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

Flames

Sitting next to the fire, watching the flames dance I did not have the energy to run and be free. I sat... at times frozen, my eyes to the colors and dance within the fire ring before us. The sweet youthful spirits running free soaking in the air their lungs had craved. 

My body was capable, but somehow for some reason I needed to sit, to get lost in the heat. I watched the white hot coals remain constant as the blue and somewhat rare green flames sprang from the log that was being consumed. Higher up orange and red flames reached into the air more consistently and predictably dancing. 

So often in art those cooler in temperature flames are depicted, seen destroying forests or decorating a noisy motorcycle. Rarely does an artist draw the hotter and less predictable blue flames into their art. 

Perhaps I had it wrong, maybe the blue and orange flames working together is what enabled enough heat to create the white coals in the first place. 

Perhaps that balance we carry though at times feels a bit wild, is exactly what is needed to feed the coals which sustain the heat needed to continue to consume. 

We sat, we talked through it all, yet at times like these when our flames burn low and quiet, and the ash seems to fly carelessly through the air, it is that white hot coal that is waiting. 

Things cool. Aches and pains come. Trials and challenges fill our lives with storms. 

The white hot coals snap and crack with that beautiful sound of shattering glass, biding time, waiting until something comes along to feed it once again.

A stir, and new kindling, and the next moment, our flames roar to new heights as if they had never slumbered in the first place. 

- Shy Willow

Another Fishing Metaphor

You feel the line being lightly toyed with, obviously this fish has been drawn from the water before and is familiar with the feel of a steel hook. The bait begins to travel a small distance and you let out line to accommodate the prey you are after. You watch as the line pulls and stalls, darts again then rests, and you reflect on how this, your fishing has changed over the years. In times past you were a professional circuit fish thrashing champion, and now here you are rescuing this finicky fish from a mud pool where it and several others has no chance of survival. Days of netting and fishing have meant relocating fish back to the larger body of water that these fish belonged to prior to the accident which severed this smaller pool of water.

Suddenly your prey feels a surge of confidence and decides to bolt away having hopefully taken the bait firmer. A slight pull and you set the hook, knowing too much of a pull could rip the hook clear of the experienced mouth of the fish, yet not setting the hook is a risks your fish could decide to spit it out finding it too risky to keep hold of. 

Waiting for a fight to erupt from the line, disappoint sinks in when the line goes limp of life. Exhaling the frustration and concern all at once you begin to bring in line. A tightness takes you by surprise and you wonder if in the muddy gumbo you've picked up a log or rock, but after a bit of pressure and the drag starting to click against you it becomes clear that this fish is not like others you've seen or fought. 

Again you are faced with decisions. Do you bring this fish in fast and hard? Do you bring it in slow and gentle? Which one will tire the fish? Which way will reduce the stress and get it to the larger body of water safest? 

Each fishing trip yields something a bit different. Each relationship we enter does the same, going into it with preconceived notions can leave you disappointed or ill prepared for situations that arise. 

Often times titles skew the real meaning of our relationships and focusing on definition rather than value takes away from the enrichment and life giving experience a challenge may provide.

Obviously one must be in control and responsible when they see that they have the upper hand in a situation that requires they guide and direct another. However equally we must accept in life that these situations arise. 

-Shy Willow