Southwest Leather Conference part deux

So this is my fifth time going to this conference.

My past experiences have been a very curious mixture of complete fascination mixed with...frustration.

Last year I commented that I felt like I was in the right church but the wrong sect.

Well...sorta. SWLC is produced by folks who practice M/s as a spiritual path. I know these folks. I've spent weekends with them. This is what they do and the conference is dominated by that vibe.

I am not M/s. I am not especially spiritual (I've tried--I just can't commit to a path. Sorry).

So why do I keep coming back?

Today I finally clued into the undercurrent that has me so intrigued. If it was a snake it would have bit me on the nose years ago.

Within the Dance of Souls, within Butchmann's, within Slavemaster's practice of cathartic flogging, within a number of other rituals I can name there is one common element....the use of BDSM techniques to promote healing and personal integration and to further one's progress towards authenticity.

Ok. Duh. That only took me 5 years to see.

Do you need to have a strong spiritual practice to do this? I dunno. I am not strongly spiritual, but I am strongly oriented towards authenticity and reintegration. I know atheists who are strongly oriented towards these things.

Do you need to be a master or slave to do this? Heck no! In fact the most powerful experiences I have had within my local subculture have occurred when the master/slave barrier is temporarily dismantled.

Five years ago I participated in my first hook pull. I jumped from receiving my first 3 18 gauge needles a few months before to receiving two 8 gauge hooks in my back. I was scared witless and shitless. I bawled my eyes out when I saw the piercer. Adrenaline and fear induced endorphins killed most of the pain I would have felt, but then I was in for a new round of fear when I had to go *tug* against the darned things. That fear did not completely go away, but I stood my ground through it despite some very valiant efforts on the part of my pulling partner. I held onto a male witness the whole time and cried and yelled my way through it.

And that day I rediscovered my courage. The courage had always been there, but others had told me it was not there.

So this time I pierced myself. I am still processing that. For one thing, I did something that I've historically had a hard time doing. I went to a piercer and asked him to teach me how to do it, on the spot. I was raised to never ask for special treatment or for help.

Then I trusted myself to do it and proceeded to pierce myself with the largest gauge needle I have ever pierced anyone with. I was also raised to never trust my intuition and that day I defied my upbringing and trusted it with sharp objects.

And--well, this is perhaps where my latent spiritual sense kicked in. When I grasped that piercing needle it felt to me like a sacred object, full of power and the ability to heal. It felt like I was taking that medicine within myself by being both the doer and the doee. I completed some sort of circuit.

Now, I have made some fantastic friends in the local scene, and as usual they did not disappoint. At one point during my pull I had a tall friend of mine hitch my rope to a point about 8 ft above my head. I was on tip toes at this point and I slowly let myself down as both rope and skin stretched (I learned how *much* nylon rope stretches). At this point a female tribal witness came up to me and asked me to tell her that "I am beautiful." Leave it to my friends to know where I need to heal. Under the influence of pain and endorphins my monkey mind had completely fled and I was able to actually hear myself tell her that. There was no hiding from it. At this point a male witness whom I have admired from afar for years started reciting affirmations for me. He talked to me about sensuality and usefulness and how I often hide from both by fleeing to my mind. He was there to tell me this while monkey mind was disabled.

And I am still processing.

This is what I mean by healing and integration. This is why I attended Butchmann's 3 times when I had no intention of becoming a master or slave.

Mind you, I do BDSM for fun much of the time. I do it because sometimes I like to scare the tar out of someone or make them scream. I do it because the whole starched blouse disciplinary thing has made me wet since age 4.

However, a part of me lives for that moment when a spanking goes cathartic. I have a flogger that I take to rituals with me to soak up good "ju-ju" because I consider it sacred. It has helped several people. Fun gets me only so far. It is the healing that resonates with my core, whether it is mine or someone else's.

I named this blog "The Islander" because up to this point I feel like I've been wandering rather aimlessly from the M/s crowd to the S/M crowd to the spanking enthusiasts to the modern primitives, etc. hunting for my own island. I *am* wandering, but not aimlessly. I am looking for that which heals and makes whole--or more accurately for that which helps people heal and become whole. I find that medicine everywhere.