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rsadelleNote: I contemplated putting this behind an lj-cut for those of you reading at work. But then I thought about all of the other things I've said without putting them behind an lj-cut and didn't (and, quite frankly, if I were putting the entry behind a cut, the title should really go there too). If you regularly read at work and I'm causing trouble for you, let me know and I'll be a bit more liberal with the lj-cuts. Also, if you're reading this because we used to work together or you're a member of my family and I told you about my blog, then, uh, this might not be the entry you want to start with.
There are a lot of great things about my yoga class, but my absolute favorite part is yoga nidra (deep relaxation). We lie down in savasana, flat on our backs, arms and legs away from our bodies. When it's anything less than full summer, I pull on my socks and drape my blanket over me to keep me warm. Our teacher tells us that she's there and it's safe to relax. Then she guides us through tensing and relaxing each part of our bodies, then bringing our mind to each part and suggesting more relaxation, then relaxing our mind, then our breath (or possibly breath then mind; I'm usually under by that point), and then everything is quiet for about four minutes. At the end of the four minutes, she brings us back out by having us bring our attention to our breath, to our mind (or possibly mind then breath; the opposite of before), to our bodies, and finally back to the room.
A couple of months ago, I was having trouble with yoga nidra. I just couldn't let go into it. So I started giving myself a visual to work towards: "Lindsey looks gone, just...gone," which is from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
idyll's "The Hollow," a really hot Gunn/Lindsey BDSM hooker AU. In context:
A while after I'd settled back into my regular ease with yoga nidra, I read Deviations: Domination by Chris Owen and Jodi Payne (you may remember when I read the first one). In chapter 4, Tobias puts Noah in a sling, blindfolds and gags him, reassures him he'll still be there, and talks at him and touches him until he's deep inside himself, then just watches, moving the flogger to make sure there's sound to ground Noah, and then brings Noah back up with increasingly firmer touches and finally his voice.
***
When I was in college, one of my friends was in a newly-formed a cappella group which performed in a concert with a number of other a cappella groups who were not the big-name a cappella groups on campus. (Question for those of you who went to college elsewhere in the country: are college a cappella groups big all over, or is it mainly an East Coast thing?) One of the other groups was a Christian group. I don't remember what song it was, but one of their songs made me think: being a Christian (at least from the general evangelical perspective) is like being a sub; the idea in both cases is to give control of yourself over to someone else, whether that someone is Jesus or a dom. At the time, I thought it was a good perspective on why both Christianity and BDSM fascinated me without being anything I wanted to do: I'm a control freak, and the idea of giving up that control to someone else freaks me out.
At WisCon last year (2007), one woman in the BDSM panel mentioned, almost as an aside, that she likes to use Donne's "Batter my heart" (which I posted here) as a morning-after poem. I really, really, really wanted to ask the panel attendees about the connection between Christianity ("Batter my heart" is addressed, after all, to "three-person'd God") and BDSM, but I just wasn't comfortable enough. This entry is what I've been thinking about that sent me looking for both the text of "Batter my heart" and commentary thereon. Rambuss is the only one who even came close to what I wanted out of it. Most of the commentary Rambuss cites, as well as what he has to say, points out that the poet is asking to be ravished by God ("a trinitarian gang bang," Rambuss calls it), but I haven't been able to google up much of anything relating it to the power exchange of BDSM (at least nothing more than a passing remark).
***
I toldnorwich36 that I was into the sinking into subspace thing, and she sent me to "A Nice Friendly Game," which didn't work for me at all. My instinctive reaction was, "But he says no!" And I don't want people to say no. Because it's the consent that gets to me, the saying yes, the surrender.
The other thing that doesn't work for me is that Clark doesn't get it. He doesn't know what's going on. (You could make an interesting case for the story having some issues of questionable consent.) And maybe this is what I'm trying to get to here. What I think I'm getting at is the intent. I like intentional sinking in, where everyone knows (or is learning) what's going on. It's the soul reaching for God, not out or up, but in. "Inner peace is with us always," we say in our closing meditation in yoga, and it's hard to remember. Maybe what I'm after when I look for those sinking into subspace moments in a story is anything that provides that reminder.
***
The bit I've been fretting about with this entry is this, which I put after the paragraph about a cappella groups, but it breaks the flow, and I'm not sure I want it out there for the world, and I can't bear to leave it out: [Except. Except that I love yoga nidra. Except that one of the most relaxing things about going toallegram and dedalvs's wedding was that I wasn't really responsible for anything for the whole weekend - I didn't even have transportation of my own and so someone else always made sure I could get to where I needed to be. Except that what I find so hot about BDSM fic is the consent, the giving over of control.] I get that part of this (and my extremely detailed fantasy life where I'm a writer and my partner works) is that I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life and not having a job is scary and part of me wants someone to come along and make everything okay because being an adult is hard. Part of it, though, is that I always say that I'm a control freak and that while I've gotten much, much better about not trying to control other people, I still need to be in control of myself. And maybe what this is is my inner voice trying to tell me that I'm wrong about that, that if I just let go and surrender to God or the universe or the Tao or whatever you want to call it, and let it take care of me, then everything will be okay. The universe works exactly as it should.
Elizabeth Gilbert talked to her inner voice, and it said, "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW STRONG MY LOVE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!" I wonder what my inner voice will tell me if I can let go and listen to it.
There are a lot of great things about my yoga class, but my absolute favorite part is yoga nidra (deep relaxation). We lie down in savasana, flat on our backs, arms and legs away from our bodies. When it's anything less than full summer, I pull on my socks and drape my blanket over me to keep me warm. Our teacher tells us that she's there and it's safe to relax. Then she guides us through tensing and relaxing each part of our bodies, then bringing our mind to each part and suggesting more relaxation, then relaxing our mind, then our breath (or possibly breath then mind; I'm usually under by that point), and then everything is quiet for about four minutes. At the end of the four minutes, she brings us back out by having us bring our attention to our breath, to our mind (or possibly mind then breath; the opposite of before), to our bodies, and finally back to the room.
A couple of months ago, I was having trouble with yoga nidra. I just couldn't let go into it. So I started giving myself a visual to work towards: "Lindsey looks gone, just...gone," which is from
idyll's "The Hollow," a really hot Gunn/Lindsey BDSM hooker AU. In context:"Shit, Lindsey," Gunn chokes, and Lindsey's head lifts, just enough so that Gunn can see his eyes. "Shit," he says again, because Lindsey looks gone, just...gone and usually Gunn can only get him to look like that after an hour of working him hard.The image worked for me, and I could let myself go into that idea of being gone, just...gone, and after a while, yoga nidra was easy again, and I didn't need to work toward it.
A while after I'd settled back into my regular ease with yoga nidra, I read Deviations: Domination by Chris Owen and Jodi Payne (you may remember when I read the first one). In chapter 4, Tobias puts Noah in a sling, blindfolds and gags him, reassures him he'll still be there, and talks at him and touches him until he's deep inside himself, then just watches, moving the flogger to make sure there's sound to ground Noah, and then brings Noah back up with increasingly firmer touches and finally his voice.
***
When I was in college, one of my friends was in a newly-formed a cappella group which performed in a concert with a number of other a cappella groups who were not the big-name a cappella groups on campus. (Question for those of you who went to college elsewhere in the country: are college a cappella groups big all over, or is it mainly an East Coast thing?) One of the other groups was a Christian group. I don't remember what song it was, but one of their songs made me think: being a Christian (at least from the general evangelical perspective) is like being a sub; the idea in both cases is to give control of yourself over to someone else, whether that someone is Jesus or a dom. At the time, I thought it was a good perspective on why both Christianity and BDSM fascinated me without being anything I wanted to do: I'm a control freak, and the idea of giving up that control to someone else freaks me out.
At WisCon last year (2007), one woman in the BDSM panel mentioned, almost as an aside, that she likes to use Donne's "Batter my heart" (which I posted here) as a morning-after poem. I really, really, really wanted to ask the panel attendees about the connection between Christianity ("Batter my heart" is addressed, after all, to "three-person'd God") and BDSM, but I just wasn't comfortable enough. This entry is what I've been thinking about that sent me looking for both the text of "Batter my heart" and commentary thereon. Rambuss is the only one who even came close to what I wanted out of it. Most of the commentary Rambuss cites, as well as what he has to say, points out that the poet is asking to be ravished by God ("a trinitarian gang bang," Rambuss calls it), but I haven't been able to google up much of anything relating it to the power exchange of BDSM (at least nothing more than a passing remark).
***
I told
norwich36 that I was into the sinking into subspace thing, and she sent me to "A Nice Friendly Game," which didn't work for me at all. My instinctive reaction was, "But he says no!" And I don't want people to say no. Because it's the consent that gets to me, the saying yes, the surrender.The other thing that doesn't work for me is that Clark doesn't get it. He doesn't know what's going on. (You could make an interesting case for the story having some issues of questionable consent.) And maybe this is what I'm trying to get to here. What I think I'm getting at is the intent. I like intentional sinking in, where everyone knows (or is learning) what's going on. It's the soul reaching for God, not out or up, but in. "Inner peace is with us always," we say in our closing meditation in yoga, and it's hard to remember. Maybe what I'm after when I look for those sinking into subspace moments in a story is anything that provides that reminder.
***
The bit I've been fretting about with this entry is this, which I put after the paragraph about a cappella groups, but it breaks the flow, and I'm not sure I want it out there for the world, and I can't bear to leave it out: [Except. Except that I love yoga nidra. Except that one of the most relaxing things about going to
allegram and dedalvs's wedding was that I wasn't really responsible for anything for the whole weekend - I didn't even have transportation of my own and so someone else always made sure I could get to where I needed to be. Except that what I find so hot about BDSM fic is the consent, the giving over of control.] I get that part of this (and my extremely detailed fantasy life where I'm a writer and my partner works) is that I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life and not having a job is scary and part of me wants someone to come along and make everything okay because being an adult is hard. Part of it, though, is that I always say that I'm a control freak and that while I've gotten much, much better about not trying to control other people, I still need to be in control of myself. And maybe what this is is my inner voice trying to tell me that I'm wrong about that, that if I just let go and surrender to God or the universe or the Tao or whatever you want to call it, and let it take care of me, then everything will be okay. The universe works exactly as it should.Elizabeth Gilbert talked to her inner voice, and it said, "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW STRONG MY LOVE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!" I wonder what my inner voice will tell me if I can let go and listen to it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-06 04:35 pm (UTC)Does that mean it's going to be on the final? :p That will work for me.