To Submit

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”
- Anais Nin, US (French-born) author & diarist (1903 - 1977)

I am not a submissive.

I used to think I was.  I used to think I needed to be a submissive, but what I really need is to submit to one man "who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me..."

Shepherd says it this way, and it makes sense to me:

"There is a difference between needing to serve somebody and finding someone you wish to serve."
-Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

The thing that I love and seek in a power exchange dynamic is the reality that something, someone in my life is immovable, strong, demanding.  I am a strong and intelligent woman, independent, determined.  I don't have an overwhelming need to serve others, I do not have an urgent need to please others.  But in my life, I have always sought a strength that exceeds my own.  I need to submit.  In that submission, I will serve someone by choice and desire, but not out of need.

"I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don't mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don't mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling -- all that I am capable of doing -- but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding."
- Anais Nin, US (French-born) author & diarist (1903 - 1977)

From the time I was a child, I never knew a man who took the dominant role in a relationship.  I am loved by two fathers.  They are both submissive.  Let me stop here, and say that submissiveness is not a bad trait.  It is neither bad nor good.  It simply is.  My fathers are happy being submissive.  It is how they choose to express their love and devotion to their wives and children.  I admire and love them for it.  Both of my husbands, are/were submissive, much like my fathers.  By choice, they act and did act in ways to please the dominant personality in their relationships -- me.  I am not complaining.  I need and want my husband to be that person, it makes him happy, and it makes me happy.

But I also need a strength under which I can submit.

I want to push against a wall and find it immovable
I want to pound and find it solid
I want to know that I can’t win
I want to fight with all my might, and lose,
I want to kick and scream and stamp my foot
and find that it won’t work. 

I want to know that I will not be pushed away,
will not be rejected, abandoned, screaming silently in the night. 

but who will be the wall
who will stand firm
who will hold me til it’s over
and still be there?
Alice, quoted by Poppy St. Vincent, in her post 'The Fear and Loving in Everwhere'

You see, I am messy.  It is who I am.  I am emotional, and passionate, and impulsive, and creative, and reckless.  I want to explore, to learn, to experience, to live!  I am impatient, and immature and hungry.  I can be an adult.  I can be responsible and reserved, I can lead and control.  But there is in me a girl, a bird, a poet, that wants to fly headlong into tomorrow, hair tangling in the wind and heart pounding in my ears.... driven and undisciplined.  

"Without discipline, there's no life at all."
-Katharine Hepburn

Yet, I require discipline. I am like a falcon needing a falconer to tether me, teach me, protect me and let me fly.  I need the structure, the boundaries, and the reassurance that I am "owned, taken, safe, wanted...someone's so much that even I am second to them." Those too are Shepherd's words.  He is wise.  He is right.

"To be completely woman you need a Master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him, it's no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long."
-Marlene Dietrich, quoted by Master Obsidian's slave, namaste in her post Humbled Females: Reclaiming the Feminine Mystique

I have found that falconer.  He has a strength of character that moves my heart, and makes me want to please him.  He is my immovable wall, firm and resolute.  He is the strength to which I can submit myself, and he loves me.  He sees me, body, heart and soul --- all of me. He knows the woman, the girl, the hunter, the prey, the poet, the explorer, the child. He celebrates me, and wants to take responsibility for my well being, my growth, my submission.

I have found someone I wish to serve.  By his definition, and now by mine... I have a slave-heart.

"If you are a slave, it is what your heart said.  You did not get a vote."
-Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

The journey ahead frightens me.  It will not be easy.  I have already shown my ability to panic, to push and  fight and frustrate.  I have suffered consequences that I both hated and deserved.  I have been called to account, and instructed to stretch and grow.  I was not rejected, not abandoned for being too much.  He is still here.  He did not move, did not leave.  I am still here, still wanted and loved.  I have been shown a bar that is higher than what I have yet attained.  He sees my potential, and wants to see me reach it, so the bar can be raised yet again.  He believes in me.

"When [one who submits] enters into a journey with a Dominant, she is never quite sure of the path He will choose and the challenges she will face. The dance is first and foremost a dance of trust. Given this most precious element, she knows there is no limit to the places she will go under His hand. This is true only because He cherishes her and will not take her places she cannot go …"
-Fringe of Darkness tumblr

I trust him. I choose him. I submit to him. 

I belong to Him.

Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

What we do flows from who we are.
-Paul Vitale

I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false...
-Rainer Maria Rilke

Daily I learn - sometimes painfully, other times with glee - that mine is a path never meant to be paved.
-Jeb Dickerson

We must be our own before we can be another's.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My Shepherd, my Wolf, my Sir recently wrote the following piece and sent me a copy:

Prologue:

It is odd to think I would find myself with another label. I was always the person with another name, another label and I was never the one to choose. I have now forged my own 'found label'. It started five years ago as a simple pun, but it has become me.

Who I Am

I live in the woods, in the shadows, in the places others do not like to go. In these dark places I have found myself, my Mistress, and my pack. In these woods I have learned to hunt and to play. They are traveled by only a few and fewer still make their home here with us. In the day, I see you looking into my woods wondering what is beyond your sight, asking why I do not want to live in your bright world where the dark is locked in boxes and expelled by the lights you burn every night. In the night I see you sneaking into the woods from your cleared, cut spaces. What you do not know is that I see you looking and I am watching you. I see your tracks in my woods. I smell you in the dirt and… sometimes when you enter my woods, I will find you.

When we do meet in my woods, you should know who and what I am. I am the wolf you mistake for a friendly puppy; you will not guess my age, size or identify my markings. I am not what you expect, am unlike anything you have seen before. I am the source of the tales others repeat in warning whispers. My name, like my form, will surprise you in its substance. Like all labels my name is meant to convey something in a few words. Who and what I am is a story that is told within my name and my full name is long and complex, which fits me.

I am the Lostpup who once enjoyed looking around and going over the next hill, until I could never return home and did not wish to turn from the adventure. Like most youthful creatures, I needed a strong guide and protector. She helped and continues to help me learn, flourish and grow into the creature I was born to be. In exchange I serve and love her. Like all puppies I choose fun and play over conflict and struggle. I play the games of the dangerous woods I found myself within and sometimes it is not safe. Sometimes too, the world forgets that behind the grin and the playfulness are fangs and the power of a predator coming into his prime.

I am a wolf and like all wolves, my pack is my life. My life’s work is leaving a strong healthy pack. My pack is made of the people I love and hold dear. They are a part of who I am and what I do. I am the Shepherd who leads and cares for his pack. I do this out of purpose not pride, although I am proud of my pack. I gain pleasure from the pack, but the pack is not for my pleasure. I work to lead the pack with integrity and to enrich its members, but I not for my enrichment or their attribution.

I am like the mist and the fog within your perception but not part of your codes or frameworks. I am Grey; I am neither pure nor evil. I am neither selfless nor narcissistic. I demand that my needs be filled, but not that others needs be excluded. I will hunt and revel in the acts of the hunt, but I will not waste what I take or take what I do not need. 

I have given my freedom and heart to my Mistress, and now I have been given leadership and responsibility for others, at their request and in exchange for their freedom. Now, just as I answer to the lead of my Mistress, I hold leads as well. These ties embrace and bind me. I cherish them because they help me remember that I answer to my Ma’am, that I am responsible to my pack, and that my pack gives to me. 

Feel free to visit us, but remember who and what I am.

Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd 

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Every time I read through it, I smile.  I'm reminded of the reasons I love this man, and how grateful I feel to be included in his life.  I've written here before about my journey to discover who I am, about the urge to explore darkness, to take that after-dusk path into the shadowy woods.  When I read this piece the girl inside of me wants to cheer and celebrate the relationship, the man, and my good fortune.

Soon, I will post my response to this declaration, at Shepherd's invitation to do so.

This is a cross post on the Kink and Poly blogs.

Confession

I have a confession to make:

I've been silent for far too long.

You see, I started this blog, and the others to chronicle a journey - my journey, and when the road got really, really tough, I stopped writing about it.  The point of writing in the first place is to help me process, to show me where I'm headed, to keep me from losing my way.  The second point of writing is that, for some strange reason there always seems to be someone asking me for advice... about loving more than one, about embracing your own darkness, about relationships and journeys in general.  I don't know why god or the universe, or fate brings people to me with questions.  I don't think it's because I know all that much.  I rather think it's because there are so many questions, and I am usually transparent enough to say I'm stumbling my way through my life with questions galore.

At any rate, when I lost my way, and got caught in a downward spiral, I stopped sharing my journey.  

I wish I hadn't.

I don't want to spend too much time on the negative, but if you're reading here, I don't want you to think my life, and the road I've chosen is always wonderful.  I don't float through my world chasing lovers and getting all the kinky play and sex I can handle without ever screwing things up, or getting lost, hurt, taken advantage of, or being misunderstood.  I don't do everything right, and I certainly don't fail to deal out a fair share of pain and frustration to others, though I wish I never hurt anyone.

In the past nine months, I've fallen in love, given my heart, trusted.
I've been wounded, depressed, despondent.
I've been welcomed, accepted and loved.
I've been childish, afraid, and repentant.

I've risked greatly by opening my heart and life to women who are loved by the men I love.  At times that has been so frightening I felt backed into a corner, fighting like a cat, with claws and terror.... and the result is I've hurt some of the women, and in turn, the men I love most.  My insecurity has been a bitch, and I have spent several weeks looking hard in the mirror, taking responsibility for the pain and depression and frustration I've been living, and causing for others.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a martyr complex.  But the bottom line is that my happiness is my responsibility.

In terms of the women... three of five have proven to be human. Real. Strong. Amazing. Giving and accepting of my fucked-up attempts to keep my footing.  It's strange to realize just now that those three, are all loved by my Shepherd.  I think it says something about him, that they are so amazing.  It may well say something about me, too.  For I have no doubt that I am loved by him, and by these three women as well.  I am grateful to be counted in such company.

As for the two who have proven otherwise, each simply decided she could not face me, and could not share.  One did so honestly, and is now no longer in a relationship with Husband.  I am sorry about that, but bear her no real ill-will.  She has to seek what makes her happy.  I am watching to make sure she does so in a way that honors Husband.

The remaining woman, I trusted too much. When I began to uncover her lies to me, to Poet and to others, it was too late, the damage was done.  I stopped trying to figure out what were truths and what were lies with her, weeks ago, and simply limped away.

I am more guarded than ever with women now.  I hope I am not always, though.

In terms of the men... I find my circle of lovers smaller today than it was six months ago.  In addition, I carry the scars of those who chose to leave.  I have lost a play partner perhaps due to something as simple as scheduling issues.  I have lost my young Poet because he chose to stop communicating with me, with no explanation as to why.

I do not stop loving, just because someone decides their life is too full, too complicated, too unhappy for me.  I admit freely, that I am still mourning.  I especially miss the passion we shared for language, verse, beauty and romance.  I believed in him.  I still do.  I still love him, and probably always will.  And yet, today, I accept that he has made the only choice he could.  Perhaps someday he might trust me as a friend.  Perhaps that door is forever closed.  But I cannot continue to lie on the floor outside of that door, waiting.  I must live.

I stand in front of the mirror today, and I can still see the scars.
Someday even the scars will be beautiful, and perhaps they already are.
I know at least that I am alive, healing, and stronger.
And I am loved.
Wanted.

Yes, today has been about confessing that I am weak, and messy and have recently been extremely fucked up.

But there is more:

I am strong.
I am beautiful in my brokenness and in my strength.
I am imperfect.
I am willing to be transparent, in case someone else is looking to me for direction.
I don't know the answers, but I do know that this life I've chosen is the one I want.

I only hope I earn the good I've gained so far.

This is a cross-post on the Kink and Poly blogs.