Everybody's got a story

So.. I was contacted by a gentleman via my stories on Literotica and we've entered this dialogue . He told me a bit about himself and asked me if I had any advice as to how he could be more sensual. I responded as follows:

If you want to be more sensual in a sexual way, more comfortable with your sexuality, then I would recommend that you make love to yourself. Masturbation, with self-love. I masturbate daily. I treat myself to long baths twice a week... I shave, oil my legs and mound, and retire to my bed for an evening of fantasy and voluptuous masturbation.

And because he'd not had much success in his intimate relationships the past few years. I asked him some questions:

You say that the women you have been with in the past you were able to be open and sensual with, but now, you aren't sure you can. What has changed? What happened in your past that you are getting hung up on?

He responded with his story. A good story, a painful story, an honest, self-revealing story that moved me and inspired me. A story of a man who suffered a profound loss and still went on to create an extraordinary life for himself. I responded with:

As for what you wrote.... There isn't anything wrong with you. Really.

I think that what went awry for you in your relationships is what happens to most of us, including me. And it has to do with Fear.

The thing about Fear is that we will always feel fear. Our fears will never go away. We may resolve some of our fears, but we will always encounter situations in our lives that cause us to feel afraid. And most of us respond to life out of fearful places. We let our fears get in the way of living life. We allow our fears and our pasts to dictate how we respond to the current situation instead of being present to what is really going on. But I've learned that it doesn't have to be or stay that way. Before I tell you what I've learned, let me share a bit of my story with you, so we can establish that I do understand where you are coming from and why you feel as you do.

My mother left me with my grandparents when I was 10. My grandfather died that same year. My father got custody and moved us to a new town, and he moved my sisters and I nearly every year from then on. I lost my mother, my friends, the life I knew, over and over again. I was so tired of the pain of loss, and so afraid of losing people, that I stopped bothering to form attachments at all. When I entered romantic relationships, I insisted that my lovers understand that the relationship would end, sooner or later, and that I could not, would not, be possessed. I was an emotional coward hiding under the guise of being a 'free spirit', and I knew it, and I knew myself for a fraud.

In my early 30's things started changing. I faced the fact that the way I approached life and the methods I used to cope with the stresses, disappointments, problems, and fears in my life were not working, and I went looking for something that did work. I read self-help books, did two years of therapy, wrote in my journal, conversed with people, attended worshops, and contemplated my life.

And one of the things that became apparent was that I needed to be courageous. I needed to have the courage to face that I would always have fears and problems--that there was no magic wand that would smooth out the road of life ahead of me--and that I needed to find the courage to not let those things stop me from living my life right now.

One of the Christophers in my life told me that I also needed to stop trying to plan and predict life. Intellectually, I understood what he said. I understood the argument that if one can plan and predict life, then one is not living life... one is re-living the past by over-laying it on the future. But recently, I GOT it. I got what he meant on a visceral level. I got the whole thing Jung said about neurotic suffering. I got the whole thing about fear of the uncertainty of life causing me to pull as much of the familiar past forward into my future as I could. I realized that in my fear I was forcing myself to re-live the past, even though I really didn't want to. I really, really, don't want to relive the past. It is dead, and there is nothing for me there.

Today, the future is wide open. It is a vast nothingness, a place of potentials, and I have the power to chose to either fill it with the expectations and fears and disappointments of the past, or create the life I want to live out of it. And I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life. And since I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life, I am choosing to BE an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled person. But in order to be those things, I had to accept that fear would always be a part of my life, and find in myself the courage to not let it stop me from living the life I want to live and being the person I want to be.

So there it is. That's my story, and my advice. Find the courage to let your fears remain where they belong, in the past. Sure, you may open up to someone and you may get hurt. That's Life. That's the risk we take. But being hurt isn't so bad, and adults are by nature far more compassionate than we give them credit for. So open up to lots of people. Play the odds. Keep trying. Keep living. Keep being the person you want to be, and you will find that others will be drawn to you, to that person you are being, and you will have the love and companionship you have chosen for yourself. Really.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Returned from California

My visit to California was extraordinary. I got to see two different sets of friends, my sister and her family, and my father. I watched my nephew in a play, bounced my niece on my knees, enjoyed the 50F Bay Area weather and the 90F Valley weather, and smiled a lot.

Last Friday I pulled up to my sister's house around 11pm. She stumbled out of bed to greet me and gave me a big hug.
She said "Wow, you feel good."
I said "Thank you."
She said, "No, I mean you feel GOOD. Have you fallen in love or lost weight or something?"
I said, "I've fallen in love with Life and I've lost the past."

Landmark Education is paying off. Best investment I've made in myself. Better than the two years of therapy I went through. Wheee. Finally, I have access to tools that make it possible for me to live an even more vibrant, extraordinary life!

My Lord of Life

My Lord of Life
Today I remembered the poems I wrote

words of love unfolding in the lotus of my mind

I was a flower with petals wet

long before the rains fell from your clouds

My Lord of Thunder

Yesterday I hummed songs for you

melodies timed to the drumbeat of my heart

I was a sunflower whose gaze followed

your blazing path through the ceiling of my soul

My Lord of Fire

Tomorrow, should gravity be reversed

and dirges buffet the air I breathe

I will be a flower wilting and uprooted

illuminated with joy by the pluck of your hands

My Lord of Death

"Jack" posted to Literotica

The text of the erotic story "Jack" has been posted to Literotica.
The audio version is available at HypnoFantasyFriends.com under KR Silkenvoice. I now have 9 .mp3 files there.

I've also just recorded my first hypnosis file, called "Laugh". It is a G-rated introduction to hypnosis, intended to make you want to laugh whenever you smile. Its a short (15 minute file) which I am making available here. It should be available on HypnoFantasy shortly. The script was written by Bob Brown. Please give it a listen and let me know what you think.

A true story

The book lies open. It has been open all year, open at the same page she left it on New Year's Day, page 147. It has usurped the place once reserved for the Caged Gifts, resting as it does on the gold brocade chair near the foot of her bed. She doesn't touch it, though her feather duster does tickle the pages once a month or so, and when it does, she looks away, eyes blinking tears. From the dust. Yes, dust. Some days when she awakens her eyes fall upon the book, where it glows whitely in the morning light. She asks herself why she doesn't put it away somewhere, or send it back to the author. It means something, she knows, It means something that it is still there. And yet, nothing has meaning in and of itself, she reminds herself. There is what happened, and then there is the meaning we give it when we try to interpret what happened. What happened. Yes. What happened? I don't know. I really don't know. She looks over at the book. She knows the author's pride in his opus, and she wants to know what happened in the story, even though she knows how it ends. She knows how it ends because she helped the author craft that ending. She told him she wanted to know what the protagonist was thinking and feeling, there, at the ending, which was also the beginning, where things came full circle and the reader knew only the 'what happened' and not the meaning the character ascribed to it. What does it mean? she asks herself. Sighing heavily, torn, she reaches a hand toward the book. And stops. It means whatever I choose for it. And today, because she feels like it, the meaning of the book is a reminder of a promise made. I promised I'd never abandon you, she sends out into the universe, to the author's inner child, but I never noticed you didn't make the same promise, until too late. She glances at it again. The book remains open for lack of closure. She supposes that she will never know what happened in the middle, that perhaps it is enough to know the ending. The only certainty in life is death, and the only certainty with books is that the pages turn until there are no more, and that is The End, whatever the state of the story. What does it mean, then, that a book lies open, abandoned, unread, unclosed? Nothing. It means nothing. Perhaps it never meant anything. And with that thought she rises, gathers the book in both hands, and slams it closed. The End.

Photographic Weekend

This weekend brought a long-awaited visit from a friend in Seattle. The weather cooperated, in that it did not rain, and the diffuse light from the cloud-cover meant stable conditions for photography. I brought my point-and-shoot Olympus and he brought his lovely SLR and off we went to the Classical Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden. It was one of those weekends that reminded me of why I've chosen to settle in the Pacific Northwest. I enjoyed sharing my love for my home. I enjoyed sharing that quiet appreciation, and the mutual awareness of our environment, its beauty, and the need to take time to get the composition right for capturing what our eyes saw in a snapshot. We were at the Chinese garden before 10am, which meant it was not yet crowded with people. I'd last visited it in mid-March with the Englishman, and the change was quite dramatic--all the bare-branches have fleshed out, and where once there were hints of dramatic colour, the entire garden is alive with it. We stopped in the Tower of Cosmic Reflection for tea and steamed buns. I wished it was warm enough to throw open the windows for an unobstructed view of the garden, but the view was very fine all the same. Before we left he bought a painting in the chinese peasant style, called "Cat Heaven". We were both amused by the comments of the staff as he waited for them to ring it up -- apparently it was one of the favorite pieces on display and they were sad to see it go.

From there we headed up into Washington Park to the Japanese Garden, which is about four acres of every possible colour of green known to man. I wished I could have recorded the sound of the water, which was every where. It rushed from the waterfall, it trickled from fountains, it flowed over stone and rippled the ponds. There was no wind and few birds. There were people, but it was not crowded, and people were respectful of photographers, trying to stay out of the frame.

I enjoyed two of the children there. A boy and a girl, dark haired and dark eyed, both with magic wands, and her in a tutu and diadem. I asked if she was a princess and her brother said "yes" and that she had wings, too, but mom took them away so they wouldn't get lost. I parsed that two ways--the way he intended, ie, that her wings were probably in the back of the car, so mom didn't have to listen to his sister cry if the wings fell off somewhere unnoticed. But I also heard it another way, that mom had taken away his sister's wings for fear her daughter would be lost. Some parents do that--some adults do that--keep children safe by clipping their wings.

My friend from Seattle mentioned the theory as to why Man likes gardens so much. He said it is because they illustrate the illusion that man can conquer nature. I suppose that might be it. Certainly, I enjoy the symmetry and the tidiness of contrived landscapes, but I also enjoy nature unleashed, in all her wild, tumbling glory. Its just not as safe. So perhaps... perhaps Man likes gardens so much because in the tamed and cultivated places we can enjoy the beauty of Nature while feeling safe and at peace. Which reminds me of an EB White quote: I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

May Day

CW sent flowers. And a poem. He knows my weakness for Qabbani. I've right-justified the poem because that is how the author wrote it in arabic:

The two years
You were my lover
Are the two most important pages
In the book of modern love.
All the pages before and after
Were blank.
These pages
Are the lines of the equator
Passing between your lips and mine
They are the measures of time
That are used
To set the clocks of the world.