House Tearmainn

Last night was Wednesday, which is the day my kids go back to their mom’s house. It’s also walk & talk night for myself and pais, and last night marked the first implementation of a new weekly ritual… Wednesday Beatings. It serves as a re-affirmation of my ownership and a marker of the transition out of kid-time.

The walks are one of my favorite times of the week. They ensure a minimum level of communication, and provide a safe space to have those extended discussions that can be interrupted in other venues. If there is an issue, we tend to stick to that in the discussion, otherwise, on nights like last night, we range far afield. Covering things from energy work to “ice cream babies” (no, you don’t want to know) to the connotations of “leather household” to how best to structure House Tearmainn going forward.

Some of this, obviously, came out in yesterday’s post. What’s on my mind today is the household structure. In my searches yesterday about leather households I came across Master Alex Keppeler’s household site. I have a good deal of respect for Master Alex from the limited exposure I have had. He was a core participant in a very transformative ritual that pais and I participated in at the 2007 MsC, and was on one of the spirituality panels that we attended this year.

Since I found his site while at work, I forwarded the link to pais. On our walk she brought up some ideas that she liked from his site, including levels of membership, having those roles be tied to a focused level of submission, and having community service tied in. For the most part we liked the same things about the way he described his household structure and advancement system. Today I’m meditating on how I can best apply some of that underlying structure to my household, and the details of how I would like to integrate new people into the family.

It’s heady stuff, and surprisingly similar to when I was working with friends back in high school to create a shamanic group. Those people ended up being some of the best friends I’ve yet had, but I like to think that I can do a much better job of managing a group now. I’m extremely pleased with the way it’s going thus far.

One of the things I like best about where I am in my mastery right now is the return to the notion that “what’s best” or “what’s right” as a guiding principle, as opposed to “what pleases me” which I am ashamed to admit had slipped dangerously close to “what I want”. What pleases me is still the guiding principle of pais’ slavery, however the things I communicate as being pleasing have become more firmly rooted in my spiritual life, with very good effects. What pleases me most purely and deeply is to do the right thing and to feel good about the choices I make. I will try to do better at remembering that this time around.