Shit happened

Mouse posted an account of her doings with one of the toilets in her house, and it reminded me of the last time we dealt with ours.  I made a long comment on that and since it illuminates our life here in Philippines, I reproduce it as a post on my blog:

Spewing shit is nasty.  Ours does that sometimes, then the pipe to the septic tank has to be cleaned out with a long length of hard plastic tubing.  It comes back out of the pipe all shitty, you haven't to be afraid of handling shit and fortunately neither Rose nor I are afraid of it.  Plumber, you are saying?  Don't make me laugh.


The last time shit happened - just a few months ago - the clean-out didn't work, so we had to take the top off the septic tank and poke about in the inlet pipe, the configuration of which I had forgotten.  



In the end, I decided more radical action was needed, so I cycled into town and asked the septic tank man ("Poso Negro", no idea what that means) to come and empty ours since it hasn't been emptied for 20 years, and he drove up baclwards with a big truck and a couple of  strong young men who also were not shit-scared and the pump in the truck sucked it all up in about 30 minutes.  Top back on, useless plastic tubing left in the hot sun to dry then coiled up, hands washed: back to normal.

Morning housework

Our dining table was getting very worn-looking and Rose decided to polish it.  That scrubber she is using is a slice of coconut shell, and the fibres make excellent polishing brushes for floor or furniture.  It will last for a long time and costs us nothing as we have cocos in our yard.

P.S.  Here's an interesting little article - could be expanded I'm sure ...

Today I went to read a blog I enjoy and the latest post told how she had to stop posting for a while and could not reveal the reason for fear it would identify her and her family.

I always feel bad when I think of how we have to disguise ourselves in order to live comfortably.  That's why I don't disguise myself in my own blog.  I have no reason to hide anything, although I understand that many believe they do.

I wonder what would happen if everyone lived their lives openly?  No aliases?  Would it be good, would life be even possible?  What exactly would go wrong, if anything?  Are there people who live their whole lives with no secrets, and if so, how does it go?

P.S.  I'm not just talking about D/s here, I'm talking about the whole world, a world where Wikileaks would have no impact.   I have often thought about this.

Why am I so interested in blogs written by submissive women?

I an trying to understand my self and my marriage here, that's all.  Anyone is welcome to add their comments.

I find some of the blogs written by submissive women fascinating.    To me, those women have exceedingly attractive qualities. My wife has elements of submission:  she asks what to do in many  workaday situations; she consents to my spanking her whenever I wish,  though she does not like it; she tells me where she is going, and if I ask, her purpose; she agrees to certain rules, such as no internet use before lunch; she asks what I would like in any situation, if it's not already known.  In the twenty years we have been married, she has never refused sex, though occasionally has not been very co-operative.    She does have two bad habits:  collecting clutter and neglecting necessary housework; but she doesn't smoke, use bad language, spend money unthinkingly, or indulge expensive tastes.  She has very useful healing gifts with which she can relieve the aches and pains of her friends and relatives. 

Yet, somehow ...  something seems missing.  There's no passion, and she doesn't seem to want any.


She does not submit with her thoughts.  Her heart does not belong to me. If I ask her what she is thinking (something I seldom do)  I will not get a credible answer.  She is very secretive with her mind.  If she seems to be having difficult thoughts or feelings, she will never volunteer them to me. If I try to have a conversation about something, I will be doing 99% of the talking.  I can wait for a long time for some input from her.  Yet if she gets on the phone with a friend, she can talk almost non-stop for 45 minutes, and the friend may not be getting many words in edgeways.


Another blogger has recently quoted this poem by Paelus, found on the-iron-gate.com:


Surrender 

Trust Me with your heart.
Place it in My hands,
To crush or caress.
Trust that I will not hurt you.
Give it to Me because you desire Me to possess it,
Not because it is My will.

Trust Me with your mind.
Place it in My hands, also,
To destroy or reshape.
Trust Me to mold it according to your needs
Not simply to suit My own purposes.

Trust Me with your body.
It too, place in My hands.
Mine, to batter or protect.
Trust Me to keep you safe
And to provide for you that which is needed
to ensure your happiness.

Trust Me with your very soul.
Place it in My hands, as well.
Lay it bare before Me, vulnerable to My will.
Trust that I will guide you safely through the darkness
protecting your interests at all times,
regardless of My desires.

Above all, trust Me with your complete and total surrender.
Trust that I will honor and cherish
your submission to Me
Trust that I will not abuse this gift
That you so lovingly give to Me.


I appreciate that this may appeal to some, but it's not something I need.  If a woman asked to give me that degree of submission, I believe, if I liked her sufficiently and circumstances allowed, I would accept and do my best to fulfil the responsibility.  But I prefer to watch and encourage people to grow in their own ways, not in some way that I have decided.  I dislike giving people instructions more than once, and I certainly will not give instructions to do things which have no practical purpose, such that I often read about on some of these blogs.  I don't like calling someone to account for sins of commission or omission.  BDSM  rôle play has very little attraction for me (I have tried it with my wife), only real-life, actual genuine situations and requirements interest me.


Well, that's all for the moment.  I may continue this theme, especially if someone adds an insightful, relevant comment.

NOT a salve for sore butts

I have been making hot sauce today.  We like "Tabasco" sauce but it's expensive at $2.40 a small bottle so I make our own.

I buy a handful of small chili peppers ( called harang here), break off the stalks and chop them up a bit.  Put them in about 300 ml water and simmer for 30 minutes.  Add more water to about 100 ml if there is less than that left after boiling.

I then put them in the blender and run for about 5 seconds, then force the result through a fine mesh coffee strainer.  Discard what won't go through.  Add vinegar enough to double the amount of filtrate, add 1/4 tsp salt and mix.  Pour into capped jar and keep in refrigerator.

The resulting product is EXTREMELY potent.  Do not let it near your eyes, or any other sensitive membrane such as prick or cunt. Wash your hands carefully with soap after finishing.  Avoid rubbing your eyes.  I guess it could be applied to the skin post- or even pre-spanking to intensify and prolong sting, but I take no responsibility for the reactions!  Use only microscopic amounts for any purpose.  For food, we just dip a teaspoon in, pull it out and rub the bottom on the fishcake or whatever.

Reading the Story of O

I read on someone's blog this afternoon that one of her training tasks was to re-read "The Story of O".  This is not something I would want any sub or wife of mine to read.  It's a story of abuse, abandonment and desolation and has little literary value, and is an example of how NOT to live, how NOT to care for someone.  I certainly would not ask my wife to read it, and if I did and she started, I think she would soon give it up, probably wondering why on earth I suggested it.

If I were to give someone a reading task, it would be a book with broad human values depicted.  Depending on the woman and her educational level, I might choose Anne of Green Gables,  The Secret Garden,  Sense and Sensibility,  The Alchemist,  Doctor Zhivago,  Silas Marner,  Kim, Great Expectations,  even Madame Bovary or Jane Eyre.

The reason these classics are still widely read is that they deal fairly with universal human doings and feelings.  Many of them I have read to my son (I have read to Claude more than 40 substantial books and uncounted short stories, fairy stories etc since he was 4 years old) and as a result he has a very wide vocabulary and an acquaintance with a little of the worlds great literature.  This is the kind of reading I would ask a sub to do, because I know that after she has finished such a book, she will be wiser, and perhaps happier.

What would be the recommendations of others here?

Rough, angry speech to our son

I have a problem with my wife's rough speech.  So often when she talks to our son, she speaks roughly and makes it into scolding or some sort of confrontation.  Claude often doesn't answer her until she has spoken several times, getting angrier each time, and this makes it worse.  The more she shouts and gets angry, the less he wants to respond.  I really don't like this, never in my own childhood was there any shouting or rough speech, I don't want it in my house now, but I don't know how to prevent it.  I think probably my wife experienced it at home with her parents.  She seems to find it quite normal.

There is another, related problem, too: when she speaks to Claude, Rose uses her own dialect, which Claude understands and speaks fluently but I do not, and I have not been capable of learning it, or even hearing it enough to distinguish the words. I don't like her having an argument with Claude in my hearing in a language I don't understand, and I have told Rose this several times but she takes no notice.   My spirits sink low if I hear this rough speech with Claude starting.  She does speak English to me, but is not fully comfortable with it, I have to pick my words carefully if I want to make sure she is understanding me.

I am not a dominant man and tend to withdraw if things are not going right between us.  

Any useful suggestions?

Skipping the funeral

Yesterday I typed out the Housework schedule I mentioned in a post recently.  Earlier, I had told Rose that I wanted to get back to to it.  She didn't jump for joy.  Or, in fact, make any noticeable response.  This is quite in character.

Right now she and Claude have gone to a funeral.  I have not personally ever spoken to the deceased, so I stayed at home as funerals here mean walking a long way and spending much time with people one hardly knows - at least for me they do.

Yesterday I sat at my piano as I had the urge to play one or two of Bach's chorales.  I wanted to hear "Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele" (Adorn yourself, dear Soul).  When I started playing it, tears sprang into my eyes and my fingers made mistakes.

How is that music can affect us? A succession of sounds only: or is it, perhaps, more than that?

The paradox of me/not me

What we call reality is a strange business.  How can we know it?  Everything we see or perceive in any way is within us, yet if I can perceive something, I know that it is not me. I am doing the perceiving and cannot be perceived.  I am a little piece of perceivingness, like a little window.  Everything I can know about "reality", including its very existence, is within me, yet is not me.  I have no evidence that there  is anything separate from me, yet nothing I perceive can be me because I am the one doing the perceiving.  It's a paradox!

Just turn this over in your mind, please, and tell me what you experience about it.

P.S.  Perhaps I am not a "little piece" of perceivingness, but actually I am just perceivingness restricting its view?

The seamless universe

In a recent comment, Steel Rose said:  "The synthesis of body, mind and soul is the ultimate goal, yes?"

I am not sure about the synthesis of body, mind and soul.  Perhaps the distinction between these three is entirely artificial, they are already one and we have divided them to make things more interesting?

In this universe everything is made of energy.  Even solid matter is made of particles which themselves are simply packets of energy.  There seem to be different types of energy and no-one has to my knowledge yet sorted out the difference between, for example, Chi and electromagnetic fields.  Then there is the energy of the Zero Point Field.  Whatever the truth about this may be, it doesn't seem likely that the universe is split into several unrelated fields.

What do others think about this?

Coming up behind Rose as she was leaning over the table, and talking quietly into her left ear in a meant-to-be-menacing tone, "You're going to get fucked."


"hee-hee!" very quietly.


"And your arse smacked."


"Hee-hee!" even quieter.


Yep.  Happened as predicted.

Steel Rose made a comment on my post yesterday and this is a response to that. 


Yes I understand your aversion to religion.  I was educated in a boarding school where Christianity was taught, but later I realised that the people who had been teaching me had little understanding of what they were teaching. They felt that it must be useful but could not explain how.  I abandoned that religious outlook.


Nevertheless, I came back - not to any Christian church, but to spirituality, when I began to understand the control our egos hold over us and how that control stunts and distorts our lives.  I remember that after work one day, when I was about 25 and living in London, I stopped in a bookshop in Oxford Street and bought Eugen Herrigel's "Zen in the Art of Archery."  Passing Hyde Park, I went in, sat down on a park bench and read the whole book through before continuing my journey home.  I realised that the archery Master had something infinitely valuable to teach.  Herrigel (whose education in philosophy was something of a disadvantage to him in this) after some years of lessons with the Master, suddenly one day became able to let "It" shoot.  I understood then that somehow we have to let "It" run our entire life.  That is, in a nutshell, what spirituality is all about, and what religion has hi-jacked to express in often distorted ways, mixed with power hunger.  


What is "It"?  It cannot be described or defined, but you know it when you see it!


Our egos are fearful of letting go their grip on us.  Ego should be our servant, but it is our master instead.  I see submission to another human as a metaphor for the longing to lose ourselves, lose our egos, with which we identify and believe to be our selves.  When we break the ego's control there is a sudden realization - "enlightenment" in Buddhist terms -  that we are not our egos.  


We stop defining ourselves.  


"It" takes over and our life is completely transformed.


Unfortunately, the ego is nothing if not tenacious and a few seconds, minutes or hours later we begin to question this and usually find ourselves back in its grip.  But the step has been taken and never again will we feel so powerless.

This was originally a comment on Tammy and Jake's blog, but I want to record it here.


My thoughts on letting go.

It's not only submissives that have this problem with letting go. Anyone who does spiritual work has letting go to do. I sometimes practise when I am walking every morning, my journey takes almost 15 minutes and if I don't lose my place on the way (I usually do) it can be fifteen minutes of letting go.

It's important to let go of the desire to let go. That may sound ridiculous but it's true: so long as that desire to let go is in you, you haven't done it and will never do it.  Though it may feel like you are going to vanish into nothingness, it's not necessary to hold on to anything whatsoever.  When we have let go of everything, life bears us up and carries us along.  We become suddenly a hundred times more conscious, more alive.
One reason spanking helps is because your conscious mind is forcibly taken off its struggle, thus enabling it to let go. Subspace results.

A very interesting description of letting go can be found at the beginning of Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now." Also read Tony Parsons' book "The Open Secret" for another radical letting go.  You can find Tony Parsons on the internet, he has recorded an interview on youtube somewhere.

Usually letting go, when it happens, is temporary: a few moments of freedom, then the ego asserts its control again; but sometimes it is permanent and life-changing.

It's my view that submissive women are seeking the same release as the mystic seeking God. Just that they are doing it in different ways with different immediate goals. Everyone is doing it in the way that seems right for them.

A neighbour asked us to a birthday party for her two-year-old son.  Two years is considered a critical age stage here, and parties for this event are common.  This one was to be held in the Girl Scouts building in town, a mile from our house.  Four o'clock was the stated time, and Rose, who was already in town for other purposes, went there.  As one might have expected, there was no-one there.  Social events usually start about one hour after the scheduled time, and I must admit this irritates me, having been brought up in England by a methodical father. To me, this habit of un-punctuality is an instance of Filipinos being unable to do what they say they are going to do, and this attitude is largely responsible for Filipinos not being taken seriously by the rest of the world.

Rose called me to warn me not to come yet, so I had time to wash at leisure, feed the dogs and cat and scan the internet for any Forex trading opportunities: I didn't find any besides the trade that I had already closed a hour before (at a profit of $7.32.)  Claude, who was fast asleep, having spent the entire previous night awake playing with his cousins at a vigil for a dead relative, was obviously not going to come, so at about 4:45 I locked up the house and cycled off to the town, having first accomplished the tricky task of getting my bike out of the gate without letting one of the dogs out as well - our young male dog is an unruly creature and wily with it.

Arriving at the party, there were a great many people there that I did not know and a few that I did.  I took some of the food offered and sat outside on a concrete slab in the big open space to eat it.  I watched the sunlight shifting gradually on the buildings around and breathed in the cool evening air under a cloudless sky. Our hostess was trying to get me to sit in a more honourable place but I preferred the fresh air and some distance from the monotonous loud music.  Rosie wasn't there yet, having gone to the shops to get a birthday gift for the little boy.

When she arrived, Rosie got food and sat with me while I wondered to myself how to get her back to working the housework schedule I instituted about a year ago and which she gradually abandoned without my doing anything about it. I really dislike telling people to do what they already know they should be doing. The men in the blogs I read, who seem to be all take-charge types, don't have this problem!

Buying Fish

Went to the fish market this afternoon to buy fish for the dogs.  Tamban (small silver coloured fish 4 to 6 inches long that we like to eat smoked) is my usual choice.  As soon as I arrived there, a woman offered me Tamban at 40 pesos  (less than $1) a kg, so I bought 2 kilos.  They were smaller than average and the price was lowish. She put in about ten extra fish so I got more than 2 kg.  I could have tried bargaining and she probably would have agreed to 2 kg for 70 but then she wouldn't have put any extra in for me, and our cooking pot holds just over 2 kg so I handed over 80 pesos without discussing price.

Facebook sucks

I closed my Facebook account yesterday, it's too difficult to arrange my stuff as I want it, too difficult to delete and correct stuff. Facebook likes everything their own way and this doesn't suit me. So I'm going back to blogging.

I'm at a loss to understand how Facebook has become such a valuable company. Where do they get their money from? From advertisements, I suppose, but who would buy anything through an ad on Facebook? Not me, anyway.

I shut it down in a fit of annoyance, without explaining to my contacts there first. I should have done that I guess, but I'm not going back in again just to do that. Have to tell them some other way.