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  • All I Ever Wanted Was Community v2

    All I Ever Wanted Was Community

    All I ever wanted was community. That longing might sound naïve, but it is deeply human. I entered these spaces hungry for connection, for chosen family, for a circle that could hold both my fire and my tenderness. I led with my heart—always have. That heart has carried me through joy and devastation, but it also connects me to a much older hunger, one that thinkers and wisdom-keepers across cultures have tried to name.

    Sobonfu Somé, in The Spirit of Intimacy, reminds us that true community is a spiritual endeavor: a weaving of vulnerability, ritual, and collective responsibility. In her Dagara tradition, the health of the individual is inseparable from the health of the whole. Malidoma Patrice Somé echoes this in Healing Wisdom of Africa and Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community: community is sustained by rituals that reconnect us to one another, to nature, and to Spirit.

    I believed that if I moved with integrity, compassion, and willingness to learn, there would be room for me. I showed up. I gave. I made space—not to earn approval, but because that is how love teaches us to live. bell hooks, in All About Love, calls this the ethic of love: an active choice to nurture growth in ourselves and others.

    But instead of belonging, I met betrayal. I have been erased from spaces I helped hold, accused in whispers, and defamed without dialogue or process. This grief is mine, but it is also cultural. M. Scott Peck writes in The Road Less Traveled that true community requires struggle, honesty, and commitment to growth—but most groups collapse before reaching that stage. Instead of intimacy, we replicate domination.

    The West romanticizes the “rugged individual,” Erich Fromm critiques in The Art of Loving, but this individualism breeds alienation. Families are privatized, elders discarded, art isolated in museums, Spirit replaced with consumption: I shop therefore I am. In Of Water and the Spirit, Malidoma Patrice Somé contrasts this with African initiation systems where community raises the child, and where each person’s survival is bound to the survival of all.

    And yet, I kept hoping. I thought the circles I entered could be intentional spaces of care. What I found instead was conflict avoidance, gossip as governance, and safety-ism masquerading as accountability. Lee Harrington, in Playing Well with Others, emphasizes that authentic community requires communication, negotiation, and clarity—not whisper networks and silent complicity.

    So no, I am not broken. I am becoming. Smaller, deeper, and more intentional. I no longer scatter my energy into spaces that treat my humanity as optional. I do not beg for belonging. I honor those who have supported me, I release those who have harmed me, and I devote myself to what Sobonfu Somé calls the “vital life force” of real community: ritual, Spirit, and the deliberate weaving of souls.

    Community is not everyone in a room. It is not gossip or safety committees or charismatic leaders. It is a spiritual practice: a collective intimacy that restores, heals, and sustains life.

    That is still all I ever wanted. And that is still what I am building.

  • No One Breathes for You

    The tension between responsibility for oneself and the creeping trend of infantilization, “safety-ism,” and universalizing one’s own perspective over another’s consent and choice

    There’s a troubling trend I keep noticing: the desire to treat others as if they are incapable of making their own decisions, as if they are children who must be protected at all costs.

    I watch as people step in and supplant another’s desires, another’s wishes, with their own judgments — robbing them of agency, interfering in their path of self-discovery.

    I spoke recently about responsibility — that I am responsible for my existence, my choices, my actions, my happiness, my relationships, the values I live by. No one can breathe for me; no one can give me self-esteem; no one can rescue me from the consequences of my choices. That is the work of my life alone.

    So why do so many now insist on “protecting” others by stripping them of this responsibility? Why pretend that people are victims of choices they themselves have made?

    When someone consents, when someone desires, when someone says yes — who are you to override them with your own discomfort, your own morals, your own standards? Why is your universalized perspective supposed to count for more than the actual will of the person in question?

    I see it over and over: loud voices declaring “safety,” when in truth what they create is suffocation. They destroy the spaces we’ve built in the name of protection, but protection from what? From being fully human? From tasting risk? From living by our own choices?

    And worse — the arrogance of it. To presume that your personal discomfort invalidates another’s freedom. To insert yourself as savior when no rescue was asked for. To yuck someone else’s yum, and then call it morality.

    There are no victims here — only people who choose. We each walk our path. We each live the consequences of our own decisions. To deny that is to deny our dignity. To rob people of their responsibility is to rob them of their humanity.

    So I return to what I know:
    I am responsible for my life.
    I am responsible for my choices.
    I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to everything I do.

    No one else can do that for me.

  • Needs vs Strategies

    Needs vs Strategies

    Needs vs. Strategies
    Part I: The Problem – Alienation from Ourselves

    Today I want to talk about three books and why they helped me describe a topic I have been extremely passionate about: The Art of Love, Nonviolent Communication, and The Body Keeps the Score. The topic is Needs vs. Strategies.

    What do I mean by that?

    Strategies are requests, desires, wants, and “solutions” to specific actions by specific people. Needs, on the other hand, contain no reference to any particular action; they exist regardless of who or what is available. Some examples of needs are rest, understanding, support, honesty, and meaning.

    This topic is so fundamentally hard to talk about, but it transforms everything. I am going to attempt to codify my understanding through this writing. Why? Because strategies disconnect us from our needs.

    Stop right there. Some of us can’t even name our needs. We live outside ourselves—and by that I mean we live on external directives rather than from our internal knowledge and needs. We become alienated from our natural state.

    All criticism, attack, insults, and judgments are the result of our attention being focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels. Our thinking becomes centered on dehumanizing one another with labels and judgments. Judgments, criticisms, diagnoses, and interpretations of others are all alienated expressions of our needs.

    But everything would change if we listened to the feelings and needs behind the message.

    Part II: Trauma, Survival, and Strategies

    We have an estrangement from feelings and get stuck utilizing survival strategies to assert our needs. This is both an inability to connect with our needs and an inability to assume responsibility for our needs. We put all our energy into protecting ourselves, developing whatever survival strategies we can. We may repress our feelings; we may get furious and plot revenge. We may decide to become so powerful and successful that nobody can ever hurt us again.

    Many behaviors that are classified as psychiatric problems—including some obsessions, compulsions, and panic attacks, as well as most self-destructive behaviors—started out as strategies for self-protection.

    Biologically, we need to attach to someone. Whether that is a loving and caring someone or a distant, insensitive, rejecting, or abusive someone, we will develop some way to get our needs met. And when your source of survival is also your source of fear, you are stuck with “fright without solution.”

    In The Body Keeps the Score it says: “It is much more productive to see aggression or depression, arrogance or passivity as learned behaviors: somewhere along the line, the patient came to believe that he or she could survive only if he or she was tough, invisible, or absent, or that it was safer to give up.”

    These adaptations will continue until we feel safe and integrate all the parts of ourselves that are stuck fighting or warding off trauma. Coping takes its toll. For many, it is safer to hate themselves than to risk their relationship by expressing anger or acting out.

    They survive by denying, ignoring, and splitting off large chunks of reality: they forget, they suppress, they numb. They reconfigure their minds to live with the worst. They develop defensive strategies to help them survive.

    What is unknowable causes anxiety. People need the illusion that everything can be known. Even if in this illusion they are the most hated, it feels safer than the chaos of the unknown.

    Part III: Turning Inward – Naming Needs and Affirming Worth

    When we live away from our needs within ourselves, our lives become limited by external and alien perspectives, and we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on our needs.

    But when we begin to live from within outward—in touch with the power within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us—then we begin to be responsible to ourselves.

    We begin to recognize our deepest feelings. We give up, out of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness that so often seems like the only alternative. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.

    To refuse to be conscious of what we are feeling at any time, however comfortable that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience and to allow ourselves to be reduced.

    It requires a concern to know not only external reality but also internal reality—the reality of my needs, feelings, aspirations, and motives—so that I am not a stranger or a mystery to myself. The feeling that joy and fulfillment are my natural birthright.

    Part IV: The Affirmations – Owning My Existence

    Once you’re able to say:

    I am not here on earth to live up to someone else’s expectations; my life belongs to me.

    Each person is the owner of his or her life; no one is here on earth to live up to my expectations.

    I have a right to exist.

    I am of high value to myself.

    I have a right to honor my needs and wants, to treat them as important.

    I am lovable.

    I am admirable.

    I will usually be liked and respected by the people I like and respect.

    I should deal with others fairly and justly, and others should deal with me fairly and justly.
    I deserve to be treated courteously and with respect by everyone.

    If people treat me discourteously or disrespectfully, it is a reflection on them, not on me. It is only a reflection on me if I accept their treatment of me as right.

    If someone I like does not return my feeling, it may be disappointing or even painful, but it is not a reflection on my personal worth.

    No other individual or group has the power to determine how I will think and feel about myself.

    I trust my mind.
    I see what I see and know what I know.
    I am better served by knowing what is true than by making myself “right” at the expense of the facts.
    If I persevere, I can understand the things I need to understand.

    The more conscious I am of that which bears on my interests, values, needs, and goals, the better my life will work.

    To remain effective, I need to keep expanding my knowledge; learning needs to be a way of life. The better I know and understand myself, the better the life I can create. Self-examination is an imperative of a fulfilled existence.

    At the most fundamental level, I am for myself.
    At the most fundamental level, I accept myself.

    Part V: Responsibility and Aloneness

    I accept the reality of my thoughts, even when I cannot endorse them and would not choose to act on them; I do not deny or disown them.
    I can accept my feelings and emotions without necessarily liking, approving of, or being controlled by them; I do not deny or disown them.
    I can accept that I have done what I have done, even when I regret or condemn it. I do not deny or disown my behavior.

    I accept that what I think, feel, or do is an expression of myself, at least in the moment it occurs. I am not bound by thoughts, feelings, or actions I cannot sanction, but neither do I evade their reality or pretend they are not mine.

    I accept the reality of my problems, but I am not defined by them. My problems are not my essence. My fear, pain, confusion, or mistakes are not my core.

    Once you own that:

    I am responsible for my existence.

    I am responsible for the achievement of my desires.

    I am responsible for my choices and actions.

    I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work and other activities.

    I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships.

    I am responsible for my behavior with other people—co-workers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends.

    I am responsible for how I prioritize my time.

    I am responsible for the quality of my communications.

    I am responsible for my personal happiness.

    I am responsible for choosing or accepting the values by which I live.

    I am responsible for raising my self-esteem; no one else can give me self-esteem.

    In the ultimate sense, I accept my aloneness. That is, I accept that no one is coming to make my life right, or save me, or redeem my childhood, or rescue me from the consequences of my choices and actions. In specific issues, people may help me, but no one can take over primary responsibility for my existence. Just as no one else can breathe for me, no one else can take over any of my other basic life functions, such as earning the experience of self-efficacy and self-respect.

    Part VI: Healing, Neuroplasticity, and Self-Care

    In order to play, mate, and nurture , the brain needs to turn off its natural vigilance. We must identify strategies beyond denial or repression for navigating pleasure in relationship to others.

    Drop low-performing strategies and replace them with tested alternatives. Once I could name my needs, I became aware of my strategies—how I cope with the fear of my needs not being met.

    I learned to listen for feelings, to express my needs, to accept answers that I didn’t always want to hear. I learned to grow, to accept, to love, to be fulfilled.

    The most important job of the brain is to ensure our survival, even under the most miserable conditions. Everything else is secondary. Psychological problems occur when our internal signals don’t work, when our maps don’t lead us where we need to go, when we are too paralyzed to move, when our actions do not correspond to our needs, or when our relationships break down.

    The brain is formed in a “use-dependent manner.” This is another way of describing neuroplasticity, the relatively recent discovery that neurons that “fire together, wire together.” This creates the communal, spiritual, and historical contexts that shape our lives.

    As we begin to re-experience a visceral reconnection with the needs of our bodies, there is a brand new capacity to warmly love the self. We experience a new quality of authenticity in our caring, which redirects our attention to our health, our diets, our energy, and our time management. This enhanced care for the self arises spontaneously and naturally, not as a response to a “should.”

    We are able to experience an immediate and intrinsic pleasure in self-care. The body needs to be restored to a baseline state of safety and relaxation from which it can mobilize to take action in response to real danger. Building up internal resources fosters safe access to sensations and emotions. Feeling the pleasure of taking effective action restores a sense of agency and a sense of being able to actively defend and protect ourselves.

    Part VII: The Call – From Survival to Liberation

    When we don’t know how to directly and clearly express what we need, we make analyses. Criticism and diagnosis get in the way. Pain can get in the way of our ability to hear clearly.

    Translate any message into an expression of a need. Understand the pain.

  • Let me have it

    You’ve been holding it all week—
    the weight of decisions,
    the clutter of messes,
    the quiet crumbling of yourself
    while keeping everything together.

    Friday night, I see you
    running on fumes,
    until the door swings and
    I’m there, waiting,
    hands ready, eyes claiming
    what’s been carried too long.

    Your bag hits the floor;
    my fingers brush the back of your neck—
    a whisper, a command,
    and you obey without thought,
    without hesitation,
    without the weight of holding
    for a moment more.

    Rope slides between us,
    and suddenly,
    I hold it all—the trust,
    the worry, the doubt,
    the ache of yesterday,
    the pulse of tomorrow,
    your breath, your hunger,
    your soul laid bare.

    Wrists, ankles, boundaries, limits—
    all tied,
    all given,
    all surrendered
    to the rhythm of my hands,
    the slow and deliberate claiming
    of your body, your desire,
    your mind finally unburdened.

    Each touch is permission:
    to release, to dissolve,
    to fall apart in my arms
    and let me have it—
    your thought, your consciousness,
    your morality, your fear,
    your passion, your pain,
    your pleasure, your power,
    your everything.

    Eyes lock, breath trembles,
    and your first, second, third
    collapse into moans,
    shaking, trembling,
    until all the weight
    slips from your shoulders
    and I am holding it—
    holding you—
    so you don’t have to.

    When the ropes fall away,
    you are wrecked,
    but whole,
    and I whisper,
    “No more weight tonight.
    It’s all mine now.”

    All the trust, all the thought, all the burden—
    let me have it,
    and in giving,
    you are free.

  • Fallen Apart, Held Together

    Some knots don’t restrain. They release.

    You don’t tie them down, you hold them down. The rope listens. Every question. Every answer. Rope is silence permission.

    The hands go back, ankles bound together, chest wrapped, mouth open, just breathe. and felt the rope pull snug— be here now.

    You watch their stillness. You watch them drop the weight they carry. The choices they make. And surrenders themselves to you.

    The rope holds. You hold. They exhales. The ghost of every time you evolved without breaking.

    Your fingers trace the lines written, reading the story you’ve wrote across there skin.

    There pulse slows. Eyes close. They float—away from the world, and deeper into it. Into the safety of not having to be.

    Whispered invocations cause thier body to shiver in recognition. Trust. Safety. Connection. They ream

    Whispered invocations cause thier body to shiver in recognition. Trust. Safety. Connection. They Dream, They Play, They let it all fall away. Because Rope done right lets them fall apart. and holds them together in just the right way.

  • Look what we have done.

    You hear my voice, and you feel the rope.

    There is no escape from what’s coming.

    Your body is still, breathing is deep, your skin is humming with electricity.
    Darkness presses in, stealing the world’s light, and all that’s left is touch.
    Every second stretches long.
    Your heartbeat loud in your ear.

    I hover just out of reach.
    Slow drags—and then it’s gone again.
    Spine arched, aching for more.
    You beg without a sound.

    You’re not thinking anymore.
    You’re lost in the moment.
    You’re twitching, and we haven’t even started.

    The waves crash through you and don’t stop
    till you have nothing left.

    Unraveling.
    Everything stripped away.
    Now we can get started.

  • Untangling Sensations

    There’s something incredibly grounding about the feel of rope \

    the intentionality, the rhythm, the trust.

    Learning rope isn’t just about technique — it’s about presence. 

    breaking down the fundamentals at the Sensations 

    its a guided exploration of how rope can hold, support, and express setting the tone for everything that followed.

    Rope play isn’t just about aesthetics — it’s about awareness, anatomy, and the emotional dynamics union

    One of the most intimate and powerful parts of rope is exploration of the physical construct created by using your body to support each other. To hold space, build trust, and remind each other what it feels like to be truly seen  one mindful gesture at a time. Creating a cocoon of trust the body becomes the framework offering structure, comfort, and security. Explore your bodies sensation navigate flowing without words responding intuitively.

    Even in a room full of people rope can become a quiet sanctuary of its own. The room buzzed with energy. Ropes flowed between curious finger no egos, no pressure, just people supporting each otherc

  • Just a little while longer

    You didn’t flinch when I stepped behind you—
    you just breathed a little deeper.

    You didn’t flinch when the rope whispered across your skin—
    you just leaned in a little further.

    You didn’t flinch when all went silent—
    you just relaxed a little bit more.

    When my fingers ran down the small of your back, my hand wrapped around your throat.
    you just sat in your heels a little more.

    When the first knot locked in place, stillness followed.
    Not fear, not anticipation.
    The rope tightened, and so did the truth between us.

    Your lips parted, but no words followed.
    Yet I heard all the secrets you wished to tell—
    though you spoke not a word.

    I can feel you pressed against me.
    I can hear your silent request:
    just wait a little while longer.

  • Passing Out

    First, a word of clarity: I’m not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. If you faint in ways you can’t explain, go see a physician or medical professional.

    Now, let’s talk about it.

    Have you ever stood up too fast and felt the whole world shift beneath your feet? A dizzy spell, black creeping in at the edges of your vision—like an old tube TV flickering out. Maybe your body suddenly buckled, even collapsed. It can happen in rope too, and let me tell you—it’s scary as hell.

    Your circulatory system is complex, and one of its jobs is to maintain equilibrium throughout your body. To do this, it regulates pressure through vasoconstriction and vasodilation, among other mechanisms. There are many other factors that play a role too: temperature, body weight, hydration levels, drugs, exhaustion, and more.

    Your circulatory system is designed to adjust to keep you balanced. But sudden shifts can cause the body to overcompensate. And if your brain isn’t getting enough blood flow—it lights out.

    Now let’s apply that to rope. Rope messes with blood flow. Obviously. Tight bindings or certain suspensions can trap blood in parts of the body. When those ropes come off, all that blood suddenly rushes back into circulation. Add gravity and fast transitions, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for fainting.

    Fainting isn’t always about pain tolerance, intensity, or emotions (though those can absolutely play a part). Often, it’s about circulation and how quickly the body is forced to adjust.

    Things that make fainting more likely:

    • Standing up too fast
    • Dehydration
    • Skipped meals
    • Heat
    • Exhaustion
    • Low blood pressure or high blood pressure
    • Vasodilators like alcohol
    • Vasoconstrictors like caffeine
    • Certain medical conditions
    • Coming out of rope too fast
    • Going from horizontal to upright too quickly

    So what do you do?

    Transition slowly and intentionally. Don’t skip meals or water. Expect fainting—it doesn’t always mean something went wrong. Rope stresses the body. Fainting is one of the ways the body protects itself.

    Trust the early signals and evacuate early. Your body gives you signs: tightness of breath, profuse sweating, too much spit in your mouth, slight ringing in your ears, a creeping sense of disconnection or dissociation, or just a general feeling of wrongness. Don’t push yourself. Listen.


    And if it happens: Don’t panic. Passing out is scary, but panic makes it worse. Be honest—if you’ve fainted before, it will probably happen again, so adapt accordingly. If you feel the signs coming on, say something. Take a seat. Get water. Cool down. Come out of the rope slowly. Get fresh air. Eat some sugar. Take a pause.

    Don’t let fear cement itself. When you’re ready, try again—slowly and intentionally.

    Passing out is not uncommon. And it’s not always physical. It can also be triggered by psychological stress—called vasovagal syncope. This can come from trauma, emotions, or your body’s response to the situation, feelings, your conscious reaction to your subjective experience of your emotions, trust, uncertainty, lack of safety, or care. Sometimes fainting acts as a psychic wall —to shutdown, shield or reset that protects the body.

    Understanding why helps you prepare for when it happens and respond better next time.

  • Unbound and Untamed

    They only crave what they cannot taste. They only hunger for what does not beg to be devoured. The moment you stop offering yourself as their feast, they circle your absence like starving pilgrims, desperate for one more sip of the nectar you’ll never pour again.

    People are trained to prey on your longing—the soft tremor of needing to be desired, the ache for approval, the moan for validation. They smell it on you like sex. Like sweat. Like blood. But once you strip yourself of that hunger, once you tear out the root of needing to be chosen—you stop being food.

    Your silence is lethal. Your detachment is a mercy. No longer a body bent into shapes for their comfort, you become an altar of your own making. They’ll call you selfish. They’ll call you heartless. There’s nothing more suffocating than hands that held you only to keep you down.

    They raise you on the lie that being needed is the same as being loved. When you no longer need anyone, you become the only one they all need. Love without reverence is just hunger, and hunger will always drain you dry. Your absence becomes louder than their presence. They whisper your name when you’re not there because silence has made you a legend.

    Most beg for a seat at poisoned tables. When you no longer need their touch, their approval, their lips at your ear, you become the very thing they worship in secret. They tremble, they whisper your name in their sleep, because the one who no longer kneels becomes the only one worth kneeling to. You’ve met your monsters, made them dance, and came back free of every leash.

    They’ll call you ruthless when you stop explaining. Arrogant when you stop apologizing for your hungers, your fire, your divinity. But their accusations are burning on your altar. Their words feed your legend. Mystery is power. Secrecy is survival. To withhold your body, your secrets, your energy—this is sovereignty.

    A world addicted to taming wildness will call you a monster when you bare your fangs instead of your throat. But it is not monstrosity they fear—it is your refusal to be owned. They want your submission as proof they still matter. But you’ve tasted your own darkness, your own lust, your own silence. You are no longer theirs to tame.

    The old you—the one who apologized for existing, who begged for scraps—is gone. You buried that ghost and wear its ashes as war paint. Your indifference is not emptiness, it’s fullness. Your withdrawal is not cruelty, it’s clarity.

    Now, you choose where your loyalty goes. You choose who earns your presence. That choice is your crown. That choice is sovereignty.

    They will circle your silence like worshippers around a forbidden shrine. They will ache for the doors of your temple to open again. But they no longer understand: you are not waiting to be claimed. You are not starving for their presence. You are nourished in the sacred garden of your own solitude, fed by rivers no hand can touch.

    Let them gossip. Let them rage. You are not theirs to own, never were. You don’t need their applause, their tables, their love offered as ransom. You are the ocean—vast, ungraspable, answering to no one.

    You are not stone—you are iron. Not cruel, but sovereign. Not cold, but untouchable. You stand as proof that freedom is possible. That is what makes you dangerous. That is what makes you unforgettable.

    Everybody wants you when you don’t need anyone.