Spiral Bound- Shibari You Can Use: Japanese Rope Bondage and Erotic Macramé
$21.99

Spiral Bound- Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond
$27.95

Why would you want a spiral bound copy?

• Ease of access for flipping pages open when doing ties
• Referencing pages and rituals repeatedly
• Not worrying about bent corners and broken book spines
• Easy to loan out to friends
• Great for adding index tabs for referencing your favorite ties or ideas
• …and more

Enjoy!

It was also a month of sadness, beauty, and transformation.  A relationship of three years and I turned the corner into friendship, but the loss was intense, as were the new gains as both of us have learned so much about ourselves and our journeys.  You can read some of my realizations over on my journal:
http://passionandsoul.com/journal/give-me-my-shadows-back
http://passionandsoul.com/journal/punishment-and-minimums
http://passionandsoul.com/journal/embracing-the-guru

I am madly working on my next solo book, while also editing an anthology called “Spirit of Desire.”  These authors are blowing me away in their honesty, refreshing insights, passion and vulnerability.  My own quest for and into these things has me off to do 3 weeks of intense ritual work on the east coast- 2 of the 3 still have tickets, see below.  During that time I will be flying in the air, connecting with the land, and finally marrying a man I fell deeply in in love with and want to commit myself to with all my heart- myself.

My swimming pool is fixed, my home has been transformed into having an actual office space, and every day I find myself more surprised and delighted by the world and my people in it.  I am grateful for the treasures the world has offered me, offered each of us- even (and perhaps especially) when they come wrapped in unexpected packages.

I have tons more below- lots of exciting classes, performances and more… read on and stay tuned!

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September and October 2010 Appearances/Classes/Events:

As always you can find complete class descriptions at http://www.PassionAndSoul.com ,
and I am available in select cities below (and nearby) for private classes, sessions, erotic life coaching work, and more on the dates before and after:

Maryland
September 3-6,  Primal Arts Festival,  http://www.primalartsfestival.com/
This weekend at an amazing retreat space, I will be performing to performance rituals with the amazing Ave Amnesia.  “Blind Trust” with involve blindfolds, aerial rope and trust, and “Caught Up In Our Own Wor(L)ds” will channel fear, anger, fabric, words, bondage and heartache into a long installation and passionate show- come join us!

W. Massachusetts
September 10-12, Dark Moon Rising, http://paganbdsm.org/dmr/
No, I’m not teaching- I’m taking a weekend off!  And, for the pagan bdsm folk out there, it is a rustic camping event with hooks, love, food, challenges, classes… and I’ll be there having quality time with friends.

Maryland
September 15-20, Dark Odyssey Summer Camp, http://www.darkodyssey.com/
D.O. time again! This year I am running Sex-O-Rama and doing two rituals- “Astral Shapeshifting” and “Falling In Love with Ramblewood: A Mindfulness Hike.”

Denver, Colorado
September 23-24, Fascinations, http://www.funlove.com/
Fascinations is having me out to their Denver location, teaching Kink 101 and Bondage for Lovemaking.  It’s been quite some time since I made it to Denver- about time!

Phoenix, Arizona
September 25, Arizona TNG, http://www.tng-az.org/
Join me for a TNG double header- Splish Splash: Splosh, Food and Wet and Messy Play followed by the Food and Kink themed Play Party.

September 30, (L)Earn Your Leather Skills AZ,  http://passionandsoul.com/azleather
As part of my fundraiser series as Arizona LeatherSIR 2010, I am teaching Kink 101 in a $0-30 sliding scale class to introduce folks of any experience level to a wide variety of sexual and kink practices and concepts.

October 7, (L)Earn Your Leather Skills AZ, http://passionandsoul.com/azleather
A week later the fundraising education continues as I teach Impact Play- Spanking, Paddles and Canes, Oh My! ((Note the NEW DATE!!))

Charleston, South Carolina
October 15-18, A Weekend with Lee Harrington, https://www.wepay.com/tickets/buy/462
Join on my first trip to South Carolina, as I do an action packed weekend… the weekend ticket includes 5 classes, a performance and a party- what a deal! I am teaching (Fri) Punching/Kicking, (Sat) Open Hearts, Rope Sex, (Sun) Beyond Bowed Heads, Breath Play; plus performing a suspension show Saturday night.

Christchurch, New Zealand
October 22-24, Southern Exposure, http://southernexposure.gen.nz/
I will finally be back in New Zealand after 4 years!  The lineup is fantastic of other folks from around the globe, and I will be teaching Punching/Kicking, Open Hearts/Open Minds, Sacred Kink, and What Labels Give Us… as well as leading a group ritual.  It’s a great destination event, as well as fun for locals, check it out.

Seattle, Washington
October 28, Winter Fetish, http://winterfetish.com/classes.html
I will be teaching Breath Play at this new venue in Seattle, hosted by one of the American queens of fetish wear design.

October 29-31 Center for Sex Positive Culture, http://www.sexpositiveculture.org
During Halloween weekend I will be doing quite the lineup at the CSPCC- Teaching Punching/Kicking on Friday; Be Yourself or Someone Else and Pain Processing on Saturday; and of course Sacred Kink Sunday, on Samhain itself

October 30-31, Strowler Nights, http://www.strowlers.com/events/strowler-nights
That weekend I will also be across town at this amazing music and performance festival, doing rope bondage performances between live music, circus freaks, steampunk artists, and so many others.

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Looking beyond October!

In the next few months I have all kinds of other adventures, classes and intensives planned… am I coming to a city near you soon?
If not, feel free to contact me at Lee@PassionAndSoul.com to see if we can help make it happen.  For more up to date information, and for schedule details further into the future, please visit my calendar at:
http://www.PassionAndSoul.com

November
Phoenix, AZ; Chicago, IL; Worcester, MA; Boston, MA
December
Phoenix, AZ

I also have other plans for 2011 in the works, such as the next Delving Into Power, which will be the first weekend of February in Seattle, WA.  There are of course other plans too… super secret ninja plans!

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Want more of me? Well, you can keep up with my life, adventures and art at:

Twitter - http://twitter.com/PassionAndSoul
My raw mind, brought to you a few times a day.  Sometimes I share links, other times inspirational quotes, and its a great way to keep up with where I am in the world during my travels.  It also includes by AudioBoo stream, my audio rambles from the road.

FetLife - http://fetlife.com/users/24336
This amazing erotic adventurer’s networking site is an invaluable tool for me, and I have the “PassionAndSoul Student Lounge” there for people with questions or things they would like sharing from classes they have been to.

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/passionandsoul
I have totally fallen in love with facebook. I have a fan page (search for Lee Harrington) that fans built for me, plus I regularly post pictures, update via my twitter feed, and more!

…and of course my website - http://www.PassionAndSoul.com
My pride and joy- keep up on my calendar, read essays by me, find my artwork, download audio classes, enjoy my books, and so much more!

I look forward to seeing you all in person or online!

With Passion and Soul,
Lee Harrington
http://www.PassionAndSoul.com
Artist, Educator and Shaman

Tonight I found myself talking with someone else who energetically feeds to keep their emotional, physical and mental health in check, and as part of a tribal community of other psychic/energetic vampires with a specific culture of their own.  I asked her how often she fed.

Oh, when I realize I have been being cranky or rude, I do, she commented.

So, when you are hungry, you go feed?

Well, yes, as soon as I can after that.

So, when you are starving?

It is fascinating to me that there is a lack of language in much of the psychic vampire community around when to feed.  I see the same issue in other relationships and communities as well.  These issues apply to the kink community, polyamory, and hell, interacting humans and other two-legged folks as well.

So, in our standard culture, when do we eat?  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Midnight snack, Tea… they are all cultural cues as to when to feed or fuel our physical form.  Other dietary cultural systems exist as well- the grazing, for example.  But when we are presented with the classic three meals a day model, there is a fascinating tool available for the eater.  Culture has said “it is morning- eat something.”  Though some parts of our world, some family traditions and habits, dictate what we should eat and how much… the tool called “meal” has the potential to be an amazing resource.  We wake and go to eat this breakfast meal- how hungry are we?  Do you want a bagel, or a handful of raspberries, or a 3-egg and cheese omlette with a side of waffles and gravy?

Our culture gives us the power to ask this question, do I need fuel, three times a day (or more).  Compulsion and habituation aside, it is a fascinating tool.  One that allows us to ask “how hungry am I” before we are hungry and grabbing for the first thing we can find.

This does not happen oftentimes in the psi-vamp community.  We wait until our batteries are on fumes or out, and hope we have somewhere not too far away and not too hard to work for.  We wait until we are assholes, to fix the issue, instead of having a system of regular check ins with ourselves and a culture to ask others in our tribal systems if they are hungry, before they are starving.

The same thing happens in the BDSM community.  We have built up a culture of safewords- tell me when we go too far, rather than happy words- tell me when you are happy or content with where we have gone and can end on a high note.  We do this in relationships, waiting until we are “lonely” to go looking at internet chat sites or dive into the dating pool, instead of going in when we have space in our heart for being happy still without partnership.

The psi-vamp community also has an ancient cultural issue.  Within the mythologies and truths of many, there is personal gnosis (verified and unverified) that in the past they were worshipped as gods, and their food was brought to them.  How does one ask to eat, when one was always simply brought food in abundance?  How do we learn to ask for our needs when we were used to being catered to?  Still anchored in that place, instead of 2010, profound sorrow and hubris can blend into a place that leaves those with non-normative fuel needs for full functionality operating in erratic manners and ways.

For what does a starving man do?  They beg.  They borrow.  They steal.  They resort to dumpster diving or withering away.  They get food boxes that are full of peas and carrots that have not seen their pea and carrot souls in many many years.

The same is true of the starving energetic thirst.  We beg.  We coerce.  We steal.  We resort to dumpster diving at clubs or withering away locked in our homes.  We go to anywhere desperate people are that have not seen their envigorized souls in many years.

We are what we eat, are we not?

I would like to see a cultural expansion, not just amongst psi-vamps, but amongst the world at large.  Cultural tools that can be put in place to ask each other if we are hungry, before we are starving.  Because we have all been attacked by starving mouths hungry for love and connection- people who we offered one smile to and then could not shake off.  What if we could cut this off before it becomes leech-like?  What if there were a way to encourage folks to get their needs met before they are on empty?

Today I am full.  Today I am happy and beaming, knowing I am loved.  Today I processed with a former partner, made dreams with a current one, had visions of passion revealed by someone that wraps up my heart… and I am soaring.  Today 6 random people sent me hugs or similar by text or email, and I folded space and time to pack my frame pack for my next trip.

But I am already considering for myself- what will I do?  How will I ask myself, in a few days… are you hungry?

Ming and I ended our three year relationship six weeks ago now.  Today we fished through the pieces by phone, words trying to find their way to answers for each of us.  The puzzle is there, something beautiful… and by putting it all together we are both the sort of people that hope to find answers for next time- next iteration of what it means to be Lee and Ming (as friends, associates, or whatever might come) and for what might come next down the road for each of us.  To pour it out, not have to carry a burden.

Today I hit on a few major points for me, that I had not put words to before:

• Disappointment is a form of punishment in my eyes
• Punishing D/s partners by not allowing them access is often more painful for me, the Dominant, than them… or equal, and everyone looses
• I am walking the path of Guru and Owner, not Trainer/Teacher or Caretaker.  I can and do visit the other two, but it is not mu current core in D/s
• I refuse to punish a dog for not doing my filing
• As a Guru, I want people in my world who will show up for the work, not have to drag them in kicking and screaming

When we come to a Guru, we come ready to learn, ready to work.  Obliteraters of darkness, guides on the path, teachers of our true heart, do not know everything.  They do however offer up a mirror by walking their own path with integrity, they channel divinity, they serve as oracles.  When I come to learn from a Guru, I have done my work in advance, and am willing and able to show it.  If I have not done that pre-work, I hold myself responsible for that fact, own it, and ask for assistance when I need it.  Sometimes the answer comes as “chop wood, carry water” and other times it is a few points of guidance, or weeks of one on one work that dives us deep.

In the matrix of dominant archetypes that Brent Dill and I designed (it will eventually be in the Delving Into Power book when it comes out), there are 4 major ones (and 16 sub-varieties).  Owner.  Caretaker.  Teacher/Sensei.  Guru.  None is better than another.  They are simply what they are.  Many of us visit all of these in a relationship, or hold different core roles with different relationships and different places in life.  When I am Daddy, I very much embrace Caretaker, sometimes to a fault.  But the core of where I am walking right now in my D/s is Guru and Owner, while I visit Caretaker and Sensei is what I do for a living and thus get many of those needs fed.

When Ming and I found our first terms for what we were, we chose “Sir/Service Slut.”  Not just that, MY Service Slut, was what was written on the leather band she still owns.  MY is important for me.  I believe in collecting and utilizing valuable things.  I do not use the word “things” to dehumanize- I am an animist and believe that all things have soul, purpose, energy, dharma.  I like knowing what a thing can do, and what it excells at.  Objects (one of the 4 submissive archetypes, along with Pet, Student and Acolyte) are important in the world.  Where would we be without cars (are you a prius or a corvette?), furniture, musical insturments, computers, and our favorite sweater?  This notion applies for me across the board, no matter what archetype someone sits in for me.   What can this thing do, how much upkeep does it need for return on investment, what can I ask of it?

Thus, I collect and utilize valuable things in my world.  I set those things up for highest success, because a horse at full health can win the race!  If I yell at a violin for not being a good hammer, what role does that serve?

Ming tells me her vision of D/s as we talk- that there need to be consequences.  But of what type, and whom do they serve.  If I order a dog to do my filing, and it gnaws on the paper, then curls up in a corner, should I chastize it for its inability to follow through?  If I give the order again, go file for me, and it just blinks… is it my fault, or the dog’s, that the filing has not happened?  When I am asking a new command, setting a new protocol, or anything like that- when it is new, I do not always know how it will turn out.  Do you, my human partner, have this capacity, and the ability to do it with excellence?  What might be easy for you to do, such as driving a car to the store, for me is an ordeal beyond measure, and against the pacts I have made in this lifetime.  It’s just getting the car and driving to the store, what is the big deal you ask.  Its easy for you.  Not for me.

So it is with those I am in dynamics with.  In relationship of any sort with.  What does this person do well, and how do we set all of us up for success?  If I ask you to do daily reports to me, and those do not happen, I ask why have they not happened?  Ah, typing is hard.  Fantastic- let’s get voice recognition software. We go back in and still, with the new software, daily reports do not happen.  I ask why have they not happened?  Ah, my life has been busy.  Well, a text message is enough to get my goal met of hearing from you and seeing a few wins, and making you reflect on the good stuff every day I say.  Fantastic.  The daily posts still don’t come.  I stop asking.  I assume that this is not something you can give right now, even if your heart is in it.

There is fault there, for all.  Fault that the work was not done, yes, but fault on my part for not demanding it.  But how much do we demand, and how much do we simply open up our hearts and wait?  As a trainer, when I visit that head space, I can walk the dog through the tricks, teach it new things, have large swaths of compassion for its struggles and repeat the lessons over and over.  But with humans, with those who say and demand even to be at a different level (not better or worse, just different) than that, if I repeat the same lesson 3 times and it has not been learned, perhaps the student is not ready for this yet.  They need time to sit with the cohen, consider it, reflect on its nature.

When I have to struggle someone into submission every time I see them, it can be hot, but also hard work.  What feeds my soul is not the struggling, but the joyous revelation of light after the storm has passed.  Thus, if all I get is the struggle, it mimics my desires, it gets me hot and turned on, it fuels my body- but does not reinvigorate my heart.

What is different with Aiden, she asks.  Aiden is my long term friend and lover who petitioned me two years ago to potentially enter service, and I was not ready.  We have decided to do a 1 month agreement between us, try on some terms and labels, stretch ourselves within this new confine, see where the horses can roam within their new fence, see how it goes.  I sit and reflect.  Body language and core empathy for my experience, I respond.

When Aiden walks into a room, I know what head space he is in.  Chin down, eyes up, biting lip, hands behind his back- flirtatious and service oriented, blushing at his desire to submit as a strong individual.  Speed walking, eyes down- we have somewhere to go and I will not register what you say.  Arms crossed, one eyebrow up, sideways smirk- I will do it, but I think you are absurd.  If he wants me to engage with him in service space, he can assume that pose, from years of practice in getting folks to engage with him as a highly social human, and I can slip into receiving service.  I do not have to throat him to get a cup of tea.  And, when I see him in a space, through that body language, I can choose whether or not I change his body language to get where I want him to be- through words, or deeds, or a look, or a growl… or whether I will take him in the space he is in and match him- because sometimes as the dominant partner, I feel I am best served by listening to the wisdom and greatness before me.

If an individual in relationship with me repeatedly tells me they want one thing, then does another- I wonder if there is internal honesty.  Do they actually want that thing, or is there a “should” in play.  I should want to submit.  I should want to serve.  I should be sexually drawn that way.  We should all over ourselves.

We all carry shoulds.  I certainly do.  I should be working.  I should have stayed and played.  I should fight harder to keep those I love.  I shouldn’t be such a push over.  Some come from past programming, some are our internal soul contracts signed before we were born of the lessons we need to learn on this cycle of samsara.

Core empathy is another difference between many recent folks in dynamic with me and Aiden.  At Floating World, a 1200+ person kink event in New Jersey that we just attended, they do not allow cell phones.  So, we set our schedule for date times before the event began- times we would connect, or attend a class together, so that we had face time guaranteed- as he and I are both social butterflies at times, or in my case, prone to falling into deep conversations in corners at the drop of a hat.  On Saturday, we had agreed to meet at a class and attend it together.

Well, me being me, I got caught in one of those conversations.  Quick lunch grab turned into chats between Mollena Williams, Fakir Musafar, and another lovely gent.  I showed up to class fifteen minutes late, and Aiden was not there.  Mollena and I took in the class together instead, and it was a good time- but I wondered where my Boy was, and what had happened.

I looked around the event, searching here and there, as following through on commitments is a core value for me, and our agreement also states that repeat lack of following through is not okay.  No punishment listed, just not okay.  I need folks who keep their word, and own when they can not.  If you can’t- cool, I am good with that.  Just tell me, simply- no big drama, no excuses, no yelling and crying- just say “hey, I said this, but this is what life looks like- what can we do?”  So, I found him in vending, and we started talking.

First, the story came out.  The story always comes out.  How he had been there on time, and had waited ten minutes, and the class was boring, and I wasn’t there, and there was another class, and…

Stop.

I get it.  I was fifteen minutes late, random beauty had happened… but on my way there I had been saying “good thing Aiden is there taking notes for me, it will be okay that I am fifteen minutes late.”  His shoulders dropped, his eyes got big.  He got it, I was disappointed not to see him there, not to have that shared experience, and on a practical front he had not served me as I had hoped for.  But, I went on, shit, or random beauty, happens.

At any other event, he would have texted me (hooray technology) and asked where I was, then if no reply, sent another note saying he was going to the femme identity panel instead.  But this was Floating World.  The new plan?  Grab a piece of paper and leave me a note near the door of the space we were supposed to meet at.  Easily done.

The difference was that my being let down and disappointed was actually a form of punishment for him.  I did not have to cut off contact, or make him do push ups (though that would be hot), or yell at him.  He got that I was sad, and as a partner, wanted to know how we could fix it.  Okay, so he went into more story/drama first about the challenges there were- but I had the power to say stop, breathe, let’s just tackle this, shall we?

I own that I did not do that with Ming.  She would get into story, into drama, into challenges… and I did not know where my power really lay to stop that behavior.  Stop was not enough- I would have to energetically throat her, dominate her- and that is a lot of work.  For asking for a daily love note, and that I like my water without offending citrius?

When someone comes to me to be in partnership, or to play, I wonder, why me?  Is it me they want, or a packaging, or a concept, or a toy or tool?  Do they want to just not be lonely, or can we actually make something good here, something that both of us can be better during, and after.  Ming came into my life to teach me language, compassion, hope, visualization, and my own capacity for higher power and potential.  Her role in doing this does not end when our D/s dynamic end, any more than my former husband Adam’s role of teaching me laughter, touch, recovery, empathy, body wisdom and creativity did not end when he and I got divorced hand in hand after walking back to where he proposed to me, and reading the prayers that were given to us at our wedding.

Today I finally got a few things.  I got why folks go to to the same classes multiple times, because they were not the same person last time they went.  I got why I transitioned into a full time Daddy space to “save” my relationship with Ming, but in doing so fed her heart and starved mine.  I got that follow through is a core value, and a hard one for me internally having dreamed so many dreams but without a large enough army to do them all for me and make then happen.

So I sit here as Guru on my mountain, Dragon flying over this land, Bear walking his territory.  I take it all in, I carry what I can.  I live and learn and grow.

It is the end of August, 2010, and I have been doing public kink stuff for 15 years now.  My scene-iversary was about 2 weeks ago.

Why is it that we do what we do?  Passion, need, communion, desire, connection, community?  Lust, depravity, shadow, fear, longing?  I sat in the mowed grass outside the house party with my best friend and we stared up at the moon singing Rainbow Connection while we listened to the cacophony inside.  Why do we do these, again, we ask ourselves.  When my passions lie nowadays in connection, coersion, ownership, possession, queer energy, and sexually being used (in some mash up), why am I at a mostly straight party yet again, throwing service rope?

I have danced in and out and through these questions before.  Two weeks ago I was at a play party and realized, halfway through breathing deep into a beautiful creature’s eyes, that I was drunk again.  That because I missed my former partners so much and felt so very alone in my core that I had let my social drinking become full blown using again.  Again.  The dance continues.

So I went dry.  So why am I at a party where one of the folks said he looked forward to having me drunk in his bed.  Why can’t you want me in your bed, sober?  Why can’t we go here eye to eye, love to love, cock to cock?  Add strobe lights, loud music, and a desire to not be doing all of this community and party dance thing, and we decided to leave early.

My friend, as we sit outside, asks me what sort of party I would prefer.  I flash to meatloaf, I flip to photo parties, I spin on feasting from nude women on Seattle floors.  Give me 3-10 friends in a private setting, with moderate level music and good food!  Give us seeder conversations and flirtation, playfulness and sexual tension.  I want parties where it could turn into deep philosophy, pure delight or hungry rutting at a moments notice.  Let it be tasty, comfortable, delicious!

I am so tired of, as Moo phrased it, Techno Mariachi.  Music that I can’t tell track from track, music too loud to talk.  I am so frustrated right now by yet another whipping, yet another spanking, yet another unconnected tie.

Do not mistake me.  Big parties, house parties, fetish balls- they can all be excellent.  Only 2 months ago I swayed in time with 35 hot leathermen of all shapes, sizes and ages (from 22 to 79) in a loft in San Francisco- hot tubs and group sex piles, fisting and tit pumps, single tails and lingering kisses.  I talked the night away, between groping and long smiles, feeling completely at home.  2 weeks ago in Minnesota I flew sideways in a self-suspension off the side of a jungle gym before feeding from the chi freely given of a blue-haired elf, and fueled up found the bravery to kiss a gleaming heart pounding before me.  Magic can happen, gods so often, at these events.

But these are connection, queer energy, sexual pig bottoming.  These were holding on for the ride and flying high on potential.  But the other half the time I feel I would rather stay home and watch a film, curl up with a bowl of popcorn, laugh at the dumb parts.

Sexuality is my full time living.  Ming once told me that I live in other people’s highlight reel.  That other folks get to do maybe one big kink event a year.  I do 1-2 a month.  Other folks hit a party a few times a year.  I am out almost every weekend in a different city, sometimes more than one a weekend.  It has, I am acutely aware, skewed my perspective.

If I demand excellence, why am I coming out when I know that I will not be engaging at a level of excellence?  Addiction and habitual behavior to mask loneliness and fears of abandonment takes many forms.  Drinking, drugs, yes- but submerging my desires in the easy route out of my head is a habitual behavior as well.  Disassociation has been an ally of mine for so long that I don’t always see it creep in, but there it was as blue wrapped around.  Would you like to tie me up?  Sure- what is hot about rope for you?  About playing with me?  She blinks, tells me that she just has not been in rope for a long time, wants to be decorated is all.  I become a rope dispenser, a vending machine for simple wants and needs.  I try to take it in for what it is, decide to not just sit there the lump, sure, maybe I will have fun being a pure artist.

But I’m not in my skin.  Again.

I flash back 15 years.  Victor Moray asks if he can use my back to teach someone flogging at Beyond the Edge Cafe.  I smile and bubble, sure Victor!  I take off my top and the two of them work back and forth… as I read The Stranger.  Only one person notices.

My friend tonight is out of it too.  After the second engagement (It wasn’t even service topping, as I was not present enough to really be of service, just a machine spitting out ebi ties) I ask if he wants to leave.  Folks drop- leaving so early? I have been here 4 hours, and too many folks are high or drinking heavily.  When I was one of them, that was easy.  Keeping on turning down it all is hard.  Why am I turning it down I wonder if I am turning off anyway?

There is a difference between using drugs and having them use me.  Symbiotic use of ethneogens in controlled energetic settings is one thing, and I do walk the path of sacred plants once in a very blue moon.  But regular use, or more, a need to hide behind a shield, a wall, a castle with deep moats is another.

I don’t remember my past life window between 1955 and 1979 or so.  A former client tells me I was his wife then.  But I do remember the early 50s.  I remember wearing a tweed pencil skirt sitting on stage with rapt attention as Aldous Huxley spoke.  I remember fighting a few weeks later with my beau.  I remember the loneliness.  I remember the cold water as I hit it, from the bridge.   It is my only firm memory of suicide, beyond my dances near that line this lifetime.

But I close my eyes when I am walking dead, and remember the ashen taste in my mouth from the lands of the dead, remember…

Life is so full of light, of shadow, of thunderstorm clouds and lingering kisses!  The notion of walking through it behind a mask, shielded myself from being here on this plane when I know how well to be here, so very here… it seems like such a waste.  Why am I spending four hours in a half lived half dead disconnected space when I could be wringing deep work, changing the world, having fantastic conversations, or curling up with a good book?

This is not about this party, these friends.  This is about how I interact in this world.  The world at large, and the world at kink as well.

I think I need to reinstate my “no going out without intent” rule again.  I did this a few years back for a while.  That before I go out, I have to gut check myself, make sure I have a reason I am doing it beyond a feeling of guilt or empty obligation.  Because I have not seen my friends in a while is a valid reason, because I am afraid my friends will not be my friends and guilt trip me that “it has been so long” when it has only been two months is not.

I may also just be low on juice for being social- my “alone” batteries and “small group only with no obligation” batteries having run low.

I am thirty.  I have now been part of the public kink community for half my life.  My first slave boy was my age when I started topping him.  And I am sitting now at a computer desk much like the one I had at that age.  Full circle.  Similar habits, spirals in and around, new lessons each time.  I have no interest in taking twelve steps, or diving into pharmaceuticals to lock me into being here.  But the thoughts are fresh from two weeks ago, two weeks without a drink etc.- it shouldn’t feel like such a big deal.  And yet, somehow it does.  It feels like a really big deal tonight as I stare at the collection of booze in my house.

The gold is heavy on my neck.  Heavy lessons to re-learn, anchor into my skin.  Two weeks to my wedding to myself, one week until I dance through silence and pain, three weeks until I help others fall in love with land I love so well.  And I find myself facing the addiction and dissociation work again.  Again.  But I know I am waiting on the other side of this work, I see his eyes, her eyes, their eyes wrapped in fur and feathers.  I hear growls and moans and sweet lips singing songs.

Fifteen years in.  I look forward to the next fifteen, ever more present to me and the world.

I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it.
It’s something that I’m supposed to be.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

I am not that Master.  I am not that Sir.

Over the years I have stumbled my way through my relationships, even as I help others find their own course.  I assign folks to read books like Intellectual Foreplay, challenge them in three day weekends like Delving Into Power, push people to their highest potential.  But how much of the work have I done for myself and my own relationship journey?  Likely more than the lay person, but not as much as I wanted to have done.  But I breathe in, remember I am still on the journey, forgive myself, and try to be a better partner next round.  Each round, a little better of a partner, for myself and for others.

I have done punishment and firm hand in relationships before, because a Slave who was part time mine asked me to help him with some of his work, his goals.  Each time he did an infraction to his own list of issues, I noted the number to him.  After a year together, we finally hit ten.  We set aside the night for punishment- this could not please me.  I had no interest in creating a subconscious effect in his mind that misbehaving would lead to any pleasure on my part.  We set aside the evening and I beat him.  I hurt him.  I left him with marks he carried with him, and no joy from it for either of us, no bliss.  Love, yes love, but only in a “I wish neither of us had to be here” love sort of way.

Two years of relationship after that night, and he and I ended on six.

I hated that night.  I am able and willing to do that work, help someone course correct on their own goals… but on my desires, I have realized I think differently.

I want you to want to serve me.  To want to be with me.  To remember the things that matter, or take the time to make notes and look at them.

I am someone who has, in the past, been very deeply affected by disappointment.  I have had a lot of people talk big dreams, weave big stories, and after convincing me to buy in emotionally to the fact that the honeymoon, the gang bang, the vacation, the home made dinner, the date night, is actually going to happen… it doesn’t.  Another excuse, another (often very valid) reason it didn’t happen.  But I still invested, I still got excited, I still was let down.

So I stopped investing.  I stopped expecting.  I tell folks in my life to surprise me instead, to buy me presents randomly from my wishlist, whisk me away, show me more than I dreamed of.  This is easier when I don’t dream- a bitter thought, but one I have had on my tongue in various parts of my life from time to time.

What I do instead is gauge people.  I did not use to do in consciously, but I know I do it.  I ask little things, set the bar low.  Can they do the minimums?  Do they surprise me, show that they can do more?  Can I meet the minimums they ask of me?  Can we do 101 before we move onto 301?

So when I ask that someone do a small daily task, or call me once a week, or be ready to leave so we can go catch a friend’s play… and consistently they can not deliver?  My mind assumes they do not have the capacity to do more than that.  I check in with them, ask them what is up, what can we do for highest success for everyone?  If I need to hear from someone a few times a week to feel connected, and you can’t call- can we email?  Text?  Skype?  Twitter?  Send letters?  Smoke signals?

For a long time I thought I must be a demanding human to not get my needs met, but what I realized recently was that I was not clear that these were NEEDS.  Not wants, not desires, not dreams- these little “stupid” things are core values of my heart, things that make me feel connected, allow me to engender trust with a partner.  For example, I recently drafted up a covenant with a new Boy in service to me, and it hit me, a few points that really… really are needs for me.  It took me by surprise to see them on the page, so clear.  As I stared at them, as they applied to him, it made me think about my needs in all relationship, and it suddenly became clear how I had not stated clearly that these things are things I, Lee, needed.  And not just that, but if you expect more than minimums from me, I need them met.  I can change them, require less, but in my mind I take that person from someone I can dream big with, to someone I need to not expect stuff from.  Someone I should be tickled at to get anything at all from.

So I created a list, today, of what I need from all relationships I am in that are romantic or D/s in dynamic…

• Touch base/connect a minimum of 3 times a week (separate encounters- one flurry of texts does not count for the week’s minimum)
• Some sort of calendar system to notify me when school/work/dates are so I can treat you as is needed for highest success.
• Date night (minimum 2 hours, pre-set for chat/skype/phone/etc) a minimum of once a month.
• Both parties agree to clear new relationships with the other before having them transition from temporary to full-time status.
• Both parties agree to keep “dramatis personae” list updates with each other, with new dramatis personae notified to the other within 7 days.
• Both parties agree to be transparent about their ability to engage in requested engagements in any direction, including but not limited to their emotional state, how busy they are, if they are distracted at that moment, etc.
• Both parties agree to try their best to not bullshit themselves or each other.
• Both parties agree to laugh and share joy with one another.

It was pretty big for me.  Now don’t get me wrong- I am happy to have relationships and play partners and friends I see and hear from once a month, see once a year.  Those are still valid and delightful relationships.  Those are not what I am talking about.  I am talking about folks who consider me a Partner, their Sir, their Master, etc.

And then it hits, hard- these minimums apply for me too! If I consistently don’t deliver on them, what does that say about my internal thoughts on this relationship?  If I start negotiating a new relationship without talking to the old, where is my head at?  It’s a great gut check for me- can *I* do the 101 before jumping to the 301?

If you can’t do the basics I ask for as my needs, how can I ask for my dreams?

I don’t feel I can.

I keep my dreams wrapped up here, next to my heart.  Wrapped up in layers with names on them, names like Home and Oprah and Peace and Passion.  Layers of leather and linen, cloth of gold and oak leaves.

I don’t want to beat you.  I want to coerce you into being in my vision of love and beauty, welts and moans dancing across your lips.  I don’t want you to fear doing something wrong and being punished.  I want you to wow me and be spoiled rotten.  I want you to beg for my ferocity, not to fear that I will raise my hand.  I have little interest in cowering pups.  I collect powerful people, willing to work for their dreams.  Willing to open their own wrappings around their dreams, give me space to do the same, and together take over the world.

Blow me away.  Give me more than my minimum needs.  We both deserve it.  The whole world deserves us, all of us, every single one of us, at our greatness.

And we fucked on the loading dock.

On hands and knees, lips bit into one another as we broke into a U-haul and in the dust and dirt our bodies pushed against one another. His hair was in my hands, his teeth on my thighs, our sighs echoing against our own palms not wanting to be heard, but also not caring. His fingers wound their way inside my holes as I bucked and squirmed against him, hungry for more. That’s right fag, take it.

Outside, perfectly lit play areas were patrolled by dungeon monitors in orange safety vests. Areas were demarcated for what could happen where, drop cloths down for wax play, areas set aside for blood, whip corridors well labeled to avoid anyone getting hurt by a thrown single tail back swing. We couldn’t play there. Our play was dirty, hot, sweaty, depraved. Our lust called for shadow, for taboo, for a hunger in the dirt, rutting and fucking in the dust.

The modern version of kink has evolved into a sterilized place of analyzed desires and negotiated encounters. We have shined the neon light of analysis upon the shadows of our desires to make it safe, sane, consensual. We comfort ourselves by becoming risk aware, taking classes on how to hurt, but never to harm.

The kink community has become throat and third eye chakra. We analyze our desires, make it acceptable, understandable. We play above our heart. I long for root chakra play, where my loins call to fuck, where my body finds another, where we build up our pain and pleasure into a frenzy of desire. Give me body wisdom over intellectual intelligence in my slutdom.

I make my living here in the ajna, here at my third eye, gazing into minds and into the world beyond, and at the throat, my words echoing into the world. Letters become words become sentences become paragraphs become tales that change lives. I help individuals understand, but what do we set aside in the understanding?

In my teen years I spent time on and off as an Ave Rat, a street punk, a wanderer, a shaman of the concrete corridors. I cast my deal with Trash and said that I would always honor the trash-touched, would feed those I could, would not turn down an honest ask for funds. I am cast off, and one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. In that window I ate out of trash cans, food off the ground, good food, cast aside. Like me.

I have a sexualized fetish nowadays for being ordered to eat food off the ground, out of trash cans, be on the ground, hungry and needing. The pop psycho-analysis is easy- I have chosen subconsciously to eroticize my past trauma to, through the benefit of memory bias, re-assign those experiences of my past as pleasurable ones. My brain can look back at that pain as an extended scene, and instead of being traumatized by the memory, can be empowered. I went into the dark and came out with a hard-on.

But does knowing this link actually help me? Does knowing the roots of our erotic desires actually help up? Instead of getting turned on outright by eating that gummy bear off the sidewalk, I find myself conflicted. Am I engaging in a fetish act, or re-traumatizing my inner tormented teen? Before the analysis, I was the eager fetishist, after analysis I must make a choice with eyes wide open at each act I engage in, living here at the third eye, seeing all sides of reality with each breath.

I am unbelievably grateful for Screw The Roses, SM 101, and books of their ilk. The opportunity to turn our lens inward and embrace that these are natural desires is empowering. Yet when we analytically gaze at our dark desires do they loose the richness of their darkness? Does black become charcoal become a dusty gray? Does my longing become rote, yet another ass lining up to be caned amongst the throng?

A different encounter- Chicago. He responds to my ad, wants to hook up. I mention that I am staying at a dungeon in the city, and his ears perk up. Yes, please, let me see it!

I meet him downstairs and escort him up to the dungeon. It’s upstairs, he asks? Yes. I open the door and he blinks. It’s clean? Yes. It’s organized? Yes. It’s got windows? Yes.

He had hoped for shadows, sticky floors covered in men’s cum, sexual ninjas who would jump from on high and force him to his knees. This beautiful, immaculate, well-organized clean space left him curious, but not turned on. We did not play.

His desires mirror those I forget sometimes that I have. The longing to play with kink mirroring a longing to play with a taboo. There are many kinky individuals where it is about sensation, touch, connection, desire, or engaging in specific acts. But there are others who are drawn towards playing with taboo, shadow, danger, roughness, unfinished plot lines. As he wandered around the well-lit dungeon I got it. I’d been there too.

I have to suspend disbelief a lot to get it on at many kink conferences. This room was used three days ago for a woodworking conference, last weekend for a republican caucus. It is hard for me to get it on staring at the all too iconic hotel carpeting, giant floral spirals spinning the desire out of me. Can I really scream out “Sir Yes Sir” with authenticity as my face meets the itchiness of yet another polyester bed spread, staring at yet another piece of blasé artwork bolted to the wall?

Sometimes the answer is yes, oh gods yes, please yes. Hand hands holding me in place, deeply pleading eyes of quivering submissive flesh, that can make me ignore the world at large. My skin locks on theirs, fangs at their throat, and I forget for a moment that I am sitting next to the potluck offerings of a local housewife who felt that the cream of mushroom casserole would be a perfect fit for this play party. But other times it does not. I fail at reaching the mentality I longed for because I was in yet another hotel ball room, or the space was just too- pristine.

Leave me dirty. Scoop me up unfinished. Dance up to me with a wink and kiss me hard, without ten pages of checklists between our lips. Writhe beneath me, never knowing my name, claws sinking into your skin.

I am grateful that I am part of a community where we can explore with the lights on. Where clear verbal negotiation can happen. A world in which I can read (and write) collections of ideas to bounce off my lover’s mind and build scripted fantasies that play out and inspire us both.

But I want concrete walls and boys whose names I never caught licking up my boots. I crave fucking in bathroom stalls, the stink of the room echoing in my nostrils as I climb the wall, a fist buried inside me. I hunger for abandoned parking garages, for empty alley ways, for parked or fast speeding cars- being bound as we drive at high speed down the highway and I long to piss.

I enjoy scenes, but I masturbate to encounters. I have fun in the light, but I am passionately pulled to the shadow.

Tonight, I want the shadow. Stop sterilizing everything, for a moment. Let my kink stay kinky, stay edgy. Stop making it palatable, acceptable, consumable for the masses. Just for a moment let my passions stay taboo, stay wrong. I want to be wrong, I want to be in shadow, I want to be damned, I want to be forbidden.

Tomorrow, we can publish another book, another magazine, have the New York Times talk about how my desires are normal and understandable. Tomorrow we can think from our throat, from our third eye. But tonight give me gut wisdom, give me loin wisdom, give me root wisdom. Tonight, tonight give me my shadows back.

Today’s words were:

Unicorn Luftwaffe

I stared at these words and was awe struck.  They are a perfect pair of absurdist fantasy words.  Thus, I put out a call demanding that someone write a short story on the topic.

Erynn reccommended that we petition SJ Tucker to write a song on the topic.

Chris Buser replied with:

The commander of the Royal Army Flying Pegasi squadron shook his head at the departing victor, moonlight glinting eerily off the single horn parting the clouds before him. ” I’ll shoot you down next time, you damnable Kraut pony! NEXT TIME! ” A mocking neigh was the only reply.

I am pleased, and yet I demand more.  What will you give me of the Unicorn Luftwaffe?  There is a part of me that would like to create a short story collection of these two absurd words… but for now, blog responses are enough to tickle me

I told her that I would argue neither.

I, or more accurately the form I assume, gets used by my spiritual patron and owner, Bear, to get work done on the dream side.  Mama Bear, my totem, owner and Goddess, She who owns my ass and changes the world, is a doorway opener, a clearer of ways, a healer, a questioner, an advocate for rest and an advocate for profound transformation when the resting is done.  She is the spirit of survival, and of helping those who need to be pushed to survive, thrive, and do the work they were built for on this plane.

She is the power of looking inward.  She is the leadership we are forced to take, or destined to take, sometimes simply over ourselves.  She is strength tempered with fury, love tempered with practicality.  She challenges us to open up our eyes and look, one more berry, one more cave, one more dream.

I am acutely aware that in the past 4.5 years since I formally dedicated myself to her, three rounds of love and passion, between pelts and hooks and ink and love- large chunks of my dream time are not my own any more.  I sleep to do work.  I was made even more aware of this when I contemplated suicide- being informed that it was a choice, but being without a body would just mean I only did other side of the veil work

I keep on appearing in dreams. Some of it is me, some of it is my form doing the work of my Patron, my Owner, my Totem/Goddess/Beast of the darkness and light of our hearts. Sometimes I get loaned out to do the work of other deities as well, the energetic loan out system of the spirit worker world.

It is not about me most of the time. Me the physical fleshy me. I am not purposefully stalking anyone but one specific person who still keeps our bridge open. Everyone else, I’m on assignment or its Lee as psychopomp. Sometimes I stand in as avatar for compassionate lover, avatar for stern master, avatar for queer guru on the mountaintop. Sometimes I stand in as beloved brother, fearful foe, wicked agent of unnatural lust. I am a mirror for the work that needs done in this world.

My Job continues to be to open doorways, clear paths, point out new routes and to offer insights that help the world find its dharma. My Job is to implement my Knowledge with Excellence. I continue my family line of being a packrat for the Gods, ferrying goods and wisdom from one heart and place to another. I support the world with my excellence and the world supports me.

So if you see me on the other side of the veil, walking along the silver path or carrying a staff of ash or knotty willow, feel free to wave me down for a chat. Let me hand you a silver acorn to grow your dreams, a golden key to open your heart, a string of pearls of wisdom. But really, its not about me. I’m just doing my Job.

It is not always easy being a monster, but I like it.  I feel good with it.

“You are not a monster” I hear a lot of folks tell me.  Monsters have tentacles and fangs and gore dripping from their pores.  Monsters plague dreams.  But I tell you, no, I am a monster.  For a monster is any creature that does not fit in with the day to day lives of man.  We are the things on the edge of reason, and an Angel is just as much outside mortal ken as a Demon is.  A Pegasus is just as strange to come across at a mall as a Shuggoth is, and the Shuggoth is far more likely to be heading to be heading to the Apple store than I am.

So I tell you now that though I am beautiful, I am also terrible.  I am a thing on the edge of dream, making love with fear as I skirt through the lands called fantasy.  I am a monster.  But it is what I have always known.

Some people say that being a Pegasus is so much better than being a horse, and I have had my own thoughts on the matter.  We who are in the kingdom of the equine, beasts beyond the majesty of their standard four legs and forelock, come in many shapes.  We are Unicorns, Pegasi, Centaur.  We have cousins in the form of Baphomet, of Aquarius with her glittering tail…

I say that Horses are magical creatures.  My mother was a horse, a noble beast who pulls carts and works hard for a living.  Without the horses such as her, where would our world be?  She is the kind of mare who stomps her foot and the world hears.  When a hero takes an arrow in his back, she will ride with all her might back to home, carrying his unconscious body until it can be revived again by the men of medicine and magic waiting behind stone walls.

Unicorns are horses with glitter.  With magic.  With beauty… and carrying a blade.  A Unicorn enraged is a terrifying beast indeed.  Black Unicorn comes out of nightmare, White Unicorn out of dream, but both have the capacity for blood when not rescuing maidens, sizing up purity, or inspiring another generation of dreamers.

Pegasus have great capacity, but we are set apart.  Not at home in the stable, not at home in our nests once full grown.  We can fly and dart, move and inspire, walk through fables and folklore, make heroes out of men who just wanted to farm their fathers’ land.  My wings stretch and I know my purpose, I know my dreams, and I walk out into the world soaring high.

Centaurs are the best of both worlds, horse and man, rising above horses in their capacity for lyre and poems.  They train warriors, they lead armies, they are beautiful and terrible.

I know I stand out, those days when the horses play I don’t often get called… I am riding off for another adventure they say.  But two days ago I had lunch with a Centaur.  I had lunch with a Centaur.

He asked with me to ride with him, to a gallery set aside for the Gods.  I clomped alongside him, though he was so much taller than I, and I so longed to fly.  We arrived at the gallery and took in the sights, until we came to a painting.  He told me he had painted it.

In the foreground was a Unicorn, who was cutting off his own horn.  In the distance, off to the right, a group of horses played.

What a terrible sight I cried!  How could he?  How could this beautiful beast get rid of what made him different?

Because it made him different.  When horses gather, sometimes a Unicorn will come along and ask to join in.  Some are invited in for they are beautiful freaks, awe inspiring.  They bring strange tales of maidens and rose gardens, can entertain.  Horses can go home to their stables and tell their friends how they met a Unicorn today, and you would *not* believe what that they said- Unicorns say and do the darnedest things.

But not every Unicorn is so blessed.  Um, can you take off your weapon, the ferocious stallions say, nervous being unable to protect their own.  No, I can’t take it off you silly thing!   Did you call me silly?  Hooves hit dirt, clods flying.  Hooves hit dirt, Unicorns defend themselves… and blood falls.

I blinked at the Centaur.  No!  No, it couldn’t be… and yet I had seen it a hundred times before.  Horses like Unicorns on their terms, when they add but do not terrify.  Some Horses seek out Unicorns, ask how to become a Unicorn, strap on horns and parade about for the evening then return to their pastures by day, happy to have something stable, something solid.  The Unicorn wanders, sometimes welcome, sometimes not.  Trading his glitter for a bowl of hay, his tears for a place to lay his head.

I looked at the painting and saw the choice.  A Unicorn has a choice, to loose his horn.  Cut off your horn Unicorn, grow out your forelock, and you can be just like us.  Leave behind your maiden claiming ways, leave your rose gardens, and you can be one of us.  You can have a home, have a way of life, have a family.

My eyes wanted to tear, but I fluttered up for a moment and asked him to show me the next.  My eyes went wide as his hands, such strange beautiful hands on long arms above his torso, pointed out the next piece.  A Pegasus, a brother of my blood, whose wings had been torn off and he was struggling to move.

I saw his truth in the pigment.  This truth, gods, I knew it in my heart.  I have a choice too.  Each Pegasus does.  I can try to become a horse too.  I have felt those days in my marrow, gods to just be normal.  To just be normal, please Zeus, grant me this!  But the painting shows the truth so clear, blood spilling out, stumps of wings left.

Even if a Pegasus survives the ordeal of ripping off their wings, they will never blend in, not quite.  Tell me of those bumps, what befell you horse?  How can I ever hold a saddle?  Saddles will always have to be customized to fit on me.  I will always feel the phantom limbs of what could have been, what should have been.

Beyond that, a wingless Pegasus can not do what they were set on this plane to do.  We hear the call of the gods and can not go to Olympus!  I have had my wings clipped and bound before, for my own good they say, and I may have survived by it but that loneliness hit my soul.  I tried to walk into traffic, hoped someone would end my life instead of being able to serve my calling.  There are tales of pegasi who do just that, cut off their wings… but what sort of life is survival?

I did not want the Centaur to show me the last piece, but I know I needed to see it.

The last of the row showed a Centaur holding a sword, cutting himself in half at the waist, where fur met skin.

You… Oh gods, tell me no my friend!  I looked at him and his head nodded, and I knew his truth.

Even if a Centaur were to cut off his arms, he would never be a horse.  Even if he were to hide his lower body, he would never be a man.  The most he could achieve by trying to become normal would be to become an ugly horse, forever ridiculed, forever tormented… and no longer able to defend himself.

Centaurs are gifted hunters, talented artists, ferocious beasts.  They are monsters worthy of respect. But horses only want to spend time with them if they claim horses as theirs, feed them and care for them and put them under them safely, few Centaurs are welcome at pony parties.  Unless of course we have need for a Centaur, find value in them, need to know how to journey into the underworld or fight Medusa… then we might ask one, then leave them be.

The lonely Centaur in the painting had chosen the only path he felt he had.  He cut himself in two and ended his life, because at least in death horses and men alike could partially empathize with the part of them they mirrored.

I nuzzled the Centaur and left the gallery.  I thought on the Unicorns, Pegasi, Centaurs and horses I loved.  We all had hooves, had we not?  We all were born, and all would die.  We all had seen sunsets and sunrises.  Wasn’t it enough?

I left his side and went to the side of a horse I know.  I asked him to come to my home, instead of me going to his.  He always liked me so when I added magic to his world, but coming into my field, not even into my secret grotto… his eyes went wide.  This is home?  How do you not go mad from the wonder of it?  How can you call what you do work?  How? Why? What?

He blinked at me and I nuzzled him.  I was sick of being a monster.  Make me feel like a horse again, make me remember what it is like to feed from troffs and breed like others.  Let me recall this, for a moment, please.  But his eyes were wide.  His eyes were wide and I let him kiss my wings, see parts of me that were there to examine.  Never in my life, such an amazing creature.  I stopped my ears with my own moans, hoping I could believe it, somehow stop myself from flying as he lifted me into the air and without thinking I took flight.

I flew and flew and flew until I reached the realm of a Unicorn I adore.  I landed and approached him on hoof.  I told him the tale of seeing a vision of a Centaur, and he shook his head and said it was a strange vision, but that he adored me nonetheless, and I adored him in it.  I regaled him with other sights I had seen from seas away, over digital waves and frothy foam.  He said I was the strangest beast he had ever beheld, and was blessed to know me.  I loved him and how his beautiful body mounts me from behind, his shape fitting mine so very well.  I ponder what shape we might take if my wings were not there, if I were a horse or Unicorn.  If I were not the most fantastical beast the Unicorn had ever met.

How often it tales of old do we see groups of Unicorns?  It is rare, but when we see them, such inspiration!  Such beauty, and magic.  But they are hidden away from mortal eye.  They are hidden because when monsters host their monster balls, we make magic.  We make magic that causes some to raise their arms against us, makes others doubt their own journey.  Monster balls sometimes lead to a horse realizing the truth of the horn that was cut off at birth by well meaning equine parents, horses who loved their young pony well.

Th next morning, waking from the home of my magical Unicorn lover, I walked outside.  I began to trot.  I galloped.  I lifted my head and soared.  I flew and flew and flew and… saw in the distance a fellow Pegasus.

His head threw about and whinnied a beautiful Pegasus whinny at me.  My heart melted.  He told me of his day and I told him of mine.  We laughed at our friends, equine and monster alike.  We told tales of far off seas and waves and foam, and knew them as a day in our lives.  Neither of us were any more strange than the other, just two monsters taking to the skies and planning our next visit to far off shores.  We spoke of Pegasi and Unicorns we would see there, beautiful stallions and mares we adored who would be in attendance, the few goats and pigs and dogs and cats and werewolves we knew were to be walking those halls.  We laughed and kissed and spoke of Pegasus things, and said goodbye for now, each with different paths to fly before we rest our heads.

I am not a Centaur.  I know few of them, but love many of those I have met.  Centaurs who carry music and wisdom and strength and have no way to be horses or men.

There are beautiful horses and ugly ones.  There are proud plow horses and skittish ponies.  There are hard working ones who live up to their potential and those that would rather wander, dwindle, and fade away.

The same is true of Unicorns.  How many Unicorns have I met who think themselves horses, or think themselves Pegasi, or strive in vain to be Centaurs and feel themselves always lacking?  How many ugly Unicorns I have met, I could cry at it!  How many glittering beasts who create wars with their own kind, who gouge out the hearts of maidens and men alike.

Being a monster just makes us a monster, makes us magical.  Every horse carries magic too.  Every mortal soul, touching on this thing called making the world in our image, the gift of the gods still writ upon our hooves and tongues.

Being a Pegasus does not mean I am guaranteed to do good work on this planet or above it.  It just makes me have different gifts, a different dharma, than most horses.

But I close my eyes and see my Centaur’s friends eyes.  How when he was still small he realized that he was beyond the ken of his parents, who cast him out of their hearts.  The stones that have cut into his skin.  Of all the power and grace he holds back out of fear of yet again scaring away the horses that he wishes he could frolic with.  I wish I could hand other Centaurs to him, but I know so few.  I do not know where they gather.  I do not know the ways of their kind.

I close my eyes and see him.  His eyes wet as he stared at the last painting.  My eyes wet as I stared at him.  I close my eyes and feel his pain, imagining stumps on my back.

I am still a happy Pegasus, happy to be a beautiful freak.  A cherished monster.  A creature on this plane with a purpose.  But now, more than ever, I value the other monsters in my life, all of their power and beauty and pain, all of their hopes and dreams and possibility.  I love them all, even the Shuggoth and pigs.  I now can close my eyes now though, and see the horn half cut, and wonder how many monsters we have lost over the years.