Learning minds-Shibaricon 2011

What do you know when you tie or get tied? What do you think, feel, what do you see? One of those things that became even more evident during the weekend at Shibarcon was I don’t want to tie with a ‘me’ but with a sense of ‘us’. That is, the focus remains on the shared experience; first and foremost shared by me and rope-partners, and in some cases, the inner experience that unfolds in self-bondage, due to outer restraints. Then, depending on where you are playing and how you are playing, you might affect others as well, intentional or non-intentional. It can be that moment, you know, when you look over a playspace and a specific scene catches your eye, you can’t stop watching and you find yourself engulfed into something that you are not immediately involved in. You have no intentions what so ever to interrupt the scene, but it still sucks you right in, into your mind and afterwards, you breathe almost as if you have been there yourself, you are hard/wet/ brainfucked/exhilarated/insert preferred state of mind here.

And what was great about Shibaricon was that intense feeling of tying, not just for yourself, or your partner, but together with others. A community of rope-geekery, with a focus on the rope but with so much space for any kind of play that would fall under the BDSM-acronym. Knowing that, thinking ‘Wow, all these people!’, feeling safe and encouraged, and seeing all of this happening, was truly something special. These are the posts about the classes and general interactions that resulted in some kind of learning experience or the thoughts around these. I wont have the possibility to cover all the classes I took, there is only as much as a girl can write about.

Furthermore; do you feel like you want to add something about a class you took that I have not mentioned? Scribble down a comment about it, what you thought and learned, and I can add it to the post.  Remember to credit the people involved as well 🙂 And if I have left out names, or misspelled anything, please do say 🙂

Friday
Saturday
Sunday-Forthcoming
Monday-Forthcoming

Gravity- Shibaricon 2011

This is the first of a number of posts covering the shared adventures at Shibaricon 2011. Please be patient as there is so much to go through. Shibaricon was catharsic to say at least, and processing it all will take quite some time.  

We are defined by gravity, and yet, somehow I am defying it. I’m moving through the air, and it feels like there is nothing that I would not be able to do, despite the fact that I am tied. The ropes around my ankle, foot and leg are straining the muscles while still supporting them, holding me up, enabling this upside down adventure.  I’m not a sack of potatoes, this is not a comfortable hammock, this is a strong body in action, and the man who has facilitated this is Dommy Darko. We have both flown over the very big pond to visit Shibaricon 2011, and strangely enough, it took a trip to the US for us to finally meet, even though he is based in Ireland and I’m in the UK. The previous evening, he had approached me for play, and we had tons and tons of fun  him beating and pinching and hurting me while I was partially suspended by the leg. We made an attempt to suspend from it then, but decided to give it a go the day after, with some slight modifications.

The day after we sat and pondered on the the ankle tie, it became so much part of it to figure out what was needed to be done. Two ropegeeks in action, both driven by intense curiousity and a will to make things work, in some way or another.  we discussed some more, prodded around, he tied, some more modifications with carabiners and the suspension point, a first attempt, going ok, but again, it needed some modifications.  I had early on a feeling that this might turn into something perfect, but as I know my body is somewhat fickle sometimes, I ask Dommy we could have a spotter, just for the sake for both of us. Bus Driver kindly agrees to help out with this, and with all of this prep and four capable hands around me it becomes easy to focus on the task at hand, which is the intense experience unfolding. I become more and more acutely aware of  every part of my body, as the pressure increases,  feeling muscles, movement, and it is an experience which demands this awareness. I’m lying down on the floor, face up, under the suspension-ring, then I feel Dommy pull, then another pull and I’m moving upwards, foot first. Core muscles, not tensing, just working. And then I’m up, above the ground, only supported by rope. There is a simple purity in this, no other limbs tied, no other mod cons to ‘help’. Just rope, incredibly capable hands and trust. And will. I am in an inverted single ankle suspension. Hanging up side down, from one ankle only. The thrill is immense. It is not charachterised by a sense of helplessness,but just sheer and utter strength.

While up, I start moving. My arms, my leg, my back, slowly first, testing what can be done, where I can go, how I can go there. And it is here that my body is different, it is here that I am not limited, there is movement here that feels so natural, so full of life & joy. Dommy keeps on working, I keep on moving, trying to not be in his way, but I just want to try every angle, every single little thing that can be done or cannot be done. The time is limited, and as mentioned: it is not a comfortable hammock suspension (nothing wrong with those!); but one in which I want to make the most out of the time I have.  And both of us keep on working, working hard.

If you are new to rope, depending on what you want to do, you need to know that you might have to think like an athlete. Now, that might sound a bit rich, coming from me, since I am not the best person on taking care of myself. My muscles and general physical state is not in the best of shapes, and god knows I have a lot of work to do after sitting on my ass for three years finishing my degree. But, to be honest, a year ago was the first time I could properly get myself tied into a box-tie, and other parts of my body is finally starting to agree with me. Furthermore; I finally want to be nice to myself. Do you have any idea of how hard it is to stop guilt-tripping yourself? Hating yourself for what it feels like you are instead of celebrating what you are on your way on becoming? Rope helps me with this, sooths and strengthens, pushes and forces me to feel, to acknowledge this body which I so often tries to disconnect from. And this inverted single ankle suspension did exactly this.

Back to hanging up side down. A couple of minutes pass, can’t really tell how many, just that it gets clearer to me that body is getting more and more tired. I am running a marathon I have never run before, and sooner or later, I will have to call it a day. Signalling to Dommy and Bus that I will need support and come down in a all to close future. My body is tired now, but in that way which releases tons of endorphins and adrenaline. When Bus allows me to rest in his arms while Dommy is slowly lowering me to the floor, I feel strangely giggly, smiley, sweating, safe. Warm strong arms, bonds of trust, bodies; defined by gravity. Defiance; born out of necessity.

The Vivid Dreams

I dreamt so vivid dreams last night. They woke me up several times, and the immediate feeling was that I was lost, so lost, and so in need of what ever it was that I dreamt. Because I loose them you see, the dreams, can only trace them back to the fragments and shells, filled with emotion but no clear narratives.

I returned from Japan on Tuesday evening. Jet-lag has been kicking my ass and I’ve felt out of place, not knowing how to land really, because it was a very special couple of days.  I’m in deep need of some debriefing and I guess this is the place for it.
This first post is going to be about a private experience during Sunday night at The Sleeping Beauty, a members club in Tokyo, run by the same man who organized Toubaku, Hajime Kinoko. I guess I’m writing about this experience first, because I need to get it out of my system.
First of all, Sleeping Beauty rocks. Friendly, warm, relaxed, a great feeling, and it was very easy to socialize a whole night, taking the first tube home.

After filling in a membership form, you enter and immediately take off your shoes off and lock them away. A very nice feeling actually, to be barefoot in a club. After that you can change your clothes in the completely kitted out dressing room, that also have showers where you can freshen up. They even have hairpins, soap, hairspray, etc, that you can borrow. Basically, it rocks.
There is three floors, basement with a dancefloor and a stage, plus seating area, the ground floor with changing rooms, a smaller room where it is allowed to use a cellphone. The first floor has the rooms for exhibitionism and voyeurism, so to say.  You can fuck or watch people fucking and there was none of that sleazy feeling at all. And no experience of any unwelcome attention what so ever, no groping, no harassment of any kind.  The first floor also has a big space for rope-related activities and socializing. It is also worth noting that all the drinks are included.

In the beginning of the evening the place was packed, but as the hours flew by, the crowd evened out somwhat. It felt very good being able to walk around without shoes, in relaxed clothing and still being in a sexpositive, ‘kinky’ (what ever that means!) environment. I was not really planning on anything during the evening, although there was that ever present ache, longing to experience rope. Just walking around, socializing, making friends, expressing admiration towards some of those I had seen on stage at the festival, it was quite enough. I also saw the fun-filled show of Esinem, who sparred against his model with a singletail and she sparred against him with a flogger. It turned into something really fast, hilarious, and utterly awesome. I can understand that people don’t want BDSM to be presented as a farce , but also think that it is important to live with a sense of humor, to be able to laugh with each other.  Joy is one of those things that guide me in my ‘lifestyle’ and oh how much joy Esinem and Inessa gave the audience!

People played with rope all evening, everywhere. It is a special feeling when it is like that, like anything can happen. The standard was incredibly high, and there was a willingness to experiment as well, to share and to talk rope.  Private newaza, long, public sessions, demanding suspensions. One of my favorite moments was when a girl dressed in cargo-trousers and t-shirt kept on trying different techniques for a one-leg suspension, so strong and so determined.
Someone who was very interesting to speak to was a Taiwanese rigger called Shin. Sadly, I missed his show during the festival, but hearing him speak of his rope-practice during a talk-show with other riggers he said a lot of things that really resonated with me (that is for another blog-post though) and we had spoken a bit later that evening and then continued doing that at Sleeping Beauty.
At some point I asked if he would be interested in doing some rope, cause seeing all the strands of jute flying around everywhere really made the longing so very strong. Furthermore, through our conversations, he really stood out as someone who I could trust.
Not expecting anything, a bit later he asked if I would care to practice some shibari with him. I gladly said yes, even if there was a bit of a hickup moment when understanding he meant on the small stage. We spoke a bit, and as always, I told about the slightly annoying fact that my body is not always that understanding of what I want to do. Some muscles in my upper-body,mainly the arms, does not work as they should, so a lot of stretching takes place, but despite this, a simple TK can sometimes be impossible. After a bit of faffing back and forth, I decided to shut up, and do that which I felt like I could; trust his judgement.
Sitting half-naked on that stage together with him, I know that is what the fragments of my dreams has consisted of last night.
Fever Ray sings ‘We are capsules of energy’ , and that was how it felt being tied by Shin that evening.

Relaxing in to the TK, feeling strand after strand working itself around the skin, creating tensions and frictions, a tug here, a movement there. And the mouth of mine started suddenly smiling, and all I wanted to give him was all the possibilities I could  possibly give him. I stopped praying to myself that my body would not let my down, cause he made sure I knew it wasn’t going to.
The yoko suri  is a suspension which has posed problems for me before. Either, my arms has cramped, or I’ve felt faint and dizzy, or  it just has not worked out. Shadow did one which was modified for me during a workshop in Berlin before Xmas (something I still need to write about!), but I kind of had retreated to the notion I would hardly be able to do it at all.  And sure, there was a a second or two of hesitation, not wanting to screw anything up, when Shin started to pull the ropes. The moments when you loose yourself into the inbalance, just seconds before going up, and then realizing “He made it possible” and not feeling any pain, any dizziness, just pure joy and adrenaline and life. Shin continued tying, and I continued smiling.  How strong was he to make this body, the one that I struggle with, to work?  How strong is it possible to make another person?

As I came down again, we sat on the floor, he started to untie and I know I asked him to not make it all stop to early, begged for it to last one more minute. He responded in his mother tongue when I started speaking Swedish. The world was perfectly still, right there and then.

And I guess, that was what I dreamt last night, the fragments of that experience.  A world standing still, so perfectly still, so perfectly strong.

 

Osada Steve in Copenhagen-a very personal journey

This is a guestblog by a fellow rope-maniac who was fortunate enough to bank a couple of days training with Osada Steve in the Copenhagen Shibari Dojo.

Here is Sauvage’s report:

Day 1

You know it’s going to be a heavy week when you start with one hour’s sleep. Early flight, up at 4am. Blue_entropy, bunny extrordinaire, is insane and worked until 3am but shows no hint of tiredness. She finds that last sentence amusing. And that one after.

We’re staying in a B&B apartment in a suburbian utopia in Copenhagen. People don’t close their gates, kids play in their front gardens, cycle lanes are divided from the main roads. It’s nice here.

After stocking up with food and having a couple of hours shut-eye, we decided to head down to the shibari dojo a little early so that we could make friends and soak up the atmosphere before starting.

Everyone is so extremely personable and modest. The atmosphere is one of a family. I mentioned Ve, who has visited the dojo twice from what I understand, and everyone clearly has fond memories of her charm and enthusiasm.

We bumped into Osada Steve walking into the venue. Personable, he and everyone else put me at ease. I’m not sure people knew exactly what to make of me and Blue_entropy, because everyone else was a member of the club there already, was Danish, they all knew each other, and Osada Steve commented on how young we were: “it’s good to have new young blood learning”.

The standard of the dojo members is extremely high, and their modesty equally impressive. Imagine a room full of nawa_konekos. Ehrm, and me flailing about.

Today the dojo members wanted to check I met minimum standards for Osada Steve to teach us. One member in particular, Attila, kindly spent most of the day with me. Given that they wanted to check I knew the two-rope Takate-Kote, and single limb and double limb ties, I wasn’t too worried.

But oh my god is there an infinite amount of detail involved in tying all the possible elements of the Takate-Kote correctly. I’ve tied it probably at least a hundred times in play and previous tuition combined so I thought I would be ok, but every fine detail of tension, distance between ropes, how to keep control of a struggling partner while tying it, etc. was covered.

To not touch ropes for a couple of months, get one hour sleep, feel a bit like the baby odd one out and to be the only one who wasn’t already a qualified known in the school, and tie with Osada Steve sensei’s exacting eye on every move was, well, a challenge. But what’s life for if you don’t rise to these occasions?

It was a challenge and a taste of how high-calibre the week to come will be. I amjust (just) passable enough in rope skills to not completely drown in these lessons. I hope. And the roughness and great tension in the tying would be a big deal for any bunny – I was surprised at how tight the ties were supposed to be done.

Shattered, going to sleep now.

Day 2

Fingers bleeding.

In theory it would be technically accurate to say that I tied Osada Steve today. However, this would be missing out crucial detail: he was teaching us how to ‘capture’ struggling partners, how to stand in a way that protects our balls from getting kicked, how to shift them off-balance.

So after we practised the technique for a while, he singled me out and told me to try to capture him. Ah.

He’s 6-foot something and trained to an advanced level in aikido. Ah.

Well, I started trying to wrap around his wrist with the first move, doing what he taught me, as he danced around the room making sure I couldn’t approach him from the angle I wanted.

There was a moment where we were both just grinning at each other as we acknowledged that he wasn’t going to make this easy for me. I finally managed something passable when he eased up a little, after a few simulated elbows to my face to highlight my lapses. Remind me not to try to tie large world-renowned senseis trained in martial arts in the near future though.

Today was on the whole much easier than yesterday, sleep and practice probably helped. I’ve worn the skin off my right index finger, which will make the remaining three days interesting. My existing knowledge is benefiting from the extra details that make it all more fluid and efficient, and today’s material overlapped enough with what I was already familiar with to feel comfortable most of the time…

…Except when chasing Osada Steve around the dojo.

Tomorrow we’ll start some suspension, although today already covered some vertical technique. Looking forward.

Day 3,4,5

Eye-opening. Mind-blowing. Life-changing?

So many thoughts, so much to spill onto a page…

The Classes

Friday, Day 3, marked the arrival of the second rope bunny, who for the purposes of this blog I will refer to as Little Miss Awesome, and the bruised Blue_Entropy took a much-deserved chill-out day.

With one hour of sleep, Little Miss Awesome was indeed awesome as we did a fair amount of side suspension amongst other things. Far less nervous than at the beginning, I began to appreciate that I was of a comparable skill level to the other students and no one was judging me. Sometimes I fiddled with details of forms that were new to me, and this occasionally led to bunny boredom which led to wriggling free, which (temporarily) confirmed Osada Steve’s perception that all English girls struggle and wriggle. By the end of Day 3 I’d cemented many of the details I’d learnt earlier this year, I was pleased to learn Osada Steve’s 3rd rope to the Takate-Kote, and we were moving into unfamiliar territory.

Day 4 (Saturday) was a free practice day with much messing about, and I managed the yokozuri side suspension with more success. I’ll still need to practice with heights, tension and speed. Little Miss Awesome read me like a book and did her best to get me to focus on her and not the ropes. I still have the scratch-marks. A theme that persistently came out of this was that the tying is 90% about your partner and 10% about the rope. The more fluid and automatic the technical details become, the more you can express yourself and connect. Driving a car becomes more fun once you can change the gear without thinking about it. Although tied up, Little Miss Awesome was as important a teacher to me as Osada Steve in conveying feelings and energy. For all her vices, she reads people, and this is so important. I feel so impaired in this at the moment, jittery, hopefully just a temporary phase as the PhD thesis closes.

Day 5 was the most enjoyable… especially after the change in spirit from the night before (more below). One of the hojo-jutsu ties was elegant while laced with meaning in Japanese culture of a guilty prisoner in a judicial trial. Osada Steve gave me a lot of time and attention as he saw my eyes light up with the options presented by a series of rather simple ankle/foot ties. It can be used to just keep your partner’s leg up in the air as she lies on the ground, presenting a humiliating position, and presents options to play with the rope and her shape as a toy, but it can also be used for inverted suspension, and even presents a lot of opportunities for progressions in suspension. I can imagine using these related ties a lot, in play and even in performance if I ever move on to that. Little Miss Awesome is lean, strong and acrobatic, so we moved on to inverted suspensions. For one of the ties, she started relatively flat, and in one sweeping tug she was propelled with her feet close to the ceiling, just suspended by her feet. It’s fucking satisfying to tug the suspension ropes until you’re lying flat on the ground, and provide the kind of dynamic ‘top gear’ moment of rapid change that Hajime Kinoko was saying adds variation and interest to his sessions and performances. Then we swung her around to much “weeee!” It entered the world of fast dynamic fluid progression, and confident stimulation and experience to the partner, that I want to explore further.

Osada Steve insisted that I stay in touch with Little Miss Awesome as she is actually quite talented and would make a good performer. And the words of praise and attention that Steve had for me were encouraging; he said a number of times that he feels people like me are the future.

The Copenhagen Shibari Dojo

It’s the people that make a place.

And that’s why the Copenhagen Shibari Dojo is one of the best places in the world. The level of talent is extremely high, yet there is no competition between members, no egos, no showing off, just pure love, passion, respect, enjoyment and support. People enjoy their own individual journeys. People talk themselves down, not up. The Dojo leadership stems from a pure sincere passion for shibari and kinbaku, not from wanting to be highly visible in order to pick up more girls. There is no hint of people undermining each other, and people share with each other if they want to, but again there is no hint of compulsive slutting.

And considering that the population of Copenhagen is less than a million and the total population of Denmark is less than 6 million, it’s incredible that there is such a concentration of talent and cooperation that we haven’t seen in London or the UK, as far as I’m aware. They are like a family, and we were welcomed within it.

The Dojo is linked to a club around the corner, which is similarly brilliant.

London and probably the UK has a lot to learn from Copenhagen. While I left the Dojo inspired, I also felt disappointed that I don’t think such a replicated effort could survive the politics of London. It’s the people that make a place.

The Club Night

For me, this was the biggest turning point of the journey. It’s a small private members club, with one main central room, and several smaller side-rooms, including one with an interesting array of historically authentic East German Stasi interrogation equipment.

After four simultaneous warm-up acts, Osada Steve gave his own performance. MaxTina gave a really original flowing performance that highlighted the deep connection they had together. Dspar – another great guy, who had been a superb host over the week – did something similar to what I’d seen Hajime Kinoko do with Ve, like a prayer on the floor which is then suspended into the air. I hope to learn this form one day. Ardour gave her performance with a model example of the Gyaku-ebi-zuri in action.

Osada Steve was suitably brilliant. He did some tough ties on his partner Mari, which included a form of minimalist face-down suspension used as torture (which he then taught us the next day in the last day of workshops?!)

Then came magic. The eye-opener. The most passionate and intimate thing I’ve seen in my life. Which left me speechless and even had Osada Steve saying he’d never seen anything like that before (oh, and that maybe English girls can enjoy rope without struggling after all). I don’t want to give any further details but everything started to make sense after that. The connection, passion and energy exchange between partners, not the focus on the ropes per se. Magic. And I want it. And I can make it if I persevere. I’ll have a lot of fun even if I don’t make it there. And the ties always have usage in the Western bondage sense of “she’s tied up now let’s do something cruel to her” so an important thing will still be to read partners regardless of what mode of play you conjure.

As much as Little Miss Awesome and I acknowledge that we will one day kill each other, I’m aware that I’ve seen sides to her that people who knew her for years never saw, and I value that. I’m grateful to her, Blue_Entropy, Osada Steve and the Dojo members for the huge experience this week has been.

A little bit more to read

While travelling, I still want to keep you, dear readers, occupied. I know I’ve not been the best doing so far this summer, but here comes two links that especially for us rope-maniacs I think will be very interesting.

First one is this blog, Ai Nawa, a reflective blog on kinbaku, it’s history, culture and philosophy.

Then we also have some additions in our blogroll, and I’m proud to present the awesome Sex is not the enemy as well as Shelby Knox, and Yes Means Yes

There you go, part rope stories, part queer sexpositivism and feminism.

Snippets

Snippets of the week that passed at Stockholm Pride, 2010:

I

She asked me how to approach people at a party like we where on. A fetish party. And I realized that after two years, I still don’t really know myself, at least not any formulaes. The way that tend to work the best is to be quite upfront and talk about what is interesting and ask people about them, like anything in real life actually.

We started talking, and after a while I asked her politely if there was anything she was looking for and if there was anything that made her particularly curious.
I must say that I like to top ‘new’ people, those who are so eager to experience, but this person turned out to be more than that. N caught my interest in more than one way and we found common grounds quite fast. The first couple of minutes of us playing a bit later was affected by slight stress from my part, being nervous and was not sticking to a original plan. But after less than 2 minutes I found the place I wanted to move towards, and away we flew. And how it flew.
She sat with her hands tied infront of her, as if she was praying.   The rush was immediate. My arms reaching around her, and we are going from being fairly new to eachother to close friends, knowing eachothers skin better as each strand of rope came closer to her.

The ropes, touching, holding, waiting, wrapping strand after strand, her breathing getting heavier, her face disappearing bit by bit as the rope first covers her mouth, then her eyes. Sensitive nerve-endings, and a no force is needed when putting the rope in her mouth, following her grasp, as one of my hands covers her mouth, and the other her mouth. And when my palm strike her skin, it is just another way of not using big gestures, but keeping it less than large, holding on to a space that we have created together. The pinwheel making her shudder, my fingernails slowly digging in to her skin.

When directing her to the floor I don’t want to get to far away from her, and as her back start to take even more beatings,  I still keep close, always a hand on her shoulder. It is close I want to be, not leaving her side.

II

This is a translation of a text that was written by a lovely ropepartner of mine, after our first session at a all women’s play party. She wrote this as she wanted to explain how it affected her, and after reading it, I was so touched that I asked if it was ok to publish it here,and with her permission, here it is:

…After a while at the club, my body started to itch. Rope, rope, rope. I only knew one person there who did anything with rope and who might have some rope with her so I scouted her out. V. She was happy to tie me up a bit later, and as I was waiting I continued speaking with people, but now with a different expression in my face. A special smile. Those who saw that smile, pointed out how happy I was looking.

V made me take of the horrid heels and take off the jewels before she started to unlace my corset. And there was a certain manner in the way she took a hold of me, with a firm grip placing my arms with the wrists resting against eachother behind my back. The euphoric feeling rope gives started to slip through ny whole body. Not even thinking about it, my eyes closed. Despite the music and the people around us I created a small bubble for me, the rope and V. I think it took 3 pieces of rope before the arms were in place. Unprepared I went down on my knees when she pushed me to the floor. When she had asked me what I wanted I said that I wanted my arms to be stuck, but that she could tie more if she wanted.
After she had moved me around down on the floor and letting me lean on her a couple of seconds, just enough to feel the security of another person, V bent my right leg backwards so that thigh was parallell with the calf. Three rows of rope wrapped the leg before moving on to the next leg.

My objective here was to write about the beautiful feeling of rope. But it is so hard to grasp. It crept up slowly, bit by bit, that feeling together with the ropes. I’m filled with such comfort, when ropes are handled in the right way. In the end, I was place on the floor, lying on my stomach. The only thing I could see was peoples feet. When V placed a rope at my mouth I finally parted my lips and a small ropegag was in place. After that she wrapped rope over my eyelids. Carefully, bit by bit so to make sure I was ok. I did not know if I was first, but then it felt so good. The total freedom in helplessness, captivity, without me feeling a bit helpless. Just utterly happy and soft. She played around with the ropes, moved them. I just let her do it, suprised over how my breathing changed, suprised at how pleasureable it was. I loved her way on handling the ropes.

And I’ve been thinking about the difference. I’ve been tied a lot before, but very rarely the goal has been the tying itself. Instead the goal had been about being helpless, stuck, or a part of a quite hard a mean play. But this was rope for rope’s sake. And sure, in one way I felt dominated. In one way she showed who was in charge by her way of moving me around, the way she touched me. But it was different from previous experiences with rope. It was different and I liked it. A lot.

Written by Volang, 2010.

III

A couple of days later, and I am tired, anxious and trying really hard to get in to partymode. But instead of socializing, I’m doing more crying and am not even being able to express my wish of being tied up and properly beaten.

But after first tying myself up and spending some time with the chosen family, I realise I got mummification tape. Very handy. So after getting a positive response from S, mummification is a go.

S start by wrapping my arms separateley, somewhat different from what I am used to, but it proves to be even more efficent in preventing movement.  People gather around as I’m twirling into the tape and I’m aware of them looking, enjoying it and starting to relax for the first time, even if my brain is still not shutting up, bombarding my senses with impressions and troubled things.
When my upperbody is wrapped, including my chest, head and nose covered, S flips me over on to the floor.

Lying down, feeling the wraps travelling down my legs, furthering immobilizing and I can’t see, cannot move and hardly speak. Immobilized and I cannot even care about how it looks like. Their eyes gazing, but they can’t reach me here, the cocoon of black plastic shielding me from the world.

Time disappears, and suddenly thoughts do too. Drifting in and out of the space,, and travelling to a place where the mind shuts up, shuts down, and it is such a precious place. And as I arrive there, I linger as long as I can.

I don’t know how long time after, but after a while I ask S to slowly cut me out. This is alway a moment of slight fear, even if I know that safety shears are used. As the black plastic leaves my body I’m reborn, an intense feeling of katharsis only intensified by the small fears of being cut.

Entering the world again, with fresh breaths drawn filling my body with slowmoving energy. Looking around, everything is like it was before, except that it is not. The couple next to me, prepping the needle scene when I first started to disappear in the black plastic, is now not prepping anymore. Both of his arms, his chest and his back is covered in needles, and I realise things like that takes some time. One look at the watch and it tells me an hour has passed. I fell asleep in the plastic, in my cocoon.

And I feel good again, born again, flying on low-intense energy, delightfully buzzing in my stomach. After sleeping an hour, wrapped in black plastic.