  In my most erotic dreams, there is a hand at my throat.  It is usually the hand of someone I trust and it is never threatening but it is always arousing.

Other images and sensations reoccur often as well, a blade piercing my skin, a trickle of blood, my back against a wall.  My logical mind, the one that tells me to conform to the rules, tells me that this is an aberration.  But do any rules really apply when it comes to the instinct of sexual arousal?   I feel a bit exposed revealing these thoughts.  That I find these ideas to be more arousing than frightening seems to me to be the kind of thing one keeps to oneself for fear or shame.  But I vowed that I would not look away and so I will not. 

I will continue to explore the images and the dreams.  There is more to explore in the inner world before stepping out into the real world.  

the problem with conformity...

At first, the title of this post was going to be “the problem with feminism”.  But I am a feminist and that is not truly the problem.  The problem is that other feminists believe that they get to define “feminist” for me, and that somehow I should be ashamed because I do not conform to the definitions others hold. 

I could not care less about the opinions of anti-feminists.  Of people who hold beliefs that are directly opposed to my own.  I came to terms with that when I left the spiritual community in which I had lived in the years I refer to as “wandering the wasteland”.

But the expectations of others whom I would consider to be allies, culturally and spiritually, the opinions or expectations of my “sisters” I struggle with, and against, because who I am does not conform to what is expected of me.

I am a girl.  Yes, even as a forty-eight year old woman.  I like dresses and flowers and perfume and lipstick.  I like beautiful things.  I like feeling beautiful. I enjoy being desired.  I am a romantic and a mother and I enjoy being so.  I have never objected to dolls or the princesses from my childhood storybooks. 

I do not want to be limited by someone else’s idea of who I should be.  I am strong; I don’t need to prove it.  It has never been in question in my mind.  I am brave; I don’t have to shout it.  I am strongest and bravest when I am so for the sake of those I love.  I have never seen serving others as oppression.  It is one of the most fulfilling purposes of my life.

I enjoy caring for others.  I take great pleasure in meeting someone else's needs.  I take great satisfaction in loving others.  It gives me great joy to make others happy.  Loving someone, without censorship, without restraint, without reservation, is a gift I hope to someday be granted. 

I like being in the woods and not needing to be coddled but, I am a hedonist in many ways and I do not wish to apologize for the desires of my heart.  They do not make me weak or less of a woman.  I will not conform to the opinions or expectations of those whose agenda is opposed to my own but; neither will I be shamed by the expectations of my allies.

I am woman enough just as I am.  Take it or leave it but, you will not change it.  I will not conform to please another but, I may choose to please another and that is my choice.  No one gets to take that choice from me.  

Why any of this even matters...

Why does who I am matter?  If I know “myself” in most contexts, what does it matter if a part of me remains hidden even to myself?  Is it really all that important?  What difference could it possibly make to anyone?

This past Tuesday morning my daughter gave birth to a baby girl.  She arrived eight weeks before she was expected.  Much of who she is has already been decided…we are all just unaware of it as yet. For the next ninety years or so, she will be exploring and discovering and testing and failing and trying again to discover who she is and how to express that to the world. (I will only be around for the first forty-five or so.)  Some of who she is might be what others expect, some will probably not be.

I never want her to feel that she needs to hide from herself or from anyone else.  I never want her to feel ashamed or afraid of any truth about her own identity, gender, sexuality or spirituality.  I want her to be free to express her love and her beauty and her happiness in any way that she feels is right for her.  I want her to know always just how amazing she is. 

If I cannot embrace my own secrets, my own desires, if I cannot challenge my own hidden truths and bring them into the open where I can see them and embrace them and express them, how can I ever guide her in doing the same?

She will no doubt surprise me, but I pray that I will never fail her.  She is why any of this matters.  I want her to know her Nanna as a fearlessly, shamelessly happy woman who knows herself and loves with warmth, generosity and abandon.

I thank the Gods that I still have time to become that woman.

Sexual Dreaming

Dreams are strange things; they can take you places your waking mind will resist.  They can give you glimpses into your desires and leave you awake in the middle of the night gasping for breath with your heart pounding and your skin on fire.  They can haunt your thoughts for days on end.

I have been dreaming much more of late, the kind of dreams that wake me and that feel so real and so vivid that I cannot distinguish them from reality for endless moments after I wake.  It is, to say the least, disconcerting and has me more than a little spooked, truth be told.

I have had days of this sort of dreaming before from time to time but the past couple of months, it happens almost every night and sometimes more than once in the same night.

I do not know how much longer this will be the case but, I believe that there are reasons for it and I am trying to discover to what they might be.  Not the cause so much as the purpose.  The dreams themselves are often very erotic and I wake with my body in full sexual arousal. 

The people in my dreams are often my beloveds and the situations are so far removed from the reality of my experiences and relationships with these friends that I have difficulty processing them.  Sometimes the people are unknown, in the way that dreams will hide the identity of people but yet, they are not strangers.

I know that my dreams are the product of my own mind and body and soul.  They are not trying to help me understand others but rather to understand myself.  But because I do not respond to strangers, they are populated with the faces of my beloveds.

It is uncomfortable to experience our darker desires and even more so when it involves our most trusted beloveds.  But the desires we hide from ourselves can be the keys to understanding and claiming our greatest power.

I will continue to strive to understand these keys to my own self.

Identity or Who Am I?

Painting by Susan Seddon Boulet

In most situations, I have a pretty strong idea of “Who” I am.  Most of the time, the person(a?) I experience or express is related to who I am with, what my relationship is to them, what role or responsibility I have to them.  

Am I sacrificing the truth of who I am?  No. 

At work I am a banker, a helper, a supervisor.  With my family I am daughter, sister, mother/aunt, nana. With my Coven I am sister, mother, daughter, priestess, witch.  In each of these roles, I have responsibilities.  

Sometimes I lean on my loved ones, sometimes I need to put their needs first and support them.  I will not put my desires before my beloveds well-being. Priorities are important and will determine what role I allow myself to take, or need to take in any given situation.  Honor is a very important part of who I am and who I desire to be.

I have been talking to a young man recently who is beloved to me and to whom I have some responsibility.  He is someone I trust and he has been very supportive as I explore (intellectually at least) some of the more uncomfortable parts of who I might be.  I have asked him to be a safety net for me if I choose to step out and explore in the real world and he has agreed.  That I can do.  I can ask him to have my back.  It does not put our relationship or my responsibility to him at risk.   

My own exploration is important to me and I will continue to push forward to discover what may lie beneath the surface but, I will not sacrifice those parts of my identity that I value most highly.  I choose not to.  Being a person who loves with  honor and strength and wisdom is just as important as personal discovery.

I have desires to explore and to discover and I will not sacrifice them on the altars of fear or shame but, to be someone who cares for the well-being of those I love, is the person I desire to be.

What I Know Now

What I have learned this past year is that most of my beliefs and fears have been inaccurate.  I have, through repeated experiments with people that I care for and trust, and whom I believed to be strong enough and skilled enough to protect themselves from any damage they might suffer as a result of contact with my energetic self, learned that I am not in fact dangerous to those I touch nor to those who touch me.  I have learned that my fears about being incapable of responding to another sexually are not real.  I have learned that I am capable of giving and receiving profound pleasure.  I have learned that in order to experience these wonderful gifts of this physical body, trust and emotional and energetic connection both with myself and with my partners are absolutely necessary.  I may not be monogamous or strictly heterosexual, and there are other aspects of my nature that I need to explore but, I would not be exploring them at all if it were not for those beloved friends.  For them and the joys of this journey, I Give Thanks.