The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond

by Lee Harrington

  Bottoms acting as not just physical props but as Guides must develop non-dissociative techniques for processing the pain or sensation they are experiencing (examples will be looked at in the Path of Breath). In addition, they need to know that their partner is not all here by watching for the above discussed cues, and know their partner and their play style well enough to judge when they likely aren’t all there. If the Bottom of a Top is new to Top trance, work with spotters.

  Make sure that the Bottom is not restrained, especially if they are serving as a Guide, directing or helping manage the person who is in an altered state, so they can move to dodge a blow or get up and assist their Top when they drop. If a Top is going to go into trance, becoming a Seeker or Journeyer, they should also make sure that the tools they are using are ones they can literally do on auto-pilot. By not worrying about how to do an activity, they can aim their attention at the things waiting on the other side of the veil.

  Another option for trance from either side is what is called Two-footing. It refers to having one foot in the mundane world, and one in the spirit realm. Originally used to talk about Shamans and Spirit Workers who are able to see the spirit realm and interact with it while still safely being able to walk down the street, this same skill set is invaluable for anyone who has to keep an eye out for physical realm issues while going on their quest.

  This takes practice. Start by using activities around dreamtime, or other places you enter altered states. When waking up, can you hold onto your dream while starting to get up and use the restroom? Can you go back to bed and resume your dreaming? If you are prone towards trancing out on the interstate, missing your off-ramp from time to time, can you be aware enough to not miss your off ramp and still keep that lightness and spaceyness going? If you work with auras and astral bodies, can you practice moving your focus back and forth between the shape of someone and the shape of what they truly are, back and forth, until you can start to see both shapes at the same time?

  Instead of trying to blur two visions into one, others practice two-footing by splitting their attention. Their analytical mind stays focus on safety, detail, procedure. Meanwhile their creative, artistic, spiritual side goes off and has an experience that it will report to the analytical mind after the scene is over and done with. Either way, make sure that if both partners end up journeying, that someone is there to take care of flesh issues. Having both people go out of their flesh while whips are flying can lead to coming back to those bodies with unexpected bruises and other issues to deal with afterwards.

  Either way, if you as a Top have an opportunity to engage in Top Trance workings or Two-Footing, take the time to say thank you to your Bottom or receptive partner afterwards. They have placed a huge amount of faith in you, and it is generosity worth appreciating.

  Ending Rhythm Scenes

  Screams and moans draw down into whimpers and cries. You tap the ground, saying you are back. Your partner declares loudly that this work is complete. The music stops, the end of the two-hour music mix you created giving you a cue to wrap up your work. The bodies of everyone involved collapse. Laughter erupts. There are a thousand different ways that a scene can end. What is important is to know a few cues in advance, of when it might be a good idea to start coming back to mundane reality. What should the Top look out for? Discussing in advance what the working will include make this much easier. For example, if you are hoping to break down and cry, once you are done crying the work can be brought to a close. Relying on safewords is another option, but in the heat of the moment, it might be forgotten by the participants.

  For rhythm scenes, one of the most elegant ways to end a scene is to break the rhythm:

  Slowly stop the dance and sensually touch to a different beat

  Clap loudly 3 times

  Ring a bell, changing not just the beat but the frequency

  Speak out loud and bring conversation back into the realm of possibility

  Change tools and how your blow lands, bringing the play out of trance and into the hedonistic

  Turn them around

  Slap their body

  Stop touching them

  Touch them in a non-rhythmic manner

  It’s not just the Top who can change the rhythm. Especially in the case of Top Trance scenes, actively giving the Bottom permission to break off the scene can be hugely powerful. This is also useful if the Top is new to this sort of work or is not skilled in reading the Bottom or energetic patterns. Just because a rhythm has been broken does not mean it has to be the end of a scene.

  The next step is to the person who went on a quest, Top or Bottom, that they have a body. Especially if they did any form of astral working, physically touching their ankles and feet, lifting their feet then touching them down to the ground, is a way to show them they are part of the Earth on this side of reality. Caress or remind their legs that they work. Hold their body and get it to move, get it used to being an independent piece of flesh. Doing this before removing bondage can help the person not fall to the ground if they have forgotten how to use their own muscles. Mind you, if you have the ability to get them safely to the ground, finally “coming to” themselves literally in a different body position than they were in before, can be a profound experience for some people.

  Not everyone will want to come back. Especially individuals dealing with chronic body pain, or those whose current earthly life is less than pleasant for other reasons. Finding peace or adventure in an altered state of consciousness can be tempting to remain in for an extended period. Some individuals hear a Siren’s call to give up their life on this side and stay behind forever.

  Do not be fooled. Like the tale of the Siren, the spell only lasts until you realize you cannot breathe in this foreign land, that you are deluding yourself by thinking you can stay underwater forever. Only by returning to our bodies will we have the opportunity to process what took place on the other side and make choices to change our lives for the better. Visiting can be amazing, but even those who are called under-hill by the Faerie folk must come back, and taking longer to come back may result in finding the world has moved on without you.

  As a Guide, this means that if the person you are working with is lost on the other side or is resisting coming back, take a deep breath. Do they need another hour on the other side? The rest of the evening? Can you give that to them? Be honest with yourself and check in with your higher self, your intuition, your will.

  After having been given more time, they still do not want to come back, there are other options to consider:

  Change their stimuli

  Put on different music

  Remind them someone is waiting back here for them

  Take a page from Voodoo practices and shock them out of trance by dumping water on their head (not nice, but it often works)

  Find pressure points on their body and shock them that way

  If you have a sexual relationship, shock them with a kiss and delicious caresses

  Bring them food and start serving it into their mouth

  Force them to drink something

  All of these provide ways to engage with their physical body. Another option is to try to engage their analytical mind if they seem stuck, as if they are waking from a dream:

  Sit down with them and talk to them

  Get them to say their name, where they are at, what they are hoping to do in times to come

  Remind them of happy things they have done

  Talk about banal topics that will start waking their rational mind from its slumber

  Don’t panic. This stuff happens sometimes.

  Once those have been tried, some find it helpful to use a more astral or energetic approach on rare occasions. Close your eyes and “find” their energetic tether from their body out to their spirit and start, carefully, pulling on it. Sometimes a deep-sea diver needs to be told through their line from the surface that they are running low on air. The next level of this involves sending a message down the line, which tak
es focus and practice from both partners in being able to both “write” and “read” these messages. It’s nice to get a letter from someone, but if they write it in ancient Sumerian, for most of us, this is not as helpful as it could be.

  Some individuals recommend “going after” the person who is not coming back. Be aware that two lost people are worse than one lost person. Ask yourself whether this is a good idea, or whether getting physical or energetic assistance is in order. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Everyone needs various forms of assistance from time to time.

  When it comes to ending scenes, ask for assistance if you went journeying and days later still feel spacey or disconnected. It is possible to leave pieces of oneself or one’s attention attuned to what we were doing while in an altered state, and seeking help with experienced individuals or, doing something as simple as meditating on what took place with the intention of re-integration, can be hugely helpful.

  Whether coming back was easy or challenging, be aware that returning to a day-to-day headspace can take time. Some people feel fuzzy or hyper-focused, even jumping (or melting) at every noise or touch. You may not be able to hop off the cross afterwards and be able to safely get into your car to drive home. Sacred kink, and kink in general, can be a form of intoxication. Spend some time drinking water, wrapped up in a blanket (or standing in front a fan), having something of substance to eat (licorice and soda does not count). That advice is for everyone involved. Tops have to take care of their bodies, too.

  In starting this work, you are agreeing to finish it. This means that it is important to know when your obligations for aftercare end. For some, arranging the hydration will be enough. For others, it is staying until the end of an evening if someone wants to talk or cuddle or process that night. For still others, this work, including magical work that might be involved, entails a commitment until the specific matter that the quest was about is resolved. For further others, this is an agreement that lasts years, and for still further others, lifetimes.

  If one partner thinks that their commitment to this working ends that night, and the other thinks it is until it is resolved (and the resolution could take years and further working), this can lead to more than just hard feelings. In some cases it can result in self-destructive behaviors, obsession, stalkers, hurtful actions, and legacies of energetic debt, karmic imbalance, physical illness, attachment… or someone who whines a lot. Really, talk about it. Even if you talked about it in advance and said you only needed them tonight, but a year later you have something come up, talk to them. If the person sets down a boundary that no, really, it was one night, respect it and find someone else (a friend, other spirit worker, therapist, online chat room) to help you process what came up without blame. Everyone has a right to have boundaries, and if you don’t respect the boundaries of others, how will you be able to have other people respect your boundaries?

  Brainwaves and Changing Your Mind

  One of the major reasons the Path of Rhythm is such an effective tool is because the human body is full of rhythms. Our heartbeat sets the mode and mood of our life, quickening and slowing in time with the action and adventures of our lives. Menstrual cycles follow a set rhythm for fertility and hormones in female-bodied individuals. Even men have natural cycles of hormone fluctuation.

  In addition to these, the inner workings of our brain are full of distinct rhythms known as brainwaves. There are a wide variety of brainwaves, but in the discussion of altered states of consciousness there are a number that need to be specifically considered. This is a simplification of these concepts as will other such ideas to ponder at the end of each chapter in this book. Since the 1990s, monks and scientists have been actively working together to examine these interrelated concepts, and entire treatises have resulted.

  There are Hippocampal Theta (involved in disengaging REM and memory consolidation), Mu (a.k.a. Sensorimotor rhythm, involved in body awareness), and “Ultra-slow” (a.k.a. “Near DC”) waves that are less commonly examined in conjunction with awareness and states of consciousness. The following list is for the average adult mind, and does not take into account non- normative brain functioning such as seizure disorder, nor the systems of children’s brains that generally have slower frequency oscillations than adults. Neonatal brainwave patterns can be grossly different from adult brainwaves.

  The reason the eight brainwave patterns mentioned are of interest is that it has been shown that engaging in rhythmic breathing, listening to drum-beats, mind machines, dancing and other rhythmic body inputs can change your state of mind. “Drum therapy” has been used effectively to help individuals enter into trance states to speed a variety of healing processes. Listening to one’s own heartbeat on a regular basis has been shown to calm nerves and reduce stress, including long-term stress-reduction on the body-as-a-whole. Initial findings by researchers in Russia have even shown that the rhythmic experience of being flogged can make people happier than a similar study group that did not undergo the “therapeutic treatment.”

  You have the power to literally change your mind. By doing so, you can increase your health, examine thoughts from new directions, and change the way you feel. Excitingly, this also means that by using any of the Paths to altered states of consciousness, you have the ability to do this work in ways that may engage you more than sitting alone in a dark room listening to trance music.

  Bellydancing to Bliss?

  As I examined my own approach to the eightfold paths, the number eight kept cropping up. When asking a friend about dance, an area I didn’t feel I knew enough about when it came to trance work, she pointed out a fascinating point that caught my attention. Apparently, in the Cabaret and Nightclub belly dancing style that was being actively taught in the 70s, there were eight parts to a standard routine. These were:

  Introduction and Greeting the audience

  Unwrapping the veil and veilwork

  Descending to the floor

  Floorwork

  Arising

  Drum Solo

  Finale/farewell with a promise of return

  Receiving and acknowledging thanks (in the form of applause, tips, or other thanks)

  Each of these use different skills, and require different types of involvement with the musicians, props, and the audience. Drummers were trained in these eight parts so that they could step in and allow the dancer to focus on her work. They can also work with the standard count for music and dancers which is also an eight count. The parallels to Guide and Journeyer, Top creating space for the altered state and the Bottom literally dancing their way into a space of magic is present. Even in entertainment forms we can find these things reflecting back at us—and it made me smile!

  Back to Hungry Mouths

  Hours, minutes, days, lifetimes pass. The beat goes on, morphs into another song, another DJ takes control and we find ourselves landing back into our skin. My Boy looks up at me and sees that I am still not all here, and grabs my hand that has landed on his chest some time ago and stayed there.

  He pulls me close to him. My cheeks are wet, but I ignore it all as the gentlest of kisses finds my lips and as his mouth opens to mine I find it full of cold water from his water bottle. I devour every drop, thirsty for hydration and his body. He reaches down to his side for another swig and kisses me again. Locks eyes with me. His head tilts slightly and I nod. He kisses away my tears, and I smile. He shakes me back into me with the sweetest kisses, reminds me why it’s important to be on this plane, here, now, with his caresses.

  We are done here. This place outside of space is over, and to come back to myself I need to change places, get away from the music, get away from any chance of flying away again. I need time to sit with what I experienced, and process it all. I need to show him how much I appreciate everything he has done for me. He knows exactly what I need for aftercare, where we need to go from here, how to anchor me back in my flesh after a journey out into Universal truth, and our bedroom waits.

  Chapter 4

&n
bsp; The Ordeal Path

  Trials of Rope and Balance

  We’d known each other in passing for about a year, but had never been close. To be honest, when she approached me at the local women’s-only play party about playing together I was really flattered. I’d never really thought I was her type. I’m not sure I even knew what her type was.

  We sat and started talking. She started saying in hushed tones that she had seen me suspend someone in ropes at a party last year and it had been in her mind ever since. Watching me weave an intricate web of desire and fantasy between lines of hemp rope and steel rings had caught her imagination, and after a full year that fascination was still there.

  But there was more there as she told the story. She spoke of how the woman I’d hung up before had been so beautiful in her suffering. In her agony. So I asked her why that appealed to her and she surprised me by saying she didn’t know if she’d ever really felt challenged in her life. It had been granted to her too easy. She was in her late twenties and yet she was still living on her parent’s dime. Her dark eyes flashed as she said she had never cut the purse strings or the apron strings, and she wished she had some sort of way she could spend some time like that woman, being pushed to suffer on her own, being challenged on her own, and succeeding or failing by her own ability, not what her parents could help her do.

  I breathed in deep. This was serious working she was asking me to consider. She had asked at first to play, but really, she was asking for me as her priestess. I eyed her up and down.