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.

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