:: Edgeliving: Master Jim and slave marsha ::

:: Saturday, July 10, 2004 ::

Regarding a Ceremony -- An Addendum to the Trapdoor Posts

i believe there is something about ritual and ceremony that speaks to all of us as humans. Whether or not we believe in God, the Goddess, Buddha, the Great Spirit, the Universe or any other "higher power," ritual and ceremony seem to resonate with almost all of us.

Rituals and ceremonies have been an important part of Master Jim's Master/slave relationship with me. He has used rituals and ceremonies to celebrate milestones in both His D/s and M/s relationships with me. He has used rituals and ceremonies to encourage both of us to keep traveling this path. He has used rituals and ceremonies to help me let go of things that were holding me back from more fully being His slave.

i don't intend to go much deeper into the role rituals and ceremonies play in this M/s relationship right now -- i hope Master Jim and i will do that in a future post. But i do want to add this "addendum" to what i wrote in the Trapdoor II post about things that can be done when the trapdoor opens beneath a slave's feet.

Master Jim and i will be presenting at Thunder in the Mountains this weekend in Denver. (i hope some of you will be there!) One of our presentations is entitled "There's Power in the Blood: Cutting as a Part of Ritual, Ceremony and Spirituality in Master/slave Relationships." The end of that presentation always involves a ceremony that includes a ritual cutting. The ceremony that we offer at the end of that presentation is always different and always relates to something that is happening in Master Jim's M/s relationship with me at the time.

As you might have guessed by now, Master Jim is designing the ceremony for Thunder to help me move past my trapdoor. It's called "A Ceremony of Transition and Opening for slave marsha -- Finding her Place." Through it, Master Jim believes i will find the certainty of my place with Him and will be better able to move on from my trapdoor experience.

But that's only part one of the whole Ceremony.

Because Master Jim and i do believe in some divine force, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me that another group (in Amarillo, Texas) asked us to do the same presentation just about a month after Thunder. The ceremony at the end of that presentation will be part two of the whole Ceremony, and is called "A Ceremony of Integration." It will involve both me and ryan, Master Jim's man in Service. Through it, Master Jim will help to integrate the three of us in the path we follow together.

If you feel called to offer support to us for one or both of these ceremonies, Master Jim invites you to do so. If you're planning to attend Thunder, it would be an honor to have you bear witness to the ceremony. If you are not able to be at the ceremony physically, perhaps you could offer support in whatever way seems right to you in honoring your path and/or spiritual practice. The presentation at Thunder begins at 11:30 am Rocky Mountain time on Sunday, July 18, so the ceremony itself will likely begin around 12:30 pm Rocky Mountain time and will be done by 1:00 pm. If you do feel called to offer support to us in some way, and if you are comfortable sharing how you did it, Master Jim and i would be grateful.

May each of you be blessed on your Journey.

--slave marsha

:: 12:11 PM [+] ::
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Trapdoors: What Do You Do When the Floor Drops Out From Under You (Part II)

If you’ve been reading this website over the past month or so, you know that i’ve been struggling with some issues – what i call the “trapdoors” that slaves may find themselves falling themselves falling through just when they least expect it. In my first post about those trapdoors, i said that i’d be back to talk about what we might do as slaves when we find ourselves plummeting through that trap door and the idea of being “safe” seems like a distant dream. Well, here i am. i can’t say that i’ve found any definitive answers, but let me share a few lessons that i learned from this experience, the hard way.

But before i get to the lessons, i need to say thank you, once again. Thank you to everyone who read that post and immediately reached out to me to say “you’re not alone.” i needed to hear that. Thank you to everyone who, to this day, still takes the time to ask, “How are you doing?” And most of all, thank you to my Owner, Master Jim. You reached down and pulled me out of the darkness.

So, you may ask, what can a slave do when he or she realizes the bottom has dropped out and the free fall has begun? Let me suggest that if we find ourselves in that position, we try to do the following three things:

1. Don’t panic: Remember the book by Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?” Although i don’t remember too much about the plot (was there one?), i do remember that the words “DON’T PANIC” were inscribed in “large, friendly letters” on the cover of the Guide.

And there is the first lesson i learned. Don’t panic when you feel like you’re falling through the trapdoor. Don’t decide you’re not meant to be a slave and that you’ll rip off your collar, just as soon as you can find the key to the lock. Don’t throw up your hands and decide nothing can be done. All of which is easier said than done, i know… because of course, when it happened to me, i promptly panicked and made everything worse. But if you can control your panic, you’ll be in a better place to move on to the next suggestion…

2. Don’t “spin”: Even if you control that urge to panic, it’s so very easy to “spin” anyway. What do i mean by “spinning?” You know – it’s that awful place where your thoughts go around and around, over and over the situation, never finding resolution or a way forward. You feel like you’re on a never ending fall. And when you spin, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to keep from going right back to panicking.

While Master Jim was working on trying to stop my spin, He and i both happened to hear a radio piece on a school of psychotherapy called Cognitive Behavior Therapy, or CBT. (Of course i think “cock and ball torture” when I hear the initials “CBT” – doesn’t everyone?) In CBT, the focus is on examining your thinking patterns – your “automatic thoughts” – to see which ones are distorted and are causing anxiety. The idea is to identify the repetitive thoughts whirling around in your head that keep you from really addressing the situation.

Well, that certainly sounded like me in a spin.

Master Jim tried the CBT approach with me by having me very specifically identify the thoughts going through my head that were causing me to panic and to act out. Once those thoughts were clearly stated and out on the table, He could address them with me. And once that happened, i began to feel safe again. Which brings me to the third lesson i learned…

3. Talk with your Owner: We slaves seem to have a fundamental aversion to going to our Owners at the time we need them the most – when we are afraid and struggling. Too often, we see our struggles as failures when in fact, struggling is part of our growth. When we are struggling is exactly when we need the strength and support of our Owners. They own all of us – not just the good, but the bad and the ugly, too.

One of the things Master Jim has been doing that has helped me a great deal is to ask me regularly, “How are you feeling?” He is encouraging me to talk – which makes me feel much less alone and afraid and allows Him to catch many of those automatic thoughts before they put me into a full-blown spin. Slaves, we have to remember that our Owners, as fabulous as they are, are not mind readers. They will have a very difficult time helping us if we don’t talk with them and aren’t honest and open about our problems. (Of course, honest and open are different from whiney, demanding, critical, manipulative or disrespectful. But that’s a subject for another day.)

As you read these lessons, you may be saying to yourself, “This isn’t exactly rocket science, is it?” And you’d be quite right. It’s all pretty basic and obvious – but oh so difficult to remember when you’re falling through the trapdoor.

--slave marsha

:: 3:54 PM [+] ::
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