Everybody Heals with Love

we have fallen down again tonight
in this world it's hard to get it right
trying to make your heart fit like a glove
what it needs is love, love, love

everybody, everybody wants to love
everybody, everybody wants to be loved

happy is the heart that still feels pain
darkness drains and light will come again
swing open up your chest and let it in
just let the love, love, love begin

everybody knows the love
everybody holds the love
everybody folds for love
everybody feels the love
everybody steals the love
everybody heals with love

-- Everybody - written by Ingrid Michaelson

(stripped down from the song lyrics)

youtube video

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"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.”
- Gary Zukav

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“She's got a smile that heals me
I don't know why it is
But I have to laugh when she reveals me.”
- Billy Joel

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“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”
- Novalis

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Sometimes relationships hurt.  Relationships where there are more than two people involved are no different in that they can hurt, they can leave scars, they can be really, really difficult to manage.

Sometimes in a polyamorous configuration one relationship ends, and the fallout, the pain, the scars and the aftermath of that breaking apart process can hurt more than just that one relationship.  Sometimes wounds go deep, and translate into pain and insecurity that continues to spread out beyond the original source.

I have always written honestly on this blog, because this is my journey, and writing the truth helps me find the road, and make sense of the map.  I have been silent though, about many things, out of respect.  Things that were too painful to write about.  Things that came out of hurts caused by others in my love-life and my extended-love-life.  The past year has been so very messy for me.  Truth be told, messy is nothing new, but this messy has been a painful, frightening, overwhelming kind of messy that has caused everyone involved - at one time or another - to consider what it would be like to either lose everything or walk away.  

I don't know if I've been completely clear here about my family structure, though there are bits and pieces.  I won't draw the whole 'white-board' diagram, and I certainly won't include all the pieces, but for the sake of this post, there are three central players and one secondary one who I might never mention again after this post.  When I met Shepherd, he was the primary partner of Sheperdess. A year after he and I met and began a secondary relationship, he began a secondary relationship with Dragonfly Girl.  Today, Sheperdess is no longer part of our lives.  In the midst of all this turmoil, we've fought for each other, and battled our own scars and insecurities.  

For me, one of the hardest things about it all has been feeling disconnected. I am a whole state away from everyone else in this family.  Much of the communication on my end is brief -- text messages, emails, second-hand conversations.  This is just a product of the distance, and the limits when it comes to time and nearness, or the lack thereof.  It also comes from the fact that we are all still learning.  We have weaknesses, personal challenges, we are scarred and wounded, in our own ways.  Making space for others to fail and be human, to need forgiveness and patience... this is something I want so badly for us, and something I find sometimes very hard to do. I get hurt.  I get emotional.  I cry and feel insecure, and too intense, like I'm asking for too much, or expressing too much raw feeling.  Shepherd calls it my poet heart.  To me it's a blessing and a curse.

Over the past several weeks, and especially the week that led to our most recent weekend together, that communication issue led to some words and tears and frustration.  -- It turns out that that weekend became a shared one between the three of us.  Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, and we let our guard down, it was a great opportunity to hang out and enjoy family, to get to know each other better, and plan for the future. We met at a local bed and breakfast in my hometown -- a lovely turn of the century home, with a spacious room that had two beds.  We talked, and planned and laughed and cried. We filled that room with love, and healing.

I know that my own jealousy is rooted in insecurity.  I am a poly girl.  I have loved many.  I do love many, I will love many.  It's how my heart is made.  But my insecurity is.  It just is.  I am growing, learning, becoming less insecure... and yet, I still feel it sometimes.  There has never been a time when I saw Shepherd being affectionate with another woman -- particularly those with whom he shares or has shared a committed relationship -- when I did not feel a twinge in my core, a feeling of anxiety and discomfort.  I have always chosen my response.  I've reminded myself that I love Shepherd, and that I particularly love his capacity to love others.  I have chosen to be happy that others are there, in his life, committed to love him in a way or time or place that I cannot.  I have chosen to celebrate his loves, to support them, to encourage them, and to  work to foster a feeling of trust and safety, of family and respect among his loves.  I think it's very common that poly people feel this twinge, and choose how to handle it. Perhaps compersion is just a happy feeling that some people feel naturally... but for me, compersion is a choice.

I stated moments ago that I have never not felt that twinge when seeing Shepherd share affection with another.  It is true.  It was true.  Until our most recent weekend.  Surrounded by such intense love, acceptance and affection, I kissed Dragonfly girl.  It was unexpected.  It wasn't spur of the moment.  I chose, after thinking through what it might mean and what it might lead to.  I felt safe, comfortable, eager to express affection and yes, curiosity.  I kissed her, and she kissed me.  And it was amazing.  We did fill that room with love and healing.  We shared a love that didn't belong to any one, or two of us.  We shared something that up to this point had been separate parts of a whole.  The lines blurred, and love flooded me, flooded us.

Some of the most amazing moments came when tangled up in the same bed I could lean in and kiss Dragonfly girl tenderly, and then gaze into her eyes with wonder and just over her shoulder see Shepherd's smile, the same wonder and joy in his eyes.  When he would reach for me, and touch me tenderly, then lean in and kiss her softly I felt it every time.  The kiss, the touch, the love.  There was no sense of someone else receiving affection and me being left out... I don't think anyone felt left out, except maybe Shepherd once in a while.  Writing that sentence makes me smile, because though Dragonfly girl and I both worried about him feeling a little disconnected from our exploration and discovery of each other, every time I looked at him he was grinning like a Cheshire.  Every time I looked at her, her smile lit up the room like a beacon.  I felt like I was fairly glowing with love and wonder.  It was something so amazing, so wonderful and so very unexpected that I am not sure I'll ever find the right words to describe what it was like.

I do know this...

I want to do it again, and again, and again.  Everybody heals with love.  Shepherd, Dragonfly Girl, me.  What we shared in that beautiful room this weekend was life-changing, and the healing still flows as we email, telephone and text each other in the days since.  There are no labels for it, no expectations, only love.Pure and simple, and incredible... for everybody.

(And I can't stop humming Katy Perry)
         

Follow your feet, and your hearts, travelers...

Into the Dark and Darker Woods

This post is a response to Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

-Robert Frost


Into your darkest corner, you are safe in my love, you are protected.
I am the openess you seek, I am your doorway.
Come sit in the circular temple of my heart, & let yourself be calm.
-Agapi Stassinopoulos


There is pleasure in the pathless woods...

-George Byron

Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities.-Dean Koontz, Midnight


“I trust only you and the dark always to look at me so honestly.”
-Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You

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Who am I?

I am a poet-girl with a raven spirit, who flew headlong into the sky, to find my freedom, and meet myself. I am a grateful dreamer, a child-of-the-wild-blue-yonder, with a big, roomy heart, and a hunger to know and love. I am both strong and weak, young and mature, confident and insecure, graceful and awkward, woman and child. I am a girl who at nineteen, found myself in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy, and spent the next two decades serving my family as mother, educator, wife and friend.

I loved that life, and chose it on purpose. I love my husband, children, grandchildren, and the life we've made. Yet, when my babies were grown and my life became my own again, I needed to stretch my wings and find the path that had always been mine alone. I have been trying to mind my steps and be thoughtful about where they lead me ever since.



I think I have always been a poly girl, though I did not always know it was possible to be so, nor did I have the words to describe or label what it meant. My heart craves people. I am fascinated with their stories, their lives, their emotions and their reasonings. I ache to know and be known. Being invited into someone's heart and their inner world feeds my heart in ways this word-girl can't even begin yet to describe. This journey to find others who crave what I do, has been rocky thus far. The path has been rough. I've been wounded and bruised and have had to learn to heal and be tough.

Enter the Wolf.

One day I decided it was time to go hunting. I felt alone, and alien, and my experiences with loving more than one had been so very painful. I knew I needed more, and so I went into the woods to find like minded beings who understood my need to know and be known. I found Him, and perhaps He was also hunting for me, and my life is forever changed.

He is not what you might expect. He's a Wolf and a Shepherd, fierce and gentle, dark and light, sadistic and loving, simple and complex. He works harder than any man I've ever met at loving those who are His pack. He makes mistakes, and makes amends, and He gets it right.  He fights for me. He is the man I trust with every part of who I am, and He celebrates me fully. He loves my darkness. He is my Wolf and my haven. He lives by the promise to hurt but do no harm. He includes me in his pack.

He includes me.

        I am welcome.
               I am wanted.
                          I belong.
I am at home in His woods, they are mine.



When the civilized world -- where darkness is a diversion locked away in boxes -- becomes too loud, too demanding too much to bear, I know I can come home to His woods and find that I have a place. There is a space in His heart and world only I can fill. I can escape to Him, and find my peace, my center, myself.

And so, I look to the future - into a new year - into a long life in His heart and at His side, and I know I belong to Him. He owns me, has earned my trust, and I am His ink-smudged poet-girl with the heart of a raven.  At his invitation, I will keep exploring. I will fly, I will hunt and play. I will grow and live and inspire words and wonder and the flight of others.

At the same time, I will forever be bound to His heart and life. Soon I will wear his collar, I will be tethered to Him as a bird to her Falconer, trusting Him to train me, care for me, protect me and love me. I hope to always make Him proud and happy He invited me in.

As he said, you are welcome in our forest. I know there are other girls out there like me, who long to find themselves in the dark and darker woods. I hope if you are that sort of girl, and you are reading here, you will be encouraged by my journey. There is a great big, off-the-beaten-path place for me, and for you. I hope you won't stop searching until you find it.

And mind your feathers and feet,

Phoenix

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.

~Christina Baldwin

by Temari 09 on Flickr

He said to me, “Baby, imagine being invited to witness the birth of a most incredible, beautiful creature you can imagine. That’s what it’s like to have you in my life.” …and he calls me his poet. Shepherd sees me as a being in the midst of rebirth. I suppose I see myself much the same way -- a sort of phoenix being reborn, not from the ashes of my life, but still, reborn. 

In a conversation with my young adult daughter last week, she confided in me that she sees herself as a curious person; eager to learn and to experience all life has to offer. She’s wondering about how that will translate into her most important, romantic relationship. She worries that she will get bored after choosing the one man to marry and raise a family alongside. My baby girl knows that monogamy isn’t her only option. She also knows that monogamy is a perfectly viable choice on her list. What struck me about her revelation is that I know exactly how she feels.

I remember as a young woman being excited about making those soul-connections with others. The majority of my friends were men, and I didn’t date all that much until I was a senior in high school. But there was something different in me, a hunger – a passion that many wouldn’t acknowledge, or at least some tried to discourage. “You’re too intense… too emotional… too idealistic.” I heard all these indictments from so called friends, and well meaning acquaintances.

At the age of nineteen, I was just beginning to explore the world when I found myself pregnant. Immediately the course of my life changed. My flight was grounded. I married, because it was the only choice given me. I began a family three months before my twentieth birthday. Four years later I had three babies, and was single again. Don’t misunderstand me, because I loved raising my kids. I was a damned good mother – the very best I knew how to be. I’m proud of the adults my children became, and of the investment I made to be their full-time mom.

However, a few years ago I worked myself out of that job as one by one, each of my children launched out on their own and began to fly. The grieving process for that separation was something I never anticipated, but in time I learned to accept that this was how life works. Watching them test their wings, I felt those old dreams fluttering to life in my spirit. It was time for me to go back and explore that life that I’d traded in exchange for motherhood and family, twenty years before.

Some would say that I am the woman who grew unhappy in her marriage, and went through a crisis, deciding to abandon all that I’d worked so hard to build for selfish reasons. I was feeling old, and realizing that my life was half over. So I went a little crazy, and decided I wanted more -- more men, more sex, and more life. The truth is that all those things are true, in a very narrow sense. But I didn’t become polyamorous overnight because the label fit the sort of life I’d just come to decide I wanted. I think this broken bird inside of me has always been waiting to spread her wings and chase those dreams that she earlier laid aside.

Now I find myself exploring, working, building the muscles it takes to fly, and it’s intense. It’s hard, and exhausting, and wonderful. I spend a great deal of time worrying and crying, thinking and communicating, writing and examining my heart. This life is complicated. This being reborn process is painful. But every time I break through and find that plateau where I can soar and rest and think about how truly fortunate I am – I realize the true worth of my struggles.

This is the intensity I’ve always craved. This complicated, painful, stretching rebirth is just who I am, and just where I belong. I’m glad others think it’s a privilege to witness. For me, living it is nothing less that truly amazing – and in the end, if someone who loves me is moved to poetry by the life I’m living, I’m truly blessed to be so loved.

I miss the Bruises, the Collar, the Submission

My soul is a broken field plowed by pain.
~ Sara Teasdale
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Stars hid your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires.
~ From The Talented Mr. Ripley
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"Intimacy is based on shared vulnerability...nothing deepens intimacy like the experiences that we share when we feel flayed, with our skins off, scared and vulnerable, and our partner is there with us, willing to share in the scary stuff"
~ From The Ethical Slut by Dosie Eastman and Katherine Liszt.
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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
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This post will probably be a crossover post both here and on my Concupiscence blog.   It concerns one of those gray areas in my life, not specifically categorized as my "ethical non-monogamy relationship style" or as my "kink."  These things have always been rather blurred around the edges.  In this case, I think a dual-post is warranted -- if only to let you, dear reader, know that I have other blogs, for your reading pleasure.  


The quote above by Anaiz Nin really speaks to me.  I want to be dominated, by a man I can trust.  I want to give my end of the tightrope to a man who can bear its weight and maintain the tension so that I can dance along it.  I want to look into his eyes and see the physical, mental and spiritual strength I need.  I want to know that he recognizes my intelligence, my strength, my beauty - and loves me enough to "sort me out" when it's needed, as Poppy would say.


I have two incredible relationships.  


Husband and I have known each other for more than forty years, and have been together for nearly twenty-five.  He is the man who has always taken care of me, spoiled me, watched out for me.  He is my rock, the father of my children, the Poppa to my grand-babies. (No, I'm not a grandma... I'm a Mimi - a sexier, younger version of a grandma.)  We've been friends since we were both fourteen.  He's loved me longer than anyone except my parents, grandparents and siblings.  I love him, and can't imagine a life without him.


Shepherd I've know not quite a year.  We met online and spent one Saturday talking about polyamory.  It's not like me to ask for someone's phone number, but at the end of the day, I did.  After several more conversations, I learned that Shepherd was a Top, and a sadist... I was just beginning to explore my submissive side, and to learn that I am a masochist.  I love  the relationship I have with Shepherd.  I didn't expect to fall in love with him so quickly, or so deeply, but I did.  The connection we share is amazing, and I am in awe of it, every single day.  We both have primary relationships, and we purposely honor the other loves in our respective lives. I love him, and plan to have him in my life for the next forty years.


I'm sure to some, what I'm about to say may sound selfish --- greedy.  But I want more.  I need more than what I'm getting from these two relationships.  I don't blame either of these men I love for not being who they cannot be.  They give me incredible happiness and   I would not change the nature of either relationship.  But I miss being dominated.  I miss knowing that someone is always there to sort me out, to push me to be my best, to use me and adore me.  


The thing is that much of what I need I get in my relationship with Shepherd.  He is very good at dominating me.  Being bottom to his Top is incredible.  But we only do this every 8-12 weeks when I fly to Dallas for the weekend.  As I said before, I wouldn't change the way Shepherd and I interact. He is just what I need him to be.  I miss him when we are apart.  But in terms of needing more than Shepherd and Husband, I miss being dominated, miss submitting completely to someone else's will.  I miss that constant presence, that strength hovering over me protectively.  I miss wearing a collar, and belonging to someone who will punish me when I need it, and reward me for being good.


The lines here are blurry.  Shepherd and Husband both protect me, and take care of me.  Shepherd uses me, bruises me, gives me the pain I need. I think perhaps the variable is mental and emotional.  I need someone different.  Someone who doesn't give me too many options, or too much leeway. I read sub girl's blog, and Poppy's submissions and her posts like this one on the blit she shares with Devlin, and I long for more.  I just wish I could figure out what it is I'm looking for... and how to get it.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeytingozlu/5193309272/)

I suppose this one is to be continued...


Mind your feet, and your legs and knees...