Thank you!

Thank you for the time you've spent with me on this journey. Shy Willow has not had her own domain address... and is now pleased to be moving to one!!!

My new address is www.SensualWays.com   I will not be redirected this blog as I have decided to merge my two blogs together into one beautifully eclectic home on the net. 

I hope you will wander over and see what the new site has to offer.... it is under construction as we speak.. but up and running, thank you for all of the love and support as I spread my wings here and learned how to better express my own style.

I will be maintaining the Shy Willow twitter account and will be updating the social media so more of that goodness soon! As always feel free to contact me with requests and the like.

- Shy Willow

Style, Sensualism, and Passion

"Writing styles are not easy to come by, they are forged by fire, they are cooled by the tears of ones own eyes, and they are oiled by the authors own blood; sheathing that style is an entirely new level of pain."

Shy Willow

Over the past couple of years, and through the process of finishing my degree I have had the opportunity to learn the value of what my own writing style means to me. I learned the pain of hiding my own passion. I learned the disappointment of learning that people do not understand my style of writing, I felt the pain of rejection, and I also finally reached the point that I could smile say...that is OK!

You don't have to like, appreciate, nor approve of how I write, what I write about, nor if I in my passionate outpouring my grammar and spelling are not to par with my education. You are welcome to be judgmental. You are welcome to squirm in the layers of your own insecurities, I am still climbing the ladder of my own.

While you do so... please note that you are the reason I write in the first place! You are the reason I pour my heart, my pain, my feelings, my passion, and yes even my sensualism out in the words that are now littering the blog you read. I want you to see that there is a different way to see and feel things. I want you to see that you can hold on to your values, your faith, your beliefs, and still love and appreciate the differences and passions of those around you.

You can judge me. You can disprove. Some of you will likely be disappointed in what you do not understand... but I still love you. I will still write. I will still hope that my style will reach someone and fill their heart with laughter and hope, and passion, and desire to feel the world around them; not feel just sex but feel the very elements that as children they used to adore.

I have written on two different blogs over the past couple of years. I have guest written for several more for many different genres. I realize that getting used to some of my writings being mixed together for some will be a shocker. But truth be told I have always said I am very eclectic... and if you are open to yourself you will realize that you are not just a mom, not just a dad, not just a student... you are so much more than one label that you try to explain yourself to society as being.

I No Longer wish to write on two blogs and hide in two boxes. I love the romance of the name and concept I created on my creative writing blog, I love the concept that I created on my original blog, I hope that in the end my readers will come with me on my new journey as I mesh them together into one home on the internet.

With that being said I want to thank my returning readers who stuck with me for weeks and weeks, through surgeries, colds, pneumonia, depression, and my continued education. I hope you enjoy the new journey... and a stronger more confident writer... whom you contributed to.

WELCOME TO Sensual Ways...

-Shy Willow

Total Validation

I enjoy my time bopping around twitter, mainly because it makes me laugh! Who doesn't enjoy the sarcasm.

While bouncing around the 15 screens I have open I noticed a tweet that had a word that caught my attention. Beings I am a lover of words I followed the link, read the article, and viola, am now writing my own article.

I'd like to write a special thank you to the Women'sHealth writer Moira Lawler that utilized the concept of helping women reach orgasm through sensual relaxation.  If you are interested in reading the article for yourself I encourage you to do so it is located here.

While Lawler's article had a specific focus, I was tickled to see that her overall approach was not singular in focus. 

Sex is art that people create together. However you choose to look at it. Whether it is a gift, a dance, or the passion and energy of life it is a creation. It can be stitches that you create over and over the same each time that varies little  which in itself may be the rhythm which brings you comfort. Or it may be a beautiful colorful canvas which abstract lines and curves bring you both joy and freedom. 

While it is a bit of a stretch I wanted to share the work of another, and share my appreciation for the concepts of the article. Too often people hide themselves in the boxes of their youth, or adult lives and forget to let go and reconnect with their own sensualism. 

- Shy Willow

Awareness

Holding your trembling body in an embrace I know very well the tremors rifling painfully through you will not be sated by anything anyone can offer. No comfort can touch the deep shuttering that was quaking you to the very core, filling you with fear, punishing you with assumptions you’d made for years past.

I listened to you try to keep yourself composed and polite as you answered some of the most hurtful questions from people who clearly had never felt pain similar. People who wanted answers and didn’t realize that asking these questions was like shoving a hot fire poker into your gut and twisting it furiously.

I worked with a member of your family to push you through a place that none of us wanted to go, none of us wanted to be, but we had to…  I had to be one of those hot fire pokers in an effort to help. You fell apart in my arms and told me it was alright that you understood, but I knew that your trying to comfort me was just as painful as anything.

We played something like 20 questions that lasted over 12 hours. We learned that we know each other better than any of the internet “get to know-your-friend, neighbor, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, roommate” questionnaires out there.

At night we waited. Held our breath. Asked more questions. Cried. I watched you curse the night hoping it would pass quickly but dreading each second that passed without word.

Getting to know each other over the past several months we’ve found so much irony in our lives. Much of that irony has been humorous, small tid bits of joy that get us through the storms that we try to aid our friends and family through.

There is irony is this story too. You’ve hurt for so many years with this dark cloud of suicide which has followed you. You’ve assumed it was your fault. You try to take the pain away from those that are suffering. When a person is willing to get in the trenches to fight for a person’s well-being, they certainly get dirty. You are not being punished for being in the trenches.

With September bringing in Suicide Awareness Month professionals hope to bring awareness to a growing suffering in society.

Please my friends and family in that awareness don’t forget the friends and family members who suffer along with the individuals. Don’t discredit the years, or months of pain that rip tides the social circle who love and support suffering individuals.

We were lucky that your family member came home. We’ve learned the love that can be shared and given during such a time.  Pain like this shouldn’t be framed by assumptions and judgements. 

-Shy Willow

Introversion is not a lack of Confidence

In a brief moment standing in a gentle embrace, one glance... one inward look. 

For the remainder of the day I spent the time wondering how in that moment I could see so much. As children we become acclimated to the concept of having ones life flash before them. Reading about those moments it is often mind boggling how different, yet how very similar those experiences can be from person to person. 

Those moments litter the planet in situations that oftentimes shake our philanthropic selves to the very core. There are those beautiful glimpses in time when that very flash changes forever the course of an individuals life, and inevitably the life of those surrounding the individual. 

While waltzing an elegant dance which involves sound and rhythm, but in the end no shuffling of feet, there was that one glance which led to that one inward look in which I saw my own eye. 

The lifetime I lived in that millisecond reminded me of a giant portion of my life that I had successfully hushed. So much of my energy went into fighting, protecting, and defending. 

In one brief second, one dance, one inward look that mind you, I did not purposely provoke, I was taught a lesson that was too long in the works. 

Introversion is not lack of confidence. 

Too long I have poured myself into an energy that was not my own. Owning my energy was an enormous step, but seeing myself for what I am was a shock to my senses. 

Why on earth I felt the need to put that on this blog, is simple. Over the course of the past couple of years as I have found the things that I've needed to start to pull myself back to whole again, the major energy has been understanding passion. 

Sensualism in definition most commonly is assumed to refer to sex, however entails so much more about how we relate to the world around us, how we feel it, essentially how we experience it. 

So in that regard Yes- I write about sex.    I also write about life, and how life is felt, how it tastes, how energy pulses between people, how life feeds and wanes, and how our grandparents experienced sex.  

While I have a fun idea as to what may have caused my moment to occur... What matters is what I do with it. What do I do with the sensation, the beauty, the freedom? I can certainly run from it, or lock it up and continue on as I have in months past, or I can get caught up in asking why instead of focusing on the sunrise, perhaps I can shake off the confidence and go back to hiding in my introverted box afraid that having passion and an opinion may just hurt another person. 

I think I'll stay outside of the box.

Shy Willow

Awake

Awake

You cannot feel, you cannot see

How did I forget to blame me?

How did I not see that this is just

Just the way you are

I accept them all each one

Every energy that came my way

All this time I said I hurt 

but it was I that did not see nor feel

The rage you gave me flooded my veins

brought life to places long now asleep

Slowly the tingle of limbs starved of blood

throb as life returns to them 

Slowly the flood of oxygen wakes the grog

of a mind slowed by years of repression

I could not feel, I could not see

I'll never again forget to blame me.

by: Shy Willow